“Kelsey would have known that,” I said, as much to myself as the creature, and it whined a third time. Not when I finished speaking, but when I started. When I said… No, that was crazy. And yet…
“Kelsey.”
Another whine slipped from its bloodied muzzle. It recognised her name. I lowered my hand a fraction, but it made no move to get up or advance on me. Emboldened, I dropped my hand the rest of the way to my side and looked at the panting beast. It was lying in the mud, twitching. Its movements became more frantic with each passing second. As I watched, it gnashed it fangs at its own legs, like it was in agony. Had I done that? My stomach clenched in sympathy, all thought of the creature’s earlier behaviour driven from my mind, and the dull fire in my hand extinguished itself. This was a sentient animal, and it was obviously in a lot of pain. A howl escaped its mouth and died quickly to a whimper. I could make out the bones moving beneath its fur coat, and then the fur itself seemed to grow thinner, sparser. I frowned as I watched, staring at its face as its muzzle… shortened. I had no idea what was going on, if it was dying, if something was killing it. If I was killing it.
I dropped into the mud beside it, but out of range of its wildly flailing limbs and gnashing teeth, looking frantically around for something I could use to help the animal, but I didn’t even know what was wrong, much less how I could help. I turned back to the beast… but it wasn’t a beast anymore. Lying in the mud, shivering, was a human girl. One I knew well. Kelsey.
Chapter Thirteen
I stared at my best friend in shock. It was a long moment before I regained the use of my mouth.
“Kelsey? What the hell is going on?”
She refused to meet my eye, and when my mind caught up with my eyes, I realised she was completely naked. Hence the shivering. Right. I yanked my cloak off my shoulders and laid it over her.
“Are you okay?”
She gripped the cloak with a trembling hand and wrapped it around herself. After a moment, she gave a shaky nod, then shook her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” The anger in her voice caught me off-guard, but not as much as the devastation in her eyes. She pushed herself to her feet. “Look at me! Do you know what I am? Do you know what I could have done to you? What are you even doing out here? Lyssa, I could have killed you!”
“I… I don’t…” I had no idea what to say. Safe to say this wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. “I came out here to save you,” I blurted.
She barked a harsh laugh.
“Save me? From what? I’m the most dangerous thing in this grove.”
I looked the skinny, lanky girl up and down, but I knew that wasn’t what she was talking about. After a moment, I forced the question from my mouth.
“What are you?”
“I’m a shifter. A werewolf, if you want to be exact.” She smiled bitterly. “A half-breed.”
“A half-breed?”
“Half shifter, half druid. An outcast in both societies.”
Her words thudded home like a punch to the gut. No wonder she’d lost it when I was whining on and on about being an outcast just because I struggled with my magic. I was still a human, still just an ordinary druid. Not Kelsey. She was something else.
She leaned back against a tree and refused to meet my eye.
“Unions between shifters and druids aren’t forbidden, but they’re strongly discouraged. It weakens the shifter bloodline, and some people believe the shifter corrupts the druid’s magic. Shifters don’t have magic, not in the same way druids do. The two sides aren’t completely incompatible, but they don’t exactly work in harmony with each other. Some say a half-breed is incapable of possessing the strength and the control of a full shifter, and unable to wield an element as well as pureblood druid.”
I did something then that neither of us expected. I snorted with laughter. Kelsey scowled at me, but I saw hurt and anger vying for control in her eyes.
“I’m glad you find it so amusing,” she said, stiffly.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know much about, uh, shifters, but you just turned back into a human instead of shredding me into confetti. And as for wielding your element, you’re in the top quarter of every single one of our classes. You’re the most kickass half-breed I’ve ever met.”
“I’m the only half-breed you’ve ever met,” she said, but a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You really came out here to save me?”
“Of course I did. That Elanor girl saw you come out here, and I thought you were going to get yourself killed. Of course, that was before you went all Jacob Black on me.”
