by Lucia Ashta
Why’s little legs cycled as if he were running toward the punctuated splashes. I squeezed him closer to my chest, attempting to rein him in, with no luck.
“Bugger,” I muttered, but Why only kicked some more.
After approximately a thousand miles, Boone finally slowed to a stop. The rest of us piled up behind him.
“Where are we?” Wren asked as Rina said, “What kind of lake creatures are they?”
“I think they’re mermaids.” Adalia’s pronouncement was an amazed whisper. “I’ve never seen any before, but that must be what they are. Unless they’re just a hallucination.”
“With what I’ve been seeing, hallucination makes sense,” Rina commented.
Dave said, “The tails attached to women line up with mermaids.”
I stood on my tiptoes and peered to every side of my friends until I finally spied a bright orange tail flicking out of the water. “Wow. Mermaids. How flipping cool. Wait. What’s that?” Pointing, purple waves of light flowed along my finger. “So cool,” I repeated, forgetting what I’d been asking about until my friends started answering.
“It really looks like that’s a … a mer-dragon-bear? What is that creature?” Leo asked.
“I don’t know what that one is,” Boone said. “But that other one looks like a polar bear.”
“I count four creatures. You guys?” Ky said.
“Same,” Boone answered.
Leo stalked forward. “Mermaids aren’t harmful under most circumstances.”
“My Prince,” Adalia called, “sirens can be. We don’t know which of the two these are.”
“Right.” Leo released Rina to press his hands to his ears. “Thanks, Adalia.”
Boone covered his ears too and approached. Ky squeezed my shoulder and released me, preparing to do the same.
I squinted toward the wide ripples in the lake’s otherwise serene surface and waited. The water glowed with bright blues and greens, settling above the lake like a dense fog.
“There!” I exclaimed, not entirely sure whether I’d spoken aloud or in my head until Why jumped.
Finally, I spotted the two mermaids, the polar bear, and the creature none of my friends could identify. The shape of its body reminded me of a bear, yet everything else about it suggested a dragon—made for water. The creature was massive, covered in scales and fins. The sun glinted off its iridescent, waterproof exterior, contributing to the glowing array of colors I was already seeing. The animal had a dragon-like snout, which I imagined must be filled with dragon-sharp teeth; two small horns above two small ears; and clawed, wicked-looking paws. A short tail covered in spikes trailed behind it.
In comparison, the mermaids and polar bear looked positively ordinary.
And the lot of them had finally realized they had an audience.
After exchanging loaded looks, the bears nodded at each other and swam closer to the mermaids. All together, they swam closer to shore—and us.
But none made a move to leave the water.
“Who are you and what do you want from us?” one of the mermaids asked. She had long blond hair that floated in the water behind her like an aura, startling tawny eyes, and a cheeky look. Her orange tail, as bright as the brightest Koi fish, paddled languidly behind her beneath the water; the swell of her bare breasts bobbed, just breaking the surface of the water.
The guys were definitely mesmerized. But maybe so was I.
“See, sirens,” Adalia whispered so the mermaid wouldn’t hear.
She heard anyway. “I’m not a siren,” the blond beauty said.
Even amid the haze clouding my thoughts, I noticed that she didn’t tell us whether the second one was or not.
The polar bear swam slightly in front of the mermaid with the orange tail, treading water, and she absently ran a hand along his back. The bear was the size of an average polar bear, which was to say he was a large-ass bear. Thick muscles rippled beneath his thick white pelt.
“I’m okay, Brogan,” the mermaid said.
“A shifter?” Ky asked.
The mermaid nodded, but then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You’re within the academy grounds. Why?”
“We attend the school,” Boone said.
The blonde mermaid exchanged a quick look with the one with the long dark hair and blue eyes so bright they glowed. The mer-bear-dragon creature swam circles around the second mermaid, clearly trying to protect her from us.
“So … you’re students? Like us?” Blondie asked, flicking looks at her companions much of the time she was addressing us.
