“Instructor Fletcher says I’m predicted a high pass,” Madison said, flicking her hair over one shoulder. “And, of course, I’ve always been a natural at shifting.”
The food I was chewing turned to clay in my mouth. Shifting. My weakest subject. Fail anything, and I’d get held back a year. I was scraping through on the theory stuff, but I still couldn’t control my shifted form.
“What do we have to do for the shifting exam?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t imagine it’s trying to kill the instructor, so you’re going to be in trouble.”
“Madison, give it a rest,” Dean said. Madison pouted, then slipped her hand into Dean’s, practically purring with satisfaction.
“Whatever you say.” She smiled up at him and pressed her lips to his.
“Really? I’m trying to eat. You two are putting me off my food.”
“Sorry, Jade,” Madison said, resting her chin on Dean’s shoulder and sounding anything but. “I didn’t mean to rub it in.”
I put my knife and fork down.
“I’m done. I’ll catch you guys later.”
“Jade, wait,” Dean said, but I grabbed my bag and made for the exit. I heard him chastising Madison behind me, for all the difference it would make. Once a bitch, always a bitch. And she wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to make me feel bad. She still hadn’t forgiven me for bringing Ryan into our little group. I hadn’t forgiven her for coming back, so I guessed we were even.
I wasn’t in the mood for hitting the books, but I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anyone either, and the library seemed like the safest bet to avoid any sort of conversation. Plus, no-one would look for me there.
At least, that was the plan. But when I stepped into the usually deserted room and inhaled the scent of books that were older than me, I caught the scent of someone else, too. Fresh scent. Ryan was in here. For a moment I thought about just ducking back out – I really wasn’t in the mood to have this discussion now, not when Cam thought I was sneaking around with him. But, like it or not, Brad and Laura were more important than my ailing love life. Or as important, at least.
“Found any Stephen King?” I asked, heading over to the lone figure. He shook his head and flashed the heavy tome at me. I frowned as I made out the worn lettering on the front. Arcane Warding Spells.
“Wards? Are you kidding?”
“Keep it down,” he hissed, glancing around the room. He needn’t have bothered. I already knew we were alone. “I just wanted to be prepared. In case you changed your mind about helping us.”
“What did you find?” I mean, it didn’t hurt to know, right?
“Nothing good. You need an alpha to deactivate one. Or a druid, but I can’t see Blake letting any of them in here.”
“Yeah, druids and shifters really don’t play nice, do they?”
I was pretty sure it was only because Leo turned out to be innocent that things never came to a head between the two factions. The idea of a druid walking through Blake’s precious academy? Laughable. Which was a good thing. Because there was no way smuggling Brad and Laura over the wall was going to end well.
“Forget the wards,” I said. “No-one’s getting out that way. But we can still help them. We have to convince them to join Fur ‘n’ Fang. Even if they break out, they still need to learn how to control their shifting powers. This is the best place for them to do that.”
“I know that,” Ryan said, glancing round again and shoving the book in his bag. “But they don’t want to. Not after everything. And can you blame them?”
“They can get help here.”
“Yeah, bang up job they’ve been doing of helping them. The cages really scream rehabilitation.”
Well, he had me there.
“Blake has given up on them,” he said. “But I haven’t.”
“Me, either. Let’s go and see them. We’ve got a while until everyone’s back from dinner.”
One last chance to integrate, that was all I owed them. What they did after that was on them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I could smell their scent leading through the woods.
The trouble was, the entire damned woods were saturated with scent, and the trails layered over trails made it almost impossible to tell which way my target had gone. I glanced at Shaun beside me, but he gave me no encouragement.
And why would he? After all, he was here to assess my tracking skills. It wouldn’t be much of an exam if he told me which way to go. But I sure wished someone would, because of all the things I’d envisioned failing this year on, tracking wasn’t one of them.
“Fifteen minutes remaining,” Shaun said.
Crap. I had to get a move on. The shifter I was tracking was out here somewhere, but if I wanted to find them, I needed to decipher the fresh scent from the old, and I needed to do it now.
I held the scent cloth to my nose and inhaled again. There was a faint leathery scent to it, almost like an old biker jacket, or a well-used purse. I disregarded everything else and focused on that as I took in a deep breath of air. Scenting was easier in our shifted forms – not that I’d progressed beyond wanting to kill everyone for long enough to find out – but for the exam we had to stay in our human forms. Level playing field and all that. This way, we could all suck equally.
I canned the pity party for after I failed and crouched down, plucking a crumbled leaf from the floor. Old leather. I nodded to myself. The scent was smeared all over this – they’d stepped on it, and recently. More recently than they’d touched that tree leading down the right-hand track. That was the decoy. I stayed left and picked up a slow jog. I had to find the target before I ran out of time, but if I was moving too fast then I might miss any twists in the trail. And if the way I’d already come was anything to go by, there’d be plenty.
Shaun followed silently at my back, keeping enough space between us that if I stopped suddenly, he wouldn’t crash into me. Which was just as well. The trail stopped dead, and I skidded to a halt just past its end.
“What the…?”
