by Cali Mann
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to pop my ears to relieve the pressure. I’d never been up so high before. My family’s home had been on the beach at sea level, and Hastings House on no more than small hills. My eyes widened as we came to the iron gates, embellished with the letters TB for the school, surrounded by swirls of artfully made briars and brambles. The gates swung open automatically at our approach.
The drive was smoother after the gate. Had the roughness of the previous road been meant to discourage travel up the mountain? Ahead of us was the front of the school, an imposing stone building with a blue-toned roof. Beyond it, I could just see the roof of another building rose slightly higher against the mountain and after that one, a third stood. Tall towers climbed either end of the building closest to me. My mouth continued to hang open at the sheer beauty of it. Hastings House was large—some might say grand—but it wasn’t as big as this nor as impressive.
“Long ago, it was used as a monastery,” Mrs. Frank said. “Some claim to still hear the monks singing in the chapel.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said as we climbed out of the vehicle. Mr. Reed and the driver gathered the bags.
“Although it’s been modernized since that time,” she continued.
“Thank God,” Mr. Reed said with a wink. “I need a shower.”
I stumbled to a stop before the stone steps. Looking back and forth, I didn’t see anyone else around, but I mumbled, “Will we see other students right now?”
“Why yes,” Professor Frank said.
I ran my hands through my black hair. It was a mess, and my clothes weren’t new or even fresh. I was exhausted, and I’m sure I had huge dark circles under my eyes. I grimaced. I hadn’t even wanted to come here, and now I was worried what they’d think of me? But I was already behind in academics; I didn’t need to be seen looking feral on top of it.
It isn’t like you’re going to stay here long, I told myself. I wouldn’t be held prisoner again.
Might as well get this over with then. With a resigned sigh, I moved forward onto the first of the stone steps. The moon shone overhead. It was late. Maybe they’d all be asleep. But as I climbed, I heard voices calling across the school, echoing against the stone walls.
5
Hailey
The main doors opened onto a long hallway. Red carpets stretched over stone floors, and curling wrought-iron staircases stood on either end. I followed Mr. Reed left down the hall, passing three double doors that stood open to the courtyard. The space outside held several gardens, trees, and stone benches, as well as students. Near the door, several boys sat on a bench, laughing and talking. A group of girls clustered nearby winding their long hair around their fingers and chatting.
I froze, staring at them. I was suddenly aware of the blood still clinging to my skin from the festival man’s nose.
The girls had been laughing over something, and when they caught sight of me, they laughed harder. One of them stood, flipping her blonde hair back and sauntered over to the edge of the courtyard. Her short blue dress perfectly matched her eyes.
A tingling feeling swept across my neck and face.
Her sharp eyes studied me from head to toe. Hand on her hip, she spun away and asked, “Wonder what the cat dragged in?”
The girl’s friends tittered.
I growled low in my throat.
“Or maybe the dog?” she said, returning to their group. They laughed harder. Some of the other girls pointed and whispered.
“Now, Hailey.” Professor Frank put her hand on my elbow, and I shook her off, snarling.
I’d dealt with plenty of mean girls at Hastings House. Cowing them had only been a matter of time. It would be the same here.
Taking a breath, I glanced across the courtyard and met the topaz eyes of a boy sitting near the fountain. A sense of quiet and calm flowed through me. I blinked. I’d never felt anything like that before. I forgot all about the blonde, my eyebrows drawing together.
“Come on,” Mr. Reed said, and I let him guide me away.
Professor Frank and Mr. Reed hurried me on toward the spiraling staircase, and we followed it up three floors. The headmaster’s office sat at the end of a long hall. It must have been inside one of the two towers I’d seen from outside. The solid door, painted red, had an old-fashioned knocker affixed to it.
Mr. Reed knocked on it three times, and the door opened.
The woman who stood by the desk looked younger than Professor Frank. Her chestnut hair tied in a loose bun, she wore a green silk blouse and gray slacks. When she turned toward us, she smiled, displaying perfect teeth and the slight curve of fangs on either end. I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped my lips.
“Headmaster Larkin,” Mr. Reed intoned in as formal a voice as I’d ever heard from him. “This is Hailey.”
She moved with an easy grace across the room and took my hands in hers. “So pleased to meet you, my dear.”
I couldn’t help my answering smile. I didn’t know if it was magic or just natural charisma, but one simply couldn’t be impolite to this woman. “Thank you, Headmaster.”
“Come sit.” She gestured for the three of us to take chairs clustered around a small table. Tea and biscuits were laid out, and she pressed a cup into my hands.
The warmth seeped into me, and I held on to it. There was something different about this woman. It wasn’t just her visible fangs, but the paleness of her skin and the grace of her walk. Without thinking, I blurted, “What are you? Are you a wolf shifter too?”
Professor Frank started to apologize, and the headmaster waved her off.
“I hear that you are new to our world,” Headmaster Larkin said with another smile. “I am an air shifter which means that I am both a vampire and able to take the form of a hawk.”
“A vampire?” I squeaked. “You drink blood?”