“You’re students here too?” Wren asked, sounding so much more like her normal, pleasant self. A smidgen of tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding fled my body.
“Oners,” Blondie said.
“Ah,” Leo said. “That’s why we don’t recognize you.”
“That, and two of them are bears. Or bear-like anyway,” I said.
Leo looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes at me.
I chuckled. Really, I couldn’t help it. The grand second prince of the fae just rolled his eyes at me.
Ky swatted my butt playfully and I turned smoldering eyes on him … before remembering we were in the middle of a meet-up here.
Leo cleared his throat. “What I meant was that we probably wouldn’t have seen you because we have different classes.”
“That, and life’s been pretty crazy lately. We’ve been distracted, what with self-sex-a-thons and whatnot.”
The gazes of the two mermaids, the polar bear, and the mer-bear-dragon creature snapped to me.
I smiled at them, mentally patting myself on the back. I was so effing friendly.
“Ky, Boone, and I are seveners. The ladies and Dave are fourers.”
The tension in Blondie’s face relaxed. “I’m Liana. This is Brogan.” She rang a hand along the polar bear. “And that’s Selene and Quinn.”
So definitely not lake creatures.
I nodded fervently to myself, then noticed how the colors of everything moved as I did. It was as if I’d turned the ring of a kaleidoscope. So freaking incredible!
“Selene is a siren. I’m a regular mermaid,” Liana was saying, and I lazily allowed my gaze to drift back to her.
Only it never reached the mermaid with the orange tail.
I experienced a strong pull to cast my attention on Selene instead.
Those shockingly bright blue eyes of hers were bearing down on me like she’d been looking for me all her life. Or maybe like I was a fresh meal served up on a silver platter. Whatever she was actually thinking, she was definitely thinking it about me.
Silence descended as everyone noticed the staredown that was going on between us.
“Selene, what is it?” Liana asked. Ky stepped behind me to wrap both arms protectively around me. The pandacorn squirmed in my arms, for once wide awake.
Selene didn’t answer right away, her stare was so rapt upon me. The siren swam all the way up to shore, with the mer-bear-dragon shadowing her approach, and dragged herself up onto land. Once she pulled herself completely clear of the water, she flopped onto her back, her tail in front of her and her bare breasts on full display.
The mer-bear-dragon climbed out of the water and draped himself across her lap, his stare settling on me like I was some kind of threat.
“What do you two think I’m going to do to you? I’m a skunk shifter, for fuck’s sake.”
The mer-bear-dragon tilted his head to the side in consideration, before turning to face the siren, whining at her with a question.
Without removing her intense stare from me, she ran a hand along the mer-bear-dragon’s spine. He shivered in response and pushed into her hand for more.
The siren rose onto her other elbow. “She’s the one who stole my power.”
The silence that followed whined loudly through my ears as the siren shared loaded looks with her friends. Liana and Brogan immediately swam toward the bank, and just as they were about to climb out of
the water, Ky circled around the front of me and crossed his arms over his chest, all but hiding me.
He was more than a foot taller than me, and tons broader in the shoulders. I was slim, slight, and short, and now cut off from the intensity of Selene’s glare.
One of them growled—Selene, I supposed, because she couldn’t eye fuck with me anymore—and Boone, Leo, and Dave lined up beside Ky to guard me.
I snorted, before remembering the severity of our situation with suddenness. I worked to settle my face into a solemn mask, but struggled, distracted by the pulsing lights wafting off my friends in front of me.
“Jas did not steal anything from you, or anyone else for that matter,” Ky said, and I mentally high-fived him for his loyalty.
But … I nibbled at my lip. I couldn’t be entirely sure I hadn’t stolen her powers or anything else.
What if the pendant was actually hers?
20
No one talked while we waited for the siren, mermaid, and two shapeshifters to transform.
If I thought I’d been tripping out before, I was dead wrong.
I’d never seen shifts like any of theirs before. Not even from the two shapeshifters, and I was in a school filled with them. And it wasn’t just the trolls’ happy brew, though it did lend an extra level of holy-shitness to their transformations.