I looked at Shaun, but he studiously avoided my eye. It was part of the test, then. I backtracked a little, circling around the end of the trail. There was definitely only one scent trail. My target hadn’t doubled back on themselves, which meant they had to have kept going. A gust of wind shook the late-spring leaves in the branches above me, disrupting their scent. I caught the slightest trace of old leather and tilted my head back, squinting up at the trees. Yeah, that figured. Sneaky bastards.
I pinpointed the tree the scent had come from and jumped, grabbing hold of the branch and hauling myself up. The scent cloud was all around me, thick and fresh. They’d tried to cover their scent by staying off the ground. Which, when I thought about it, seemed kind of a dick move for a first-year exam.
I dropped back down to the track and carried on a few steps. My progress was much slower after that, having to stop and check every few trees to make sure I was still going the right way, and the trail grew harder to follow as we moved off the game trail, and into the heart of the woods themselves. Every step I took threw up a cloud of scent of damp earth and foliage, but it couldn’t quite mask the leathery odour falling through the air above me. I was gaining on them, the scent growing stronger with each step.
“Five minutes remaining,” Shaun said.
“Five minutes? Are you kidding?”
He wasn’t kidding. Shit. I should have found the target by now. This was taking too long. The wind gusted again, bringing me a fresh lungful of scent – from three different directions. What the hell?
I frowned and twisted round to look at Shaun over my shoulder, but he looked just as confused as me.
“Um, that’s weird, right?” I asked. “Wind coming from three different ways?”
“Continue with the exam,” he said, his voice devoid of any inflection. Right. Good idea. I couldn’t afford to waste a second of my five minutes. And if helpful gusts of wind wanted to keep blowing the target’s s
cent in my direction, I wasn’t going to be complaining. Confused, yes. Complaining, no.
I took off at a jog again – all or nothing, at this stage – turning my nose into the undulating breezes every few seconds. The scent grew stronger, and then stronger still, until I wasn’t even having to make a conscious effort to detect it.
Ahead, the trees were thinning, and I pushed on. I burst through the undergrowth and into a small circular clearing, surrounded by trees. And in the centre stood two figures. The student I’d been tracking, and beside him, Fletcher.
“Very good, Jade,” Shaun said.
“Did I make it?” I asked, trying not to sound out of breath. “Was I in time?”
Shaun gave me an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, I can’t tell you that. You’ll have to wait until you get your results.”
Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that.
“Get your breath back,” Fletcher said. “Your next exam starts in thirty seconds.”
“My next exam? No-one said anything about another exam.”
“Combat often arrives unexpectedly. You must always be prepared to defend yourself. You will fight in your human form. You must last for five minutes against Jax. Tap out, or succumb to a battle-ending injury, and you will be deemed to have failed. Ten seconds.”
I yanked off my light-weight hoodie – I was already hot from my jog through the woods – and tossed it aside.
“Begin!”
Jax launched himself forward almost before I’d straightened. I threw my arms up and backed up two paces. His punches thudded into my forearms – that was going to leave a bruise or two. I needed to rotate my blocks more before he snapped one of my arms.
He swept a leg at my ankles and I jumped, narrowly avoiding having my legs taken out from under me. I landed slightly off balance and caught a glimpse of his other foot flying at my face. I ducked low, but not fast enough. His foot scored a glancing blow and I swayed back, my head spinning. I needed to get in the fight before he took it clean off my shoulders.
I didn’t straighten. Instead, I kept low and surged forwards, thrusting an uppercut beneath his rib cage. My fist connected with a wall of solid muscle that jolted the impact right up to my shoulder. Shit. This guy worked out. A lot. I should have known that Fletcher would make sure I was matched with someone who could kick my arse.
An elbow swiped at my head, discouraging me from getting distracted. I could worry about whether I was being stitched up later. Right now, I had to focus on not getting turned into a heap of Jade-mush.
I retreated, falling back a few quick steps, but that wasn’t going to cut it. This guy was stronger than me, and he was taller than me, and he had longer arms – which meant a longer reach. If I wanted to get the better of him, I was going to have to get in close and remove his advantage. And there was absolutely no part of me that wanted to get close to Jax. That guy was like, all muscle.
He stalked towards me across the clearing and I pushed my arms up into a classic guard position. Jax chuckled quietly, the sound vibrating through his chest. I narrowed my eyes. He was enjoying this a little too much.
I stood my ground, letting him advance on me. He wanted to believe I was a weak little girl who wished she could run away? Fine. It just meant he wouldn’t expect my attack. He swept a leg at my knees and I rushed forward, raising a leg in front of me to block his strike with my calf. That was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning. I pushed through and slammed my hip against his, then swept my forearm up into his neck, and used my momentum to disrupt his balance before he could get his leg back down. The force of my strike threw him to the ground, and I landed on top of him, straddling his chest and pinning his arms to the ground like I had that day with Madison.
He wasn’t Madison.
He met my eye for a quarter second, and in that quarter second, I knew I’d made a grave miscalculation. Then his lips twisted into a grin, and he flexed his hips, and rolled.
