by Lucia Ashta
The three vamps shifted closer to the one with the gorgeous red hair, preparing for a cat fight, but Sadie shoved the door open hard enough to dislodge all of us. “Come on, vampies. You’re leaving with me.”
“Why?” Blood Red said. “We have as much right to be here as anyone else. You can’t—”
“I can, and I will, so save us all some time and stuff it.” Sadie wrapped fingers around her pale, spindly arm and yanked.
“Hey! You can’t manhandle me like this. You can’t—” But the rest of her protest was drowned out by the start of a new song as Sadie dragged her through the door. Blood Red’s friends scurried behind them. The second the door slammed shut again, I sighed heavily. “What the hell is up with the vamps? I didn’t do anything to them. None of this mess is my fault.”
“Agreed,” Adalia said. “But vamps aren’t known for their level-headedness.”
“Well, they’d better watch themselves, or they’re going to lose their heads,” Jas growled.
“You can’t mean that,” Wren said. “They’re students. You can’t—”
“They’re stupid students. It’s a freaking good thing we don’t need to see them during the daytime or else I legit would’ve strangled one of them by now.”
The door pushed open again, and the four of us swiveled as one to see who would enter this time.
Stacy, Tracy, and Swan entered with noses and boobs held high, entitled pissed-off airs clinging to them like cloying perfume. Their gazes sought out Jas, Wren, and me right away. Even though Adalia was theoretically on a date with Boone, they left her alone.
Before Stacy opened her mouth, I threw my hands in the air with a loud huff. “Hell no. I’m so not doing this.” I whipped right past the lot of them, yanked the door open, and waltzed back into the large room that held Leander somewhere.
I stomped around the dance floor until my jets cooled and I sighted my elfin prince. He was with Ky, Boone, Dave, and Damon, but when he spotted me he walked over to me.
He studied me as he placed a hand on either of my upper arms. “What is it? What happened?”
“More vamps hating me, along with your groupies. Nothing worth wasting my breath on.” I blew away a few strands of hair that had landed across my face. “The chicks at this school are nuts.”
Leander stared at me for a few seconds before throwing his head back with a bark of laughter. “You sure do have a way with words.”
I felt my cheeks heating. “Well, it’s true.”
“You can say that again.” He chuckled some more. “What do you say? Wanna get out of here?”
I sharpened my gaze on his. “Are we allowed to?”
He smiled broadly. “I’m of the mindset that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
I nodded. “I like your way of thinking.”
“As much as I’d like to lose your bodyguards, it’s probably not a good idea. But maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll give us some space.”
“And Ky?”
“Like I said, forgiveness over permission. I learned that the hard way, or else I wouldn’t have been able to have any kind of life in my father’s court. I’ll deal with Ky later. He knows that I’d never do anything with you that wasn’t appropriate. He trusts me.”
I gave a darting look across the dark, hazy space and took Leander’s hand. There were so many people here, so many eyes on us. “Let’s do it. Sadie said she’d try not to crowd me.”
Leander squeezed my hand and led me outside, where we slunk into the night like spies. My friends would give me hell for leaving without saying goodbye later, but I wasn’t worrying about laters now. They’d understand—eventually—and accept my apology. All I had was my moment with my prince, and I was seizing it.
Leander and I meandered without aim, keeping to the main quad of the campus, and Sadie—and probably Wendi, though I hadn’t spotted her—kept far enough behind us that I could almost believe we were alone beneath the starry night—a striking illusion of the Academy Spell.
His hand was warm in mine, and the temperature was pleasant despite the fact that the night would already have a chill to it beyond our mountain. In Sedona, fall was coming. Here, we’d never experience the season.
“We should have left the party at the start,” I said. “It’s so peaceful out here.”
“Definitely.”
Several minutes passed in companionable silence before I remembered there was something I wanted to ask. “So … I’ve been wondering. How come you can do partial shifts? If that’s what they are. I mean, sometimes you have wings, sometimes you don’t. But you’re a shifter. Right...?” It was far from my most elegant effort, but I didn’t really understand what he did or how he did it. “I haven’t seen any other shifters have part of their creatures showing. And I’m pretty sure what Dave does doesn’t count.”
“Not every shifter can do what I do. Partial shifts are only possible if the shifter has high level magic.” He shrugged it off as if it were no big deal. “I leave my wings out almost all of the time when I’m home, but here I try to pull them in as often as I can stand it. I don’t like to draw more attention to myself than I need to.”
The look I gave him must have revealed my many questions because he continued: “It’s uncomfortable to keep my wings in for too long. A bit like an itch I can’t scratch. It feels like I’m trapping them under my skin.”
“But only with your wings?”
“A bit with all of it, I guess, but my wings are what gets to me the most.”
“And why don’t you like to draw attention to yourself?”
He sighed, and I could tell there was a lot more to his story than he would share tonight. “When you’re a prince of the elves, everybody expects something from you. Whether it’s a favor or whether they expect you to do incredible things. It’s hard to find friends who like you for who you are and not for what you can do for them, now or eventually. When you’re a prince, even the second one in line to inherit, people tend to forget that you’re a lot like them. I just happened to have been born to a title, to a position, but that doesn’t mean I don’t experience the same things they do. It doesn’t mean I was born with every answer.
