I’m With You
I’m With You
Delores
I’m standing at the island with my arms crossed and a look on my face that says the next person to mention my outfit dies—so the next person to mention my outfit is going to be Fitz. Because it’s always Fitz, and it’s always to make me lighten up when I’m super stressed or serious.
My crazy tiger is at the table with his laptop, but he clocks my new getup—one of his weird hoodies, long black leggings, and my hair in a topknot that could hold in a tornado, plus the black tennis shoes that Renard insists are optimal for nocturnal pursuits. He cackles before I even sit down.
“Baby Girl, you look like you’re about to go door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions or maybe shovel driveways for elderly shut-ins,” he says, grinning with every single one of his perfect teeth. “Is this, like, the new Annoyed Bunny Winter line? Can I order it for myself?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I hiss, flipping him the bird with both hands. “Someone is worried I’ll get hypothermia if I don’t bundle up a bit, and you know it. I stole one of your sweatshirts, so I could layer underneath and strip it off if it’s too much when we hunt.”
The someone in question is Renard, who glides in right on cue with the calm, slow walk of a man who wants you to know he is never in a hurry.
“The temperature is dropping, ma petite,” he says, casting a long look out the window.
“It is prudent to prepare. We cannot enjoy our hunt and reconnaissance if you are shivering so badly that your teeth chatter, non? I am making certain that is not the case.”
Behind him, Felix and Chess are at the sink, orchestrating the post-dinner cleanup in a ballet of subtle dominance: Chess stacking, Felix rinsing, and both of them periodically glancing over at the other to make sure the work is equal.
The entire time, Chess hums under his breath, the tune familiar but too mangled by off-key bravado to identify.
This cozy family shit warms my damn heart enough to negate the need for my warmer clothes inside, at least.
I distract them with a cough and then say, “That stir-fry was amazing, by the way. You could have doubled the recipe and it still would have been devoured in ten seconds, Chessie.”
The cheetah turns, the faintest hint of pink on his cheeks.
“Thanks, Angel. I love that you all practically had a pred fight over the last bits. It makes my cheetah and the man puff up. But I have to give credit to Ren, too, because he’s helped me learn techniques and things to get better and be more creative. ”
“Don’t be modest,” Felix says firmly. “Our French friend has given you lessons, but you've definitely worked a lot on your own, little bro. The distance between when you made that first holiday dinner and now is huge because you’re always trying to be better to take care of us. Don’t think we don’t notice. ”
Fitz pipes up, “Fuck, yeah, babe. That meal? Ten outta ten. You’re like our own personal Wolfgang Duck, man. Super impressive.”
“Guys,” I say as I watch Chessie damn near turn purple. “We’re gonna make him bust something in the damn kitchen. Look how praise-happy he is right now. Best pause it so our favorite cheetah can get control of himself, hmm?”
That makes Fitz howl with laughter, but Rennie just winks. My spotted mate gives me a thankful yet frustrated look as he turns to face away from everyone, as he fiddles with putting away dishes. My grin is wide as I look over at the Raj to see his reaction.
Felix just gives me an eye roll and goes back to drying the last of the plates. “You look cute, Princess, even if it’s not your usual style. And I agree with the gargoyle about keeping warm; you need those limbs and digits.”
“I will,” I say as I check my laces to make sure they’re knotted tightly for the flight.
The elder tiger stops drying and crosses to me, leaning down to brush my temple with a kiss. Felix murmurs, “Be good. Stay warm and don’t stray far from those two.” Then he squeezes my shoulders and lets go.
Just as the stuffy cat lets go, Aubrey materializes in the hallway and surveys the room. He nods at each of us, and then says, “Snacksize, we need to go to the back courtyard. Our mate will take off from his tower, but I must have room to shift.”
“Gotcha, big guy,” I reply as I wave to the others. “Time for the danger zone, suckers!”
With that, I take off for the back door eagerly despite the aches from earlier.
Shifting again to hunt will probably help those, as will the supplemental nutrition I’ll get while out.
Aubrey is already at the back door and he pulls it open.
The world on the other side is pitch-black and unseasonably cold for fall.
