Fur 'n' Fang Academy: The Complete Series: A Shifter Academy Adventure

by C. S. Churton

  I got out of the way, found myself an empty corner, and set about changing back into my human form. By the time I was done and hastily yanked on my clothes, Shaun was in the room, and had laid Brendon out flat next to Dean. They both looked in a bad way. A slightly built, pale guy sat in a chair with a blanket wrapped around him, shivering. I clocked the cuff around his wrist, and the gouges in his shoulder from my claws, but paid him no more attention than that.

  “Help’s on its way,” Shaun said, as I dropped to my knees next to Dean. I looked wordlessly down at his blood-soaked body.

  And I hoped help was coming quickly.

  Chapter Eleven

  They wasted no time taking Dean and Brendon to the med wing, but when we tried to follow, we were told in no uncertain terms to go back to our dorms, and not to bother the healer until the following day.

  So on Tuesday morning, we skipped breakfast and made for the med wing. Healer Fenwick, who I’d gotten to know quite well last year after an unfortunate run-in with Brad had resulted in my getting my arse handed to me, took one look at the three of us, and stepped aside.

  “First cubicle on the left. But if you disturb either of my patients, I will have to insist you leave,” he warned us.

  ‘Med wing’ was a generous term for the small room, which consisted of just a handful of beds, two of which were curtained off right now. We slipped inside the first curtain on the left, and found Dean lying back on his pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Hey, Dean,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  He grunted, and tried to sit up.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said. I’d seen his stomach last night, and I don’t care how good the healers and shifter inherent healing is, there was no way he’d recovered from the wound in just a handful of hours.

  “I’m fine,” he said, stubbornly struggling to sit.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit. And yesterday your guts were trying to fall out.”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted again.

  I rolled my eyes, and Cam slipped an arm behind him, easing him upright.

  “If Fenwick comes by, I’m telling him this was your idea,” I said, perching on the edge of his bed.

  “Just Jade the Rebel, scared of one little healer?” he said, but ruined his attempt at nonchalance by gasping in pain halfway through. He held his hand to his stomach, and we all waited for his breathing to return to normal. After a moment, he looked across at me, holding my eye.

  “Shaun told me what you did last night. I’d be dead if you hadn’t shifted.”

  “It was nothing. You’d have done the same for me.”

  He snorted. “Bloody wouldn’t… have.” He pressed his hand to his side again.

  “You really shouldn’t be sitting,” I told him.

  “Prefer the view,” he grunted.

  “How much longer are you stuck here?”

  “Fenwick reckons until tomorrow night. I heard him speaking to Blake yesterday. Brendon is worse. Head injury. A week, at least.”

  Cam whistled. A week was a long time for a shifter to heal, especially when he had the help of a pack healer. Dean’s gut wound would have been fatal in a mundane, but he’d be up and about within forty-eight hours. If the healer thought Brendon needed a week, then he was bad. Life-threatening bad.

  “What happened?” Cam asked.

  “Dunno,” Dean said. “Guess the first year got loose and mauled him. I heard the noise and went to check it out, and Brendon was on the floor with the wolf attacking him. I hit the panic alarm and then he jumped me. I didn’t have time to shift. Probably would have finished the job if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Mei said, “is what he was doing there in the first place.”

  “Extra lesson with Brendon, maybe?” I said. “He did loads of extra sessions with me last year when we started, and I know I wasn’t the only one.”

  “So how did he get out of the cage, then?”

  We all fell silent for a moment, chewing that over. Because there was no way Brendon would have allowed a student to shift without locking him in a cage first. The safety protocols were there for a reason, and when we’d trained with Brendon last year, he’d been beyond anal about it.

  “I, uh, I’m feeling kinda tired,” Dean said, staring down at his hands.

  Abruptly, I felt like crap. Us dragging up the details of what happened was the last thing he needed right now. I got off his bed.

