“I know ye have a tendency to skip Cultural Studies, lass, but don’t ye think ye should make more of an effort, with the exams coming?”
“Funny.” I pulled a face at him and shifted my gaze to Mei in the hopes of getting a serious answer.
“The druid academies each sit on top of a centre of primal power, one for each of the elements – earth, air, fire and water. The druids draw a lot of their power from them. If two academies have fallen, they’ve already lost access to half of them. And if the other two fall, they’ll be weakened. But that power has to go somewhere. Whoever is cursing them is almost certainly siphoning it off for themselves. Alpha Draeven can’t allow any one person to have that much power.”
“Then surely it makes more sense for him to help the druids.”
“Aye, if he wants tae lose what respect the pack have left for him. Using shifter lives tae protect druids?” Cam shook his head, like it was the hardest thing for him to imagine, and truth be told, I could see where he was coming from. I was in no hurry to throw my life down for a bunch of druids. They kinda seemed like dicks.
“He would take control of the other sites,” Mei said, “and prevent them from becoming corrupted. At least, that’s what I would do.”
I eyeballed her and made a note never to cross my friend.
“Yer right about one thing, lass,” Cam said. “If any more of those academies fall, we’re going tae have bigger problems than a few malfunctioning cuffs.”
Chapter Twenty
We discussed it endlessly for the next couple of weeks, but nothing ever seemed to come of Draeven’s threats. Maybe the druids had gotten their shit together, after all. Underwood refused to speak to me about it, and even Leo denied knowing a thing – though he seemed to grow quieter and more withdrawn every day. Still, there was no more talk of war, and then as January drew to a close, we had other concerns.
Exams were looming in just a few short months, and no-one wanted to risk failing and being held back. There was no flunking out of Fur ‘n’ Fang – I was stuck here until I could control my shifting power and exist within shifter society without posing a threat to the mundane population. And since I didn’t want to spend the next twenty years repeating the same classes over and over in my very own Sisyphean torment, I hit the books hard, and tried to get in as much practice at the practical stuff as possible.
“What are you guys doing this evening?” I asked Mei and Cam on the last Sunday of the month as we finished up dinner. It was just the three of us, but that was becoming more and more common. Dean and Madison were spending most of their time together, seemed like things were getting serious. And no matter what I thought of the bimbo, Dean clearly had it bad for her. She made him happy, which was worth something in my books. I was still pretty sure she only wanted him for his position as an alpha’s eldest child, but then his pack had encouraged him to take an interest in Madison for the same reason. I’d given up trying to argue ridiculous shifter politics. I wasn’t about to waltz in and change something that had been going on for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years. It didn’t mean I had to like it, though. When I’d spoken to Mei about it, she’d felt the same way. But then I guess we were both outcasts – me as a Bitten cur, and her as a leopard shifter. But the more I watched her watching him, the more I suspected there might have been more to it than that. Shifter politics sucked.
Glancing round, I couldn’t see him in the hall, although I did spot Madison with Tiffany and Victoria. Weird. She liked to be joined at the hip whenever they were outside lessons – part of the plan to stake her claim for when they left the academy, I supposed.
“Thought the three of us might head into town,” Cam said, drawing my attention back to my question. “Couple o’ drinks at The Wolf and Sheep?”
I’d been going to suggest we hit the library and try to find some way not to flunk history, but frankly Cam’s suggestion sounded like a whole lot more fun. And Mei could use some cheering up. I looked over at her, picking at the edges of her burger.
“I’ll pass, thanks,” she said, not looking up. I toyed with trying to convince her, but what she needed was a distraction. And we could just as easily do that here. I smiled brightly. I had a better idea than The Wolf and Sheep.
“Me, too. Actually, I was hoping you two might want to head out to the woods and get some tracking practice.”
Tracking was Mei’s favourite subject. She’d been the one who’d helped me get to grip with tracking last year, back when I couldn’t have told a wolf from a pony, let alone tell you which way it had gone. She’d have had a bright future working for the enforcers – you know, if they weren’t too bigoted to hire anyone who wasn’t a wolf.
“I don’t know,” she said, still picking half-heartedly at her food. “I guess.”
“Good enough for me,” I said, before she could change her mind, and shot an apologetic look at Cam. He shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin. Mei was his friend, too. And we could always head into town next weekend.
“Aye, suppose we’d best make sure Jade doesn’t fail tracking and get held back. Came close enough last year.”
The look I was giving him became a whole lot less apologetic, but I stopped short of sticking my tongue out at him, because I was an adult. I stamped on his foot under the table, instead.
“It’s settled, then. And next week, we’ll work out how to stop Cam flunking Law.”
That drew a smile from Mei, and when we finished our food, we grabbed our hoodies and headed outside. We weren’t allowed to track in our shifted forms without an instructor being present – it was too easy for tracking to spill over into hunting, and no-one needed that – so we’d have to make do in our human forms. Not that it mattered – my sense of smell was still a hundred times better than an ordinary human. Sadly, since I hadn’t been born this way, and wasn’t all that keen on embracing the honour student lifestyle, I didn’t always correctly interpret what it was telling me. Last year, the exam had been brutal, and I’d only scraped a pass thanks to my magic kicking in. I couldn’t help but feel that this year, Blake would find some way of stripping me of my unfair advantage, which seemed… unfair. I didn’t much like my chances of passing without it.