I note the annex’s flagstone is slick with dew and above, the sky is a thick velvet, only the faintest cutouts of stars visible behind a mess of clouds.
I wish there was less going on so I could enjoy how pretty this campus is—it’s got a much better design and architecture than my other two colleges and it’s far enough from cities to have real nature shit.
Covering a small shiver at the wind, I burrow my hands into the kangaroo pocket of Fitzy’s hoodie for maximum efficiency.
Frowning when I feel something inside, I pull it out and roll my eyes when I notice that it’s a set of lock picks.
Of course he carries those randomly—why wouldn’t he? It’s Fitz.
Aubrey cracks his knuckles as he gets into the open air and, without preamble, drops into a full dragon shift.
Bones crack, flesh warps, and a sonic shudder splits the night as his body swells outward, blue-black scales blooming like paint poured over muscle and bone.
His huge wings unfurl, leathery and iridescent, and his face stretches into the sharp, regal lines of his true form.
The whole thing takes under three seconds, but leaves the air trembling with its aftermath.
I squeal, unable to help it, and clap my hands together. “I have missed this so much,” I blurt, bouncing on my heels. “You have no idea how lame everything is when you’re not flying.”
Dragon Aubrey cranes his head, one massive golden eye the size of a dinner plate tracking me with uncanny intelligence.
He drops his chin to the ground in a deliberate, slow-motion invitation.
As I approach, he gives me a look that says he absolutely knows how lame it is when he’s not flying and that I’m crazy for saying otherwise.
Even his dragon is full of biting sarcasm, it seems.
I sprint over, sneakers slapping against the grass, and vault onto the low slope of Aubrey’s shoulder.
He rumbles, the vibration like rolling thunder through my legs and up my spine.
The scales under my hands are cold and smooth as river stones, and I use the ridge of his neck as a climbing wall, scrambling up to the crook between two dorsal plates.
There’s a flat spot there, perfect for riding as I know, and I hunker down and lock my arms around one of the spines like I’m a cowboy at the world’s weirdest rodeo.
The urge to say ‘giddy-up’ is one I suppress before I lose my ride for making him annoyed, and the dragon waits for my thumbs-up.
When I give it, he bunches his haunches and launches us upward with a force that almost rips the breath from my lungs.
We go straight up at an angle so sharp I have to flatten myself against his neck, my eyes watering from the wind.
We climb, then bank hard to the right. The entire world tilts, and the only thing keeping me from sailing off into oblivion is the death-grip I have on Aubrey’s scale ridge.
I laugh until my lungs ache, and then Aubrey levels out and glides, wings stretched wide and steady as an airplane.
The air up here is even colder, and the wind howls so loud that I can barely hear my voice when I almost scream with pure joy.
That’s when I see it—a shape streaking out from the bell tower, just above the library annex.
It’s Renard, in a half-shift with onyx wings spread wide, his form outlined by the campus lights.
He drops in like an enormous hawk, using the height advantage to fall into perfect formation just off Aubrey’s left wingtip.
From up here, the world is beautiful. The roofs of the buildings are lined with frost, and the lawns are crisscrossed with the faint tracks of animals that only come out after midnight.
In the far distance, I see the orange glow of a village and the ink-black sprawl of forest that runs all the way to the lake.
We rise together, two predators and their happy as hell grinning bunny mate, and I know—down to the last molecule of my blood—that nothing in this world or any other is going to stop us tonight.
Let the hunt begin.
Aubrey and Rennie ride the currents north, the wind slicing through my hoodie like a thousand tiny knives, but I don’t care.
The view is fucking unreal—below us, the world is a patchwork of fields gone dark, scribbled with tree lines and the occasional glow-worm vein of a road.
Far off, a small town looks like a licked-orange smudge, and the campus behind us is just a pale stain on the landscape, every building reduced to a pixel.
My gargoyle keeps pace in perfect parallel, and even in half-shift, he looks too pretty for reality, like someone airbrushed a romance cover model into a scene from How to Train Your Gargoyle.
His eyes find me every ten seconds, making sure I haven’t been yeeted off by a stray wind shear.
I flip him a ‘still alive’ sign with my free hand, and he gives me the world’s most dramatic eye roll before banking left to check the horizon.