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I had never spent a day on campus where I had no idea what to do with myself.
With a sigh, I dropped the Lusus Naturae: Monsters of the World book I’d been flipping through. It landed on the library table with a thump.
A noise behind me distracted me as a group of students made their way into the library. They were all first-years.
And there was Layla herself. We made brief eye contact, then glanced away from each other quickly.
Clearly, she liked me almost as much as I liked her.
So much for my plan to hide out from her in the library. I picked up my backpack and was about to head toward the door—now that I knew where Layla was, I could go back to my room—when I heard a commotion behind me. I turned around and realized that Souji had come into the library, too.
Was this his first class? If it was, then it was mine, too.
I was such an idiot. I should have asked him what our schedule was this semester. Or gotten the secretary to check his schedule. She hadn’t thought of it, either, though, so I didn’t feel as bad as I might have otherwise.
I opened my mouth, about to call my hunting partner’s name, when I realized that the commotion was caused by an entire gaggle of first-year girls who had surrounded him and were giggling at something he’d said.
Giggling.
I guess I should not have been so surprised. In his human form, Souji was improbably handsome. I’d realized it the very first time I’d seen him—it was when he’d been helping save me from my tutor the first semester I was here.
But I’d never lost my mind so much as to giggle at him. For one thing, it was generally a bad idea to do anything that might be construed as ridiculing the guy who can turn into a panther.
Actually, it was a good idea in general to avoid pissing off things with claws.
Not that I was all that good at avoiding it—after all, I was the one who provoked the Lusus Naturae every chance I got. Still, giggling seemed like an especially bad idea.
I wondered what rolling my eyes at a panther shifter would get me.
I rolled my eyes and started to turn away when Souji saw me. He beckoned me over, but I shook my head. I wasn’t about to deal with all those girls.
And then I realized that my roommate was one of them.
Oh, hell no.
She could come into my world, move into my room, take over my life, but she was not going to commandeer my hunting partner’s attention. Not even for a minute, if I had anything to say about it. I slipped my backpack over one shoulder and marched toward Souji purposefully.
I was almost close enough to him to say something when I heard one of the girls around him—I counted; here were five—say, “is it true that you’re hunting partners with the gorgon? Isn’t that terrifying?”
I froze. Souji glanced up and made eye contact with me. Apparently, he’d been aware I was there the whole time.
With a slight grin—one that just barely showed the corners of his mouth—and a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Oh, yes. She definitely scares me to death.” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows at a he looked down at the breathless, wide-eyed first-year student who asked the question.
“I can only imagine,” she said. “I’ve heard that when she uses her magic, her face turns green and snakes pop out of her head.
To anyone who didn’t know him, Souji probably looked like he was being very serious. But I’d figured out his expressions a while ago. I knew he was trying as hard as he could not to laugh out loud.
“Only when she’s really, really seriously angry.” He nodded solemnly as if to back up his words.
“Really?” another one of the first-years asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said solemnly.
Okay. That was enough of that.
“Yes,” I announced loudly. “I am absolutely terrifying. Now. Pardon me while I borrow my hunting partner.”
Amidst the gasps of terror coming from the gaggle of girls, I reached through and grabbed Souji hand. Layla, who had spun around to stare at me, her eyes huge, literally flinched when my arm brushed against hers.
How was I going to get through this semester if this was the kind of crap that was going around about me? It was a good thing I had brought Caleb with me. If Reo was going to keep acting weird, Souji was going to use his connection with me to flirt with younger girls, and the whole campus thought I had snakeheads, I was going to need at least a couple of friends.
“What was that back there? I asked Souji as I dragged him out of the library.
He was laughing too hard to answer. Stumbling behind me, clutching his stomach with one hand and being dragged by the other, he tripped down the stairs and caught his balance. “That was so much fun,” he gasped.
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Cats can’t be asses,” he snickered.
“Cats are the biggest assholes in the world,” I said.
He just laughed harder.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked.
“Our schedules are all screwed up. I was looking for you. I figured you’d be over here since nobody answered in your room.”
“Did you know that Erin left?”
“Yeah, I’d heard something about that. She got into the program in New Zealand, right?”
“Reo told me Europe,” I said.
Souji waved a negligent hand. “Yeah, something like that. Somewhere far away.”
“You don’t think was because of me, do you?” I asked.
“The reason she got into the program?”
“No, idiot. The reason she left this one.”
Souji turned to me, clearly taken aback. “Why would you think it was you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything just seems so weird this semester. Now everyone thinks I’m scary.”
“Not everyone. Just the first-years. And trust me, it’s not a bad thing to have the first-year students intimidated by you.”
I guess he was right. He could be worse.
After all, at least I was no longer a nobody at my school.