She rolled her eyes at me, then raised an eyebrow.
“You do realise you could have been killed? Or worse, expelled.”
“Oh, please. You love me too much to hurt me.”
“Yeah, right. It was my decent halter top I didn’t want to hurt.”
We both chuckled, and what started as a giggle was soon a bout of uncontrollable laughter as adrenaline and relief caught up with us. The smile faded from my lips as I asked,
“Speaking of getting expelled, do the professors know you’re out here?”
“Why do you think the Unhallowed Grove is off limits? I’m still learning to control myself. I can prevent myself shifting any day of the month, except for the full moon. But the professors could hardly ban everyone from the grove just when the moon is full, not without telling everyone there’s a half-breed in the academy. And trust me, being the first half-breed in nearly a hundred years is hard enough, without the entire academy knowing.”
No wonder she’d been fidgety, and anxious to get rid of me. I dreaded to think what would have happened if she’d shifted in the castle, with people around. A thought occurred to me as her words ran through my mind, and I frowned up at the sky.
“The moon’s full now, how come you managed to change back?”
She shrugged and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear.
“I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve managed it. I must really love… that top.”
“Well, it’s a nice top,” I agreed with a nod. “But I’m afraid it got a little grubby on the way out here. Between scrambling through the trees and riding the hippogryff.”
“Excuse me?” Her face seemed a shade paler in the moonlight. I grinned.
“I’ll tell you all about it later.” I shifted my weight, then winced as I put pressure on my ankle. Definitely twisted.
“We should get back to the castle before we get expelled, or you’re going to wish I’d gone wolf on you.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Hey, can I lean on your shoulder?”
I hobbled awkwardly through the grove, with Kelsey propping me up. The journey back was much easier than the one out here, despite the pain in my ankle. It seemed Kelsey knew every inch of the grove and steered us onto the widest trails. Her night vision was much better than mine, too. Something to do with her shifter half, she told me. But there were still plenty of noises to keep me on edge, and even her eyes couldn’t penetrate deep into the grove’s shadowy depths.
“So,” I clarified, with forced levity in my voice, “If something tries to eat us, you can change back into your wolf form, right?”
She grimaced.
“Shifting is hard. I can’t really turn it on and off at will yet.”
“So… no wolf?”
“I thought I was the most kickass half-breed you’d ever met?”
“Well, yeah, but you’re also the least kickass half-breed I’ve ever met, and I think there are monkeys in the trees.”
“Those aren’t monkeys,” she said grimly, with a glance up at the canopy. “If you see one, stay away from it.”
I didn’t bother to point out that I was in no hurry to scale the eerie-looking trees in search of the not-monkeys that probably – like everything else in this place – wanted to eat me.
My nerves
were stretched so tight that I almost jumped right out of my skin when a loud sniff came from beside me.
“What? What is it?” I asked Kelsey, catching a glimpse of her flared nostrils beneath a stray moonbeam filtering through the trees. Her face was creased in concentration.
“A… I don’t know. I thought I smelled something. Something… bad. It’s probably nothing.”
We pressed on in silence until she froze again. This time, I smelled it, too. A vile, rotting, dead smell. A smell that made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and made my instincts scream at me to run. I trembled against Kelsey, then tried to pass it off as a shiver. She wasn’t trembling. Her eyes were fixed on the trees to our left, and she was completely rigid.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, giving her arm a gentle tug. “How much further?”
She shook herself off and nodded, still staring uneasily into the treeline.
“Not far. Just a few minutes.”