It was nearly February, so it was cold, and it was dark, but at least it wasn’t raining. It wasn’t windy, either – pretty much perfect conditions for tracking, discounting the distraction of wondering whether my shifter healing extended to frostbite.
“You lay a trail first,” I said to Cam, because I really did need the practice, and I didn’t want to send Mei off by herself – not because I didn’t think she could take care of herself, she was more than capable of that, but because I was hoping she might finally open up about what was bothering her while we tracked.
Cam nodded and leaned in for a kiss that lasted until I slapped his wandering hands away and shoved him towards the treeline with a grin that promised we’d pick that back up later.
“Get running, pretty boy.”
He laughed and took off through the trees at an easy lope. I narrowed my eyes. He had a long stride, but he was making a point of lengthening it – leaving less scent on the ground for me to follow. Sneaky bugger.
“How long do you think we should let Bambi run?” I asked Mei.
“Two minutes should make sure we’re out of hearing range,” she said. Guess it defeated the object of the exercise if I could track him by sound. I nodded and kept my eyes on the treeline.
“Look, I don’t mean to pry…” I flicked a glance at her to see she was busy avoiding my eye. “We’re just worried about you, Mei.”
“It’s not me you should worry about.”
I cocked my head, and she elaborated.
“We’ve all got bigger concerns.”
“The war?”
“My family has lost so much already.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and when she met my eye, hers were wide with worry. “We’re dispensable, as far as the wolf population is concerned. We’ll be the
first they send in to fight.”
“Mei…” I shook my head, horrified. “They couldn’t, surely?”
“It’s happened before,” she said. “We’re second-class citizens. Cannon fodder. If our kind dies, no-one will care. It just means Alpha Draeven has one less thing to worry about.”
“I’d care. Cam would care. There are people here who care about you, Mei, no matter what animal you turn into. I mean, can you even hear how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Too bad no-one in power feels that way.” She stared out to the treeline again. “It’s been happening for hundreds of years. If there’s something dangerous, they send someone who isn’t a wolf first.”
“That’s not fair!”
She gave a bitter laugh.
“Fair? Aren’t you a little old to believe in fair?”
I took hold of her arms and turned her to face me.
“I will never stop believing in fair, and I will never stop fighting for it.”
She gave me a weak smile.
“Too bad you’re an outcast, too.”
“Yeah. Oh well, at least you’ll have company on the front line.”
A laugh slipped out from between her lips, and a half-smile settled onto them.
“Come on,” she said. “You should get tracking if you want to catch him.”
I started for the treeline, then stopped again, frowning.
“Hey, is that Leo?”
Mei followed the direction of my nod, glancing at the lone figure heading in our direction. Her nostrils flared once, and she nodded.
“Yeah. What’s he doing out here?”
“Good question.” Loathe as I was to give Cam more of a head start than necessary – I’d never live it down if I couldn’t find his scent – curiosity got the better of me, and I hung back, waiting for Leo to reach us.
“Hey, Leo, what’s up?”
And something was definitely up. Even the shadows falling across his face couldn’t quite hide the agitation etched into it.
“I heard you were out here. We need to talk.”
“I’m listening.”
He glanced at Mei, seemed to weigh something, and then nodded.
“Does she know?” he demanded. “About you? The lessons?”
I nodded. “You can say whatever you need to in front of Mei. I trust her with my life.”
“I overheard Blake talking in his office.”
“What were you doing listening outside his office?”
“Aren’t we past this yet?” Leo snapped. I held my hands up.
“Sorry, just wondering. Carry on.”
Leo thrust his hands inside his pockets and nodded.
“Alpha Draeven has someone keeping tabs on the druid academies. Another one fell today.”
“Shit.”
Beside me, Mei paled in the moonlight. We all knew what that meant. The druids’ mysterious enemy – the one who might be the same Raphael who hit Kelsey with the rage spell and ruined my life – was one step closer to taking control. And we were one step closer to war.
“What do we do?” I said. “What can we do?”
“I need you to open me a portal,” Leo said. I stared at him for a long moment, waiting for the punchline.
“You’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. I need to get to Kelsey. Dragondale could be next, and I need to protect her.”
“Leo, I can’t do that! I mean, even if I wanted to, I can’t create a stable portal. That takes months of training, and I’ve only been learning it for a few weeks.”
“You’ve got to try!”
“No.” I stepped back and eyed him up and down. “I’ve never managed to open a stable portal. And definitely not one to a druid academy I’ve never even been to.”
His shoulders slumped.
“Look,” I said. “Let’s go and find Cam, then all of us will to Blake, okay? I mean, you stayed at Dragondale last year as a liaison, right? Maybe he’ll let you liaise now.”
It was a long shot, especially if we were about to go to war, but Leo was desperate, and he accepted it.