His sheer strength tossed me aside like I was made of paper, but I didn’t feel like paper when my back thudded into the earth – I felt like shit. The impact pounded the air from my lungs, and while I was fighting to draw in breath, he dropped on top of me, and wrapped a hand about my neck.
I gasped, wrapping my hands around his wrist and bucking under him like a fish out of water, but I was no match for his strength. The bastard was going to choke me out before the five minutes were up.
I squeezed his wrist, digging in my nails, but he just gritted his teeth and increased the pressure on my neck. Anger surged through me and suddenly he gasped in pain and drew back, clutching his wrist to his chest.
“Time, Ms Hart,” Fletcher said, sounding distinctly disappointed. “You may return to the castle.”
I got to my feet, staring down at the red glow fading from my palms. What the actual fuck was going on?
*
I didn’t get chance to speak to anyone about the weird stuff that happened in the woods, and truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d say, anyway. Shaun had never said anything else about that day in the dungeon when I’d burned Ryan. Whatever answers he might have found, I suspected I was better off not knowing.
The following morning, we were summoned to the shifting room. It was time for our final exam, and the one I’d been dreading most. I mean, sure, the theory exams – Law, History, and Cultural Studies – had been no walk in the park, but at least I had a chance with them. Shifting? I was screwed.
If we were all being tested together – by which I mean, if Ryan was going to be there – I might have stood half a chance. But no such luck. Each student was to be tested individually. Plus side, I wouldn’t have to watch literally everyone else ace the exam while I failed miserably. Downside, I was in fact going to fail miserably. And solo exams meant I had a whole lot of time to sit around contemplating how screwed I was. Which was very screwed.
The corridor had three other students in, and we all waited in silence, slouched in the seats that had been lined up there for us. All except Madison, who was incapable of keeping her mouth shut for more than thirty seconds, unless it was latched onto someone’s face.
“Well, I’m not worried. My record speaks for itself. Oh, I can understand why you’re nervous though, Jade. I mean, it’s not like you’ve ever managed to really control yourself, is it?”
Mei glared at her, and I probably would have given her a snarky reply – if I didn’t think opening my mouth right now was going to result in me vomiting all over my shoes.
“Leave her alone. It’s nae any of yer business how she gets on.”
I lifted my head to shoot Cam a grateful smile, but he didn’t – wouldn’t – meet my eye. He’d made it clear over the last couple of weeks that we were over, and nothing I said was going to change that. But it still hurt that he didn’t even want to be friends. Worse, it had all been for nothing, because my little trip to the dungeon – my last – hadn’t convinced Laura or Brad in the slightest.
The door opened, and Ryan shuffled out, his dark hair dishevelled. He glanced my way, and two seats along, Cam’s jaw tightened.
“Jade Hart,” a voice called from within. I swallowed and got up. This was it.
“Good luck, lass.”
I glanced Cam’s way as I trudged past him, and he met my eye for a quarter second before looking back to his feet. I nodded my thanks and stepped inside.
“Close the door,” Brendon said, and once I had, he led me into the second chamber.
“This will be a timed exam,” he said, “consisting of three parts. For the first part, you will have two minutes to shift into your wolf form. You may do so from within a cage if you wish, and you may use a privacy curtain if you desire.”
Easy enough. That part was never a problem for me. Brendon shut and bolted the second door, sealing us in the shifting chamber.
“For the second part, you will have five minutes to retrieve that ball.”
I followed the direction of his hand, wh
ere a football on a piece of rope dangled from a metal fixture set into the ceiling. It wasn’t a particularly long rope, no more than two feet, and it was a very high ceiling. Mei’s leopard form might be able to jump up and yank it down – maybe. But I didn’t know any wolf who could jump that high. Certainly not mine.
“You will be marked down if you show any uncontrolled aggression.”
Great. That was me done, then.
“For the final part of the exam, once you have retrieved the ball, or when your five minutes have passed, you will have a further three minutes to resume your human form. Do you understand?”
I nodded. Shift, get the ball, shift back. Maybe find some flying pigs while I was at it.
“Excellent.” He stepped inside one of the cages – which I thought was a pretty smart idea, all things considered, and picked up a clipboard, leaving the door open – which I thought was less of a smart idea, all things considered. My track record for controlling my aggression wasn’t exactly stellar.
I sucked in a breath and put the thought from my mind. The more stressed I was when I shifted, the harder it would be for me to maintain control.
“Are you ready? You may begin.”
I ducked into the nearest empty cage, pulled the screen across, and tossed my clothes aside.
Three more deep breaths, and a mental image of Madison’s smug face – which I’d particularly like to thump right now, and I felt the bones move beneath my flesh as the change came over me. I gritted my teeth as pain speared through my spine, twisting and cracking it. My joints burst out of their sockets and I screamed through clenched teeth, willing the transformation to race through me and be done. My limbs thickened and my nails curved into razor-sharp claws. My jaw lengthened, my ears changed shape, and fur erupted from every inch of exposed skin, with slow, agonising precision. And then, it was over. I was in my true form once more.
A snarl burst from my throat and I stalked out of the cage. I could smell him. He was close. My head turned to the left. There. Sitting in his cage, watching me. And I was going to shred him.
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