by Lucia Ashta
Her sword sank toward the ground with unexpected momentum, throwing her off balance when the sharp tip clanked heavily against the asphalt. Leander rounded behind her as the three human-sized fae who’d moved to his defense drew up at his back.
He had her—for the time being at least.
I cut my attention to Ky and Boone, my pulse leaping in my throat. Adalia clutched at my arm as Boone and Ky faced off with the two uninjured hyenas. They circled each other, teeth bared, a constant snarl rumbling from their throats.
The two remaining hyenas were unusually large, as some shifter animals were. Though the same in appearance as a regular hyena, they were fifty percent bigger, which meant they were a head taller than the mountain lion and wolf.
My breath hiccupped in my chest when Ky swiped a paw, claws extended, at one of the hyenas. The animal dodged the attack, squealing repeatedly in that disturbing way hyenas did—like a deranged man laughing up a storm in a psych ward.
The wolf and second hyena growled viciously and charged at each other, maws wide and paws smacking at each other in an attempt to clamp onto flesh before the other. I stopped breathing while I waited to see which of the two would overcome the other.
My heart couldn’t take this shit.
Ky leapt onto the other hyena, knocking him to the ground, where the two rolled on the pavement, swiping and baring teeth in a desperate attempt to land on top.
A gunshot rang out into the morning.
My heart missed a beat entirely as Adalia shrieked and pulled me into a full embrace, clutching at my upper arms while she craned her neck to see who else had shown up to threaten us.
“Jacinda, order your crew to stand down right this second or I’ll mow them all down.”
2
“I mean it,” the man said evenly, pointing the semi-automatic rifle he held in steady hands at Dye Job—Jacinda. He was a mixture between Mad Max and Captain Jack Sparrow, if either had ebony skin, waist-long dreadlocks, and wore ripped jeans and a faded Guns N’ Roses t-shirt.
I hoped with desperation he was on our side and not here to claim Ky and me in Jacinda’s place. His warm chocolate eyes glinted with competence. If he wanted to take us, he would. Besides, he was the only one with a big-ass scary gun.
“You know I’ll follow through,” he said casually, while the lone woman with him stepped to his side.
She was of average height and build, but like her companion she oozed competence and expediency. With her dirty blond hair and pretty but unremarkable face, she could have blended easily into a crowd. However, there was no chance of that. I wasn’t sure what it was about her—certainly not her Smurfette t-shirt—but I was certain she was as dangerous as the big man with the big gun.
Jacinda flicked nervous eyes across the pair, and the two of her crew left standing positioned themselves so they could keep watch of Ky, Boone, and the newcomers at the same time. Their felled cronies panted shallowly atop the pavement. Their injuries were severe, the gashes upon their bodies deep and gaping, but perhaps their super shifter healing could still rescue them.
Jacinda appeared undecided for a few moments before finally pasting across her face what I thought was supposed to be a placating smile. “There’s no need for extreme measures here, Damon. You can put the gun down and we can talk this through.”
“It’s good of you to point out what I can do,” Damon said, “even though you know I won’t.”
“We can talk about this like friends, can’t we?” She waved her hands in front of her in feigned innocence.
Smurfette barked out a harsh laugh. “Friends. As if.”
“We haven’t been friends in a very long time,” Damon said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure we never were. I tend not to like people who try to stab me in the back.”
Smurfette narrowed her eyes at Jacinda, perhaps remembering the traitorous event. When she crossed her arms over her chest, I noticed she wore a wicked curved blade along both hips.
“Excuse me,” Leander said, “but who are you? And what are your intentions?”
Good! I needed to know. Every muscle in my body was clenched, and Adalia was gripping me so hard I might bruise.
Damon kept the barrel of his semi-automatic pointed at Jacinda, but flicked his gaze to Leander, and then over to the rest of us. Smurfette continued to glare at Jacinda, who hadn’t once glanced at her fallen comrades since the two of them had arrived on the scene.
