She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. I want you to call me Lenore.” Her eyes snapped to me. “Not you, of course. Go ahead and take a mat. Let Laith do his job.”
Mardone breezed back into the hallway, and the second I was sure she was gone, I spun around, laughing so hard I had to put my hands on my knees.
“Kitten?” I wheezed.
Laith stalked over to the supply closet, a vein in the side of his neck throbbing. He stormed back and threw three more mats onto the floor at my feet. “You think sexual harassment is funny?”
My laughter died in my throat. I straightened up and awkwardly cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
He snorted. “Typical wolf.”
“Hey!” I barked. “I said I’m sorry, okay? You don’t have to be such a jerk.”
He waved me off, turning away. “Sure thing, Poodle.”
Seething, I grabbed his elbow and yanked him back around.“Don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical of you?”
He rolled his head on his shoulders and groaned. “What is?”
“Calling me pet names when—”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Girl, these aren’t pet names. They are insults.” He drew the last three words out like I was stupid. “Don’t flatter yourself.” And then, for good measure I guess, he spat, “Poodle.”
My hands balled up into fists, just as the hallway roared to life with footsteps and voices. I unclenched them and struck my best impression of Dean Mardone’s sultry posture. “Whatever you say… kitten.”
Laith’s lips drew back in what sounded like an honest-to-goodness hiss, but before I could be sure, Winter Davenport appeared in the doorway, stopping her pack of jackals in their tracks. Her blue eyes darted between me and Laith, highlighting the very short distance between us.
Her mouth fell open. “Kitten? Seriously, James? Are you cheating on Professor Helms already?”
Red hot rage clouded my vision like blood at the scene of a shark attack, which was fitting since that’s the sort of black-eyed killing machine I would have guessed Winter actually had inside her. My wolf strained against every muscle in my body, from my little toes up to my tongue, demanding release.
And why shouldn’t I knock this witch off her broom? Someone needs to.
And so I relaxed the chokehold I’d had on my body ever since Laith flashed his stupid dimples at me.
Come out to play, girl.
Nothing happened.
The sensation swelled until I was sure I would come apart at the seams, but then, abruptly, the wolf shrank back, leaving me with only the hollow feelings of confusion and defeat.
“Did you just try to shift on me?” Winter shrieked. “What kind of psycho are you?! Where is the Dean? Derek!” She clutched her boyfriend’s arm. “Go get the Dean!”
He looked from her to me and back again, even more dumb confusion than usual etched across his brow. “I didn’t see—”
Winter shoved him. “Just go, you idiot!”
He winced, but obediently backed out into the hallway, leaving space for the three minions to slip into the room and huddle protectively around Winter.
“You’re just lucky Winter didn’t shift,” the one who looked the most like her sneered.
“Yeah, she would have eaten you alive,” the second one said as she rubbed Winter’s back.
“And I would have helped!” shouted the least attractive one, and by least attractive I mean she would have had to settle for being a print model instead of a catwalk model like her friends.
Winter sniffled for the benefit of her companions. “That is the second time she’s gone after me. When Dean Mardone gets here—”
“She’ll ask her teaching assistant what happened,” Laith said, appearing at my side. “And he’ll tell her Remi was provoked by some dumb dog who thinks student-professor relationships are a fun rumor to start.”
Winter gasped. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me. Now sit down.” He pointed at the mats. “All of you.”
Winter crossed her arms. “I don’t take orders—”
“You most certainly do, Miss Davenport,” Dean Mardone said from behind her. “Laith is my right hand man in this class. You will show him the same respect you show me.”
“But James…” Winter started.
Mardone waved her words away as she walked to the front of the class. “I don’t know who that is, but if Laith isn’t concerned, I’m not concerned. Take your seats.”
Icicles shot from Winter’s eyes as she walked past me, but she led her pack to the mats at the back of the room, as far away from Dean Mardone as she could get.
I turned to Laith, prepared to swallow my pride and thank him, but before I could even open my, he shook his head and walked away, muttering, “Just sit down, you little Shih Tzu.”
My fists curled at my side, and I counted slowly to ten, partly to cool my temper, and partly because I refused to obey him. It took every one of those ten seconds to talk myself out of walking right out the door. The only thing keeping me here was my brother’s face, smiling out of the cracked picture frame.
For Rahm, I reminded myself as I sank onto the stupid mat.
Dean Mardone tapped a tiny mallet against a small gong on one of the candlelit tables. “Let’s begin. Laith, will you please shut the door?”
Laith bowed his head and walked to the door with his hands clasped behind his back like some kind of butler. The soft click of the door latching into place sounded to my ears more like the heavy clang of a prison cell closing.
“Welcome to Exploring the Mindscape,” Dean Mardone said. “For those of you who don’t know yet, my name is Lenore Mardone, and I am the Dean of Liberal Arts Education. In this class, we will focus on a variety of meditation techniques drawn from an array of ancient traditions…”
My eyelids fluttered with the gentle flickering of the candles on the walls. The music was totally hokey, yet also kind of soothing to my frayed nerves. I swallowed a yawn. Do they seriously expect me to stay…
“Remi St. James?”
