Laith reached over and stole a stray piece of roast beef off my plate. I swiped at his wrist, but he already had it in his mouth, chewing. He gave me a proud, tight-lipped smile. “You know, I heard a rumor about you, St. James.”
Sighing, I stared resolutely at the grill marks on my panini as I brought it back to my mouth. Laith walked his fingers over to my plate and snatched a second piece. This time, my hand slammed down, flattening his to the table. My head turned toward him, growling, and suddenly our faces were very close. The prickles rolled down my back.
His smile grew. He jerked his hand out from under mine, and then rolled it over, revealing the meat still in his palm. He slapped it to his mouth and chewed slowly.
“Dude, get your own. It’s not like it costs anything.”
“Don’t you want to know what I heard about you?”
I slammed my sandwich down, making the nerds jump. “What, Laith? It’s not a secret that I can’t shift. Are you here to tell me how I could if only I’d just sit still and go ‘om, om, om’ three times a day?”
His head snapped back, eyes darkening, but he maintained his grin. “No. I just wanted to know if it’s true that you’re pregnant with quadruplets and one of them is mine.”
I buried my face in hands and stifled a scream.
“Wait, what? You’re pregnant?” Xander squeaked, but it cut off funny at the end so I assumed Kanze elbowed him.
“No!” I dropped my hands, glaring at both nerds. “And this is why we don’t—”
“Crush on the enemy,” Kanze said again. “We get it.”
Laith pushed his lips into a sad pout. “So no baby for us?”
My hands balled up into fists and I slammed them onto the table so I wouldn’t use them on his stupid perfect face. “I’m just hungry, okay? I’m very stressed!”
His brows furrowed. “Hmm.”
I waited, but he didn’t continue. “Hmm what?”
“Maybe your wolf is stress eating. Because she’s locked up.” My face must have turned a murderous shade of red, because he threw his hands up in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, I’m just thinking out loud here.”
Leaning in closer, I growled into his face. “Well, think quieter.”
Our eyes held on each other for a moment longer than they ever had before. The prickling spread across my entire body, and it was all I could do not to stop, drop, and roll like my clothes were on fire. Finally, Laith ducked his head and broke the weird spell.
“Listen,” he said softly. “There’s a reason they put me in that stupid video. If you want any help with letting your wolf out—”
“From you?” I laughed. “No, thanks. I’ve already got a tutor.”
He leaned away from me, and for a second there, I must have been losing my mind because I thought he actually looked hurt.
He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah?”
“It’s Professor Helms, if you must know,” I blurted out, then tore off much too big a chunk of panini. Way to play it cool, Remi.
He made a choked sound. “Remi, that’s not—”
“Perhaps your time would be better spent sharing your vast wisdom with your girlfriend.” I pinned him with another glare. “Or, better yet, letting her share some with you. Like ‘no one cares what you think, Laith.’”
His features blanked, like even his soul had checked out.
Probably some stupid meditation technique for nursing a wounded ego.
He scooted his chair back from the table and stood up very straight, his lean stomach just inches from my face. His scent slammed into my nose, and my brain broke it down into its respective parts at lightning speed—flannel, cotton, denim, leather, sweat, roast beef, citrus, and…teakwood?—and then rolled out an unbidden montage of kissing scenes. Him and me. Hands and hair and skin and—
“Why are you still standing there?” I snarled, digging my fingers into my panini. There were prickles all over my body that had nothing to do with shifting.
Laith snorted, and his breath fluttered the hair at my temple. “Y’all boys deserve medals for letting this one in your pack.”
He walked away, and I slammed my panini down, dropping pieces of meat all over the plate. “Can you believe that guy?”
Xander and Kanze dropped their wide-eyed stares. Kanze busied himself with his pizza while Xander stared into his empty bowl and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“What?” I demanded.
They both shrugged.
“What?” I repeated, my voice deadly.
Kanze shook his black hair out of his eyes. “You were kind of mean, Remi.”