“We’re Enforcers,” Damon said, and my breath hitched as it ping-ponged through my chest. I hadn’t thought any of them had survived the Voice’s attack at the end of last term. I’d believed all seven-hundred or so of them dead.
“You’re cockroaches, is what you are,” Jacinda grumbled. “You’re supposed to be dead with the rest of them.”
Smurfette took several menacing steps toward Jacinda, stalking around the trajectory of Damon’s gun. “Say that again, bitch,” she snarled.
I took half a step backward, dragging the terrified-looking Adalia with me, before realizing I’d done so. Smurfette was fierce. If Jacinda wasn’t scared of her, then she was crazy.
“You wouldn’t back off,” Jacinda spit out the words. “So you forced us to deal with you however we had to. You should’ve listened. You were fools.”
Jacinda was definitely cray-cray. Certifiable.
Smurfette spluttered in rage before finally managing to get the words out. “Deal with us? Deal with us? Is that what you call slaughtering us in the middle of the night while we slept?”
Jacinda shrugged. “Hey, we did what we had to. You left us no choice.”
Smurfette growled so viciously that everyone surrounding her, with the exception of Damon, took a step away from her as she stalked a few feet closer to Jacinda, who held her ground. I didn’t think the Enforcer could formulate words anymore. Had she been in a cartoon, smoke would’ve been whistling out of her ears.
“You have no honor,” Damon told Jacinda as he towered behind Smurfette.
Jacinda shrugged, her frizzy mop of hair brushing her over-developed shoulders. “Honor’s for the weak and struggling. We’re survivors.”
“Don’t go making this about something it’s not. You’re power-hungry fuckers, the whole lot of you, nothing more.”
“You have no right to police our every move! You can’t—”
“We can. And we will.” He waved his gun between her and her hyenas. “Now, what’s it gonna be? Are you going to surrender or should I sic Sadie on you?”
Smurfette—Sadie, I guess—snarled as convincingly as any animal while a flash of orange magic rippled across her bare arms. What was that? I swiveled to face Adalia, whose eyes were wide with shock. So she’d never seen anything quite like it before either … not from a shifter. Magic like that was supposed to be reserved for mages, and for exceptional creatures like Leander … and maybe me.
Jacinda finally snuck a glance over her shoulder to take in the hyenas. The breathing of one of the fallen ones had slowed to the occasional shallow inhale, suggesting his wounds were too grave for his shifter healing. The other struggled, a thick thread of saliva hanging from his mouth as he panted without reprieve.
Ky and Boone hadn’t backed off from the other two, and Leander and the three fae behind him were positioned within striking distance of Jacinda.
Her shoulders drooped by a fraction of an inch, though she schooled her facial features into impassivity. “We won’t surrender”—Damon raised his gun by an inch so its barrel pointed at her chest—“but I’m open to talking terms,” she rushed to say.
“Terms?” Sadie barked without mirth. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You murdered our friends in their sleep. I’m gonna rip you to pieces so tiny no one’s gonna know it’s you once I’m done.”
“Sadie,” Damon warned. “Alive would be better.”
“Not for this trash.”
“We’ll take her to Thane. He’ll get answers out of her. Finding out about what the Voice and the Shifter Alliance intend to
do is more important than killing her.”
Sadie growled.
“It’s how we’ll prevent another attack like the one that took out our friends,” Damon pressed.
She growled again, more softly this time, resigned.
Damon nodded once, his heavy dreadlocks thudding against the back of his black t-shirt. “Come now, Jacinda, and maybe we’ll even get some medical help for your minions.”
“I’m not going anywhere if you’re planning to hand us over to Thane,” Jacinda said.
Damon smiled coldly. “It’s either that or kill you on the spot. Your choice. As you can see, Sadie would rather see you dead. That one there will probably die within the hour if he doesn’t get help.”
“He might die anyway.” The slightest hint of concern vibrated through her voice.
“Yeah, he might, and he’d deserve it. But if you come with us, he’ll have a chance of not bleeding out right here, right now.”
