But then, a fresh wave of anger washed over him. His father had it coming! He deserved what he got. Tarun had no reason to feel guilty, only proud. He would do it again if he got the chance!
He stepped away from the picture and continued down the hall, his black Doc Martens sharply clicking on the hardwood floors. It was a small mercy that no one was around to see him like this, especially Ava, because she could read him like a book.
Time was running out on him. He knew that Ava would soon demand to know why he was constantly running off, skipping meals, and avoiding their spot by the oak tree. School had only been in session for a week, and they were third-years now. The whole time, he made a concerted effort to avoid much talking. Even over the summer, when he talked to Ava on the phone, he kept the conversations as brief as possible. But he still knew she would only put up with this for so long, and it was probably only a matter of time before someone took his place by her side. At that thought, he let out a growl of anger as he shook the thought away. No, Ava was his! If anyone tried to take her from him, he would rip them to shreds, just like he had done to his father.
"Tarun, think fast!" came a voice, as a ball of socks hurdled straight for his face. He ducked just in time, his hand whipping out and snatching the socks out of the air.
"Deacon, dude, not a good time." He threw the socks back at his annoying roommate. The gorilla shifter had been a pain in his ass since the first day of school. Never mind the fact they'd known each other for years prior, Tarun still didn't like him.
"Not a good time? So when would be a good time to throw something at you?"
"I just don't have time for this, Deacon. Leave me alone."
"You never have time for anything these days. What's up, Bro?"
"I just got a lot on my mind. That's all."
"Well," Deacon nodded at the door to their shared room as Tarun reached for the doorknob, "you got company."
"Deacon, I don't need more pranks."
"Who said anything about pranks? See for yourself." Deacon's smile was pure mischief.
Tarun let out a sigh and pushed the door open, expecting to find a frog on his bed or something.
"Hey, Baby. What took you so long to get back?"
He froze at the door as Ava rose from her perch on his unmade bed and sailed over to him. Her lustrous purple hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, but bits and pieces of it escaped, wisps waving over her face. But that face was presently scrunched up in an understandable frown, and the look in her eyes appeared ready to swallow him whole.
"Ava, what are you doing here?" How did she get in here so fast? Had he really taken that long? He needed time to regroup, to think about what to say to her. He still wasn't ready to have the conversation with her yet. No way. He didn't want his beautiful girlfriend to know just how horrible he was.
"Don't bullshit me. You know exactly why I came after you," she fumed, planting her feet apart and glaring daggers at him.
"Can we sit?" He readjusted the sheets and patted the space beside him on the bed as he lowered himself down. Maybe it really was time to tell her. Deacon hadn't followed them into the room, and Tarun had been prolonging this conversation for too long now. Also, because she was a unicorn shifter on top of being a cat shifter, she would always know when he lied.
As if reading his mind, she said tersely, "Do not lie to me."
"Ava," he shifted his weight toward her, "you know I love you. I just," he hesitated, "I just need more sleep. I've been so tired."
"Oh, save it." She threw her hands up in exasperation. "What the hell is bothering you? Whatever secret you're keeping is tearing us apart. Or can you just not see that?"
Tarun opened his mouth but then shut it again as he looked at her. She was twisting the escaped wisps of hair around her finger and chewing her lower lip.
"Okay. I—“
"Deacon, look out!"
"Oh God!"
"Aaaahhhh!" The sounds from the hallway happened simultaneously and startled both Ava and Tarun out of the moment.
"What's going on?" Ava jumped up from the bed in an instant.
Tarun had shot to his feet as well. "No idea." He ran after her to the door.
Outside, student shifters were running helter-skelter. Deacon stood across the hall, frozen against the wall, as a very familiar beast breathed green flames directly at him.
"No," Tarun practically whispered.
One of the monster's five massive heads swung around and focused on Ava and Tarun.
"That's Madame Waters," Ava whispered.
"Yeah, I know."
