I groaned and slumped my head onto the desk.
“You know I’m barely keeping up as it is, right?”
“I have already spoken to Alpha Blake. This is to take precedence over your other lessons.”
I lifted my head and opened my mouth, but before I could get any words out, he continued,
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not expected to keep your grades up and pass your end-of-year exams, so don’t go getting any ideas.”
I snapped my jaw shut again. Just great. What he meant was that he and Blake thought I should bust my arse and make my extra lessons a priority, without dropping the ball in my other subjects. Or to put it another way, spend every waking moment studying. But it was Blake’s academy, and his word was law. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.
“Who’ll be teaching me? I mean, no-one else here can do magic, right?” I cocked my head as I asked the question, and he shook his in reply.
“No. Alpha Blake has brought someone in specially. He’s from Dragondale.”
“Dragondale? The druid academy?”
“Yes. He’s an instructor there. Or professors, as they call them.”
“Of course they do. Wait. I thought only shifters were allowed in Fur ‘n’ Fang.”
“They are. Your new instructor, he’s a halfbreed.” Shaun couldn’t quite stop his mouth from curling around the word in distaste, like it was something dirty. And given my experience of halfbreeds, I was inclined to agree. Anyone who made me look stable was in trouble.
“And they let him teach? And you’re going to let him teach me?”
I rose to my feet and started pacing. Bad enough that I was infected with this strange magic. But to have someone from the druid academy – a halfbreed, no less, probably a friend of the one who bit me and cursed me to this life – was a damned insult. I paused long enough in my pacing to glare at Shaun.
“Are you sure I can’t just bury my magic?”
Shaun let me pace for a while, watching me in silence from behind his desk. We’d done this often enough. Eventually, I stopped pacing. There wasn’t any point. They’d thrown worse than this at me. I’d get through it.
“Any more bad news?” I asked.
Shaun grimaced.
“You might want to sit down,” he said.
I eyeballed him but dropped back into my seat.
“I’m sitting. Hit me with it.”
“You remember Leo?”
I snorted. It wasn’t like I’d be forgetting the name any time soon. I spent half of last year thinking he was the one who’d bitten me. And he’d spent half of last year locked in a cell at Dragondale before they realised it wasn’t him. Then he’d spent the rest of the year hanging out with the halfbreed who was responsible.
“He’s rejoining Fur ‘n’ Fang. Since he didn’t attend last year, he’s being held back. He’ll be in your year.”
Chapter Four
Forewarned is forearmed, and all that crap, right? I didn’t feel particularly forearmed when we headed to meditation the following morning. Every day started the same at Fur ‘n’ Fang – an hour’s meditation out by the lake, and then breakfast. The new batch of first years were taking their meditation deadly serious, the second years less so, and half of the third years hadn’t bothered to show, but then it wasn’t compulsory for them.
Me, I actually found the classes pretty useful, but then I’d been infected with a second-generation rage curse to which there was no known cure, and frankly anything that helped me keep it under control was worth an hour of my time.
Me, Cam, Dean, and Mei grabbed a spot near the back. I hadn’t seen Madison yet this morning, but she was bound to show, like an ant at a picnic.
“How’s your shoulder this morning?” Mei asked.
“Like it never happened,” I said, flexing my arm.
“What did happen?” Dean asked.
I shared a look with Cam, which didn’t go unnoticed by the others.
“Oh, now you have to tell me,” Dean said. “Wait, unless it involves you two and a bed.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Pack business,” Cam said.
“What sort of pack business?” Mei asked, her eyes glittering with excitement, or maybe the scent of gossip. As a leopard shifter, she had no pack, and pack life was even more of a mystery to her than it was to me, at least after my summer break.
I trusted Mei and Dean, but it wasn’t my pack. I caught Cam’s eye again and he shrugged. That was all the green light I needed. I ducked my head closer to them and lowered my voice.
