Page 76 of Prey It By Ear

It isn’t a professor. It’s the Captain—yes, the pirate raccoon, in his full, battered coat and hat, looking for all the world like he’s just taken a break from an oceanic coup to check on me. He sweeps the room, locks eyes with me, and gives the smallest of nods. After that, he goes back outside, satisfied that I’m okay until the class is over. It’s a long one, but I guess he’s content to wait out there.

Pink and Gold exchange a look, and it’s the first time today I see a crack in their posture. They aren’t scared, exactly, but the Captain is an unknown factor in their world, and it shows. Prey animals aren’t usually as aggressive as he is, and I’d bet they remember at least seeing him wrangle aquatic shifters at Apex even if they aren’t specifically familiar.

It doesn’t hurt that he had a huge scimitar strapped to his back, which was obvious once he exited, either.

Minutes tick by, and the pressure in the room builds like static electricity crawling up my skin. I flex my toes inside my shoes and stretch my limbs a bit to keep them from locking up. The Heathers get more and more fidgety, and it spreads to the other students quickly. After what feels like an hour, but is probably only six minutes, a figure appears in the doorway.

He is not what anyone expects, not even me. The professor is tall, broad in the shoulders, and his hair is silver at the sides, worn close-cropped. He walks with the deliberate, unhurried pace of someone who could break you in half but would rather not get his hands dirty unless absolutely necessary. His eyes are an unremarkable blue, but the way he looks at people is not normal. He scans the room once, then again, each pass slower and more methodical.

I hope he wasn’t fucking looking for me or I might scream.

The new teacher wears a custom-cut black dress shirt, bespoke slacks, and carries a shiny leather satchel. This dude definitely has money because I’m pretty certain those black shoes are like several thousand a pair. I’ve seen Felix look at similar ones, and because of his impeccable taste, I know the rest of the outfit is certainly just as expensive. New Guy says nothing for a moment; he just lets the silence settle over the room and then drops the folder onto the desk with a flat, heavy smack.

“Good morning,” he says. His voice is not loud, but it is very clear and it carries to the farthest corners of the room, including mine. It’s the voice of someone who does not raise it unless it’s required, and that is something you absolutely do not want.

“My name is Gideon Sterling. You may call me Professor or Sir. I am your instructor for the duration of this course. If you wish to challenge that, you may do so through the official channels, but I recommend you save your time and energy for the content of the class.”

Fuck me, this guy has a bigger pole up his ass than the damn hip hop teacher—this is gonna suuuuuck.

Sterling flips open the folder, ignoring the low hum that follows his statement. His eyes are down, but he is clearly tracking every movement in the room. I realize, with a slight thrill of unease, that I have never seen this man on campus before—not in a photo, not at an event, not even in the background of anything. For a shifter that old, that’s not just unusual; it’s suspicious as fuck.

He begins to lecture, launching directly into a summary of the Treaty and its aftermath as if the syllabus is a speed bump, not a required checkpoint. With no explanation, he makes direct, targeted demands for information that he expects you to provide, even though we have no basis for the answers yet. When Pink tries to answer with a memorized line from the text, he says, “No. That’s the textbook answer. Tell me what that means in real terms. Right now. Go.”

The entire class is stunned into compliance, and I frown as I scribble notes quickly. I write every fact, every deviation from what I know to be true, and every feeling that twitches under my skin. My bunny is on high alert, and the further the class goes, the more I am certain that this man is something predatory, not just a teacher. His recitation of the outdated, very pred-slanted material is so stringent that no one asks for clarification, nor do they dispute things that even differ from what I know I was taught in diplomacy at Cappie.

Gideon Sterling has a very pro-Society-esque slant to his lecture, and it’s making my tail twitch in my sweats.

Halfway through the session, my phone vibrates once. I move it to my lap carefully, looking at the screen with quick darts of my eyes so it goes unnoticed.

TigerWoody: Prof is off the grid. No files, nothing. Full sweep coming. Play it cool, Baby Girl. Watch out for issues and stay safe.

I don’t reply because I know without a doubt that this guy would lose his shit if he caught me texting in class. My notes are full of stuff about him as much as the material for class. I describe his cadence, the way he moves, his weirdly smooth hands, and even the suspicions about his clothes. At one point he catches me watching him, and the tiniest ghost of a smile cracks at the corner of his mouth.

Not good.

When he’s done, Sterling closes the class with a simple, “You are dismissed. Next session, come prepared to discuss the weaknesses in your own family’s position under the Treaty. If you refuse to participate, I will consider it an admission that you want to fail and grade you accordingly. Goodbye.”

Everyone looks a bit shocked—preds dislike discussing family weaknesses or strategies in public. No one will want to do it, and this guy is going to run into some serious shit if he forces it. Parents will be all over Midori, and the campus will be in an uproar. I don’t know if that’s his aim or if he’s just certifiable, but Thursday will be fascinating. Once the shock has worn off, people get up, moving to the front to leave as they mutter to one another in disbelief. When most of them are gone, I gather my things and hurry toward the door, ignoring the sound of my name as if I don’t hear it.

No way I’m staying alone with this dude.

The Captain is waiting just outside the door frame, and he falls in beside me as I ignore the call. As we round the corner to go to the elevator, I catch a glimpse of Pink and Gold in the main hall, their heads bent together as they talk in whispers. For the first time, they look like the ones with something to fear.

I allow myself a private, savage smile, then go to face whatever comes next.

Ironic

Felix

The corridor outside my classroom smells like floor wax and someone’s very smelly lunch, which isn’t exactly the ambiance I crave after three hours of teaching classes no one wants to take. I let them out early—on purpose—because if I don’t take a minute between disasters, I might start snapping at undergrads. Leaning against the locked door, I stretch my back until it pops, and pretend that my phone vibrating isn’t Fitz following up on his plan to infiltrate the staff meetings so I’m not bored.

Only my twin could make the damn things worse, and he has better shit to focus on.

Shifter Basics 101 was my first class of the day and the single best argument for genetic engineering I’ve ever witnessed. Thirty-six freshmen packed into a room, half of them never having shifted outside a family event and the other half too ‘groomed for greatness’ by their parents to care. Today’s highlight was a fennec fox shifter from up north who only shifted a single finger, declared himself transformed, and then spent the rest of the class posting his accomplishment to the Prednet. Meanwhile, a stoat in the second row spent twenty minutes crying because her ear tubes popped wrong and now her balance was weird. I went through an entire box of tissues that were on the desk when I arrived, and I’ve never had to use one outside of a student with a cold since I started teaching.

Intermediate Shifter Studies came after that mess, and it should have been a step up, but it’s really just the same group from last year, only now they’re more entitled and less likely to pay attention to anything they’re told. Half the time, they’re useless, as I soon figured out this morning. Two of them corrected me on information from the textbooks, which are ancient and I try not to use. The Council is supposed to be updating the curriculum for all the colleges, but the committee for that hasn’t even been formed yet, as far as I know. When I asked Midori about it last week, she smiled and said it was still being reviewed by the Council, which means it’s on a shelf next to a bottle of gin and will never see daylight.

Academia is infuriating even when you’re an exiled prince from a high-ranking Society family.