She shrugged. “Maybe. But then again. This is dad we’re talking about. If he’s busy, he might not even think about it.” I shared his concern that none of us had heard anything, not even Sirris. My curiosity was killing me.
“I think we need to make time later on to pay your dad a visit and see how he’s doing.”
“Way ahead of you there. Dad’s still staying in the staff dorm for the rest of the week while the investigation wraps up.”
I followed Thomas and Sirris, not saying much else. It wasn’t like we needed to play catch-up. We’d spent every moment together in the last couple weeks we could. It had been a welcome relief not to have to worry about seven foot werewolves that wanted to eat you and little grey apelike creatures who could kill you with one scratch. We’d hung out like normal teenagers for a change. I’d gone to one of the horror flicks playing in town with Sirris and Kimmy and we’d screamed in the ears of total strangers near us, annoying the hell out of them.
It had been quiet and relaxing and... Oh hell, Sadie Cross, admit it. You were bored out of your mind.
I grinned. It was good to be back.
IN THE CAFETERIA OF the Commons Building we were the first table to hit the buffets. Time off hadn’t affected our appetites a bit. I ate a full plate of biscuits and gravy and thought about seconds.
I noticed that some things didn’t change. The long table in the center held Drae Council, made up of Rule 9 Professors. My eyes lingered on Wendy Seul in her wheelchair, sitting to the left of where the Mayor, her husband, sat. Next to her was the newest addition to Rule 9, Lori Bing. I hadn’t met her, but she seemed nice enough from a distance. My eyes moved on.
Another table held the prefects. I frowned when I realized Nick Seul was missing, and I wondered where he was.
None of us had seen him during break and I realized I had missed his irritating attitude that never failed to set me on edge.
One thing would be different though. There would be no tour of the grounds since all of us were returning students. I expected that instead, prefects would hand out envelopes with new class lists for the coming term and any room changes that might have occurred over break for whatever reason. I spied Fern Mason sitting further down at the other end of our table next to Kimmy, Thomas’ sister. Almost as if she felt my gaze, hers turned and met mine without blinking.
I tore my eyes away from her disturbing stare. As odd ducks went, she was the entire flock.
I was just thinking about getting up to refill my tray when the chatter in the room died down and Lucas Seul, the Mayor of Drae Hallow stood up and walked to the podium that had been set up for that purpose.
I looked at my empty plate with regret and pushed it back, reaching for my lukewarm coffee.
“Welcome to Second Semester at Rule 9... it’s great to have you all back...”
WE LEFT THE COMMONS an hour later, pulling our jackets close against the cold as we walked the sidewalk towards building C and the Staff dorms in the same direction. We hadn’t been able to glimpse the repairs and believe me, I’d tried. But the angle had been wrong. Now we walked around the side of the building and stared at what had been nothing but a yawning black hole just mere weeks before. Now it was almost as we remembered it before the explosion. The only sign that anything had happened at all was the newness of the fresh brick, which hadn’t faded to blend in with the older dull red of the rest of the building. The inside of the building was the same when we went in. Any evidence had been removed weeks ago to the makeshift lab in Building B and Feather Hodges lab. The smell of fresh paint showed the recent reconstruction.
Sirris sighed. “He must be at the dorms. Not sure why he wasn’t in the cafeteria and didn’t join us. Oh, what am I saying? We all know where he is.” She finished.
I laughed. “The lab.” Both Thomas and I said together. Sirris grinned and rolled her eyes.
WE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY to Professor Hodges lab and stared. Jerry Waverly was there. He was sitting at one of the long tables on a stool, his head resting on his folded arms, sawing logs. He’d fallen asleep. I also answered my earlier question as to where Nick Seul had gotten. He was in the professor's rocking chair, leaning back in dire danger of flipping. His long legs were out in front of him and propped on a student desk. He wasn’t snoring, but his eyes were shut and his mouth had fallen open at an awkward angle as he slept.
We stood in the doorway and I couldn’t help it. Some evil genie made me do it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached back and grabbed the door—and slammed it closed with enough force to rattle the glass.