“There was a trespasser. He deserted his pack and they tried to hunt him down on Lachlan’s lands.” I grinned. “Me and Cam shifted and defended the rest of the pack.”
“You shifted?”
“And fought? You’re badass, Just Jade.”
“But it is forbidden to shift outside of the academy until you graduate,” Mei said, with a glance over her shoulder, but there was no-one in earshot.
“I know. So, keep it to yourselves.”
“Why did he desert his pack?” Dean asked.
“He says they had some crazy idea about overthrowing Draeven. Can you even imagine?”
I laughed, because I couldn’t imagine. I’d met Draeven a couple of times last year, and the guy scared the hell out of me. He took dominance to a whole new level. I couldn’t even lift my eyes higher than his knees if he didn’t want me to. How could you fight someone you couldn’t look at?
I realised I was the only one laughing.
“What?” I looked from Mei to Dean and back again. “What am I missing?”
“Overthrow Draeven?” Mei said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “That’s treason. Punishable by death. Worse, it would destabilise the entire shifter community.”
“Well, yeah, but it’d never happen. Anyway, I don’t see what the big deal is. One Alpha of Alphas is the same as another, right?”
“Wrong,” Mei said. “Draeven is tolerant by shifter standards. Have you ever wondered why there are so few non-wolf shifters? It’s because his predecessors hunted us to near extinction!”
“Mei, I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
Her face was pale and she looked utterly horrified. And I was starting to get why. I’d thought Draeven was a bit of a dick when I met him. I hadn’t imagined the guy he’d replaced might have been worse.
“I heard… rumours,” Mei said. “From a few other non-wolves my father knows. He says there’s been rumblings from the packs. They are unhappy with how Draeven handled your… situation.”
Before I could ask her what she meant by that, we were interrupted by Isabella, our meditation instructor, taking up her place at the front of the gathered students.
“Welcome, everyone,” she said. “And thank you all for arriving promptly. I’m pleased to see so many third years joining us. Now, settle yourselves, please. We will get started. There will be no more talking until we finish. Please close your eyes.”
Isabella’s melodious voice talked us through a calming meditation, and by the time we finished and went to breakfast, our conversation about Draeven was the furthest thing from my mind. Well, okay, everything that wasn’t Mickey’s famous Full English with extra bacon, extra sausages and extra eggs was the furthest thing from my mind. Eating was serious business – shifting burned a lot of calories, and we had three hours of shifting practice every day. Not to mention the daily hour of fitness training, and twice weekly combat sessions. Lucky for me, they were easing us back in gently today – we were starting with Law, my very favourite subject, followed by Tracking.
Law at Fur ‘n’ Fang was very different to the law that I’d planned to study at UCL before the halfbreed had bitten me, but it was still law, and still a hundred times better than Combat class.
The four of us grabbed some seats, and we’d barely set our bags down when Madison came in, trailing Tiffany and Victoria in her wake. She took one look around the room and made straight for the seats in front of us.
Just great.
“Hi Dean,” she simpered, ignoring the rest of us.
That was standard – I was an illegally created Bitten, Mei wasn’t even a wolf, and Cam just wasn’t well bred enough to warrant her attention. Which was fine by me. The less she paid attention to me, the happier I was. I wondered idly if I stuck chewing gum in her hair, would she take the hint and sit somewhere else? I mean, just because her pack and Dean’s pack wanted them to get together, did she have to show up everywhere he went like a bad smell? She really needed to get some self-respect. She’d had no trouble dumping him the year before last, and she’d only shown an interest again when Dean got assigned a room with me at the start of last year. Maybe she thought that she was saving him from the attentions of a cur.
I snuck a peek at Cam’s chiselled jaw. She didn’t need to worry on that front. I was plenty happy with what I had.
The door opened again, catching my eye, and another figure walked in, wearing the standard Fur ‘n’ Fang uniform of black cargo trousers and t-shirt, with a hoodie hanging from one hand, and a bag slung over the other shoulder. He was tall – a little over six foot, with short dark cropped hair, and wiry muscle covering his lean frame. I didn’t recognise him, and I knew everyone in our class. Except for one person.