“And if he won’t, you’ll try to open a portal?”
“Yes. Fine. I’ll try. But we need to find Cam.”
I didn’t like the idea of him being alone in the woods if all hell was about to break loose. Because if war really was coming to Fur ‘n’ Fang, then none of us were safe.
“Mei, you’d best track him,” I said. “It’ll take me too long.”
She nodded and set off at a jog, following the twists and turns of Cam’s trail as easily as if he’d drawn her a map. At one stage, she jumped up into the trees and followed his scent from branch to branch while we followed her from the ground below. Cam really had pulled out all the stops. It would have taken me forever to follow his trail. I was glad I’d asked Mei to take point. We didn’t have time to be blundering around in the woods, and if the frown getting deeper in Leo’s forehead by the minute was anything to go by, he agreed.
It was less than ten minutes later that we found ourselves in the heart of the woods, and even I could pick up Cam’s scent effortlessly.
“Cam!” I shouted. Mei shot me a look, and I shrugged. It wasn’t like the exercise mattered anymore. “Cam, we’ve got a problem. Where are you?”
I heard a rustling from my right and then the leaves of a bush parted, revealing Cam with a goofy grin on his face.
“Admit it, lass,” he said. “Ye couldnae…”
His eyes fixed on Leo and he trailed off, then jerked his gaze back to me.
“What’s going on?”
“Another academy has fallen.”
His face became serious in a heartbeat.
“Let’s get back inside. Now.”
I nodded. He wasn’t going to get any argument from me.
“Jade, the portal,” Leo started. I rounded on him.
“Later! And only if Blake won’t help.”
“Help with what?” Cam asked, already pushing his way through the trees. I fell in next to him.
“Leo wants to get to Dragondale. In case they’re next. Or if the war begins.”
Cam’s step faltered.
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered in his ear, hopefully too quietly for Leo to hear. “Doesn’t exactly look good.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” Leo snapped, pushing past us. Crap. “I need to get to Kelsey, and I’m sick of having my loyalty questioned.”
He spun round and glared at us.
“I have never done a single thing wrong. I saved your damned life the night you were bitten, and it almost cost me mine. And I’m still loyal to Draeven.”
“What do you mean, you saved my life?”
“For fuck’s sake, Jade, how naïve are you?”
“Hey, dinnae talk t’ her like that,” Cam said, but I put a hand on his arm. Leo continued.
“How do you think I got those silver wounds? One of the enforcers got hold of me, about two miles from your farm. They followed me there – right after I came across you being attacked, and got Kelsey off you.”
“I… I don’t…” I shook my head. Most of that night was a blur. All I remembered was a huge wolf attacking me and trying to drag me away to finish me off, and me being terrified, and then another wolf arrived – one of the enforcers – and got the wolf off me, and chased it away, followed by the rest of the enforcers.
“It wasn’t an enforcer,” I said flatly. “You got her off me.”
“Yeah, I did. And it cost me everything – my freedom, my pack, damned near my life. But you know what? I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, because that is the duty of a shifter, and I have never flinched away from that.”
“Wait. You knew about her? Before that night?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I just smelled another wolf and came to check it out. Her scent was disguised with magic. I didn’t know it was her until Raphael tried to use her to kill her best friend last summer.”
I let that swim around my head for a mome
nt.
“That Raphael’s a real dick, huh?”
“It’s catching.”
I nodded. That was fair. “I’m sorry. I was out of order. I know what it’s like to have people question your loyalty.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
He turned round and started moving through the trees again.
“Hey, Leo?” I called. He turned back. “Thanks. For saving my life.”
I thought I saw a flicker of a smile on his face before he turned away again. We moved in silence after that, each of us on high alert for anything that shouldn’t be here. The woods had never felt unsafe before. I guess Underwood was right – there really is nothing shifters hate more than uncertainty. The whole situation had me on edge, and I clearly wasn’t the only one. For the first time, I started to appreciate just how hard Draeven’s precarious position must be on him. It didn’t mean I liked the guy any better, but at least I understood.
“Stop, stop,” Cam hissed, slamming an arm across my chest to stop me emerging from the treeline.
“What?” I hissed back, and then I spotted the lone figure squatting in the middle of the grounds, gouging a hole in the damp earth. I frowned. “That’s Dean.”
“Yeah, it is,” Cam said, his voice grim. “But what the hell is he doing?”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You can’t think… Don’t be ridiculous,” I spluttered. “That’s Dean!”
“Yeah,” Leo said. “And that’s where Blake’s new anti-portal ward is buried.”
I twisted round to peer at him in the gloom.
“Anti-portal ward?”
“So much fer loyalty,” Cam muttered.
“Being loyal doesn’t mean I’m walking around with my head shoved up my arse!”
“Enough,” I hissed, glaring at them. “Both of you. Leo, what anti-portal ward?”
“Alpha Draeven had one crafted after the chimera incident on Halloween. It stops anyone portalling in anywhere except right at the front gates.”
“But not portalling out?”
He shook his head.
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