Much, anyway.
Darius and Aaron were already seated and shoveling in their food with single-minded concentration. Matt joined us just as Mari and I took our seats.
“G’day, ladies,” he said. When Darius glanced up, he didn’t add a male honorific.
To my surprise, the alpha just resumed eating. Like Matt wasn’t even worth acknowledging.
Some might have been affronted at being ignored, but Matt simply grinned at me. “Have you tried the dumplings? They’re bonz—um, awesome.”
I might get him trained yet. I had to agree with Alyssa on the dumplings. “Yeah, they’re awesome. These are some kind of seafood, I think. But I wonder what kind of meat they use in these?”
“Likely best not to ask,” Matt said easily, spearing one.
A shadow loomed over me, and Talakai squeezed behind my chair to take his own. I noticed that he’d also selected a healthy serving of delectables.
“Those are really good.” I pointed to them.
The big Dragon merely nodded. His expression could have melted stone—it was that cold. And rigid. He always had that edge to him, but today he seemed especially remote, as though his thoughts were a million miles away.
Then he flashed a glance at me—a mere millisecond of metallic indigo before his eyelids shuttered over them—and I swear my heart stopped cold. Because I caught something in it.
I had to be imagining things.
He resumed eating, but Matt stared at the Dragon for a moment, with both brows lowered, before he applied himself with gusto to his own breakfast.
When we were all seated, a tall figure moved to the front of the room, and everyone fell silent.
“We have set up your first Night Games for tonight. There will be no late run, and students will convene at ten in front of the building.”
As Sebastian took his seat at the staff table, Matt, Mari, and I looked at each other. Our first true exercise where we had to work as a team, and Darius had nothing to say. He and Aaron continued to eat rapidly in silence.
As team leader, the alpha was bloody useless.
“Are you in a hurry?” I asked.
Aaron frowned and opened his mouth, but Darius beat him to it, his own forkful pausing as he slowly, and deliberately, fastened his eyes on my breasts. “Just stoking up for the day.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re going to need it.”
“No amount of calories is going to help you,” Aaron snarked.
Matt stiffened, but I laughed. “You sound worried. Today is weapons training. You guys use a lot of them in Alaska?”
Aaron snarled at me and held up his hand. A wicked claw sprouted from the tip of just the middle finger.
“Very nice,” I said, and hooked my own fingers at him. “Much more useful than my own.”
He didn’t seem to know how to respond to my combination of sarcasm and compliment. Eventually, he settled for a glower.
Darius dropped his fork onto his tray and stood. “You’ll need something considerably more formidable than those pathetic human fingernails and a sexy perfume to be of any use to this team, Babydoll. Although I look forward to sampling your other talents.” He very deliberately ran his tongue over his lips and grabbed his crotch to adjust himself.
Matt went rigid as a board, but the alpha merely laughed and turned away to weave through the tables. Aaron gave me one last glower and followed him.
Sexy perfume? What on earth was he talking about?
“Right berko bastards. Both of them,” Matt muttered. His eyes glared emerald.
I agreed with both Matt’s assessment and, unfortunately, Darius’s. Although the scent comment confused me. I speared another dumpling, bit into it, and did my best to wipe the alpha and his lackey off my radar. I had special abilities class right away, and I was determined, this time, to ace it.