I startled awake. “Yes? What? I’m here.”
Mardone scowled down at me over the clipboard in her hands. “Miss St. James, in this class, it is not enough to be non-absent, you must be present as well.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled, shaking the nap fog out of my head. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry I got caught.
Mardone gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Apology accepted. This time.”
She moved on, calling out the handful of names between S and Z. When she was satisfied everyone was non-absent, she handed the clipboard off to Laith, who then faded into the shadows in the corner of the room. Mardone had just opened her mouth to speak when Winter’s hand shot up.
Mardone sighed. “Yes, Miss Davenport?”
Winter’s eyes darted around to make sure everyone was watching her. “Will we be covering special mental abilities in this class, Dean Mardone?”
Mardone’s lips flattened into a straight line. “Were you paying attention during my introduction, Miss Davenport, or do you, too, struggle with being present?”
It was my turn to snicker. Winter scowled, but quickly smoothed it out. “Yes, of course, Dean Mardone. It’s just that I hear a lot of noise, like static, but also voices—”
“The mediation techniques we cover in this class should help cut down on this noise, as you call it, but this is an entry-level course, suitable even for ursanthropes.” She cast a patronizing look at Chad and the other bears. “Advanced mental abilities will be covered in-depth in a later course reserved for lycanthropes and ailuranthropes.”
Winter’s mouth twisted again, but this time I got the sense that she was actually upset. “But what should I do in the meantime?”
“Be quiet, Miss Davenport,” Mardone sighed. “You should be quiet.”
CHAPTER NINE
Crickets chirped a
nd a gentle breeze rustled through the trees Thursday night as I made my way down the gravel path from the cafeteria behind Therian Hall to the domed building somehow officially known as The Shiftnasium—because that sounded totally official. I had decided to call it ‘the gym’ instead because my mouth refused to say such a ridiculous word.
Plus, that’s all it was—a weight room, a cardio room, an indoor swimming pool, a basketball court, and a handful of classrooms. Pretty much the same as what they had to offer at Keller Parks. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
My kind of place.
I knew all this because I had already been there earlier in the afternoon for Health & Physical Education for Shifters, the class that required the book You, Your Body, and Your Other Body. Dean Belhollow taught the health portion on Thursdays, and before class she had pulled me aside and given me a package of socks to replace the pair she’d swallowed.
It wasn’t the sort of thing that would typically make me burst into tears—and I mean, she did owe me some socks—but the last three days had my normally resilient emotions worn a little raw, and there was just something so very motherly in the way she said, “Come here, honey, I got you a little something,” that I somehow wound up snotting all over her burgundy blazer while she stroked my back and promised things would get better and I would come to love it here. I almost believed her.
My eyes had still been bloodshot when I walked into the classroom, so, of course, Winter took the opportunity to ask who I was getting my drugs from. That just made it all the more satisfying when Bellhollow walked in a moment later and, true to her word on my arrival, sent Winter outside to do twenty laps around the track under the blazing afternoon sun.
Winterhad returned drenched, with runny mascara under her eyes and frizzy tendrils where her perfectly straight locks used to be. If before she had only wanted to destroy me socially, now she wanted to murder me. Literally. That’s why, when I heard heavy footsteps crunching quickly down the path behind me that night, I clutched my book bag like a weapon and braced myself for an attempted assassination.
“Hey! Remi! Wait for us!” a guy’s voice panted.
My death grip on my book bag relaxed. After three classes together, I knew the sound of that voice much too well, and even though Xander Danfield and I had yet to formally meet, I felt confident that he wouldn’t make it out of the ring with a bunny rabbit, much less an emotionally frazzled, hyper-reactive werewolf girl like me.
I turned and waited for the figures bobbing in the darkness to catch up with me.
Great. Two nerds for the price of one.
I knew I shouldn’t call them that—it felt very Winter-esque—but so far they had planted themselves in the front row of every single class, and, well, if the shoe fits…
“Hi, Xander. Kanze.” I nodded to them each in turn.
Xander’s eyes lit up, the way nerd eyes usually do when they find out you know their name. He pushed his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose and grinned. “Hi, Remi.”
They were cute. I would give them that, even if their enthusiasm rubbed my relentless rationality the wrong way. Xander had light brown skin and wore his hair in short natural curls. His brown eyes gleamed with a warmth I’d found lacking in most of my peers here. Kanze was built with sharper angles and regarded me with apprehension from behind his mop of shaggy black hair.
“What’s up, guys?” I asked, after several moments had passed with Xander just staring at me and Kanze just staring at him like he couldn’t believe how bad he was blowing it.
“Um…” Xander fidgeted with the straps of his backpack. “Can we walk you to class?”
I didn’t answer, just motioned toward the gym with my head and started walking again. Xander fell in right beside me while Kanze lagged a little behind.
“So, uh, how are you liking the Academy so far?” Xander asked.
I looked up to the sky and pretended to think for a moment. “Well, I’ve slept with a professor and a teaching assistant. Plus I smoked pot in Dean Belhollow’s office… so I’d say I’m having a fantastic time. No complaints.”
Xander’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple jerked.
