Stray: A Shifter Academy Romance (Cats of Felidae Academy Book 1)

by River Ramsey

  Applause filled the room as the colony embraced the newest queen within its ranks. As each of the candidates stepped into the water to receive her blessing, the love within the room became palpable.

  For one evening, there were no divisions between prides and families, nor species common or rare. They were all one unit, celebrating and welcoming together, and Ella found herself wondering if this was what it felt like to be part of a family. What it would be like to belong to people who actually wanted her.

  As the circle around the water grew sparse, it became clear they were saving the obvious choice for last.

  A gracious thing, really. How was one supposed to follow the choosing of the moonmarked Empress herself?

  When the time came and only Marissa was left, Ella held her breath. She couldn’t stop thinking about those coins at the bottom of the fountain, sitting and waiting for a kind of magic that just didn’t exist. She wasn’t sure whether it was relief or sadness that made her head feel so light and her heart so heavy.

  Maybe a bit of both.

  The uncertainty ended tonight. Everyone within the colony would know her role, just as Ella had known hers from the very beginning.

  As Marissa stepped into the water, a few others gasped around the room, as if they were already watching the change happen before them.

  Ella found herself curious as to just what it would look like when it did finally happen. Would Marissa lament the loss of her lustrous red locks?

  Probably not. In a few days’ time, it would be stark white that all the girls were asking their stylists to emulate.

  While she’d managed to keep a veneer of calm and grace all evening, Ella could see the smile of satisfaction spreading across Marissa’s face as she slipped fully into the water. She covered her chest in a gesture of modesty and closed her eyes, looking every bit the part of the various iterations of the goddess depicted in the stained glass windows surrounding the temple.

  Ella waited for the moonlight to turn an even more brilliant shade as it graced her sacred skin, but even when she squinted, she couldn’t see any hint that Marissa’s red hair was even a shade lighter.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  When the murmurs of dismay rose up around the room, she could hardly understand what was going on around her. It was just too impossible to process.

  One of them had to be moonmarked, and if it wasn’t Marissa, then who the hell was it?

  Marissa finally opened her eyes and looked around at the confused faces surrounding her from above. Ella couldn’t help but pity her, standing there in front of everyone, naked in more ways than one.

  As unfathomable as it seemed, any lingering possibility that the moon was going to choose her was dwindling by the second.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried, her voice growing shrill with accusation as she turned toward Tessa. “Why isn’t it happening?”

  The priestess was the one person in attendance who didn’t seem entirely floored by the unexpected turn the evening had taken, though even she was confused.

  “The moon has not yet chosen,” Tessa finally announced. Her words, as obvious as they were, silenced everyone in the room.

  For a time, at least.

  “You’re lying!” Marissa seethed, no longer bothering to cover herself as she flung a finger at the older shifter. “You did this, you bitter old hag! You sabotaged me.”

  “Marissa!” Blake cried in dismay from the sidelines.

  Tessa didn’t seem remotely fazed by her outburst. “Would someone please escort Ms. Waterson out of the pool? The ceremony must continue.”

  The uproar around Ella grew hazy and difficult to make out. She searched the crowd for Axel, as she always did when anything happened.

  Or when it didn’t.

  It was an involuntary response, really. Her heart always insisted on orienting itself toward him, in whatever direction he happened to be.

  It wasn’t long before she spotted him, running to Marissa’s side, of course. Ella watched as he put his arms around her, his face blank with indecision.

  She couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. If he would abandon Marissa now that she was no longer the guaranteed route to power she once had been.

  Ella wanted to believe he was better than that. That something inside of him was still good and kind, but she knew him too well for such lofty hopes.

  Knowledge of his true nature had, unfortunately, never kept her from wanting him.

  “How is this possible?” another priestess demanded. It seemed even their ranks were divided over the matter. “All the candidates have been baptized. There’s no one left.”

  “There is one,” Tessa corrected.

  Ella froze as the woman’s eyes found her through the crowd. Those pressed in around her turned to follow the priestess’ gaze and kept looking past her, as if they were missing a more obvious candidate.

  “I don’t understand,” Emily said, still at Blake’s side, performing the role of the dutiful friend. “You can’t mean Ella. She’s… she’s just a stray.”

  “She is a young queen who’s come of age within the allotted time period,” said Tessa. “Any additional conditions or restrictions you’ve come up with are a product of your own prejudices, not the Fellowship’s laws and traditions.”

  Ella had never seen Emily look so pale, or heard her remain quite that silent for so long.

  “She’s right,” Ella finally said, once she was able to find her voice. It sounded strained and cracked, but at least it was intelligible. “It can’t be me.”

  “Why don’t you come here and let the moon decide that, child?” Tessa challenged gently, holding out her hand.

  The crowd was parted in front of Ella and she no longer had any excuse to wait. She swallowed hard and took a step forward, feeling as if she was walking toward the gallows. Either she refused a direct order from the head priestess herself, or she further entrenched herself in the spite of those who controlled every facet of her life.

  Either way, she knew she’d been wrong about this night. Things were only going to get worse.