“I’ve always imagined it would be nice to be anonymous. To not have everyone stare at you no matter where you go or what you do. My wings only make that more pronounced. Everyone’s curious about the shifter who walks around in a partial change.”
Everyone except me, apparently. Dope.
“I’d keep my wings in all the time if the sensation didn’t drive me up the wall.”
He hadn’t offered the information, but surely it couldn’t be a secret at a school for paranormal creatures, where shifting was a class requirement. “And what do you shift into?”
He looked away, gazing absently into the night. “A silver eagle.”
My breath hitched. An eagle? From the size of his wings, his eagle must be huge. I followed the direction of his gaze, but there was nothing there but dark, clear night. “What’s it like to fly?” I whispered, as if the night had suddenly become sacred.
He smiled wistfully. “Magical. Like nothing can touch you. Like you’re truly free.”
“That sounds really amazing.”
“It is.” My prince sounded like he was somewhere else, so I leaned into his chest and rested my head there, allowing him whatever time he needed.
His heart beat evenly beneath my ear until he gently pressed me back and slid a finger beneath my chin to tilt my face toward his. In an instant, his eyes called to me, drawing me to stare into their depths as if they were truly magnetic.
“Rina, may I kiss you?” His words sounded far away, as if I were in a dream.
“Of course.” My heart rate sped up to unreasonable levels as he slowly lowered his lips to mine, and when they touched, I closed my eyes without meaning to, breaking the connection to his gaze, but opening to so much more.
His lips were soft and gentle as they told me all the things h
is words hadn’t. Time fell away, leaving him and me alone in the quiet night. He pulled me closer to him in stages until my body pressed fully against his, his hands wrapped around my waist. At some point, I wove my hands around his neck, the silky strands of his long hair brushing against them.
He kissed me until I decided we had to find the way to be together beyond this one night. My heart, mind, and body responded to him like he was the only one in the world for me—a terrifying thought. When our kiss grew more urgent, more passionate, and I opened my lips to him, inviting his tongue to dance with mine, I became certain of one thing—I needed more of him. Lots more.
His hands traced my shoulders, my back, my hips. His fingers wove through the long strands of my hair, his breathing heavy. Then he abruptly pulled away. “We have to stop.”
I blinked at him, working to jumpstart my brain back to rational thought. “Why?”
“I don’t know anymore, Rina, I really don’t.” Anguish coated his words.
I brought my hands to his chest. “You don’t think we can be together?”
He pulled a hand from my back and I instantly missed the touch. He ran the hand through his hair, discovered it tied back, tore the tie from his hair, and flung it to the ground. He breathed audibly while I waited. Finally, he moved away from me to retrieve the tie and stuffed it roughly in his pocket. I shivered in the sudden absence of his warmth as if it were a cold winter night.
“We’re too different,” he finally said. “My father warned me against it. Again and again.”
“I see,” I said, though I really didn’t. “I thought we were just two shifters. How different could we be? We both have shifter magic. We’re both supernatural creatures.”
“But you aren’t fae. You aren’t an elf.” Torment dripped from his words. He sighed loudly, running both hands through his hair before flinging it across his shoulder. “What the hell was I thinking? I should never have...” He growled. “Rina, I’m so sorry. I should have resisted my pull to you. It was irresponsible to involve you in my life when my father will never allow our relationship to go anywhere of consequence. Please forgive me.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest “Forgive you for what? For kissing me or for telling me it was a mistake?”
He swallowed, his throat bobbing visibly. “For both. I should never have asked you out tonight.”
It was difficult to reconcile the confident prince who’d invited me on a date and courted me all night with this man. I’d never imagined him flustered. It was so unlike him.
“Well, I’m glad you asked me out, and I’m glad you kissed me. I don’t regret a second of it.”
Well, maybe I was starting to regret this part.
He looked at me and I could hardly bear to look into those silver eyes that swirled with his torment—or was it regret I saw there? “You really wish we’d never shared this night?” I asked.
The night filled the silence.
“Fine. Whatever.”
“No, Rina, no. Of course I don’t wish we hadn’t shared this. I’m just … I’ve never been in this position before. I don’t know what to do.”
I breathed in a few times to calm myself, then took a tentative step toward him. “What happened to ask for forgiveness, not permission?” My hands itched to reach out for him, but I didn’t.
“I’m not sure my father would forgive me this, not when he knows it means something to me.”
“Why? Why is it so bad to go on a stupid date with me?” Though it had been far from insignificant, and he had to know it.
“Because we can never be together, not in any true sense. I’ll be promised to another. My life hasn’t been mine since my birth.”
“We’re not talking about getting serious here, we’re talking about connecting and having a little fun.” But my heart recognized the lie for what it was. That kiss had felt too right, too meaningful. There was a connection between the prince and me, no matter what either of us said.
“I don’t think I can spend time with you and not want more than a ‘little fun.’ I’m just not made that way.”