Deacon's shape started to morph, and Tarun realized he was starting to shift. "Everyone, out of the way!" Tarun screamed. "Deacon, don't move and don't shift!"
"Why in the ruddy hell not?" Deacon shot back. "Don't you think I can handle a dragon better as a gorilla than as a human?"
Doors were slamming left and right as students disappeared into their rooms.
"Just duck!" Ava screamed, and Deacon followed her advice just in time as one of Madame Waters's massive dragon heads slammed into the wall where Deacon had just been standing moments before. He let out a scream, and crawled out of the way as quickly as he could, leaving a suspicious yellow puddle behind him.
Ava had already stepped forward and rolled her head from side to side, cracking her neck. Tarun had seen her do it many times before. She was preparing to shift.
"Ava, wait, there's Levine."
She looked over her shoulder. "Not really sure how she can help us though."
Tarun leaned against his door. Ava had a point. Even if every protective instinct in him was screaming at him to yank Ava back and drag her to safety, he knew full well that not only had she been in this situation before, but she was the best one to handle it.
Madame Waters, the hydra dragon, imprisoned in her own dragon-shifter form, watched Deacon scuttle across the hallway floor. And she stepped slowly toward him, sniffing him from head to toe as she considered her new prey.
Tarun could smell her breath from where he stood, and it reeked. "Okay, then, Babe, have at it. What are you waiting for?"
Ava studied him as she stood halfway between him and the dragon. "If Levine gets wind of this, she's going to know all about our little journey to the holding lair last year, and the fact that I faced Madame Waters before," she said quickly.
Tarun couldn't believe that's what she was thinking about at this moment. "That's fine! We'll deal with her later, but that is one pissed-off-looking dragon, and I think she's about to eat Deacon."
"I know. I just think—“
"Carrington, what in the bloody hell are you waiting for?" The headmistress' voice rang through the hallway louder than one would find physically possible, probably magically amplified.
"Oh!" Ava whirled around as she looked for the source of the voice, but when she didn't see Levine, she turned back to lock eyes with the dragon. Tarun held his breath in his throat as he watched.
The rotten smell that Tarun had initially thought was the dragon's breath grew even stronger, and that's when he noticed the oozing wound on the beast's scaly chest. It was the wound Ava had been unable to heal. Apparently that was the origin of the smell.
The loaded silence was suddenly broken as Levine appeared on the scene, the lines around her body blurring as her griffin form made a quick and almost imperceptible appearance.
At the same moment, Madame Waters lunged straight for Ava. Tarun let out a bloodcurdling scream that sounded way more like a little girl in a horror movie than he would've ever cared to admit. What was Levine doing, though? The headmistress just stood there while a student—his girlfriend—was about to be dragon food.
But Ava bounced back on her feet, and in that one smooth second, she did something she'd never done before. Her twirling unicorn horn burst from her forehead, white and glorious, as her luscious purple hair swirled around it. Her eyes gleamed in their cat-like fury, while she remained mostly human.
The hydra dr
agon twisted around, her heads going every which way, as Ava leaped into the air and ran straight at the dragon's chest, slapping both her palms against the green, pussing wound.
In that instant, Tarun realized what she was doing. Ava had no intention of putting Madame Waters to sleep this time. She wanted to heal her once and for all, and she only knew how to do that in her human form, with her hands. A burst of purple light exploded from Ava's palms, filling the hallway and blinding everyone nearby. Then a crackling noise arose—the familiar sound of bones snapping into place and muscles breaking.
Tarun still had to shield his eyes, so he couldn't tell what was happening, but it sounded like Ava was probably shifting into her full-blown unicorn. But as the light receded and got more tolerable, he realized that Ava still stood there as a human, while the hydra dragon shrank rapidly in size, scales closing off, the wound closing, and the five heads shrinking down. The beast reared on her feet and roared with a force that shook the building to the foundation, all five mouths gasping as if in wonder, as if it couldn't believe this was possible.