Police sirens wailed in the distance, undoubtedly heading our way. Surely someone had called in the gunshot that was so out of place in the small town.
“You have ten seconds and then I’m deciding for you,” Damon said. “We all need to be gone before the human cops get here.”
Sadie prowled closer to Jacinda, and Leander and the three human-sized fae closed the gap behind her. Boone and Ky stalked nearer to the two standing hyenas.
“Fine,” Jacinda said tightly. “I’ll let you take us, but you get help for my men. If you renege on that promise, so help you…”
“No,” Sadie said a little too happily. “So help you. Thane’s been waiting to get his hands on any of you. You assholes killed his wife.” She grinned maniacally and Adalia squeezed my arms.
Jacinda visibly gulped. Who the hell was this Thane?
“Unlike you, we keep our word,” Damon said. “Come on. We’re moving.” With the barrel of his gun, he ushered her in the direction they’d come from.
Jacinda hesitated for a second before following his direction. The two standing hyenas edged around Boone, and Ky and fell into line.
“You got the others?” Damon called over his shoulder to Sadie as he pressed the other three ahead.
“No problem,” Sadie said. “I can handle this scum.” She flicked each hand in the direction of one of the fallen hyenas, mumbled something unintelligible under her breath, and hovered them into the air with a glow of orange light.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“See ya later, kids,” she called back to us while floating the creatures further across the parking lot, in the opposite direction of the small residential street that bordered the trailhead of Thunder Mountain. Blood dripped from both bodies, marking out a consistent trail. I hoped they had a plan, or the police would follow the blood splatters straight to them.
Ky, Boone, Leander, the rest of the fae, and I watched the two enforcers and their prisoners until they took a sharp left turn … that led to nowhere in particular.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Leander said, “but we’d better get the hell out of here ourselves before the police find a bunch of supes standing next to pools of blood.”
“Right. Absolutely. That’s a very good idea. We should go.”
I rambled when I got nervous. This was most definitely not the smooth beginning to the new school year I’d hoped for.
Leander moved to my side, his silver eyes scanning me from top to bottom. I flushed at his attention, and Adalia, always observant, released the death grip she had on my arm and stepped away to allow Leander to take her place.
He placed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Are you all right?”
No, definitely not. Ky and Boone just killed two hyenas!
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
But the way compassion brimmed in his gaze suggested he didn’t believe me. “You’ll let me know if I can help in any way, won’t you?”
I nodded a bit too abruptly. “Absolutely. Of course. I’m sure I’ll be fine soon.” Then I shut up because I’d basically admitted I wasn’t okay in the first place.
I sighed in relief when Boone and Ky set off in the same direction Damon had taken, leading us toward the massive, towering, impenetrable mountain—that wasn’t as impenetrable as we once thought. Leander’s stare, which seemed to penetrate my exterior, remained on me while the wolf and lion skimmed the base of the reddish mountain, and when we passed the point where Damon had veered left, they continued circling around to the right. When we’d walked for at least five minutes, avoiding prickly shrubs, the gnarled, exposed roots of Juniper trees, and more cactus plants than I cared to count, the police sirens stopped, meaning the cruisers had likely arrived at the scene.
Ky and Boone began sniffing the ground. Like that, they led us further around the base, until Ky stalled, sniffing in one spot. But Boone continued on.
“What is it, Ky?” I asked. He looked up, and if a mountain lion could smile, he did. His majestic face lit up and an almost wistful air settled around him, making him seem … entirely magical. He hesitated with whatever he was experiencing, then trotted after Boone.
When they both stopped at the same location, I knew they must have found the entrance to the school. Completely unmarked, no one without magic would be able to sense the point of access. A sprawling campus of higher magical learning was contained in the middle of Sedona, and none of its residents realized a thing.