We couldn’t get out of this place soon enough for my liking. No wonder Stormclaw had refused to set foot inside. He might be a mythological creature, but monsters lived in here. My eyes flitted between the trees on either side of us, in front of us, and the canopy above us as we inched our way along the track. Every now and then I’d look down at the track under our feet, and the moonlight would give me a glimpse of a massive pawprint, or a scrape in the mud from an eight-clawed beast, or the remains of something that had been eaten. I tried not to picture the animals that had left them, but the horrific images invaded my mind – every creature I’d ever seen in my worst nightmares, all of them stalking through the trees, salivating, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Something rustled in the trees above and a pair of amber eyes paused on us as the dark shape leapt from one side of the track to the other. I stared for longer than I should, then caught myself and quickly jerked my eyes to the track in front of me. Something moved. Moonlight glinted on a pale brown hide, turning the tips of each hair silver, and giving the barest hint of the muscles beneath them before they vanished back into the trees. I froze, breath catching in my throat as I searched the trees left and right, looking for the predator.
“Where did it go?” I whispered to Kelsey, gripping her hand. My voice tremored, and my legs shook under me.
“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Keep moving.”
I stumbled a little as she lurched forward, and then I caught another flash of the silver-tan hide. A scream burst into my mouth and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle it. I watched, horror-struck, as the beast stepped onto the track just a few feet in front of us, revealing a creature the size of a leopard. Its tawny hide was stretched sleek over sinewy muscles, and its fierce head looked like it belonged to a mountain lion. It moved fluidly on six legs, trailing two tails behind it.
“Toby!”
I was so relieved I could have kissed the wampus – if my legs hadn’t turned to jelly. He looked terrifying in this form. I’d be running in the opposite direction if I hadn’t seen him like it before. No wonder he posed as a cat in the mundane world. He moved towards us, blinking his recognition, and butted my hand with his massive head. Then he leapt easily between the trees and vanished.
“Lyssa!”
The voice came from somewhere in front of us, a distant shout that I could just about make out, followed by another. I recognised the voices.
“Professors Alden and Underwood!” I turned to Kelsey and saw the relief on her face, a mirror of my own. We hurried towards them.
“Over here!” I shouted back, and just a minute later, the four of us met. Underwood gave Kelsey a stunned look.
“Kelsey.” He looked between the two of us. “This is… unexpected.”
“She knows, sir,” Kelsey said. “She saw me in my wolf form. I managed to shift back.”
“Impressive. Although,” he turned a dark look on me, “I believe you are fully aware of the rules regarding students in the Unhallowed Grove.”
I hung my head.
“Sorry, sir. I thought Kelsey was in trouble.”
“It was very almost yourself in trouble, Ms Eldridge. Kelsey’s training has not yet progressed to the point where it is safe for her to be around others in her feral state. What you did was foolish.”
“Though with the best of intentions,” Alden said, smoothly. “Perhaps this would be best discussed back inside the castle.”
“Indeed,” Underwood said, though to which of her statements, I wasn’t sure. So, Underwood had been helping Kelsey get control of her shifter powers. I guess that explained why she’d had all those extra study sessions with him.
We followed along by the professors, and it was only a matter of minutes before we reached the edge of the grove. Underwood pulled Kelsey to one side and spoke to her in rapid, hushed tones, leaving me alone with Alden.
“I’m going to be expelled, aren’t I?” I asked, staring at my feet. She snorted and I jerked my head up to meet her amused eyes.
“After the way you rode Stormclaw? Not likely. I want you on the Itealta team.”
Chapter Fourteen
I don’t know how Professor Alden swung it, but at six a.m. the following morning I was out by the barn, ready to serve my first “detention”, and feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It had been the early hours of the morning by the time we made it back to our dorm, and later still when we’d managed to fall asleep. Even then, I kept jerking awake, dreaming of yellow eyes staring at me in the darkness, heralded by the smell of rotting flesh. On the plus side, Madam Leechington, the resident healer, fixed my ankle last night, so at least I wasn’t hobbling any more.
If Alden noticed my bleary eyes or the shadows under them, she made no comment. Her face was split in a wide grin as she greeted me, and there was a tall, dark-haired guy by her side, a second year who I recognised vaguely from our common room, and from helping prep his gryff for his training sessions.
