Straight-Up Not Having A Good Time At Night Raven College: Chapter 1

Chapter 10: A Garden Spat

She wasn't really looking very urgently... She paused every few feet, touching a flower gently or crouching down to read one of the little silver plaques driven into the ground.

Ugh, she'd needed this...
It had really just been one fucking thing after another since she'd gotten here.

"Hey, hey-- check this out!" Grim interrupted her reverie, bouncing up and down and pointing at something. "There's a ton of fruits growin' over here!"

He paused, sniffing the air eagerly.
"An' it smells like they're ripe, too!"

He stepped off the path, drool already forming at the corner of his mouth.

"Um-- ABSOLUTELY not," Kat interrupted. She hurried forward, snatching him up before he could go any further.
"In case you forgot, eating things you're not supposed to is the whole reason we're even IN here, remember? Besides, I don't actually recognize any of these plants... I don't know if that's even safe to eat."

"Rrrrr..."
He grumbled, slumping in her arms.

"Besides," she added.
"The quicker we find the groundskeeper or... Whoever, the quicker we can make that marron tart, remember?"

This seemed to quiet him down a little.
She still kept him in her arms as she walked down the path for a few more minutes, taking in the scenery.

Suddenly, she stepped on something.
What the...
It felt like a thick vine, or maybe a root?

At nearly the exact same moment, she heard a noise-- a quiet hiss or growl, like someone muttering under their breath.
"Ow! Dammit..."

She jumped, looking down and stepping back from whatever had been under her foot.
At first, she actually thought it was some kind of thick, light brown vine, but...
The bushes next to the path had lots of big leaves, without any creepers or tendrils at all.

Then the leaves rustled, and she jumped again, holding Grim defensively to her chest.

"Hey," a gruff voice drawled.
"Whoever you are, you've got some nerve, steppin' on a person's tail and not even bothering to say sorry..."

The 'vine' yanked back into the bushes. With a few more rustles, someone stood up from behind one of the trees close to the path.
Leaning on it, they gave her a look that wasn't so much glaring as smoldering, a seething, dangerous look that burned like an ember.

"Oh-- g-geez, I'm sorry," Kat apologized, drawing back nervously.
"I wasn't paying attention, my bad..."

The person was...

Hang on-- this was the catboy! The catboy at the ceremony!
And she'd just stepped right on that tawny, brown-tipped tail!

Without the hood, she could see even more of his features.
His hair was long and unkempt, with overgrown bangs, giving him a wild, untamed look. Two small braids hung down over his shoulders. He was wearing what looked like the school uniform, but without a jacket or tie.
His shirt collar was unbuttoned all the way down to his sternum, with his sleeves rolled up carelessly.

Christ, he really was good-looking...
Like, she'd never seen anybody who looked like this in real life, only in movies or pictures.
She didn't feel the urge to do anything about it, but it was still startling to see somebody who looked like that this close...

But the thing that drew her eye the most was his ears.
They were, without a doubt, the rounded ears of a lion, sitting just behind his bangs, the same color as his skin and tail.