Something whipped through the air towards my face and I ducked back, narrowly avoiding taking Madison’s fist to my nose. Right. Don’t get distracted. Every bit the pack princess, Madison had probably been fighting since she was a pup. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity to punish my weaknesses. And there was no shortage of them. If I gave her long enough, she was going to take me apart.
I got my hands up in time to block her next attack, then surged forwards in a flurry of aggression and bad intentions, throwing fists and elbows with ferocity and no particular skill. I landed a glancing blow with my first, she blocked my second, and the third went wide. She moved in a blur of motion before I could readjust, locking her leg behind mine. She did something I couldn’t see with her hip and I thudded into the ground, knocking the air from my lungs. I gasped, but before I could recover, she landed on top of me, straddling my torso and pinning my arms to my sides, and landed three fast and hard blows to my face.
Pain exploded through my head and I felt the strength go out of me. My vision blurred so that I could barely make out the triumphant smirk plastered all over her face.
“Excellent throw, Madison,” Fletcher said. “Right everyone, that’s it for today. I’ll see you all next week.” He tossed a glance my way, still lying in the dirt. “Do try to get some practice by then. Some of you need it.”
I sat up with a groan, and then paused, waiting for the grounds to stop spinning. Most of the class were already on their way back to the castle – few people lingered after Fletcher’s lessons. I wouldn’t have, either, if I thought I was capable of walking in a straight line right now.
“Ouch, that looks painful.”
I squinted up to see Dean towering over me, a sympathetic wince on his face.
“Sorry,” he said, stretching a hand down to me. “I tried to partner with her, but Fletcher stopped me.”
I accepted his hand, letting him pull me to my feet. I waited a second, checking my balance – I didn’t want to land back on my butt, I was pretty sure Madison was still around here someplace, gloating.
“Had to happen eventually,” I said with a grunt. “Fletcher’s right. I really do need to practice.”
I probed my eye with a finger and hissed in pain. I could already feel the bruise forming under the skin.
“For fuck’s sake,” I griped, as we headed back to the castle. “That had better heal up before the party tonight.”
Dean and Mei shared a look, and my shoulders slumped.
“It’s not going to, is it?”
“I think the swelling may go down by then,” Mei said, peering at my eye more closely.
“And the bruising?”
“There’s a guy in my pack who completely heals from bruises in eight hours,” Dean said, in what I assumed was supposed to be encouragement.
“Great. I’ve got six. Bloody Madison, she did that on purpose. I’m going to look a right mess tonight.”
*
My mood did not improve during our last lesson of the day. The opposite, in fact. By the time I’d dragged myself up to Shaun’s office for my daily waste of time, I was in a worse mood than ever. Alright, so it was just a stupid Halloween party. But I’d been looking forward to it, dammit. And now it was ruined because of Madison. Mei had even been going to lend me something decent to wear so I didn’t look like an idiot wearing my uniform. Now it didn’t matter what I wore, everyone was going to be staring at my stupid face.
I rapped on Shaun’s door and opened it without bothering to wait for him to invite me in. He looked up from behind his desk.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s have it. What’s wrong?”
I shut the door with maybe more force than necessary. What a dumb question. Like he couldn’t see the bruise covering half my damned eye from where he was sitting. You could probably see the stupid thing from the other side of a darkened corridor. I gestured to it and said nothing.
His brows knitted, and his lips pressed together in a confused half-smile, like he wasn’t sure if he was missing out on a joke.
“You’re not upset about that little bruise?” he said. “You’ve had worse injuries than that.”
“Yeah, but it’s the party tonight,” I said, slumping into my usual seat opposite his desk.
“So?”
I huffed in frustration.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
Well, he had a point there. Saving up all my frustration and letting it out inside this room was what had gotten me through my first month here, and Shaun had never complained about being my verbal punching bag – for some reason. He was pretty good at this whole student counsellor gig. I sagged.
“I was looking forward to it. Getting dressed up, doing my hair. I know it sounds stupid.” I picked at my nails and avoided his eye. “I just wanted one night to pretend everything was normal.”
“And now you can’t?” He sounded confused, in the way that only guys can when you start talking about this stuff.
“Look at it! It’s a mess. I don’t even have any makeup to cover it up with because it’s not like Caleb stopped to pack a bag when he dragged me out here.” I shook my head and exhaled slowly. “But who cares, right? I’d have looked stupid in Mei’s clothes. They don’t even fit me properly.”
Shaun raised a hand, opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. Guys. They just don’t get it.
“Let me get this straight,” he said after a long moment. “You’re weeks behind in Cultural Studies, you clearly came off worse in combat class, and there’s a full moon in three days, but the worst thing going on in your life right now is that you can’t get dressed up to go to a party?”
“Yes,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, and trying not to think about the full moon coming up. The last one hadn’t been pretty. Hell, that was half the reason I needed a distraction.
“And the reason you can’t do that is because you need your makeup, which is at your uncle’s farm?”
I nodded, trying not to pout.