Leo.
Cam caught the direction of my gaze, and we both watched the newcomer as he crossed the room and took a seat near the back, alone. Must’ve been hard, coming back here and not knowing anyone in his new year group. And it sucked he’d spent half of last year locked up for something he didn’t do. Then again, he’d made pretty good friends with the halfbreed who had done it. I set my jaw and jerked my head forward. I wasn’t interested in having anything to do with him.
Madison snorted with derision, and trilled loudly enough for half the room to hear, “I can’t believe they’re letting criminals into Fur ‘n’ Fang now.”
Leo’s head whipped round, and he stared at her across the room. Then his eyes moved an inch, and he was staring at me, instead. I stared right back. So what if he wasn’t the one who’d bitten me? He was guilty by association, and the fact the halfbreed had escaped justice was an insult. And him being here, rubbing my nose in it, was a damned joke.
He jerked his eyes away and looked at something at the front of the room. Exhaling slowly, I twisted back round and saw Instructor Taylor – Lewis – standing behind his desk.
“Good morning, everyone. I trust you’re all well and rested after your break, and ready to tackle this year’s challenges?”
I noticed that several faces in the room were less enthusiastic than mine – most of them, actually.
“Excellent,” Lewis said, after several people had grunted some sort of assent. “Now, since you all successfully passed your year one law exams, I’ll assume that you have a handle on the basics. This semester, we’re going to be diving a little deeper.”
He turned and wrote a single word on the board behind him.
“Trials. Now, these are quite rare, since by the time an enforcer has apprehended a criminal, their guilt has already been proved, and it’s usually a matter of passing the sentence. But every shifter has the right to request a trial, and their request must be honoured. So, knowing this, someone tell me, why are they not commonplace?”
“They piss Alpha Draeven off,” Aaron called out from the other side of the room. Lewis laughed and nodded.
“Very eloquent. But essentially correct. The Alpha of Alphas is required to sit in on any trial, and pass judgement, and Alpha Draeven, like all alphas, does not take kindly to having his time wasted. As such, someone found guilty at a trial is likely to face a much harsher sentence than had they admitted their guilt.”
I shifted a little in my seat. That wasn’t the way the law was supposed to work. At least, not the law that I’d grown up knowing.
“Nonetheless, I fully intend for each of you to leave here with a full understanding of our legal system, so we will be holding a number of mock trials. You will take turns to defend or prosecute a suspect, and I will play the part of the Alpha of Alphas. This will contribute towards your final grade for this year. I’ll award marks for a successful prosecution or defence, and also for a well-researched and delivered argument, so I expect you to research your case outside of your lessons.”
A low chatter started up around the room – I wasn’t the only one who was looking forward to things stepping up this semester. An actual trial. This was going to be great.
“You’ll work in small groups, and each pair of groups will work on a different ‘case’. So, who wants to prosecute our first case?”
“I will, Lewis,” Madison said, standing up and tossing her hair. “After all, I have the blood of an alpha.”
“Not all prosecutors are alpha blood,” Lewis said, “but very well. It’s yours. And a defender?”
A chance to one-up Madison in my favourite subject? The words were out of my mouth before I even had chance to think about it.
“Me.” I stood up and shot Madison a look. Her eyes tightened and I knew what she was thinking: if she got beaten by an outsider, one who hadn’t even grown up in her world, she’d never live it down. Cool.
“Excellent,” Lewis said. “You’ll both have a team of three to back you up and help with research. All of you will get the same grade, so choose carefully. Madison, since you’re prosecuting, you can choose first.”
“I choose Tiffany and Victoria,” she said, and then locked eyes with me and smiled. “And Dean.”
My jaw popped open, and so did Dean’s. Crap. I should have known she’d use it as an excuse to pit him against us.