  “We’ll come back and see you this evening,” I said. “And we’ll steal you some decent food from the kitchen.” I knew from personal experience that the food Fenwick served was awful. I had no idea how, since I was pretty sure it came from the same kitchen, but somewhere along the journey from main hall to med wing, it changed from quality food to something a homeless guy might turn his nose up at.

  We grabbed our bags and headed off, stopping in the main hall just in time to grab a quick bite of breakfast before making our way to shifting class.

  We were in a different room to the one the attack had taken place in, for which I was grateful. Brendon generally worked with the first-year shifters, and whilst he’d been our instructor last year, this year we had Kendra – who made Brendon look like a pussycat by comparison.

  We ducked into the room a couple of minutes late, earning ourselves a glare as we dumped our bags.

  “Into your pairs,” Kendra said, giving us a look of stern disapproval. “Let’s not waste any more time.”

  “Sorry, Kendra,” I said. “We were visiting Dean.”

  Her face softened slightly, and she dipped her chin.

  “Try not to make a habit of it. Now, are you well enough to shift?”

  I hadn’t really given it much thought, but now that she mentioned it, every muscle in my body felt stiff and overworked. But I wasn’t going to let her know that. If I was aching from one little scrap with a first year, then that just proved that I needed to train harder and get stronger.

  “I’m fine, Kendra,” I said.

  Cam gave me a sideways glance, catching me in my lie, but I shrugged and he let it go.

  “Today, we will be working on your athleticism in your shifted form,” Kendra said loudly, and the quiet chatter around us died away.

  Cam went off in search of his partner, and I glanced at Mei. I couldn’t help but think she was going to have the edge here, what with her shifted form being a leopard and all. She caught my look and gave me a sly grin as she stretched out her shoulders.

  “I’ll go first, shall I?” she said.

  “Each pair will find a second pair to work with this lesson,” Kendra said. “Ah, Madison, yes, you have no partner, do you?”

  “No, Kendra,” she said, and then continued in a small voice that I didn’t believe in the slightest, “I don’t feel up to shifting today, I need to be with Dean. May I be excused?”

  Kendra nodded, and Madison grabbed her bag and darted out of the room.

  “Didn’t notice her so desperate to see him this morning,” I said to Mei, from the corner of my mouth. She gave me a reproachful look, and I felt a tingle of guilt. Tiffany had said her and Dean had a fight last night. I bet she was feeling all kinds of guilty – if they’d made it up, he’d never have been down there alone. No wonder she hadn’t been able to face him. I guess being in here made it all real. I resolved to try to cut her some slack. I mean, she was still a bitch, but a bitch who cared about my friend, and that bought her some credit. Not much, but some.

  We grabbed Cam and his partner, who turned out to be Leo. I eyeballed him coldly.

  “What happened to you yesterday?”

  “Huh?”

  “Library?” I said. “Working on the case?”

  “Oh. Uh, I got held up, and then there was the lock down. How’s Dean, by the way?”

  “Recovering,” I said. “Fenwick reckons he should be out by tomorrow night.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.”<
br />
  I cocked my head at him.

  “I didn’t think you knew him well.”

  “I don’t. But things are bad enough round here without students being killed.”

  “What do you mean?” Mei asked. Leo shrugged.

  “Just what I heard – some people think Blake shouldn’t be running this place. And they think Alpha Draeven is losing control. That maybe someone else would be better suited to the job.”

  That was what James – Cam’s intruder – had said. The stuff about Draeven, at least.

  “Not that you’d care, right?” I said. “I mean, Draeven was going to have you killed for something you didn’t do.”

  Leo opened his mouth to answer, but Kendra cut across him.

  “Enough chatter! I trust you are all in groups? Good. Now, two groups will be working at once.” She pulled out a few strips of cloth, and tossed two of them in our direction, and another two to another group. “One person from each pair will shift, and your partner will tie a rag to your tail. When I say, the two with rags tied to their tails will attempt to remove the other person’s rag, without losing their own. Your partners will take notes.”