“Good morning, Lyssa. This is Logan Walsh, I’m sure you’ve already met? He’s the captain of the Fire team.”
He turned a brilliant smile in my direction, and I wasn’t so tired that my breath didn’t catch in my throat a little.
“Hi, Lyssa. Professor Alden tells me you’re a natural.”
I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak, lest I squeaked like a hormonal teenager.
“We’ve got a couple of hours before I need to start getting the team ready for the training match,” he continued, “So let’s see what you can do.”
“I’ve taken the liberty of bringing Stormclaw in for you,” Alden said, “Though I warn you, he’s in a foul mood this morning. Not enough sleep, most likely. I’ve advised Madam Leechington to be on standby.”
Great. I didn’t get the feeling that a sleep-deprived human and a sleep-deprived gryff were going to be the best combination, but I didn’t get the chance to dwell on it because Alden flung the barn door open and said,
“Hurry along now, we haven’t got all day. Bring Stormclaw out into the paddock, and then we can get started.”
Inside the barn was dark and gloomy: the sun was just starting to emerge but wasn’t yet high enough in the sky to filter through the skylights. There was only a single gryff inside, and as I approached him, he jerked his head up and watched me through one beady eye.
“Hey, fella,” I said, stretching a hand out cautiously, and hoping he wasn’t in a biting kind of mood. “Thanks for your help last night.”
He closed the gap between us and butted my hand with his beak, thrumming deep in his throat as I rubbed my hand over it.
“You’re not stroppy, are you?” I murmured as I stroked him. “Just misunderstood.”
His headcollar was hanging on the wall beside his stable, so I slipped it easily over his head, opened the door and led him out to the paddock, bathed in a red-ish light. Logan nodded his approval, but he’d already seen me handle all of the team’s gryffs, so this was no surprise to him – even if Stormclaw had a reputation fo
r being difficult.
“Very good,” Alden said briskly. “Mount up, show Logan what you can do, and then we’ll pop a saddle on.”
I suspected the bruising on her arm had as much to do with the reason she wanted to put off saddling up as wanting to show Logan that I could ride bareback, but I made no comment. I’d ride Stormclaw blindfolded if it meant I wouldn’t get kicked out of the academy.
She shut the paddock gate behind us – a formality, since Stormclaw could fly over it without any trouble if he chose – and leaned on the fence beside Logan. I turned my back on them, exhaled slowly, and unclipped the lead rope, keeping one hand through the creature’s headcollar. I gave his neck a stroke, and tried not to recall the terrifying sensation of the ground falling away beneath our feet. Assuming, of course, I could get on him at all, given that he wasn’t trained to take a knee. Maybe I should have led him over to the fence so I could have climbed it and then jumped on. Too late for that now.
“Hey boy, help me out again?” I murmured in his ear. It twitched back to me, and he snorted softly. I ran a hand over one of his scaly front legs and he snorted again, louder. “Alright, don’t eat me.”
He rustled his wings, then bent his head round to stare at me through unblinking eyes. Just as I was about to give up and put his lead rope back on, he bent forwards, lowering himself to the ground and lifting one scaled leg to form a platform.
I scrambled on before he could change his mind and climbed onto his back.
“Well, that’s different,” I heard Logan say, but I couldn’t work out if he sounded impressed or derisive. I paid him no attention as I settled in place, patted Stormclaw’s neck, and wrapped my lower legs around him.
“Alright boy, let’s go.”
He took off at a trot that was so bouncy I almost flew right over his head, and then he drifted into a canter, tossing me back and forth for a couple of strides while I reminded my hips and knees how to relax. We followed the fence line at an easy lope, far more leisurely than our breakneck gallop through the night. He seemed to be waiting for some sort of signal from me, but I’d never paid much attention to the Itealta training sessions, seeing as how I’d resolved never to sit on one the back of a flying half-horse, half-eagle – on account of not having a death wish.
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