Lewis nodded. “And Jade?”
“Uh, Mei, Cam and…” I glanced around. Madison swiping Dean out from under me left me with a spot on my team. The others had started to accept me, but there were still plenty who wouldn’t thank me for choosing them. “Leo.”
He jerked his eyes up to meet mine, and I shrugged.
“Are ye sure?” Cam said under his breath.
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure why I’d chosen him. And I wasn’t sure it was a great idea. But it was done.
“Assuming you’re up for it?” I said, cocking one eyebrow at the rogue shifter. A slow smile spread over his face without reaching his eyes, and he dipped his chin.
“Oh, good,” Madison said, her voice maliciously delighted. “A whole group of outcasts.”
“We shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for you then, should we?” I said.
“Count on it.”
Chapter Five
I was exhausted and in a foul mood by the time we finished three hours of shifting practice, followed by an hour of physical fitness – taken by Fletcher today, who seemed to be on some sort of personal mission to prove to us that we’d all lost our fitness over the summer break.
My mood hadn’t improved much by the time I’d showered and eaten, and dragged myself through the deserted corridors that led to the dungeon for my magic lessons. I mean, the dungeon. Like the place didn’t have enough bad memories for me – and Blake knew it. He probably set the lessons here just to make a point. I didn’t know what the point was supposed to be, but I was pissed off about it. There were dozens – literally dozens – of rooms that would be empty this time in the evening. We could have used one of them, instead of being hidden in the underground dungeons like some dirty secret.
The dungeons were fairly isolated, and usually the only people you saw this way were the ones who’d taken a wrong turn – or first years who’d been pranked by some of the older students, like I had last year. When I saw a figure up ahead in Fur ‘n’ Fang’s dark uniform, that’s what I assumed had happened. Until I realised who it was.
“Hi, Jade,” Leo said. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for earlier. I appreciate you including me. No hard feelings?”
He held out his hand, and I glared at it.
“No hard feelings? You’ve got to be joking. And don’t bother reading anything into me pic
king you. You’re just the only one who wouldn’t complain about being chosen by the Bitten.”
Leo thrust his hand back into his pocket.
“What’s your problem?” he asked. “I spent months locked in a cage, and then working off my ‘debt’ to the druid academy, and I got over it. I didn’t even do anything to you.”
“You’re friends with her, right?”
He knew who I was talking about. He didn’t bother to deny it, so I barged past him with a shake of my head. The gall of him. Like I had to explain how I felt, and to him of all people. I didn’t owe him an explanation. I didn’t owe him a damned thing.
I stalked round the last corner and barged my way into the dungeon. A flight of stone steps led down into a narrow corridor, and the first door on the left was open. I paused in the doorway, my heart thudding painfully. That was the room I’d been locked in until I accepted what had happened to me. It was the room they dragged me back to after I tried to climb the academy’s walls, and threatened to lock me in permanently until I accepted that, untrained, I was a risk to the mundane population. To the people I cared about. That was the room where I’d been forced to confront what I’d become.
“You must be Jade. Please, come in.”
I started, and then fixed my eyes on the lone figure within. He wasn’t a particularly large man, and his posture was unassuming. His hair was short and dark and had a handful of grey strands. I’d have put him somewhere in his forties, but he was a shifter, so I could easily be out by a couple of decades. Part shifter, I corrected myself. A halfbreed.
I crossed the threshold, casting a look around me as I did. Last time I’d been here, there’d been just a cage, and a single wooden stool outside it. Someone had been busy since then, and now there was a desk off to one side – though how they’d managed to get it down the stairs and through the narrow doorway was beyond me – and a couple of chairs, one of which had a cloak of sorts draped over the back of it. On the desk was a jug of water and a couple of glasses, a candle, a pile of sand, and what looked like a pot of soil – but I couldn’t see it clearly from this distance. I sniffed as I took another step into the room. Yeah, definitely soil.
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