  I grinned at Cam.

  “You and me?”

  “Bring it, lassie.”

  “If you don’t mind,” I said hastily to Mei. Usually, she went first – a habit from last year, when she’d offered to go first during our first shifts so I could watch how it was done.

  “Fine with me,” she said, grabbing a clipboard.

  Everyone who wasn’t working cleared back, and I ducked inside a cage to shift. Mei pulled a privacy curtain across, though by this stage I’d probably flashed most people in this room at one stage or another, and I didn’t think any of us really cared anymore.

  After a moment – my shifts really were getting faster now – I stepped out of the cage and Mei held up the strip of cloth. I stood still while she tied it round the base of my tail, just tight enough that it wouldn’t fall off by itself, without being so tight that it would cut off the circulation.

  Cam emerged at about the same time, and Leo tied the cloth to his tail.

  “When you are ready,” Kendra said, “you may begin.”

  Me and Cam circled each other warily. I’d seen him fight, and I knew he was fast and powerful. But like the first-year shifter I’d fought last night, he didn’t have my natural grace. It would be a battle of brawn against agility. And guile.

  I feigned left, and he pivoted to meet me face to face, but I’d already doubled back. The rag flashed tantalisingly inches beyond my reach and I lunged forward, but Cam saw through my plan and moved just in time, leaving my teeth to close on empty air. He barked a sound that was undoubtedly a laugh, and I did my best to roll my eyes at him, which wasn’t easy in this form. Wolf eyes were not made for rolling.

  I know, because I was so busy trying to sass him that I almost missed it when he broke off from circling and lunged at me. He covered the ground in a split second, and I could tell in a heartbeat that he was on target. He was going to get the rag, and I was never going to live it down. Yeah, I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  I threw myself low, right beneath his legs. I felt his hind claws graze my ears and I rolled, my shoulder hitting the ground hard and skidding. As I skidded between his rear legs, I opened my mouth and snatched hold of his rag, gripping it tight as the force of my dive carried me clear of him – with the rag in my mouth.

  There was absolute silence for a dozen heartbeats, and then I heard a single pair of hands clapping. I rolled myself upright and onto my feet, and saw Kendra with her hands together.

  “Impressive, Jade. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular move before.”

  I opened my mouth in a grin, letting the rag hang from one side, whilst waggling my backside at Cam. I looked back over my shoulder in time to discover that he was much better at rolling his wolf eyes than I was.

  I ducked into a cage and shifted back, and came back out in time to see the last of two pairs facing off against each other. One was Kelly, in her wolf form, and the other Kai, in his iguana form. At first glance it seemed like the wolf had every advantage – long legs, agile, fast, powerful. She seemed to think so, too, as she circled Kai was a casual disdain. The iguana leapt up onto the wall, raced up it faster than I would have believed possible, and onto the ceiling, and, while Kelly was still staring at him with a puzzled look on her face, dropped onto her back and then to the floor, her rag hanging from one green claw.

  “Good,” Kendra said as the pair broke apart, Kelly still scowling at Kai. “Never make assumptions about your rival based on their size or species. Each has their own unique qualities they can use to their advantage. Ignore them at your own peril.”

  Leo and Mei paired up next, wolf against leopard, dog against cat, and I could make plenty of assumptions about how this was going to end. Leo had a cocky swagger to his step, all brute strength, while Mei was all feline grace and effortless movement.

  I leaned back against a cage next to Cam, and he ducked his head down to my ear.

  “Keep waggling that arse at me, lassie, and I’m going tae go caveman on ye.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  I watched from the corner of my eye as Mei jumped clean over Leo, and landed neatly on his far side, missing his rag by inches.

  “Do ye think Leo is acting weird?” Cam asked in a low voice, not taking his eyes from the pair.

  “I think he’s acting like a leopard is trying to remove his tail.”

  “Nae, I mean–” He broke off as the pair broke apart, and then started circling again. “Why does he care about Alpha Draeven’s reputation? He’s got more reason than anyone to want the man out.”