  Ella made the mistake of glancing toward the others on her way to the edge of the water. The look of hatred burning in Marissa’s eyes wasn’t anything she hadn’t experienced before, even if it was more intense than usual, but Axel…

  He’d never looked at her that way. With utter contempt and disgust unclouded by the apathy she was so accustomed to.

  She almost lost her balance, and this time, she knew Bishop wouldn’t be there to catch her. An ominous song played deep within her chest, every uneven beat of her heart drumming out a funeral march in blood.

  Humiliation crawled underneath Ella’s skin as she reached behind her back, fumbling for the zipper on her dress. Her hands were shaking so badly it took a few tries, and when the fabric pooled at her feet, she felt more exposed than she ever had.

  At least shock had made it impossible to even think about what the others around her were saying, or whether they were watching at all. She just kept moving forward on autopilot, as if her body had relinquished control to some other force she was all too happy to give it over to.

  The cool water rose over the tops of her feet and the deeper she went, the more she wished it would just swallow her whole. The water was up to her chest now, cool and soothing, but the breath in her lungs felt like fire.

  She wanted to be done with it all, to pull herself out of this damn pond, grab the nearest robe, and run before the laughter could be heard over the ringing in her ears.

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, burning hot in contrast to the water’s chilly caress. She shut her eyes tight and waited for the priestess’ blessing, which she would most assuredly need to get through the ride home, but all that met her ears was dead silence.

  Ella finally dared to open her eyes, immediately blinded by the pearlescent sheen of the markings that had appeared on her forearms. She stared in disbelief as the markings traveled up her arms, inscribing
themselves over every part of her.

  She couldn’t read the ancient script any more than she could speak the corresponding words, but in the same strange way she’d understood the priestess’ incantations, each one spoke a message that soaked deep into her bones. Into her soul.

  Fear soon won out over disbelief and Ella turned her hands over to inspect them as panic closed around her throat like a vice. She staggered back and found the shelf below her feet unstable.

  The bottom of the pond wasn’t level as she’d expected. The earth gave way beneath her and she sank deep under the water, claimed as thoroughly as she’d so foolishly wished to be.

  She should have learned her lesson about wishing by now.

  She gasped instinctively and water rushed into her lungs as she struggled to reach the surface. Every attempt merely resulted in her sinking deeper and deeper. She could no longer see the silvery ripples of moonlight on the water’s surface above her, but the darkness below became even brighter, every bit as obscuring.

  It seemed to be a conscious force drawing her in, deeper and deeper as the water filled her lungs and wrapped her in its cold embrace.

  How was it even possible to sink this deep?

  It was the last thought she had before the light, or the water, assuming there was even a distinction between the two, swallowed her whole.

  Chapter 3

  Ella

  “Ella,” a familiar voice called from somewhere far, far away. Ella could barely hear it, but that faint voice was the only thing that seemed to exist in the void she’d fallen into. The pain in her lungs was gone, but there was pressure on her chest.

  So much pressure, as if a great mountain was bearing down on her.

  The pressure soon became sharp pain as blinding as the light. Something deep within her chest snapped, splitting bone and tearing muscle. The pressure was coming in waves now, relentlessly pounding into her chest, forcing her heart to beat against its will.

  She gasped and the pain returned, reverberating through every part of her until it was her. Until there was no part of her that existed apart from the ache and the agony and the terrible emptiness of those dark, cold fingers that had wrapped around her, crushing out her last breath.

  Even now, she felt their imprint.

  Ella’s eyes flew open as her body convulsed. She coughed and choked, water pouring from her lungs that burned like acid on its way up. She clutched her throat and doubled over, struggling for breath, but it only came in short gasps that offered no satisfaction, only the barest levels of oxygen required for survival.

  The light in the room was dimmer than the all-encompassing one that had consumed her, but it was no less tolerable. All she could make out were the vague shapes around her, and the outline of whomever she was clinging to so desperately.

  She was in his arms, strong and firm, her only tether to the waking world she’d never imagined she would see again.

  Assuming she was still alive. The only thing that gave her hope was an unwillingness to believe death could be so painful. That hardly seemed fair.

  “Easy,” that familiar voice coaxed as its owner’s fingers splayed through her wet hair. “The ambulance is on its way. Just breathe.”

  She saw a strip of bone white silk get pushed across her eyes, but as her vision came into focus, all she could think about was the face of the man before her. Angelic. Too beautiful to be real.

  If Ella hadn’t met him earlier that night, she would have been absolutely convinced he was an angel come to lead her soul to the next of her nine lives. Hopefully a better one. If this was her last, she had some serious complaints to voice to whomever was listening upstairs.

  “Bishop,” she gasped, her voice raw and ragged. She was still clinging to him for dear life, unable to pry her fingers off the dampened cotton of his crisp white shirt.

  “You’re alright,” he said, cradling her to his chest so she wouldn’t move. No one had ever held her so gently, but every touch was still pure agony. Even so, his presence brought a comfort and certainty that made the pain well worth it.

