Chapter 37: Scumbag’s Guide to Diplomacy [2]

And a step behind them both stood a slim girl named Fira, in booty shorts that cupped a plump, rounded backside so faithfully that Cane briefly lost the thread of whatever Yelena was currently yelling at him about. His eyes tracked the sway of Fira’s hips as she shifted her weight.

And then there was Yelena herself, dead centre of her little assembled court. Hands on her hips, a stance meant to project authority. The authority was somewhat undercut by the fact that her own uniform was modified for the heat, a cropped top knotted just beneath her chest, a skirt hemmed short enough to show most of her thighs. Her narrow waist flared out into hips that swayed with unconscious, furious energy every time she took a step toward him. Small-chested, tight-bodied, regal even half-dressed and dripping fury at him from four feet away. Cane took a full inventory of all four of them in the space of about two seconds, shameless about every second of it, filing the observation away with the same efficient, almost clinical attention he’d bring to memorizing a battlefield, except the terrain here was considerably more interesting and considerably less likely to get him killed, probably. He privately concluded that whatever hell this exam turned into later, at least the scenery was worth the water damage.

He groaned, long and theatrical. "What’s the actual problem this time?"

"The problem is you lounging around on your ass instead of contributing a single useful thing to this team."

Cane rolled his eyes, unbothered. He pointed out that he had only been resting for about thirty minutes, tops, after putting in a solid three hours of real work gathering resources earlier, his back aching from it even now, if she wanted proof. Practically a martyr, by his own account, dragging supplies back to camp on his own two feet while everyone else stood around debating tactics instead of lifting a single crate.

Yelena’s face went red, outrage cutting clean through her composure. "You’ve got it exactly backwards! It was thirty minutes of work, if you’re being generous about calling it work, followed by a full three hours of you sprawled out in the sun like some noble on holiday while everyone else actually did their jobs!"

Cane tilted his head, his best impression of a man genuinely confused by simple arithmetic. "Surely that can’t be right. My memory of the day’s timeline is very clear on this point."

"You are, without exaggeration, the single most insufferable person I have ever had the misfortune of leading."

Cane shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "I’m simply not a motivated person by nature. A man without motivation genuinely cannot be expected to work. It’s less a character flaw and more a medical condition, one I’ve frankly been living with quite bravely."

Yelena growled, an honest-to-god growl, and grabbed him hard by the arm to physically haul him off the grass. Cane let out another mock-scandalised squeal, high and theatrical.

"I am being sexually harassed! Right here, in broad daylight, by my own team leader no less!"

That landed about as well as he expected.

It made Yelena visibly angrier. She dragged him a few paces to the side, out of easy earshot of her retinue, before rounding on him properly.

"If you insist on being a lazy, useless bastard, you can at least have the decency to do it somewhere the rest of the team can’t see."

Cane blinked at her, all wounded confusion. "Why exactly would I want to do that?" He gasped, theatrical flair in full effect, one hand rising to press against his chest like a man clutching at pearls he did not actually own. "Are you exiling me? Is that what this is? Banishment, from a team of a few dozen people in a field? Should I pack a bag? Do I get a farewell speech, or does the exile just happen, cold, no ceremony, the way these things usually go in the old stories?"

Yelena pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough that Cane briefly worried for her sinuses. "We are not a civilisation. I do not have the authority to exile anyone. That’s not a power team leaders in a school exam actually possess, no matter how badly I might currently want it."

"How would sending me off alone even help anything, practically speaking?"

She did not answer directly. She just pointed, silently, back over his shoulder.

Cane turned. There, scattered along the tree line in a loose, sun-drenched row, were five other students. Shirtless, every one of them, sprawled against trunks in postures that were an almost insultingly accurate copy of his own five minutes ago. Each one nursed a coconut of his own with the exact same lazy, self-satisfied expression Cane had been wearing before the water hit him.

He rolled his eyes, genuinely unsure at this point what fresh grievance he was about to be handed. "Again, what is the actual problem?"

Yelena’s voice cracked up an octave with the sheer effort of restraining herself. "You influenced them! That’s the problem, obviously! You turned five functioning members of my team into copies of yourself in under an hour!"

Cane gasped, hand pressed dramatically to his bare chest. "I deny the accusation completely! Total innocence! I have no idea what any of these young men are doing with their personal time. I can hardly be held responsible for the independent life choices of strangers."

"This was not the deal."

Cane asked, mild, "What deal could you possibly be referring to?"

Of course he knew exactly what deal. After he had gotten back from the woods with Raven, he had sought Yelena out privately, away from the noise of the camp. He made her an offer she initially laughed directly in his face over—that he could deliver her a handful of students currently sitting in Marcus’s camp, shift the balance of the whole leadership vote decisively in her favour. She had been doubtful, openly skeptical, assuming he was bluffing, the kind of laugh that said she’d already filed him under harmless and moved on to more pressing concerns.