Page 13 of Strange Familiars
“You’re lying,” I say accusingly.
She begins to shake even harder. “I…” She’s stammering. Shaking her head like a kid caught with a hand in the biscuit jar. “I’m not.”
“Give it to me.” Even I’m surprised by the firm tone my voice has taken on.
Her trembling stops, and she scowls at me. “Him, notit,” she says, and it’s as though defending the furball has given her courage. “And I’m not giving him to you!”
“Come on, just let me look at him—”
She clutches him to her chest tighter. “No!”
As she squeezes, though, the cat gives an incensed yowl. His head pops up. He thrashes—Gwendolynne manages to keep ahold of him, just—before he swivels to look at me, fixing me with one devilish eye.
I stare, disbelief tearing through my bones. I know this cat. With his flea-bitten ears, his single eye, his crooked tail…
“Percy,” I spit out, and the cat pulls back his whiskers and hisses. A little torrent of sparks flies from his open mouth.
Gwendolynne’s eyes widen, and she glances from me to the cat, then back again. “Wait—youknowhim?”
“Of course I know him, Chan,” I snap. “He’s my father’s boss’s familiar—”
“Wasyour father’s boss’s familiar,” she says, resigned, and it’s obvious she knows that it’s all over. She’s been caught. There’s nothing she can do or say now to feign her innocence. “Mrs.Mason-Price was going to euthanize him, and I—”
“You took him.” I’m horrified, of course, but not surprised, thatMrs.Mason-Price would do such a thing. I mean, I used toplaywith this cat when I was a kid, and he a kitten.
Still, I can’t show Gwendolynne any sign of weakness. This is the first time ever I’ve had an ounce of leverage over her, and if I want to exploit her fear I need her to believe—without question—that I do not care one iota about this cat.
It takes tremendous willpower to hold in my maniacal laugh. Finally, after so many years, I’ve figured out what the indomitable Gwendolynne Chan actually, truly cares about.
I tilt my head, regarding her for several long moments, watching as she withers beneath my stare. “Look at you, being all rebellious. I wonder what the dean would think if she found out you broke a Seamere rule?” Professor Anika Kaur, the dean of Magical Veterinary Sciences, is a no-nonsense woman who has a zero-tolerance policy for rule breaking. I know this because my father has had to go above her before to settle issues withmyrule breaking.
And there’s something else I know: Gwendolynne absolutely idolizes her.
All of the color drains from her face. “I haven’t.” Her voice cracks and I almost—almost—feel sorry for her.
Or at least I would, if she hadn’t been caught breaking and entering my room. “Oh, but youhave, Chan. Imagine that! The mag.fam princess, top of every class, never-broke-a-rule-in-her-life Gwendolynne Chan, stealing patients from Saint Gertrude’s.” It’s difficult in this cramped space, but I manage to lean even closer, so that our breaths mingle in the heavy air. “I can see the headlines now, Chan, and let me tell you…They’re glorious.”
She visibly gulps, her face pale, her fingers twisting into the cat’s fur. Then she seems to gather herself, and her chin tilts up. The movement brings her lips close to mine, and my heart begins topound. Involuntarily, my breath catches in my throat; I hold my ground, just managing to stop myself from stepping back.
“What do you want, Briggs?” she says, her eyes suddenly hard. “I’ll do anything you want as long as…As long as you don’t tell.”
Anything I want?She doesn’t know what a dangerous proposition that is for a man like me. Again, I conceal my derision. She is so tragically naïve.
Good god, I hate her. I’ve always hated her beating me in class and being so difficult to read and acting so uppity even though she’s laughably poor and her family comes fromnothing.
And I really fucking hate her now.
I hate the way she’s affecting me. How rattled I feel that I found her here, on hands and knees, in my walk-in wardrobe. The way I seem unable to stop noticing how her face flushes when she’s angry, or how full her lips look at close proximity.
Her heat. Her smell. The way her shoulder felt beneath my touch.
And I suddenly feel the insatiable need to make her suffer, as I’ve suffered.
So I turn on the full force of my charm. Reaching out, I finger a loose strand of her hair, listening to how her breath hitches. Then, so slowly, so deliberately, I tuck it behind her ear.
“All right, Chan.” I smirk, allowing my fingers to linger at the soft skin of her neck. Her breaths are coming ragged, uneven. “As a matter of fact, thereissomething that I need from you.”
7