The academy drew to it those creatures with the greatest amounts of magic, and even Dave, who botched shit as often as he didn’t, was more powerful than most. He had to be, deep down somewhere, somehow, or the academy wouldn’t have invited him for admission. Dave was, however, proof that the academy played a long game, betting on potential.
Which made it all the more peculiar that Brogan and Quinn didn’t shift the way the rest of us did. Their transformations weren’t smooth like mine, merging gracefully from blurring to flickering to vibrating before poof, and my skunk appeared. Their shifts weren’t even like Dave’s, and he put the three stages of shifting into a blender and set it on high, which was why he only achieved turning into a convincing bobcat about half the time.
The polar bear and mer-bear-dragon-whatever … they didn’t even start with a blur. There wasn’t a flicker; nor did they vibrate any more than the trolls’ brew made them appear to. Their bodies contorted as they began cracking and popping like they were spokespeople for Rice Krispies cereal, just like the less powerful shifters did, like the ones who weren’t extended invitations to the academy because they couldn’t access the necessary reserves of magic…
Clearly I wasn’t the only one surprised by their pained transformations. Ky, Boone, Leo, and Dave stared at the shifters with empathy scrawled across their furrowed brows, as if they were imagining how horrible it’d be to have to endure such intense pain with every shift.
And there was no doubt the two shifters were in pain. Even as bears—or whatever the mer-bear-dragon really was—there was no confusing the agonizing throes of their shifts. Their suffering was made plain with every grunt, groan, and grimace, with every twist of nose and muzzle.
But even with the snap-crackle-pop fest going on, my eyes rested mostly on the merwomen. Their transformations weren’t nearly as drastic; their faces remained placid—though Selene hadn’t moved her pointed stare from me even while she focused on dividing her iridescent, multi-colored tail into two legs.
Liana waved a hand over her orange tail as if willing it to dry faster, and soon enough, her tail sucked inward with a loud squelch before bursting into sculpted legs.
Neither Liana nor Selene spared their men a glance, not when I’d apparently become enemy number one.
Selene stood, taking a moment to steady herself on new legs, then flicked her long hair behind one shoulder. As it dried, its bright violet tones began to reveal themselves amid the dark strands, shining in the bright sun.
She was completely naked—all supple curves, perky breasts, and firm muscles. She was also completely unconcerned with her nudity. She did nothing to try to conceal any bit of herself as I sensed the change in attention of our group.
Everyone was taking in the beauty of the siren and mermaid, including Why, who made muffled, happy sounds.
Selene didn’t acknowledge our ogling, and I narrowed my eyes at her prolonged stare, mentally chewing her out for killing my buzz. Already the colorful energy dancing around me was muting.
Liana, with her waist-long blond hair and nearly amber eyes, was as striking as Selene, and equally untroubled by her nudity in front of such an appreciative audience.
As soon as the guys completed their shifts, I took a few moments to check them out too. Because nude men. I didn’t even try to resist.
Both of them were as buck naked and beautiful as Selene and Liana.
Brogan had shockingly white hair the same shade as his polar bear pelt. Despite the color, his face was youthful, his body strong and muscled, without an ounce of unnecessary fat, and his eyes sparked with life.
Allowing my appreciation to move to Quinn’s body, I trailed my gaze all the way down him. Like Brogan, he was all lean muscle and brawny frame. The shifter was as beautifully sculpted as his friend. His eyes met mine when my scrutiny finally settled on his face. His eyes were alight with emotion, and the possessive hand he rested on Selene’s waist suggested the turmoil swirling through them had everything to do with her. His hair was dark and disheveled around his face, making the hazel-like tones of his gaze shine. Unlike the others, Quinn did appear self-conscious of his nudity, and I thought he was resisting the urge to cover up.
When I finally offered him a tentative smile—because, come on, smokin’ guy—the spell that draped silence across all of us snapped.
“Have you had your fill yet?” he snarled.