I scoffed. “I was mean? Didn’t you hear him?”
Xander twisted his mouth to one side and rubbed the back of his head. Kanze stuffed half his slice of pizza in his face.
I pushed my chair back and slung my book bag over my shoulder. “Well, excuse me for not being insecure enough to earn your sympathy.”
They shared a knowing sideways glance that only deepened my fury. I swiped my tray off the table and considered which one I should backhand with it.
“Oh, and by the way, thanks for asking about my progress review. I’m so glad I had the chance to confide in my friends about the fact that if I don’t shift soon, I’m going to fail.”
Kanze perked up. “Fail? Did they say what happens if you fail?”
My jaw dropped. “That’s your response?”
His brow furrowed. “I think it’s a reasonable question, which no one here will answer for me. I just thought—”
“Dude, shut up.” Xander scrambled to his feet. “Remi, wait.”
But I was already walking—as fast as I could without running across the cafeteria like a crazy person. I brushed past Winter’s table, which immediately made them all cackle as though my very existence were the funniest thing on Earth.
“You shouldn’t be carrying that bag, James!” Winter called after me. “It’s not good for the babies!”
***
The treadmill couldn’t go fast enough. The step machine couldn’t climb high enough. The rowing machine couldn’t row anywhere, much less far enough away from this whole Gladwell Academy nightmare to make me feel like a real person again.
I turned to one of the punching bags, not bothering with the gloves we were supposed to use. My sweaty hair clung to my forehead and neck as I pummeled the red plastic until the skin on my knuckles cracked. I pulled my stinging fingers to my lips, sucking the thin lines of blood that trickled out.
I don’t know, Remi, this feels pretty damn real.
It did. It felt like actual pain happening to my actual body.
And if I were honest with myself, so had every toe stub, paper cut, and post-run side stitch I’d felt in the past six weeks. So had every cruel word, epic fail, and unrequited rush of desire.
I’m not dreaming, am I?
With an anguished cry, I shoved the punching bag as hard as I could. It slammed into the wall, bounced back, and knocked me to the floor.
This is my life.
The truth swirled around my stunned head like little cartoon birds as I lay on the soft blue mat, catching my breath. I’m not sure how long I laid there before a familiar brown hand hovered into view.
“Okay, this is getting ridiculous,” Victoria said. “Do I need to get you a walker?”
Groaning, I let her haul me to my feet. My real feet. My knees wobbled between the aching muscles of my thighs and calves, and she eased me onto a bench against the wall. The real wall. Victoria sat beside me, concern radiating from her eyes. Her real eyes.
A wave of guilt rolled over me. Victoria was a real person with real feelings for a real guy who I also had real feelings for. Yes, they were only real in the sense that they weren’t just dream feelings like I’d been telling myself all semester, not real in the sense that they were anything more than a stupid crush, but still.
I’m a real bad friend.
“Are those tears?” Victoria leaned in closer, squinting at my face. “Those are tears. Are you hur
t?”
I shook my head and wiped my eyes on my forearm. “I’m fine. Really. Just a bad day.” A wry laugh escaped me. “Bad year.”
“Hmm.” Victoria tapped her index finger on her lips and then pointed it at me. “I know just what you need. Come on.”
She grabbed my elbow and dragged me off the bench and out the door before I could even ask what was happening. The clock in the empty Shiftnasium hallway read six-thirty.
“Where are we going?” I pulled out of Victoria’s grip because it was throwing me off balance. “I have a meeting with Professor Helms at eight.”
Victoria frowned. “That seems late.”
Ugh, not you, too.
“He’s going to try to help me shift before Wolf Music at nine.” I shoved my hands into the deep front pocket of my hoodie. “I’ve never been able to participate.”
She side-eyed me. “And you’re sad about that?”
I shrugged. “I have to sit there for three hours no matter what, and it would probably be a lot less terrifying if I weren’t the only thing in the room looking like a snack.”
