Bite Me

Z avida pulls me into the room and every eye lands on me. I grit my jaw against the swell of anxiety that brings up, staring back at the six demons in irritation. At least some of them have clued in about my issues, so this silent gawping is ridiculous. How am I supposed to gather my thoughts and speak if my chest is caving in? Dudes are the goddamn worst and I signed up for years of being surrounded by them.

Past Kat is an idiot.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re all looking at me like I’m the Holy Grail, but that idiot at the Guild was taunting me. With my background, I’m not likely to back down when challenged because it made everyone around you think you were weak, so… I refuse to be a victim. If it’s a problem, that’s on you, not me,” I babble as I cross my arms over my chest, hoping to look defiant, not nervous.

Jasper’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing and Slash mimics him. Anton studies me quietly, like he’s working out a riddle as he leans against X. Oriel and Salem both grin, obviously pleased by my outburst. I turn to look at the Kitsuné still gripping my wrist and he lets go as if burned, his face flaming. Their continued silence makes me even more pissy, and I suck in a breath before letting it out slowly.

Fine, be a bunch of judgy fuckwads.

“Anyway, the dude got all ‘my shit smells better than yours,’ so I let him have it and said Oriel would make a better leader. People were all whispery shocked for a minute and then Oriel shot back at His Ugliness, then they did a vote. Imagine that I was right about Oriel beating this shitstain without even trying. The End.”

The demons exchange looks again, then all eyes go to Jasper. Prince Assface strokes his chin, and his slitted dragon eyes glitter with unsaid opinions. I’m about to fuck all the way off and leave them to it, when he deigns to speak. “You actually told off Bastion and then influenced the Guild to elect him? With little more than a few statements?”

I blink, then give him a look as if he’s lost his mind. “Are you hard of hearing and rude? Yes. That’s what I just said, Jasper.”

Salem snorts, covering his hand with his mouth as he tries to hide his amusement from the angry-looking Prince. The rest of their reactions vary, but only Slash follows his leader’s flash of annoyance. It seems he’ll be the toughest nut to crack on my way to the Prince.

That is, if I give a shit about getting these guys to like me and I don’t.

“Kit, I’m surprised by your bravery. Bastion could have easily taken you out without raising an eyebrow—even if he had his minions do it. Yet you confronted the dipshit in public and raised the caliphate’s profile by getting Oriel elected to a position of power. And he didn’t decline out of laziness, which is also fairly astounding.” The dragon pauses as he looks at the other demons. His lips quirk up in a sardonic grin. “The rest of you should take note and ask for his help in your activities. Perhaps his newness is more of an asset than we expected.”

Huffing, I shake my head. “I’m not your damn PR rep, Jasper. I’ll defend myself and people I care about when needed, but I will not pimp myself out to increase your market share. You can go fuck yourself if that’s the price of admission to your little club.”

Slash opens his mouth and I get ready for the big, bad bully to tear into me, but Zavida cuts him off. “Kit, we don’t expect you to do a bunch of work for free?—”

“I’m also not for sale,” I spit back before he can finish. “Being poor isn’t a precursor to being up for purchase by rich dickheads.”

The Kitsuné flushes bright red, stammering as he tries to apologize, but he’s saved by Anton. I have had little interaction with the gorgeous designer, but he’s mesmerizing to look at and it distracts me. “Kit, you misunderstand Zav. I’m certain what he meant to say is that we do not expect you to do a bunch of unpaid emotional labor for people you don’t know. The Prince often forgets that not everyone is his staff and being royalty doesn’t mean he can push everyone around with impunity.”

“Anton—” Jasper’s voice holds a warning that doesn’t intimidate the peacock hybrid in the slightest.

He waves it off as he gives me a brilliant smile. “I believe you can be very helpful to us, but it’s understandable that you want to get to know everyone before you take up their mantle. Clearly, Oriel has done his part on his own, which led you to speak up. We should all do the same if we expect you to be part of our world throughout university.”

Holy shit, one of them has emotional maturity on par with an adult. I’ll be damned.

“That’s… fairly accurate,” I mumble as I nod at him. “Thank you for saying it, so I didn't have to explain.”

X winks at me as they snuggle with the rainbow demon. “Anton’s always the grown up in the room. He’s good at translating dickhead boy ranting.”

I snort, finally smiling a little. “I’ll say.”

“Plus, he’s fucking beautiful,” X continues. “None of these idiots can hold a candle.”

Uh, no way I’m answering that . They’re all far too good looking for me to keep focus when I’m not panicking.

“Stop fawning over your boyfriend,” Salem says with a yawn. “We know how you feel about each other.”

“Jealous?” X purrs with a smirk. “You can always?—”

Rolling my eyes, I sigh loudly. It really doesn’t matter what species they are—some people’s children are insufferable at this age. “As much as I’d love to hear about all your sexual escapades, I have homework to do. Are we done with this conversation? Can I sit down and read?”

Slash crosses his arms over his chest, looking bigger somehow when his muscles bunch up. “Who said you could stay here and study?”