Levine's face paled. Her mouth gaped, a jolt of shock racking her. She knew what Ava was capable of in the way of putting mythicals to sleep, or calming them down, but what she didn't know was that she could heal them now.
From the astonished look on Ava's face, she was just as surprised. She pranced out of the way and dove to the opposite line as the beast turned this way and that. Her tails were a breath away from the door that she could have easily destroyed. But as soon as it was clear that healing her wasn't enough—it was taking too long—the rotten flesh on the floor made it a little slippery as the beast thrashed around violently in it—and Madame Waters, whom Ava had just thought was in the process of becoming human again, returned to her previous larger size.
"Okay then. Sleep it is," Ava muttered, and patted the head closest to her, her eyes glinting in the victory of healing and the vivacity of who she truly was: a pure, unsullied creature. She held the dragon's eyes until all five heads lowered drowsily, and the beast collapsed to the floor, snoring noisily.
3
Was it over? It looked like it was, Tarun couldn't be sure.
The dragon lay at Ava's feet, unconscious, and Ava stood quivering as she stared at it, and then stared at her own hands, biting down hard on her bottom lip. Her horn retracted, and the faint purple glow of her skin faded away,
Before he knew it, he made his way to her and swept her into his aching arms, just holding her there against him as his heart pounded hard in tandem with hers, not caring at all that Levine was headed straight for them and didn't much care for public affection among the students.
“Are you okay?” he asked her into her ear, his voice somewhat quivering
“Tarun, I did it!” She didn't even sound shaken up, just proud. “I healed her!”
“Yes, yes you did, but—”
“Miss Carrington, Mr. Gulati!”
Tarun released Ava from the hug but still kept his hand tightly intertwined with hers. “Yes, Ma'am?”
Levine seemed to realize he wasn't stepping away from her, so she continued, “Great job, Carrington. It looks like you are coming into your powers more and more by the day. But I'm somewhat astonished you would have been able to heal this giant beast you know nothing about and have no connection to... You’ve clearly met her before.”
Ava's proud chin went up and she straightened her spine, probably channeling her proud tabby cat. “I did,” she said flatly.
Tarun groaned quietly. He knew she couldn't lie, so he certainly expected her to fess up, but it was still painful to watch.
“And how, pray tell, did that situation come about?” Levine pressed. “I expect Sir Waters introduced you?”
Ava pressed her lips together in a tight line and nodded almost imperceptibly. “There was no harm done,” she blurted. “We all came out unscathed.”
At that, Tarun pressed his palm to his forehead. That was it, she just outed all of them.
The headmistress’s iron-gray eyes sharpened. “There were more of you? Exactly how many of you met our dear Madame Waters, hmm?”
Oh…there was no getting out of this now. It's not like Tarun could just butt into the conversation and lie for her.
“It wasn't that bad, Ma'am. Please, just let the professor be. He already has a lot to deal with.”
“That is absolutely not up to you, young lady.” Levine's voice grew suddenly cold and terrifying. “Now answer the question. How many of you were there?”
Ava shuffled her feet and slackened her grip on Tarun's hand. He tried to give her a reassuring squeeze. There was no point in trying to get out of it now.
“He sent me down there with Azar,” Ava mumbled. “But Tarun, James, Winta, and JiSoo came down there looking for us, and they met her as well.”
Levine's face blanched. “I see. And what exactly went on down there?”
Ava took another deep breath. “The professor was shaken up—distraught. He told Azar and me that we were the only ones who could help his wife. We had the ability to bring her back. He took us down into the holding lair to meet her, but I couldn't get close enough to her to heal her. And Azar just clammed up, so I ended up just putting the dragon to sleep.”
Good girl, Tarun thought. If Ava didn't want Sir Waters to get in any more trouble than he was already in, she was smart not to mention that he locked her and Azar in the dungeon with the dragon and left them there to fend for themselves.