Victoria shuddered. “Laith and I have to wear noise-cancelling head phones to block out the sound. I wish they’d do it off-campus. No offense.”
“Is that why Laith hates wolves so much?” I asked, following Victoria into Shiftnasium Room C. “And why are we in here?”
“You’ll see.” Victoria pressed the elevator’s down arrow button. “And the howl fest certainly doesn’t help matters, but that’s not why Laith… is so Laith.”
The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. As soon as the doors closed, the wet dog stench threatened to make me gag. I now knew it was the smell of thirty years’ worth of sweaty shifters coming back from Practical Shifting classes.
“So why is Laith so Laith?” I asked, then shook my head. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”
Victoria laughed and nudged me with her elbow. “Of course it’s your business. He is the father of one of your babies after all.”
The blood drained from my face. I could feel it sliding backwards down every vein in my neck. “That’s not—I’m not—I’ve never—”
Victoria laughed harder, clutching my shoulder. “Remi, relax. It was a joke. Not funny yet?”
“Oh. Okay.” I leaned against the stupidly slow elevator’s wall, waiting for my heart to start pumping again. “Good. That’s good. Ha.”
She shook her head, still chuckling. “You looked like you thought I was taking you down here to murder you.”
I smiled weakly. “It would be a murder-worthy offense.”
“Oh, there’d be a murder, but it would be him, not you.”
The elevator door opened, letting in a blast of cold cave air. I immediately shrank deeper into my hoodie.
Victoria slung her arm over my shoulders. “Sisters before misters, right?”
“Right,” I squeaked, wishing I could shift into a mouse and dig a tiny hole to bury myself and all my stupid Laith-induced prickles in.
Victoria led me around to the right side of the arena and up the rickety bleachers. She balanced easily on the top row, but I had to keep one hand on the rough cavern wall to feel anywhere close to safe. As we walked, she softly counted off the number of stalactites we had to duck under. Finally, she paused under number seven.
“Here we are.” She patted the jagged rock.
“Wow,” I tried to sound suitably impressed. “That’s a really cool one.”
Victoria’s laugh echoed eerily through the cave. “Don’t worry. I didn’t bring you down here to see a rock that looks exactly like every other rock.”
And then she jumped and disappeared into the ceiling.
I’m not sure what I thought was happening, but I screamed and slammed my back against the cavern wall. More eerie laughter echoed above my head. Looking up, I found Victoria’s hand reaching down to me once again—at least I was still on my feet.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness behind her. She was perched on a ledge hidden by the stalactite, a wide grin across her face. “What are you waiting for?”
I stared warily at her hand. She’d never steered me wrong before, but I couldn’t see what good could possibly come from going up there—or how I’d ever get back down without tumbling down the bleachers. And there was that meeting with Professor Helms scratching at the back of my mind. If I squinted just right, he might even be cuter than that obnoxious mountain lion.
“Remi, come on,” Victoria said, her voice firmer now. “Trust me. I’ll pull you up.”
Squeezing my eyes shut so I couldn’t see all my bones breaking, I grasped Victoria’s hand. With one solid tug, she lifted me off my feet, and a moment later I was sprawled on the ledge, only my feet dangling over the edge.
“When Laith and I do this, whoever follows bites the other one’s tail—”
Whoa, wait, what are we doing?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You should have told me you were claustrophobic,” Victoria said as she helped me squeeze out of the narrow tunnel we’d spent the last fifteen minutes in.
I collapsed onto my stomach, sucking in the sweet fresh forest air. “I didn’t know.”
“I guess this wasn’t such a good surprise then.” She chuckled. “Surprise! You’ve got a debilitating fear!”
“I mean, better to find out now than after I flunk out and have to become a coal miner.” I rolled over on my back and gasped at the number of stars lighting up the night.
“A coal miner?” Victoria leaned back against of the boulders shielding the opening to her secret tunnel.
“Isn’t that what people do around here?” I asked, moss crunching under my palms as I sat up.