I bit my lip. “Yeah, neither am I.”
There was so much more to say, and yet nothing that would make a real difference. We stood there, a foot between us, like strangers in the night, before I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart was a mess of confused emotions, and if the look on his face was anything to go by, his was in turmoil too.
When I finally moved right up to him, he exhaled as if he’d been waiting for me to do just that. His shoulders relaxed, and he wrapped strong arms around me and held me fiercely against him, as if the force of his will was enough to override his fate and bind us together.
12
The days passed in a blur. Between my three daily classes, each an hour and forty-five minutes long, and extra practice time with Ky after dinner, I collapsed into bed most days in a heap of physical and mental exhaustion. I could’ve done without the physical exhaustion bit, but at least an exhausted brain didn’t bother overly much with thoughts of Leander and what might have been.
From the frequent looks he gave me when he assumed I wouldn’t notice, I knew Leander was thinking about us. But if he wasn’t willing or able to move past his father’s judgments, then I had to let it go. He was an elfin prince; I was neither an elf nor royalty. I had no dowry to impress a king of the elves. End of story. At least, that’s what I kept telling my heart, which was devilishly persistent despite my rational arguments.
“Where’d you go just now?” Wren asked, prodding me with her elbow.
My own elbow slid out from under me atop the dining table and my fork clattered loudly onto my plate. I cringed until I was certain the cutlery hadn’t broken the plate. I had no desire to start my day endangering my life by telling one of the pygmy trolls I’d broken one of their plates. They took any offense to the dining hall personally, and if I’d learned anything since arriving at the Menagerie, it was that you never wanted to offend the trolls. Like ever.
“She was mooning over Leo,” Jas said, though I’d asked her not to keep saying shit like that. As usual, Jas did what she wanted and didn’t seem to care much about how her words were received by others.
I sighed and pushed my plate away. I’d tried for fresh fruit and a bagel piled high with cream cheese this morning, but, as of late, my appetite just wasn’t what it normally was.
“I wasn’t mooning over Leander.” I hoped I hadn’t been. I’d been working hard not to. “I’ve just been tired lately.”
“You have been pushing pretty hard.” Wren’s concerned eyes traveled the length of me. “Couldn’t you ask Ky to give you a break from the extra practice for a bit?”
“Trust me, I’ve tried. He says the dangers are too great and that I can’t rely on anyone else to protect me. Sorry, Sadie,” I added with a flash of apologetic eyes to the perpetually hungry shifter in her usual seat at the end of our table.
“No worries,” she said as she shoveled a small mountain of scrambled eggs drenched in hot sauce into her mouth. “He’s right. Even I can’t anticipate every single attack, and I can’t be there to watch your back every second of every day—though I try.”
“Are you finally admitting to some limitations?” Wendi asked from the opposite end of the table, where as a rule Wren, Dave, Jas, Adalia, and I did our best to ignore her. As feisty as Sadie was, at least we could always count on her to be real. Wendi … well, real wasn’t her style.
Sadie didn’t even bother looking at the other Enforcer, who sat prim and straight in her lemon-yellow button-down sleeveless blouse. Sadie pretended to scratch her cheek with her middle finger while shoving more food into her mouth.
Wendi growled low in her chest, but Sadie looked at me. “The more you know about your shifter powers, the better. We’re obviously hoping you won’t have any more encounters with any of the Voice, but they’re persistent fuckers. It’s always better to be prepared.”
“Hopefully more practice helps you more th
an it helps me,” Dave said to me, his shoulders droopier than usual.
As was our habit, he sat on one side of me, and Wren on the other. I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Hey, you’ve been improving lots lately. Think how far you’ve come since last term.”
He chortled darkly. “I guess when you start out by monumentally sucking, just regular ol’ sucking is an improvement.”
“There you go,” Sadie said, as if that would encourage him.
He slid pieces of half-eaten omelet around his plate. “I don’t think McGinty knows what to do with me anymore.”
“He does seem to have Melinda on call,” Jas said.
Wren and I glared at her.
“What? What’d I do wrong this time?”
Adalia shook her head from beside her, but we didn’t bother to answer. Jas would apparently be Jas, no matter how many times we explained her many offenses. With a pointed look at her, Wren leaned across me to look at Dave. “You haven’t gotten stuck in a partial shift all term. That’s a huge improvement.”
“That’s right,” Adalia said. “You’ve barely needed the Magical Moving Mousse at all lately.”
“Thank goodness, because that shit reeks,” Jas said.
Adalia rolled her eyes, and I chuckled, because Jas still hadn’t figured out that the happy-go-lucky fairy was messing with her pretty much all of the time.
“Adalia’s right,” Wren powered on. “You haven’t even had to carry the mousse around with you lately.”
“But I’m probably the only student on campus that Melinda gave his own personal jar to,” Dave said.
“Probably,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you haven’t improved a lot lately. And remember that we’re all different. We have different strengths and weaknesses.”
Jas opened her mouth, and Adalia elbowed her in the ribs sharply. While Jas glared at the fairy, she smiled at Dave. “You wouldn’t be at the school if you weren’t amazing in your own way.”