“Yeah, and if you need comfort from her shallow hatefulness, you can try a little café mocha over here,” Shaunee said, waggling her brows at him.
“Or a vanilla smoothie over here,” Erin flirted.
Darius smiled good-naturedly and just said, “I will keep that in mind.”
I thought the Twins were taking their lives in their hands, and I was darn sure not going to get between them and Aphrodite if she found out they’d been flirting with her man, but I was too tired to say anything.
“You know that blue cashmere pullover you just got from Saks?” Damien asked Erin.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I call dibs on it if Aphrodite disembowels you for hitting on her man,” Damien said.
“She’s just a human now,” Erin said.
“Yeah, we figure together we can take her,” Shaunee said, then she blew kisses at Darius. “Remember that, warrior boy.”
Darius chuckled and I rolled my eyes. We were just passing my room when my door opened and Aphrodite called, “I’m in here.”
We all stopped and filed into my room. “Aphrodite, what are you doing in—”
“Ohmygoddess! What the hell happened to your face?” Not paying attention to anyone else, Aphrodite ran to Darius and started to flutter her hands around the long thin wound that stretched down the side of his face. “Are you okay? Damn, it looks awful! Does it hurt?” She pulled back the sleeves on her shirt, exposing the newly healed bite marks Stevie Rae’s teeth had left. “Do you need to bite me? Go ahead. I don’t mind.”
Darius took her hands in his, stilling her anxious movements, and said calmly, “I am well, my beauty. It is but a scratch.”
“How did it happen?” Aphrodite sounded close to tears as she pulled on Darius’s hands and led him over to the spare bed that used to be Stevie Rae’s.
“My beauty! All is well,” he repeated, pulling her down on his lap and holding her close to him.
He said a bunch of other stuff to her, too, but I’d stopped listening. I was too busy staring at the—
“Cameron! There you are, sweetheart! I’ve been so worried about you.” Damien plopped down on the floor and started petting his blond tabby.
“Beelzebub, where the hell have you been?” Shaunee chastised the hateful gray creature who had chosen both of the Twins as his own.
“We figured you were chasing around after Maleficent, and sure enough here you are and here she is,” Erin said.
“Hang on,” I said, seeing Nala curled up on my bed. I looked around my room, taking inventory of the eight—eight!—cats that were hanging out there. “What’s with all the cats?”
“That’s why I’m over here,” Aphrodite said, sniffling softly as she snuggled back into Darius’s arms. “Maleficent was acting very odd. She kept coming in and out of her cat door and making weird yowling sounds.” Aphrodite paused and blew a kiss to the awful white puff-ball that masqueraded as her cat. “So finally I followed her. She led me to your room. I came in and found all these cats. Then I heard you guys in the hall.” She turned her beautiful blue eyes on the Twins. “I heard everything you guys said in the hall, and do not think for one instant just because I’ve turned human it doesn’t mean I cannot happily kick your combined asses.”
“But what are all these cats doing in here?” I said quickly before the Twins started a mini human-fledgling war.
“Hey there, Nefertiti!” Darius called, and a sleek calico female jumped up on the bed beside him and began to wind around his body.
“They’re our cats,” Damien said, still petting Cameron. “Remember when we escaped from here yesterday? They were all outside the school wall waiting for us.” He glanced up at me. “Are we leaving again?”
“I hope so,” I said. “But wait.” I was still taking stock of the cats. “All of our cats are here, but what about that great big one over there, and the little cream-colored one who’s sticking close to him?”
“That big cat is Dragon Lankford’s Maine Coon,” Damien said. “His name is Shadowfax.” Dragon Lankford, who almost everyone called Dragon, is our fencing professor and is a master with the blade. Damien was a talented fencer, so it wasn’t surprising he recognized Dragon’s cat.
“Hey, I think that little white one is Guinevere, Professor Anastasia’s cat,” Erin said.
“You’re right, Twin,” Shaunee said. “She’s always hanging out during Spells and Rituals class.”
“What about that one?” I pointed to a familiar-looking Siamese whose body was the silver-white of moonlight, tipped in delicate gray ears and face. Then I realized why she looked familiar and answered my own question. “That’s Professor Lenobia’s cat. I don’t know her name, but I’ve seen her following the professor around the stables.”
“So, let me get this straight: All of our cats, plus cats that belong to Dragon, his wife, and Professor Lenobia, are suddenly hanging out in Zoey’s room,” Darius said.
“Why are they here?” Erin asked.
I answered her question with my own. “Have you guys seen any other cats today? I mean, while you were in class and at lunch, coming and going from the dorm and class to class, did you see any cats?”
“No,” the Twins said together.
“I didn’t,” Damien answered more slowly.
“Not a one,” Aphrodite said.
“And you noticed earlier that we saw not one cat between the infirmary and the dormitory,” Darius said.
“I thought it was bad then; I still think it’s bad,” I said.
“Why would all the cats except these disappear?” Damien asked.
“The cats hate the birdmen,” I said. “Whenever Nala’s been with me and one’s been around, she’s totally freaked.”
“There’s more to it than that. If it was just about hating them, then the cats would all be hiding, and not just special ones hanging out in here,” Aphrodite said.
“Maybe that’s it,” Damien said. “There’s something special about these particular cats.”
“Okay, I hate to be a bitch—or maybe I don’t—but anyway, can we forget about the damn cats for a second? I want to know who the hell did this to my man’s face,” Aphrodite said.
“Kalona,” I said, when it was obvious Darius was too involved with grinning at the “my man” title Aphrodite had awarded him to answer.
“I was afraid of that,” Damien said. “How’d it happen?”
“Darius attacked Rephaim,” I explained, “which pissed off Kalona. He didn’t let Stark kill him, but the cut was his parting gift for Darius wounding his favorite son.”
“That fucking Stark!” Shaunee said.
“He’s really bad news. He and the nasty-assed birdmen do whatever the hell they want,” Erin said.
“And no one does anything about it,” Shaunee finished.
“It’s like the thing you just witnessed with Becca,” Damien said.
“Speaking of,” Shaunee said. “What was the deal with you agreeing with that bimbo about oh, no big deal because Stark’s sooooo hot! Talk about annoying.”
“You weren’t going to get through to her. Becca’s on their side. As far as I can tell, Stark and the birds and Kalona do anything to anyone, and there are no repercussions for their actions.”
“It’s worse than no repercussions,” Aphrodite said. Still within Darius’s arms, she’d gotten herself together. “It’s like Kalona’s cast a spell over everyone, and the spell somehow extends to Stark and the birds.”
“That’s why I agreed with Becca and just let her go. It’s not a good idea to call attention to the fact that we’re the only ones not in the Kalona Fan Club,” Damien said.
“And Neferet, don’t forget about her,” Aphrodite said.
“She’s with him, but I don’t think she’s under his spell,” I said. “I overheard them talking when they thought I was out, and she disagreed with him. He got big and bad and scary with her, and she seemed to back off, but what she really did was just change her tactics. She’s manipulating him, and I can’t tell if he knows it or not. And she’s changing, too.”