“Well, that’s easy.”
If he said one word about focusing on my other priorities, I was going to vault this desk and give him the twin to my eye.
“We’ll just head out there and get it.”
I stared at him for a long moment. I blinked. I ran his words through my head again.
“Leave… the academy?”
He nodded, and I felt a grin spreading over my face.
“We can go get my stuff? You’re serious?”
He nodded again. “But you have to give me your word, Jade. I need to know that you won’t resist coming back here.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got a party to get to.” I glanced up at the clock behind him, and my grin died a premature death. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Look at the time. We’ll never make it there and back.” I didn’t know exactly where the academy was, but I knew it was isolated, probably in the heart of the countryside.
“The party starts at eight?” he said. I nodded. “Then fear not, Cinderella – you shall go to the ball. Come with me.”
Huh. Maybe we were closer to the farm than I thought. I followed Shaun through the castle and out of the front doors. He paused long enough to do something I couldn’t quite see, disabling the wards on the front gates, and then we were through them, too.
“Uh, I don’t see your car.”
“We’re not going by car. We’re going by portal.”
“Excuse me?” I stared at him, one eyebrow arched, because I’d thought I was beyond being shocked by now – but a portal? He had to be kidding.
He stretched one hand out in front of him, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“Eachlais!”
Right. He wasn’t kidding. I was staring at – well, at a portal. A large, oval surface hanging vertically in the air a few feet in front of us. And in it, I could see the farm. I shook my head, open-mouthed. A freaking port
al. Seriously.
“With training,” Shaun said, “you’ll be able to tap into the primal power buried deep inside you. The power expresses itself through therianthropy, but that’s not the only form it can take.”
“How much training?” I asked, my eyes skimming the portal’s rippling surface.
“A lot. Some shifters never manage it. It takes a great deal of discipline.”
Well, that was me out, then. But that was some Harry Potter shit right there, and I was going to at least try whenever I next had some alone time.
“Eachlais, right?” I asked. Shaun shook his head with a smile.
“The word is just a focus for the power. You have to access it first.”
Obviously. Access the power I knew nothing about.
“And the castle is warded against portals, that’s why we’re out here. Speaking of which, we can either continue this impromptu lesson – which I’m more than happy to do – or we can actually go through it.”
I eyed the solid-looking portal, glanced at Shaun, then turned back to it.
“I better not bruise my other eye,” I said, and stepped through.
Chapter Fifteen
My foot touched down seamlessly on the farm’s gravel track, and I quickly stepped away from the portal – I didn’t want Shaun crashing into me. I took a deep breath of the crisp country air, drinking in the autumn scene. The old oak by the farmhouse had shed the first of its leaves, and the rest of them had turned a shade of burnt orange. All around, nature was continuing its patterns, undisrupted by everything that had happened to one almost-human girl. Last time I was here–
I buried that thought with a shudder. I wasn’t here for a trip down memory lane. But I couldn’t quite tear my eyes from the gravel track, that spot right there where the wolf had grabbed me, sunk his teeth into my flesh while I screamed and flailed, and dragged me unwilling towards the treeline. I scanned it, searching the deepening shadows.
“You okay?”
I jumped and spun around, my heart racing. I hadn’t heard Shaun coming up behind me.
“I’m fine,” I said, shoving my hands into my pocket so he wouldn’t see them shaking. “Hey, where’s my car gone?”
I’d just been looking for something to take his attention off me, but seriously, where the hell was my car? I left it right here… with a door open, and a whole load of blood around it.
“The enforcers would have cleaned up after they brought you to Fur ‘n’ Fang, in case anyone came looking for you. The car would have aroused suspicion.”
I shivered. That was creepy as all hell. It seemed like the enforcers knew what they were doing when it came to making people disappear. I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of them.
“Try the barn,” Shaun said, nodding to the dilapidated building. I took a couple of steps towards it, then stopped and shook my head.
“The house,” I said. “Caleb brought my bags in after I was… after it happened.”
I wasn’t quite sure why the word ‘bitten’ stuck in my throat, and I didn’t feel like working it out right now. I pivoted on my heel, heading for the old farmhouse. When I got there, the sight pulled me up short. There was a brand new lock on the door. Crap.
“How am I supposed to get in?”
Shaun glanced at the lock, then ran his fingers under the window frame. I shook my head.
“There’s no way either of us is going to fit through that window, and besides–”
I broke off, staring at the key in his hand. Right. Because of course my DIY-loving abductor who could make people disappear without a trace would leave a key for if I came back. This whole world was screwed up.
I unlocked the door and swung it inwards, then stopped, staring over the threshold.
“I don’t… I don’t think I can go in there,” I said at last. It felt like a strange thing to admit. The farm had always been a home to me, but so much had happened last time I was here, none of it good.
Shaun placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around to face him.
“If you want me to, I’ll go in for you and get your stuff. But I think you need to go inside, if you can. A decision based on fear is never a good one. You are stronger than what happened to you.”