Hell to the no. I could stare at Brogan and him all day long and not tire of it.
“Our apologies,” Wren said. Selene had probably killed her buzz too. Hopefully, her paranoia would also be gone. “We’ve just never seen mermaids or sirens, or even shifters like you.”
Our collective gaze settled on Quinn, who slid his free hand across his body to cup his junk.
Damn.
“What kind of shifter are you?” Dave asked.
Quinn shifted his weight from one leg to the other and whispered something in Selene’s ear before leaving her side to recover their discarded clothing. Only after handing out the togs and dressing himself did he answer Dave’s question.
“I’m a merdragon,” he said, tilting his chin upward in defiance, as if any of us were crazy enough to make fun of or otherwise mess with a merdragon. Not even I was reckless enough to prod a dragon of any sort. The two we’d seen on campus had been huge, scaly, and scary. Quinn’s merdragon hadn’t been anywhere near as large or intimidating.
Still. Dragon.
“That’s fascinating,” Adalia said in her usual chipper voice that I hated. “I’ve never even heard of a merdragon before. How wonderful.”
“That’s because I’m the only one of my kind,” he said. A flash of pain or something like it flashed across his face before he stashed it away.
Touchy subject, apparently.
“How come you’re the only one of your kind?” I asked.
He frowned but answered anyway. “I’m a hybrid.”
Two seconds later, a loud pop made me flinch—an instinctual, trained reaction to expecting Fianna or Nessa to arrive. But there were no fairies.
It was … sirens didn’t have wings … not even mermaids did. But Selene stood there, now fully dressed, with two fucking huge, white, feathery wings hanging off her shoulder blades.
What. The. Fuuuck?
“Uh,” I muttered, trying to force my scrambled thoughts into a question that would garner an appropriate explanation. Similar stutters circled around me.
Rina was the first to snap out of our group shock. “Wow,” she said. Seconds passed before she said, “Your wings are amazing.”
Selene’s hard face softened into a smile. “If you think you’re shocked, you shou
ld’ve seen how shocked I was when they first popped out of me.”
I giggled—a bit maniacally. I couldn’t tell if it was the trolls’ brew, the siren’s intensity, or something else that was prompting me to act so unlike myself—I didn’t do giggling. Adalia giggled; I refused to.
Selene’s stare settled back on me, a fresh scowl directed my way. But Liana spoke for her, moving to her other side. “Hey, are you making fun of my best friend right now? Because if you are, I sure as hell wouldn’t.”
I squeezed between Ky and Dave so I wouldn’t have to peer between them anymore. “I’m not making fun of anyone. If I am, you’ll know it.”
“Then what are you laughing at?”
“Life.”
At least for my friends, no more explanation was needed. Life had gone from normal levels of insanity to crushing the charts, over the top cray-cray.
“She has my power,” Selene told her friends, seating us all firmly back aboard the Crazy Train.
“You mean I have power like yours?” I asked.
“No. I mean you have my power.”
“You’re sure she’s the one that took it from you?” Quinn asked, cracking his knuckles and making my friends tense in response.
“By Neptune, I’m sure,” Selene answered, her gaze back to searing a hole clean through me.
“Now hold up there. I didn’t steal a damn thing, and I sure as hell didn’t steal your power.”
I forced my face into simple innocence.
“If she says you did, you did,” Quinn said.
“And if I say I didn’t, I didn’t,” I snapped, causing Wren to look nervously between me and him.
Boone stepped into the middle of our groups, hands up. “Let’s dial things back a bit. We’re all students at the same school, and just because we didn’t know each other before now, doesn’t mean we can’t all be friends. Let’s figure this out together.”
“That’s right,” Leo said. “Tell us what you think is going on here.”
Liana exchanged a look with Selene. When the siren nodded, Liana said, “Selene lost her powers right before classes started. Since then, she’s been growing weaker and weaker, and we don’t know why. Sir Lancelot, Albacus, and Mordecai don’t know either.”