In unison, Ky’s and Boone’s bodies blurred, their edges losing all definition. They quickly cycled through the phase where their animal forms vibrated, and when their bodies began to flicker rapidly, as if they were illuminated by a strobe light, the rest of us crowded them in preparation to move through the mountain. If the cops were at the trailhead, there was a chance they might spot us and find such a large group of people suspicious after a random gunshot.
Ky and Boone popped back into their human bodies. Boone nodded at Leander and about-faced toward the mountain … and disappeared inside it.
A trail of fae, including Adalia, followed right behind him.
Leander and my brother were the last. My brother moved to my side.
“What happened back there?” I asked. “What made you stop?”
He smiled, once more a wistful air settling across his features. “I caught the scent of a true mountain lion.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“Incredible.” He stared pensively off into the distance before snapping himself out of it.
“Ready?” Leander asked both of us.
“Of course,” Ky said, but I didn’t bother. Was I ready for another wild term at a crazy-ass school for magical creatures? I wasn’t entirely sure.
Ky pulled past Leander, and the elfin prince winked at me.
Okay. Twist my arm. I’d follow the sexy prince anywhere, even if his father had gone to great lengths to ensure I realized he forbade the two of us being together—apparently, I was the wrong race; I lacked the requisite pointy ears.
With a foot inside the mountain, Ky extended his hand to me.
Was I embarrassed to take my big brother’s hand in front of Leander? Yes, absolutely. Was I embarrassed enough to refuse his offer? Hell no. Walking through solid rock in the pitch dark was creepy; I didn’t imagine I’d ever get used to it.
I clasped Ky’s hand and allowed him to pull me inside Thunder Mountain. Leander stepped right behind me. His presence prickled along my back as I reeled from the absence of most every other sensation I was supposed to feel.
The air was too thin, too insubstantial, the darkness too thick, the ground too tenuous. I shuffled my feet along in the wake of Ky’s momentum and forced my panic down. Now that I knew what was on the other side of this wall of rock, a little discomfort was worth it.
There was no place else like the Magical Creatures Academy on this Earth. It gave bizarre a whole new definition.
3
I sucked in the rich air of th
e Menagerie with greedy gulps. I wasn’t entirely certain it was real air—after all, the entire campus was housed within a mountain that shouldn’t contain it—but my body seemed to think so.
Ky released my hand, and he, Leander, and I meandered up the pebbled path lined with flowers of nearly every color, some of them containing multi-colored petals within one blossom. The scent of their perfume and the azure of the cloudless sky lifted my spirits. The wily willows, scattered across the entirety of the campus, leaned in our direction as we passed, as if to extend a jovial welcome. I swore one of the trees was actually waving at us, its branches swaying in a distinct back and forth motion.
The sunshine glinted off Leander’s shoulder-length hair, making it glow like the moon itself. His wings were as white as new-fallen snow, tipped with a silver sheen that matched the rest of him. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt like my brother, I could make out the lines of his firm shoulders and back beneath the thin fabric. He filled out his jeans like a cowboy dream, just the distraction I needed to help me shake the unease of Jacinda and her minions trying to take Ky and me by force.
My step faltered, and Ky and Leander turned toward me.
“What is it?” Ky asked while Leander took in my shocked expression before scanning the length of my body, up and down, taking his time. The prince took a step closer to rest a hand on my forearm, concern scrunching his brow.
I lifted a trembling arm to point. “Th-there.”
“Boone and the rest of the fae?” Ky said.
I shook my head, my loose hair bouncing everywhere as I worked not to freak out. “Not them, Ky. Obviously not them. R-rasper the Rabbit is back from the dead.”
“What?” Ky and Leander spluttered in unison, narrowing their eyes to see beyond our friends.
“How’s that possible?” Ky whispered.
“It isn’t.” Leander’s full mouth settled into a straight, grim line. “I mean, theoretically it is, but Sir Lancelot would never allow it. The magic required to bring someone back to life is the darkest there is. He’d never permit something like that on campus. When the person—or rabbit—comes back, they’re dark, right down to their souls. And Rasper the Rabbit wasn’t exactly happy-go-lucky to begin with.”