Jerry Waverly sprung to attention with a shout like someone had zapped him in the butt with a cattle prod. Nick wasn’t near as lucky as the chair scooted from beneath him and he sailed over backwards to hit the floor with a thud. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. That looked like it hurt!
Scrambling to his feet, his eyes narrowed on mine. “Are you out of your damned mind Cross, I could have been hurt! Do you ever think before you act?”
I grinned and shrugged, coming the rest of the way into the room.
Sirris hugged her father and he clutched her close, rubbing at his eyes. He looked beat.
“We went by building C. The repairs look good. Can’t even tell. We were on our way to drop our things at the dorms and thought we’d pop by and see how things were going with you.” Thomas said.
“Yeah, since you couldn’t bother to let your only daughter know you were alive for the last two weeks.” Sirris voice was reproachful and teasing at the same time. She knew how her father was when he was working on something—we all did.
Jerry grimaced, running a hand through his thick hair in frustration. “Yeah, well, sorry bout that. As for going? Things aren’t. We aren’t a lot further ahead than we were the first day. Feather and Lori have been here working around the clock too. We sent them home to get some sleep and a shower a couple hours ago. I guess we should have done the same. The explosion did its job, covering up what it needed to. It doesn’t help that we don’t even know what we’re looking for. If Will Bennett was behind it, I don’t see how. We had several hundred evidence bags to analyze. Nothing. At least, nothing that can’t be explained away given it was a lab for potions and poisons. We looked at the surveillance tapes too. Nothing tripped the alarms and no one came in or out.” He sighed in disgust and shrugged.
“Nope. About the only thing that yielded anything odd at all was that strange hair I picked up the first day.”
“What was weird about it,” I asked. Nick had wandered over to lean a hip against the lab table. He’d been assisting Jerry pretty much on his own time since the blast. He looked just as beat. I almost felt bad for earlier. Almost.
Jerry went on. “Well, it wasn’t human for one. At first we thought, maybe one of the Other, right? I mean Magical Schools and shifters? But we tested for every known species attending school here. It was negative. It had some similarities to the Macu hairs. Not the same, but a few of the DNA strands matched up. Still, nothing conclusive. I’d say if Will was behind this? He accomplished his goal beyond a doubt.”
Neither Jerry nor Nick looked one bit happy about it. Neither one of them liked to lose.
Sirris brushed at the lines of exhaustion bracketing her father’s forehead. “Go get some sleep. You’ve done what you can here. And you smell.” She glanced in Nick’s direction to include him in her assessment.
Her father shook his head. “We’re going. Might as well. Whole damn things been a bust, you ask me.”
We turned to leave. “Hey, Sadie. Mind if I join you guys for supper in the cafeteria tonight? We can discuss what little we found.” Nick asked.
Thomas and Sirris answered. “Sure, fine. See you then.”
“Suit yourself.” I added with a smirk. Nick rolled his eyes but said nothing back. We both made it a point to grind each other’s bones whenever we had a chance.
ON THE WAY TO OUR DORM’S to relax for a couple hours before dinner, a thought occurre
d to me. “Hey, why you think it is that we haven’t heard about Nick’s mother, Wendy Seul, before now?”
Sirris bit her lip, wondering. “Well, she’s been out of the country. Getting fitted for a special chair at one of the other cells somewhere in Ireland.”
“Special?” I wondered.
Sirris shrugged. “Not sure. It has some different functions. It can navigate steps. Other stuff too I’m not too sure about. Magicals created it, so?”
I frowned in her direction. “How did she get that way? I mean, was she born like that or was she in an accident?”
“I’m not sure. An accident, I believe. I would be careful what you say around Nick though. Rumor has it he’s sensitive when it comes to his mom. Real protective of her and their families’ privacy.” I wasn’t surprised, Nick wasn’t one to be real free with his business. I figured her for a Magical, but I wondered what kind. Was she Other and a shifter? Or was she like her husband and son who were both Sorcerer’s? It was a question for another day and maybe not for my friends.