For fuck’s sake…

“I did,” Zavida says stubbornly. “Anton’s right about getting to know each other and it’s not fair to send him packing when we do normal caliphate stuff. We can’t use Kit when it suits us and treat him like shit when it doesn’t.”

“Finally, man,” Oriel mutters. The Kitsuné looks at him quizzically and he shrugs. “I wondered when you were gonna take your entire head out of Jas’ ass. Good for you.”

Jasper looks infuriated, suddenly morphing into the spiked, fanged motherfucker that brought me to this floor the other day.

This will not end well…

I take a step back, feeling the tension rise inside of me as the dragon advances on his friend. Oriel doesn’t move despite the aggression, so Jasper stalks closer. Swallowing hard, I shut my eyes, focusing on breathing. The very first foster house I lived in was one where fists were used to make a point to the boys by the seemingly perfect ‘dad’ and it brings up bad memories. He never hit the girls—his words were the preferred method of dealing with us. But I watched the rotating door of boys who came in either take it and end up bruised in inconspicuous places or run away when it got to be too much. Violence doesn’t bother me as a general rule, but coming from someone older, in a position of power, smacks a trauma button hard.

I need him to stop.

“What the fuck ?!”

Jasper’s roar of anger brings me out of my self-induced meditation and when I open my eyes, he’s frozen in place with Oriel lifted in the air by his collar. The other guys’ eyes widen as they look at their leader, so I know they aren’t doing this. Slash jumps to his feet, yanking Oriel out of his grip and tossing him to the couch. The Prince is still unmoving, his eyes full of fury as he glares at the room.

“This isn’t funny. Whoever is doing it, fucking let go,” he growls low.

They all shrug, looking helpless, and I watch as it unfolds. Oriel brushes himself off, smirking at the dragon as he tilts his head. “Maybe the Fates taught you a lesson about using your words, Jas.”

Frowning, I note he’s not upset or worried in the slightest. Maybe he knew Jasper wouldn’t have actually hurt him? I lick my lips, feeling the panic inside of me subside as the negative energy in the air decreases. Within a few minutes, each of the demons has denied their involvement while the Prince grits his teeth, and my shoulders relax. I might have misread the situation because of my past, though I think Oriel is right about their leader reining in his temper.

“Don’t look so worried, Kit Kat,” the crow demon says with a grin. “He does this all the time. Not the frozen thing—that’s a puzzler—but losing his shit and acting like a dick. Our Prince has to work through some poor, learned behavior from our benevolent ruler.”

I wrinkle my nose. “That’s not an excuse. You can grow up with shitty people and not be a shitty person. He needs to do better since he’s supposed to become a fucking ruler.” My eyes flick over to the spikes on his back and the tail held in place. “You probably have way too much magic and power to go off the chain at something as small as Oriel mouthing off. Get some discipline or do some yoga, man.”

Anton snorts, then X follows, and before long, everyone but Jasper and Slash are howling with laughter. Salem gets up, walking over to me to bump fists then slings his arm over my shoulders. He leads me to the couch where he and Oriel have their stuff spread out, giving me a little push until I sit down. I look at them all, feeling the heat rise to my face at the acceptance that move shows.

Then Jasper’s tail twitches, and he’s free. His gorgeous face is twisted in irritation as he scrubs a hand through his hair. He looks at O with a half-grimace. “Sorry, dude. It’s still hard to control the scaly part when I’m angry. I shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

His apology feels sincere, but I’m keeping my eye on him; I don’t need to be triggered by anything else.

“No worries,” Oriel winks, as he bumps my shoulder. “I know better, but you should apologize to Kit for scaring the piss out of him. He looked like he’d seen a damn ghost. Your tantrum must have brought up terrible stuff.”

That gets the Prince’s attention, and he whips his gaze to me, intensity coming off of him in waves. “Did it, Kit? Were you in a home where someone hit you?”

I give Oriel a dirty look, unhappy that he brought the focus back to me, especially about this topic. It makes my anxiety spike again and I have to count backwards for a few seconds before I can answer. “It bothered me—not just because I’m a poor foster kid, but because it’s unacceptable to treat anyone you care about that way. But to answer your question, I was not in a home where anyone hit me.”

That’s as close as I want to get in a room of people I don’t yet trust, but it’s not a lie.

“Mostly true,” X says under their breath. “No one hit him.”

Jasper nods, then turns back to me. “I will try not to use violence with those in our caliphate in the future. Salem is an asshole for telling you without my permission, but he’s not wrong. However, I am not my father; I refuse to be. You’re right about treating people appropriately.”

“I’ll be damned,” I mutter. The Prince narrows his eyes at me and I shrug. “I accept your half-ass apology. If you do better, we won’t have a problem… at least, about this.”

Oriel laughs and leans his head back, staring at the ceiling imploringly. “Thank fuck. Can we please fucking do our work now? I have shit to do at night and we’re burning moonlight.”

Slash grunts, giving me a suspicious look as he ambles back to his seat and Jasper nods. “We should. Everyone has to keep a sterling grade point average to make the caliphate stay on top—and Kit has so much catching up to do.”

Looks like our damn truce is only about his stupid fists, then.