  In the minutes that followed, Ella drifted in and out of shock. She was vaguely aware of sirens in the distance, and the garbled sounds of the voices around her. Certain ones stood out more than others, but the words were only coming in snippets.

  “--has to be a mistake,” Blake protested. Somewhere in the distance, Marissa’s indignant sobs continued.

  “I’m going with her,” said Emily. “She’s my ward.”

  Ella groaned as the medics lifted her onto a stretcher. It felt as if every bone in her body was broken, but the fact that she was able to raise a hand to her chest, where the pain was at its sharpest, suggested otherwise.

  Someone pinned her wrist to the side of the cot, securing it with Velcro straps. She felt a sharp prick as they threaded an IV into the crook of her left arm and the agonizing jostle of the gurney as it was lifted into the ambulance.

  “I’m going with you.”

  Bishop’s voice was firm and insistent. It was the last thing she fully remembered before she blacked out.

  The next sound she heard was the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor, and there was a light shining directly into her right eye.

  It took a second for Ella to realize someone was holding her eye open and shining the light in. Opening them both seemed to take all the strength she had, and she didn’t have the energy to lift her hand to shield her eyes.

  “Ella,” said an unfamiliar man’s voice. He was older, in his late fifties at least, with lines around his eyes and mouth that suggested he had a kind smile on happier occasions. He was looking at her with more concern than Emily ever had as he shone the light in her other eye, then back into the right one. “Can you hear me?”

  She nodded, expecting to be punished by her body for the movement. Rather than the pain she was expecting, she could only feel the light pressure of whatever thick material was wrapped around her chest.

  Her head swam and made streaks of the pen light, but it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling. When she saw the clear drip hanging above her bed, she realized the cause of it.

  “Guess you get the good stuff when you almost drown,” she mumbled. Her voice sounded far away, as did the doctor’s laugh. She wasn’t fully aware of saying the words, or how she’d ended up in a semi-upright position the next time she blinked.

  It was only then she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. Tessa was there, and Bishop and Natalia were standing alongside her, all three of them wearing looks of concern that made her doubt she was truly out of the woods.

  “You can talk to her, but go easy,” the doctor said, touching Natalie’s shoulder on his way out the door. “The drugs won’t wear off for a few hours yet.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Natalia said warmly, seeing him out.

  Tessa approached the bed, still wearing her robes. She looked comically out of place in the clinical setting with her ethereal appearance and the painted markings on her face. They reminded Ella of the ones that had appeared on her arms, but when she looked down, all she could see was the IV needle.

  “You won’t be able to see those in here,” Tessa said in answer to her unspoken question. She stroked Ella’s hair behind her ear and smiled knowingly as she drew a strand of it through her fingers.

  Ella gasped, raising a hand to pull her hair through her own fingers. Sure enough, it was all the same stark white shade as Natalia’s.

  “I don’t understand,” she choked, looking over at the others. She remembered Bishop being there when she first woke up, but had she dreamed that? None of it seemed real, and yet she had a shattered sternum and several broken ribs that claimed otherwise.

  “No shame in that,” said Tessa. “In all my years, I’ve never heard of a moonmarking going as violently as all that.”

  “Mine certainly felt like a walk in the park in comparison,” Natalia said in a wry tone, approaching Ella’s bedside. “How are you feeling, dear?”

  “C
onfused,” Ella answered, her voice still hoarse. She finally dared to look over at Bishop, more perplexed by his presence than anything. “You pulled me out, didn’t you?”

  It was the only explanation that made any sense of the fractured pieces she was trying desperately to fit together.

  He gave her a tired smile and she noticed the dark circles around his eyes for the first time. How long had they all been there with her? “Sorry about the broken bones. CPR is a lot easier on a practice dummy.”

  “You saved my life,” she murmured. The weight of what had happened was only partially beginning to settle down on her, which was just as well. She feared it would crush her if it all came down at once, and she’d already had enough of that for one evening.

  “Guess coming to your rescue is becoming a habit,” he teased. Coming from Axel, those words would have had an entirely different meaning, but there was something gentle in the way he spoke, even if his gaze was every bit as devastating.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” said Tessa.

  “We’re lucky,” Natalia added. “We almost lost our future Empress.”

  The word hit Ella like a lead weight. She still hadn’t made the impossible connection between everything that had happened and the purpose of the ritual.

  “There has to be a mistake,” she insisted. “It can’t be me.”

  “The moon usually isn’t quite this forceful, but she’s always clear,” said Tessa. “You are undoubtedly the marked one.”

  “If there was any question before, the new dye job pretty much settles it,” Bishop agreed, folding his arms. There was an undeniable glimmer of amusement in his eyes, replacing the worry that had been in them so recently. “It looks good on you.”

  Of all the things that should have had her flustered, his words were what made Ella blush. She didn’t know how to respond, but fortunately, Tessa saved her the trouble.

  “You need to rest,” she said, pulling a thin cotton blanket up over Ella’s shoulders. “It’s all over now, and we need you well so you can begin your training.”