We reached the dorms and split up. My feet were dragging and my eyelids felt like they had two pound weights attached to them. A nap before supper sounded good. And if Fern was there and snored I was throwing a pillow at her head. My roommate had to be one of the strangest people I’d met since coming to Rule 9 Academy at the beginning of the year. I still hadn’t figured her out. I’m not sure anybody had.
CHAPTER TWO
It was the darkest night of the month and the inky blackness on the forest floor was nearly absolute beneath the dense upper canopy of Bane Forest. Not much moved along the trails—and not trails—that crisscrossed its length and led to Bane Lake along the eastern-most edge. There was safety for most of its denizens in remaining hidden and out of sight. Movement got you noticed.
Still, not everything tucked under and was out of sight that night. Some used the cover of night to feed.
A white-tail deer and her yearling fawn edged with caution along one such trail, dainty feet placed on the dense carpet of fir needles that blanketed the forest floor several inches thick. They’d been feeding in the high meadow at dusk and now thirst drove them to the lake’s edge before they found a grassy bank to bed down in for the rest of the night. In the absolute blackness their dark coats faded to nothing and they glided like wraiths down the trail, ears straining for any unusual sounds, noses twitching at the musty decay of leaves and the heavy scent of pine that stung as they inhaled deep.
They were not the only brave souls about. A whisper of movement beneath the massive rotting log of a thirty foot lodgepole pine made the doe’s ears twitch. Mr. Chipmunk was foraging for the tasty morsels left behind by Ms. Fox squirrel as she enjoyed her dinner, pulling apart a pine cone to get at the tasty pine nuts inside. She’d missed a few, but the small striped rodent would not.
In another section of the forest, over a mile away, a disturbance splintered the dark and peeled it back. The greenish glow started out the size of a quarter and grew. Concealed by the dense thicket of Mallow-leaf Ninebark, it was impossible to see at first. A lynx, fast on the trail of a clueless mouse, paused, one heavy furred paw lifted as its whiskers twitched and amber eyes glowed, searching in the dark for the disturbance. There, a hundred yards off and small, but growing. The glow spread until it was the size of a dinner plate and continued to expand, casting the thin shiver of light in all directions. It caught the attention of the cat. The mouse sat up and its whiskers quivered; the small sliver of acorn it was enjoying forgotten in its trembling paws. When the glowing light had grown to the size of a deer it shuddered and bulged outward, the eerie greenish glow pulsing like it was alive. All at once, something dark and large broke through and hit the ground with a groan. The large shape was followed by two more, even bigger than the first, landing alongside amid snarls of rage. It was too much for the lynx and with a shudder of her stubby tail she turned and fled, forgetting the hunt. The unsuspecting mouse dived back into its burrow and shuddered around her babies as they bellied up to her looking for milk.
The smallest figure moaned and sat up, trembling hands clutching at the rounded swell of her stomach, panting to draw in the heavy air, thicker than her lungs were used to. Her companions pulled themselves up too and swore, turning about and trying to thrust their hands back through the glowing doorway they’d come through. But it was already shrinking, the glow only the size of two hands, the light a dim memory as it winked out.
Their eyes glittered silver in the darkness and the largest moved closer to the smaller and gathered her in his arms.
The third glanced around the foreign world, silver eyes edging to orange as the rage and need for revenge claimed him. He looked at his son and his new daughter, carrying his unborn grandchild. The inside of his mouth grew sharp and his tongue whispered over the pointed edges. They’d find a way back. The alternative wasn’t acceptable. He looked at the black space where they’d come from, all signs of a doorway large enough to squeeze them through having vanished. They wouldn’t be going back that way. He knew a little about how trans-dimensional portals worked, and this one had been a one-way ticket in. Hunger gnawed at him and the need to feed was growing. For his daughter it was worse. She was feeding two. It had been several days since they’d last eaten in their own world, before the thing that did not belong had caught them and sent them here—wherever here was.