“The others came down to help us soon after,” Ava went on. “Their shifter instincts brought them right to me. The dragon woke up when they did, but I put her to sleep again, and we all got out of there.”
Tarun couldn't read Levine's face at all. Her lips were pursed and her eyes were narrow, which was usual for her, but she didn't look like she was out for blood, which was reassuring.
“I will have you all come see me in my office soon.” She signaled the attendants standing off to the side. They came closer and she told them, “Please get Madame Waters somewhere safe; I will take care of the rest.”
With that, the headmistress stomped off, and Tarun squeezed Ava's hand even tighter in his. “That was one of the scariest things I've ever had to watch, Ava,” he whispered to her.
Ava just smirked, “You say that now, but next we have to face Levine in her office.”
Tarun smiled slightly with one corner of his lips. He pulled her against him again, so glad she was safe. And on the bright side of all this, she’d forgotten to keep asking him questions.
He had avoided the subject. For now.
The rest of the day was filled with the very-much-expected buzzes and murmurings about the five-headed beast at Maroon that was single-handedly defeated by Ava the unicorn and her magical healing powers.
Ava certainly didn't want more attention, but it's what she got. At this point, she was getting used to it. Even though the attention was unwanted, people constantly pointed and whispered about her as she passed them in the halls. Sometimes she wondered why they even bothered to lower their voices. They were all shifters. Most of them had fantastic hearing.
This time though, Tarun was with her—the object of the murmurs and openly wagging fingers right along with her.
The previous year, she had tried to make friends with more of the other shifters, even the super popular dolphin shifters who had approached her in the cafeteria. But when it came down to it, she much preferred to be either on her own, or with her little group of tight-knit friends. Tarun, James, Winta, and JiSoo were as good as it got. She couldn't imagine her life without them at this point.
When she’d made it to what should've been Sir Waters’s class, he was glaringly absent. Much to Ava's dismay, Miss Peabody, with her droning toad voice, took his place.
Sure, Sir Waters wasn't necessarily the most loved around Animage, but he was good at what he did. The students respected him. And Ava did as well, even after the stunt he pulled that almost got her killed the previous ye
ar. A shifter who's seen it all. An old tortoise shifter who turned out to be a dyad, just like her. Turned out he also shifted into a dragon. What a surprise that had been. And he also came to her rescue when she and her friends faced the poachers. Then he saved her dad. She didn't necessarily like Sir Waters, but she respected him and was grateful to him, and she certainly didn't want him to be removed from his teaching position because of her.
“I’ll meet you at the cafeteria, Babe,” Tarun said to her. “I have to take care of some things.”
“What things?” she asked, jarred from stuffing her bag with books. Miss Peabody’s class had just ended.
“I promise, I’ll be there.”
“That’s what you always say. We need to talk. You know that, right?”
With a quick kiss on the cheek, Tarun left her standing there, watching him go in a flurry. Ava stopped packing her books and plopped down on the seat. Several other students filtered out past her. Miss Peabody remained at the podium, chatting with a few wolf shifters.
What was Tarun’s deal? Did the wagging tongues in the halls finally get to him?
No, it couldn’t possibly be that. It had to be something else. Memories of the previous year flooded her mind. He was like this before they went to the Laughing Coyote Ski Resort...he’d been acting unstable and practically hid his emotions from her. Like he was pulling away from her completely. But then he’d just snap out of it and act like everything was fine again.
“Ava?” Someone—she squinted—Winta, her exotic, beautiful, African friend—was snapping her long fingers in her face. Winta’s pretty face was in that perpetually concerned default appearance Ava had come to know so well.
“We’ve been standing here for like five minutes, and you didn’t even notice.” She was patting Ava’s forehead as if a fever would explain her sudden absent-mindedness. JiSoo tutted behind her, waggling her tiny finger.
Animage Academy: Year Three ~ The Shifter Academy Down Under (The Shifter School Down Under Book 3) Page 2