“Maybe? I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’m from Texas.”
“Do you miss it?”
She smiled and her eyes wandered off across the sky. “I miss the food. My family sometimes. But mostly the food.”
I scooted around so we were facing the same direction. We were perched on a rocky outcropping in the middle of a gently sloping forest. A chilly breeze whistled through the leaves and several let go and drifted to the ground.
“This is really nice,” I said, gesturing at the woods and the stars. “I didn’t realize how trapped I was starting to feel inside that damn wall.”
“It’s rough,” she agreed. “But next semester, your pack will be assigned a perimeter patrol. That can be fun.”
I picked at a tuft of dried grass poking from a crack in the boulder. “If there is a next semester.”
“Remi—”
“Do you know anything about Robert Borden?” I cut her off before she could lie to me about how everything was going to turn out fine. “Mardone said he flunked out.”
Victoria made a face. “That was a very different situation.”
“What happened to him?” I pressed.
She sighed, like she really didn’t want to talk about it. “He went… feral.”
I scrunched my brow. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” She chewed on her lip, searching for words. “His wolf mind was stronger than his human mind. Even when he was a person.”
My eyes went wide. “That can happen?”
“It’s very, very rare,” Victoria said quickly. “And Robert was very, very troubled. As a person. He was always looking for fights. It wasn’t safe to have him here.”
“What did they do with him?” My mind raced with possibilities, none of them good. “I mean, they couldn’t just let him go…”
Can they even let me go?
Victoria shrugged. “I guess he went to the pound.” My eyes must have popped out of my head because she quickly said, “Shifter jail. Laith calls it the pound.”
I gulped. “There’s a shifter jail?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, okay, we don’t know for sure that it exists, but there has to be something like that, right? Not all shifters are going to be nice people.”
A da
rk laugh escaped me. “Can you nominate people for shifter jail? I’ve got a few candidates…”
She playfully bumped my shoulder. “Is my boyfriend on that list?”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why we want to kill each other.”
She laughed. “Cats and dogs. It’s a powerful thing.”
“But I don’t want to kill you.”
“Uh, because I’m awesome!” She laughed, but then grew serious. “But Laith doesn’t want to kill you, Remi. He’s actually… he’s really worried about you. This meeting with Helms…”
My body went stiff. “Is my only chance at staying out of the pound.”
“That’s not true.” Victoria turned toward me, reaching for my arm, but I pulled it away. She dropped her hand. “Laith said he offered—”
My head snapped around. “Did he put you up to this? Did he tell you to talk to me?”
She shook her head, but the truth was plain on her face.
“Ugh!” I started to get up. “He needs to mind his own business. He can’t talk to me like—”
“Whoa, slow down.” Victoria caught my arm and pulled me back down. “This moss is slick. You could slide right off.”
I settled back onto the rock, but my body was prickling—the way it only seemed to prickle when Laith was around. The trouble was that as much as I genuinely did want him to mind his own business, the fact that he wasn’t… well, that made me feel all kinds of warm and gooey inside. And the last thing I needed right now was for Victoria to realize her boyfriend made me feel like a half-baked chocolate chip cookie.
“So how did you two get together?” I blurted, my voice a little too high and tight.
“What? Oh, well, you know. Only two cats on campus.” Her voice also jumped an octave. “Fate, I guess.”
Fate? That was not something I believed in, but if Victoria believed in it, that must mean her feelings for Laith weren’t just any old feelings. They were love.
My heart sank, which made zero sense. Of all the parts of my body that responded positively to Laith Brighton, my heart wasn’t really one of them. I at least had that much under control. Did I sometimes imagine pushing him up against the wall in Dean Mardone’s candlelit classroom and tangling my fingers in his hair and—okay, yeah, sure. Guilty as charged. But did I imagine us going on dates, hold hands, watching sappy movies? No. Of course not. My feelings for Laith were pure animal lust.
Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101 Page 11