No, they’d find a way back, and they’d find the beast that had betrayed them. But first they needed to eat. His race could starve without the life-giving blood they took from others.
He stood and helped his son pull his young wife to her feet. He bent down from his impressive six and a half feet, to her own diminutive five feet and some spare inches. “Elise, Jorta and I need to hunt. You need to eat.” He whispered against the long fall of waist length blond hair that draped over her shoulders.
She clutched at his arm; her silver eyes gleaming wet against the black darkness. “I’m so scared, Ab’et. How are we going to get home?” Her eyes darkened and bled copper red. “I’ll rip his throat out...” she promised, careful that her sharp incisors didn’t break the skin of her soft lips.
Ab’et nodded. Not if he beat her to it.
“One of us should stay with Elise. I can hunt Ab’et.” Jorta started.
Ab’et made a slashing motion with his hand. “No. Stay with Elise. I’ll be back. We’ll feed. After, we need to find a way back home. There has to be a portal back the way we came, but this isn’t it.”
Left unspoken was the fact that the chances of finding that portal were one in a thousand. Sending them through into this new and foreign world was tantamount to a death sentence.
THE TWO WOLVES GLIDED through the forest, soft muzzles brushing against each other as their lean bodies twisted and leapt. They weren’t hunting; they were enjoying the chance to run and stretch tight muscles and exercise their lungs. Aaron sprung over a fallen log easily, at least four feet off the ground. Ana scooted beneath the same log with lithe grace, yipping and snapping at his heels, tongue lolling over sharp canines as she enjoyed the freedom. It had been a grueling week at the office and they needed to unwind.
The lake was less than a quarter of a mile up ahead and their strides lengthened. The race was on as they emerged into an open lull in the wooded canopy that concealed them along the edge of the forest before taking the last turn. They plunged into the darkened woods once more, turning the corner and angling downhill.
Ana was ahead, nose quivering, scenting the icy crispness of Bane Lake straight ahead. She was several yards down the trail when she realized Aaron was no longer behind her. A strangled yip of distress had her feet skidding to a halt, her streamlined body twisting on itself with effortless grace to pound back the way she’d come, a low growl in her throat promising retribution to anyone that challenged her mate. She twisted back around the bend at the top of the hill and skidded to a halt.
Aaron had transformed back into his human form. He was not an insignificant man
and in human form topped six feet. But he hung limp under the hands of the six foot man that held his twitching form still, mouth buried at his neck. The sounds of feeding were unmistakable. A vampire.
With a snarl she was flying, fangs bared with intent. Ab’et barely lifted his head from his meal, swinging a clawed fist out in a wide sweep towards the attacking wolf. He connected with a bone-jarring thud to the side of her head and grunted as she crumpled to the ground, transforming into a youthful woman. Ab’et went back to his meal. When he finished, he thrust the limp creature aside. He wiped his mouth with the back of his pale arm and reached for the female. She was out cold, but her blood pulsed warm in her veins. Her mate, not so much.
He hoisted the female to his shoulder and took off at a jog back towards where he’d left Jorta guarding Elise. He grimaced as he ran. His stomach was on fire and he had to stop once to regurgitate part of the meal. The unfamiliar werewolf’s blood hadn’t agreed with him and he was feeling sick. He forced himself to pick up the pace. Maybe it was just him. He didn’t want to think of the alternative. Elise needed the nourishment of life-sustaining blood soon if she didn’t want to risk the baby or her own life.
Neither possibility was acceptable.
I WONDERED IF SHIFTERS 101 was where I would find out about who I was supposed to be. Thomas and I had the class together. He was Other. But I wasn’t sure where I belonged.
I reached up and scratched at the sudden itching of my skin over the birthmark that graced my back and shoulder. Dragon shifter, what did that even mean?
Along with the rest of the class, we came in and took our seats. Wendy Seul wheeled in looking classy and professional. The heavy length of her auburn hair was pulled back off and up into a half bun, highlighting the bright blue-eyed gaze she observed her class with. There was a calm strength about her I envied.
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