“Yes, I need blood for sustenance,” she said, lifting her teacup. “But I can also eat whatever human food takes my fancy.”
“Even garlic?” I leaned forward. Part of me was terrified, but another part found the whole idea fascinating.
Mr. Reed snorted, and his teacup rattled in his hands.
“Italian food is one of my favorite cuisines.” She tilted her head and studied me. “Now, Mr. Reed tells me you are an earth shifter, possibly a wolf.”
“Possibly?” I looked back and forth between them. “Are there other kinds? I mean, other kinds of shifters?”
“Yes,” the Headmaster said, setting down her cup. “Shifters derive their powers from the elements: air, earth, water, fire.”
Not only were shifters real, but now there were more than one kind. I scratched my neck. What had she meant by possibly a wolf? I frowned. But hadn’t Mr. Reed said something about bears? “So what element does a wolf use?”
“Earth.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “And all earth shifters are wolves?”
“Not necessarily. Our power comes from our element, but it can take different forms. Earth shifters tend to be large predators: bears, wolves, or big cats.”
“And water?”
“Water shifters transform into large sea animals like sharks, seals, and the like.” She tilted her head. “But they also have a humanoid form. I guess you might call it a mer-person.”
“Like a mermaid?”
She nodded. “And fire shifters become a kind of rock creature. They are very strong and not easily hurt. Although . . .” She pursed her lips. “Also not easily healed.”
“And air shifters are vampires and . . . birds?”
“Just so.”
It made an odd kind of sense. Trying to force my thoughts into some sort of order, I picked up a scone from the plate. It looked delicious: blueberry and coated with extra sugar. I could always count on my stomach to distract me, especially during a wolf phase.
Why had I had all those dreams about flying and swimming and breathing fire? They sounded a lot like the other shifter forms. Did everyone have those drea
ms? I wanted to ask, but something told me not to. I didn’t know these people well enough yet.
Her eyes on my face, Headmaster Larkin asked, “And you’ve been living in an orphanage of sorts?”
Taking a bite, I moaned. The scone was just as good as it looked. Through my chewing, I said, “Yes, I was kidnapped when I was seven.”
“You remember your parents?”
“A little.” I rubbed my chest. “We lived in Florida near the beach.”
“Must have been lovely,” she said, sipping her own tea. “Do you recollect your parents’ names? Your last name?”
Her intensity had increased with the latest questions. They seemed especially important to her. I set down the teacup and looked directly at the Headmaster. “No, no idea.”
She sighed. “That’s a shame.”
I nodded and wondered if she could tell I was lying.
* * *
After I met with the headmaster, Professor Frank took me to the girls’ dorm. I guess she felt it best to avoid the courtyard because we traveled through quiet hallways. I ran my hand along the smooth stone walls and looked up at the odd contrast of the electric lighting.
“Thornbriar is kind of a square,” Professor Frank said. “Administration and the library up front. Girls’ and boys’ dorms in the back.”
“Separate dorms?” I asked, trying to be interested while I rubbed my eyes. It really had been a long trip.
“Of course.” She smiled. “Although visiting is allowed during the daylight hours.”
I never understood things like curfews. How was the night really more dangerous than the day? Especially in a school of shifters and vampires? But I guessed those were the school rules. I swallowed. “What other rules are there?”
“Oh Hailey,” she chuckled. “You don’t really have to worry about all that right now.”
I frowned. “Tell me.”
She shrugged. “Just the usual kind of school things. Do your work. Be on time. No fighting. Stay inside the property lines.”
They all sounded reasonable, but my skin itched at the last one. I really was in another cage. Perhaps a more gilded one, I thought looking at the furnishings, but still a prison.
We stopped in front of a plain white door in the girls’ dorm.
“You share a suite with three other girls,” Professor Frank said, flipping through keys on a ring. “There’s a common room, and then each of you has a separate bedroom.”
My own room. I blinked. I didn’t remember ever having my own room. Had I had my own room when I lived with my parents? I remembered the quiet roll of the waves outside and the barking of the neighbor’s dog. I brushed the memories away. There was so little I had from that time. I hadn’t even been willing to give the headmaster my last name, as if telling her stole it from me. As if her saying, ‘oh yes, a fine shifter family’ or ‘no, I’ve never heard of them’ would make them somehow less mine.
The lounge was dark and quiet, and the other bedroom doors were closed. Professor Frank opened the last door on the right and flipped on the light.
Really, as far as bedroom spaces go, it was tiny, but it was all mine. My heart swelled. I walked across the room, peered out the window and sank down on the cushiony mattress. A bed. A real bed. The sheets and bedding were all gray and green, school colors.
The professor rustled through some drawers and pulled out some clothes. “Pajamas,” she said. “School provided.”
Of course. My lip curled in disgust. It was still a jail, and they had to make sure all the inmates looked the same.
She smiled. “I’ll leave you to get settled then. I’ll send someone in the morning to help you sort out your class schedule and all the rest.”