I nudged him with my elbow. “Not really. I haven’t done any of those things.”
“Oh, I know,” he squeaked. “I didn’t think—”
Kanze snickered in the background.
“And I don’t make a habit of taking my clothes off in front of my classmates, so if that’s why—”
“What? No!” Xander pulled on his backpack straps so the bulk of it hunched up over his shoulders like a turtle disappearing into its shell. “I didn’t even see that.”
“I did,” Kanze piped up, and when I shot him a glare, he shrugged. “Just thought I’d be honest.”
I let a little growl escape my throat, just for the fun of it. “How about you walk in front of us?” They seemed harmless enough, but I still didn’t want either of them checking out my butt.
Kanze rolled his eyes, but took the lead as we continued down the path.
“Just ask her, dude,” he muttered when several more seconds of awkward silence had passed. “We’re almost there.”
Xander took a deep breath. “Oh. Okay, well, Remi, the thing is, we were wondering, well, if you might, um…”
“Spit it out, Xander,” I sighed.
He rubbed the back of his head and looked down at his shoes. “Would you maybe want to join our pack?”
I glanced from his hopeful face to Kanze’s failed attempt to look nonchalantly over his shoulder. “Are you both asking me out?”
Kanze groaned and swung his head forward, shaking it. Xander’s hands started working on his backpack straps again—his palms were so sweaty I could hear them squeaking on the vinyl.
“Because I’m not really looking for one boyfriend, much less two.”
Laith’s face flashed into my mind, but I quickly shook it out. Absolutely not, Remi.
“What? No way!” Xander said too fiercely. His backpack was all but on top of his head now. “This would definitely not be like that. Not at all. Nope. No way.”
“I don’t know, guys.” We had reached the gym’s entrance. “I might just be more of a lone wolf.”
Kanze leaned against the glass double doors, and I wondered if I had enough inner reserves of wolf strength to lift him out of my way. I just wanted to arrive at one class this week without any unfortunate incident. But the last thing my reputation needed was to get caught beating up on geeks. I could hear Winter now: “It’s not enough to steal all the boys, you have to take their lunch money too, James?”
“Move,” I growled.
“Just hear us out,” Xander pleaded from beside me. “We think we’d make a really good team. We all have a strong commitment to reason and facts and the scientific process—”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who told you that?”
Fear flashed in Xander’s eyes and he shrank back. “Who? Well, no one. We just—”
Kanze groaned at his friend’s ineptitude. “Vice-Chancellor Gladwell. She told us to ask you. She said a pack has to have at least three members and ‘be of mixed genders.’”
“Oh.” My face burned hot. It’s not like I wanted to be part of anyone’s pack, but it still stung that even for the Gladwell AV Club I was just some kind of female-shaped quota they needed to fill. For the first time since this stupid dream started, I actually wanted to crawl out of my human skin.
“But we wanted to ask you anyway!” Xander glared at Kanze. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Kanze deadpanned, wiggling his fingers in the air. “It’ll be super fun.”
Xander punched him on the arm. “You don’t have to be such a—”
I stepped between them before Kanze could punch back. “Alright, alright, that’s not going to help your cause. If I have to join a pack, I guess I have to join a pack, but I’m not tying myself down with a couple of… goobers.”
Kanze snorted. “See? I told you she was just like them.”
“Just like who?” I demanded, going nose to nose with him.
Xander grabbed my elbow and tugged me back. I jerked out of his grasp, ready to swing my book bag at him after all.
He immediately lifted his hands, whether in surrender or to cover his face, I couldn’t quite tell. “We wanted to ask you right away. I mean, of course we did, who wouldn’t?”
I rolled my eyes. Flattery will get you nowhere, bucko.
Xander shrugged and looked down, and then he looked back up at me with an absolute killer pair of puppy dog eyes. “We just figured you probably wanted to join up with one of the cooler packs.”
But guilt might.
Groaning, I pushed Kanze out of my way and yanked the door open, letting out a rush of frigid air conditioning. “Fine. Sure. I’ll join your pack. I mean, why the hell not? What have I got to lose?”
Just a little thing called your dignity, Remi.
Xander yelped with either surprise or joy, but I wasn’t waiting around to find out. I hurried down the hall, my footsteps echoing off the tile floor and concrete walls, obscuring the details of the whispered argument they were having back at the door.
A moment later, Xander caught up to me. If his tail had been on, it would have been wagging. “Did you mean it? You’ll join our pack?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“Okay. Cool.” He grinned. “Really cool. And hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to go like that.”
“It’s fine. It’s not like it’s a marriage proposal.” I cut him a sideways look. “It’s not a marriage proposal, right? I honestly have no idea how any of this works.”
He shook his head. “It’s just for class, I think. Group work, you know?”
I nodded. “Okay then.” All this drama over group projects?
Kanze slunk up behind us, and Xander reached back to grab him and drag him forward. “Kanze is very happy too. He’s just shy.”
Kanze bared his teeth in a sarcastic, exaggerated smile that summed up pretty much all of my own feelings about being here. Then his face dropped back into deadpan. “We all do our own homework.”
Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101 Page 8