I stared into his eyes for a long moment, then swallowed and ducked my head in a nod.
“Come with me?” I asked in a tiny voice.
“Of course,” he said.
We crossed the threshold together. The kitchen was almost exactly as I’d left it, except Caleb had cleaned up any sign that we’d eaten a meal there. It looked as deserted as it had when I first arrived. I didn’t dwell on it, instead hurrying through to the bedroom I’d woken up in. My bags were right where he’d left them, piled up against the wall.
But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
I pressed my hand to the wall, tracing the deep gouges carved into it. Gouges that I knew could only have come from a set of claws. My claws.
“This is where I shifted for the first time,” I said. “I didn’t know what… I was so scared. I thought I was losing my mind.”
I thought I’d forgotten that first shift, but I guess I’d just buried it. I couldn’t have done a more thorough job of uncovering it if I’d brought a shovel.
“It can’t have been easy.” Shaun perched on the edge of the bed, watching me. I barked a bitter laugh. That didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Why couldn’t he have just told me?”
“Would you have believed him if he had?”
We both knew the answer to that. I hadn’t even believed them when they’d taken me to Fur ‘n’ Fang. Not until I’d seen him shift. Even then, I’d tried to convince myself I’d imagined it.
“Why are you doing this? Why did you bring me here? Why now?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
I narrowed my eyes. “A lot of questions that you’re not answering.”
Shaun nodded, drew in a breath, and exhaled it slowly.
“I’ve got some news,” he said.
“News I’m not going to like?” I hazarded.
“Leo, the wolf who attacked you, has been caught.”
“So why doesn’t that sound like a good thing?”
“It wasn’t the enforcers who caught him. At least, not our enforcers.”
“I… don’t understand.”
Shaun grimaced. “He turned up at a druid academy. Dragondale. The druid enforcers have him. And they don’t want to give him up.”
I sagged back against the wall, nausea churning in my stomach. Then abruptly it was gone, replaced by a fire that was all bitterness and anger.
“So, what, he just gets away with it? Is that what you’re saying? He can do this to me, ruin my whole life, and he gets to walk away?”
“No. Jade, that’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.” I paced the tiny room, wall to wall. “What claim have they got on him? He did this to me.”
“The alpha pack are going there to negotiate, tonight.”
I stopped pacing.
“Draeven is going?” I couldn’t imagine anyone defying the intimidating shifter.
“Alpha Draeven,” Shaun corrected me. “And yes. He’s taking a party to meet with the Druid Grand Council. Leo broke their laws, too – he trespassed in their academy, and…”
Indecision flickered across his eyes.
“Just tell me.”
“He bit one of their students this morning. We won’t know if he turned her until the full moon.”
“And if she turns?”
“She’ll be a halfbreed – part druid, part shifter. A crime against nature. The druids will stake a claim on Leo’s life if that happens. They’ll want to imprison him. The alpha pack will argue that he’s one of ours, and we should be the ones to punish – and kill – him.”
“Instructor Martin says the druids and the shifters used to be at war. That we have a truce. A tentative one.”
“He’s right.
And there’s no telling if it will be strong enough to survive this.”
“The druids and shifters could go to war? Because of me?”
“Hey, no.” Shaun shook his head sharply. “Don’t think that. Whatever happens, it’s not because of you. It’s because of Leo, because of his crimes.”
“What if I say I don’t want him punished – that I don’t care what he did to me?”
“It doesn’t work like that. He broke the law, and he has to face the consequences.”
“Whose?”
“Hopefully we’ll know by tomorrow. Neither side has anything to gain from a war right now. Alpha Draeven knows that, and so do the druids. They’ll do what they can to avoid it.”
“Except giving up their claim on Leo.”
“Except that. Some crimes are unforgivable.”
I swallowed bile. I couldn’t handle this. It was just too much. This was supposed to be my night of pretending this whole sorry mess wasn’t happening, not finding out we were on the brink of war.
I stalked over to my bag and snatched one up, fumbling with the zip until it burst open and spilled its contents all over the floor.
“Fuck’s sake.” I stooped next to the mess and sifted through it with trembling hands.
“I’m sorry I had to tell you. But I thought you deserved to know.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. I was behaving like a victim. Like prey. I wasn’t that person anymore. Leo would face justice for what he’d done, one way or another. And Draeven wouldn’t let it come to war – but if the druids did come for us, I’d be ready to fight. I might not have liked how it happened, but I was a shifter, and I would fight for my world.
But not tonight. Tonight, I had a party to get to.
I hunted through the rest of my stuff, fishing out my makeup bag, hairdryer, and a dress that would have all the guys in Fur ‘n’ Fang staring at me for the right reasons for a change. I threw them into a bag along with a few more essentials, not least the book I’d started reading two days before I came here, and then nodded to Shaun.
“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.”
*
“Jade, you look amazing!”
Moon Bitten (Fur 'n' Fang Academy Book 1): A Shifter Academy Novel Page 10