“Thank you,” I said, and the professor ducked out the door. I stared at the wallpaper covered in tiny, red roses. They’d finished these rooms for comfort, I guessed, leaving the stone for the hallways. The roses made me think of the closet at Hastings House. Had it been only a few days ago when I was imprisoned in those walls? Trying desperately to control my wolf, and not lose my mind?
A wind brushed past me, and I realized the window was open. Crossing over to it, I stared out. A full moon lay heavy and low over the landscape, illuminating the long yard and fence and the forest that lay beyond. A wolf howled in the distance, and my wolf shifted uneasily inside me.
The last few days of travel and learning had left me exhausted. I could drop right now and fall asleep. But another part of me worried. I’d had a taste of freedom, and I wasn’t ready to give it up yet. I looked down at my borrowed clothes. I could run now, before Thornbriar Academy got its grip on me.
Perhaps there were things I needed to learn here. Probably more books than I’d ever seen before. I’d be able to find out what it meant to be a shifter and what form I really turned into. I didn’t think anyone went hungry here. I’d be safe.
I’d been safe at Hastings House too. My gut rolled uneasily. Well, as safe as one could be as a captive in a whorehouse. I didn’t want safety. I wanted liberation. Looking across the nighttime forest, I could feel the dirt under my feet. I imagined the wind whipping through my hair as I ran. Even if I was hungry, even if I struggled, wouldn’t that be better than this imprisonment? Would anyone even notice that I’d gone? I bit my lip, turning to the door. They wouldn’t, and I’d be free.
The wolf called again from the forest, and I whispered, “I’m coming.”
6
Terrin
Long after Professor Frank and Mr. Reed rushed the new girl away, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She was like a wild thing of the forest with her black hair and her emerald green eyes. Her instant growl when Greta, being herself, tossed the first volley, made my inner jaguar purr. I’d always enjoyed a strong female.
My cat side also fancied her physique. Her body was made for sex with her full breasts and curvy hips. The big cat clawed against my skin, and I ached. I smashed the feelings down and tried to concentrate on the conversation around me. But our shifter natures are not so easily denied, and I fidgeted in my seat.
“Y’all ready for a run?” Sciro’s southern drawl slipped out sometimes when he wasn’t paying attention.
“Yeah.” I jumped at the chance. My brother’s vampire nature couldn’t resist the moonlight, and Adrian would come if we went, even though he, being a water shifter, preferred to swim. We weren’t officially pack brothers yet, but we might as well have been. The three of us had migrated toward each other our first year at Thornbriar and the bonds were unbreakable now.
Heading out through the back gate, we broke into a run as soon as we hit the yard. The smell of the forest and the pumping of my legs was enough to distract my cat. Sciro ran like the wind, outpacing both me and Adrian, but we didn’t care.
We had all turned eighteen this year and it was just a matter of time before the others made their first shifts. I’d shifted early, no doubt due to my grandmother’s influence. Transformations before eighteen were rare, and there’d been some jealousy from other students. If they’d known what I had to go through to shift early, they wouldn’t be so interested. Grandmother’s training had been intense.
Still, it didn’t bother my brothers. They’d been having dreams about their other forms and feeling them inside for so long, sometimes it felt like they’d already shifted.
When we finally rounded back to the main campus, we were all dripping in sweat. Our muscles sang with exhaustion. Using my shirt to dry the sweat from my brow, I caught sight of a small figure running across the yard.
“Hey, Terrin, you coming?” Adrian asked.
“In a minute,” I said, my eyes following the girl. I waved the guys on. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Sure you will,” said Sciro. “Like you caught up on the trail?”
They laughed as they headed inside, and I ignored the good-natured ribbing.
Slipping through the shadows I followed the girl. My cat perked up at the smell of her—like lavender—on the breeze. My
grandmother kept a pot of it on the windowsill when I was growing up. A friend had brought it back from Greece, she’d said.
By the time I got across the yard, the girl was halfway up the front fence. I leaned against the tree nearest to her and asked, “Going somewhere?”
She froze, her eyes wide and frightened, as she looked around for where the voice had come from. Wild and fierce, yet terrified. She was more like a feral cat than anything.
“It’s okay,” I said, moving forward slowly, my hands up in an innocent gesture.
When she saw me emerging from the shadows, her eyebrows drew together. “What do you want?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Just wondering when you were going to get to the electrified part of that fence.”
Her eyes darted up to the top of the ironwork, and when she found the small wires, her shoulders slumped. She hopped back down to the ground.
Before I even thought about it, I reached out a hand toward her arm. As soon as I touched the bare skin, two things happened. She turned, snarling, and a tingling sensation spread up my arm.
“Whoa,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me. “I was only . . .” Trying to comfort you sounded stupid. “Seeing if you were okay.”
She stared at me as if dumbfounded. Then, she sighed and said, “I’m fine. I only wanted . . .” She looked up toward the trees and the moon.
“To be free?” I asked. I don’t know what made me ask it, but I knew a little something about captivity.
She met my eyes and said, “Yeah.”
“There’s trails over there.” I looked down at the sweat still soaking through my tee shirt. “Sometimes a good run . . . it feels . . .”
“It’s a release,” she said, nibbling on her lip.