  “I thought the same,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Do you think he’s bluffing? Wait, you don’t think he could have had something to do with that first year busting out last night, do you?”

  “I dunno, lass. But he didnae show up for our study session, so where was he?”

  That, I thought, as I turned my eyes back to the black wolf, was a very good question.

  Chapter Twelve

  Things went back to normal over the following weeks – so much as life at Fur ‘n’ Fang could ever be considered normal. Dean got out of the hospital wing, and Brendon, too, a few days later, and by the time Halloween came around, the incident was all but forgotten.

  Cam’s words to me about Leo stayed at the back of my mind, but he didn’t skip any other study sessions, or do anything else even remotely suspicious. And I should know – I’d been watching him like a hawk ever since that day. If he’d been involved in what happened, he never gave any hint about it, and motive alone wasn’t enough to condemn someone.

  Not that we even knew for sure that the first-year’s escape had been deliberate. Speculation ran rife, but the instructors refused to speak about it, and in time even that died away, as the rest of the students focused on their studies, and more importantly, the coming party.

  The annual Halloween party was a tradition here at Fur ‘n’ Fang. Made sense, I guessed, for a bunch of shifters – we were the things kids dressed up as when they went trick or treating.

  And that was the reason I found myself headed in search of Underwood at dinnertime, instead of filling my face in the main hall. I had a session scheduled with him tonight, and honestly, I’d just been planning on ditching it, until I remembered how much trouble I’d been in last time I did that. I figured it was one of those, ‘it’s better to ask permission than forgiveness’ situations. I was sure he’d be fine with it – he probably wanted a night off from my lessons as much as I did. It couldn’t be a whole lot of fun watching me fail to master the basics of magic.

  I wasn’t fully sure where he’d be, but I knew he usually portaled in around dinnertime, so as to reduce the number of people who might see him moving around the academy. Thanks to the wards placed all around Fur ‘n’ Fang, he could only portal into the grounds, not the castle itself, whi
ch presumably made it hard to avoid attracting attention. It made sense, as far as I was concerned, that he’d make straight for the dungeon, rather than go somewhere else, then have to move around again. I mean, he probably just used one of his fancy druid spells that I couldn’t pull off to avoid anyone noticing him, but no sense in taking the extra risk, right?

  So I told Cam to save me some food – because I was planning to get hammered enough tonight that I needed to worry about lining my stomach – and headed through the empty corridors until the dungeon’s door loomed ahead. As I got close, I could make out the quiet hum of voices, and I slowed instinctively, silencing my footsteps. There’d never been anyone else down here on my lessons, just me and Underwood.

  “It’s an insult,” one of the voices hissed. I cocked my head, listening more closely. That was Leo’s voice – but what was he doing down here, and how did he even know Underwood?

  “It’s a necessity,” Underwood said, his voice even.

  “I didn’t need it at Dragondale, and I don’t need it here.”

  Right, of course. They must’ve crossed paths at the druid academy – Leo spent the best part of a year there, after all. And they both knew Kelsey. I crept closer until I was only inches from the door, straining to pick up the rest of the conversation.

  “You must abide by the rules of the academy,” Underwood said.

  “I don’t belong here anymore.”

  “Draeven made his decision. Your time at Dragondale doesn’t count towards your formal education. You must complete three years here. I’m sorry. I asked Professor Talendale to intercede on your behalf, but relations are strained between druids and shifters at the best of times. And Draeven has other things on his mind.”

  “It’s true, then?” Leo said, his voice so quiet I could only just hear it through the thick wood.

  “Yes. Braeseth Academy has fallen. Dragondale is hosting a number of its students, despite none of them being druids. Head Councilman Cauldwell has decreed that the Four Nations Cup will go ahead, as a distraction, which is madness… but that’s another story. Either way, Professor Talendale is too tied up to push your case with Draeven, even if he had the sway.”