Lion Shifter

by Lucia Ashta

  Until I sensed Ky glaring at me from the other side of the table. Yep, my brother definitely knew what was going on, or he had an idea. Maybe he had a worse idea of what Leander was doing to me since all he’d be able to see was Leander’s hand disappear beneath the table and reach in the direction of my skirt. I plastered extreme innocence on my face for his benefit and trained my focus back on my sandwich.

  “Before things have a chance to … digress … any further,” Dave said, and I sent him a wave of silent gratitude, “we’re dying for updates, Sadie and Damon. Fill us in.”

  “Yeah,” Boone said. “Did you get Wendi?”

  Sadie’s mouth was stuffed so full she couldn’t speak even if she tried, but the way she grimaced around her food had my stomach sinking even before Damon answered for them. “Wendi’s in the wind.”

  “What!” Ky blurted as Leander’s body went rigid beside me, tension rolling off him and into me. “She got away?”

  “Yeah. Trust me, dude, we’re far from happy about it. But by the time we found out she’d been the one to betray all of you—”

  “All of us,” Sadie interjected. “She fucked over every single one of the Enforcers as much as she fucked Rina and Ky.”

  “I love a fierce woman,” Orangesicle grumbled seductively, snapping his hair net off and running a hand up his tall fro-hawk, his apron hitching up his thighs while he did so.

  I ignored him entirely, I had to. “How’d she get away? She definitely didn’t seem more competent than either of you.”

  “She isn’t,” Sadie growled, stabbing at her burritos before switching to twirling more spaghetti around her fork. “We have no idea how she got away like this, without a trace.”

  “We think she had some help,” Damon added, and I looked between my brother and his best friends. That was too close for comfort to what they’d said about Rage and Fury. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise. There’s no sign of her anywhere. None of the other Enforcers have seen or heard anything about her. And supernaturals always talk.”

  “Yeah, she took her mother and ran, I guess.” Sadie scowled. “The fucking coward.”

  Orangesicle licked a finger on each of his stubby four-fingered hands and wiped them across his bushy eyebrows, gaze pinned on Sadie as her movements became sharper and more violent, her food her convenient victim of her frustration.

  “Well, we assume she got her mother back, anyway,” Sadie said. “We don’t even have proof of that, other than that her mom has dropped off the map too. And she has no more family to interrogate.”

  “To question, you mean,” Damon interjected.

  Orangesicle tsked. “Don’t go correcting the fierce woman. She’s got it right. Creatures respond to force and violence.”

  I scooted another inch toward Leander, capturing the loose fabric of his pants under my leg … and stilled when Jas, Wren, Adalia, and Dave suddenly stared at something behind me.

  Did I want to see what captivated their attention so? I was pretty sure I didn’t, but I spun anyway.

  Stacy stood several feet behind us, her mouth hanging slightly open in an uncouth look most unlike her. Even her usually bouncy red hair drooped like the rest of her. Her gaze went from my face, to the closeness between Leander and me, and blazed with anger when she followed his hand onto my leg, which was fully exposed since I’d turned.

  After all the times she’d been nasty to me or draped all over Leander, I wished I could say something biting to her now. But I didn’t have it in me. She looked defeated, and I knew a bit too much about that feeling. I wouldn’t make it worse for her.

  As Tracy and Swan swept around their friend, each taking an arm to lead her away, Jas smirked. “Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it, Cat Pack?”

  Leave it to Jas... She couldn’t keep her mouth shut if you paid her a fortune to do it, despite the fact that I didn’t think this fully qualified as karmic payback.

  Tracy and Swan sneered full-on in defense of their friend, and Sadie rocketed to her feet and let rip a snarl that sent the hairs across my arms standing on end. When the trio scampered away, Sadie laughed and reclaimed her seat, digging into her pizza with over-the-top ferocity.

  “Be still my thumping heart,” Orangesicle crooned, pulling at the top of his apron to fan himself. “Now that’s one feisty woman.” He leaned across the table, shoving aside plates and glasses, and giving me a full shot of his round, bare behind. “Where’ve you been all my life, sweetheart?”

  “Feed me more like this, and maybe I’ll tell ya.”

  Sadie was nonplussed, but I couldn’t stop ogling the troll’s ass while silently hating myself for it. Obviously the world of supernaturals didn’t overly concern itself with health codes.

  “Rina,” Leander whispered into my ear, sending shivers through me and drawing me back to him—thankfully. I was all over the place, a freaking mess. He squeezed the hand that hadn’t moved from my thigh.

  I cleared my throat and plowed on: “I overheard Wendi saying that Rage had taken her mother, so it makes sense that the two of them would be gone once she turned Ky and me over.” Too many concerned gazes settled across me, but I pretended not to notice. “I get that she did something to put Sadie and Wren to sleep, but how’d she get connected to the vamps? And how’d they knock Damon, Ky, Leander, and Boone out?”

  “The dark sorcerer Jevan must have given her a spell to use,” Damon said. “We assume Rage connected Wendi with the vamp students, and either he, Jevan, or Wendi handed out the spells for the vamps to use since Wendi wouldn’t have been able to get into the boys’ dorm after curfew.”

  “Right,” Sadie said. “The Academy Spell would’ve kicked her right the fuck out. And if it wasn’t a spell, which would’ve been simple enough once she got the drop on us”—she growled—“she and that Anton fucker must’ve had some sort of magical object or something.”

  I’d never heard Sadie let the F-bomb fly so freely. She was seriously pissed.

  Boone leaned onto his forearms, giving Sadie his full attention. “Wouldn’t you guys have found the magical object once you woke up if they used that?”

  “Probably, I guess, but there are some out there that are so powerful that just a swipe from them is enough to knock you out cold.”

  “Really?” I blurted.

  “Oh yeah,” she said animatedly. “Magical objects are more powerful than most supes realize. I think Sir Lancelot and others like him work to keep the power of the objects secret so more supes don’t go chasing them.” Sadie stuffed an entire large meatball in her mouth, but that didn’t stop her from continuing. “You should see the talismans. They’re even crazier than the objects. They’re...”—she shook her head in amazement—“just super insane. That’s why there’s a whole secret academy dedicated to teaching those with the gift to craft them.”

  Damon groaned. “Emphasis on the word secret, Sade.”

  She looked up. “Oops.” But she didn’t seem overly concerned by her indiscretion. She was like a more grown-up Jas.

  “So what happened when you woke up?” Boone encouraged Sadie to get back on topic.

  “Well, the second I woke up, I knew something was wrong. I had a killer hangover without the fun of getting stupid drunk. When I didn’t find Rina, I figured that fucker Rage had taken her. Of course I didn’t realize then that Wendi was the biggest fuckhead of them all. I ‘woke’ her up, thinking she’d been hit with the same sleep stuff. I assumed they’d done the same to Wren, but left her sleeping it off, and I ran to the boys’ dorm while Wendi was supposed to go for help in another direction.

  “Of course, the stupid curfew alarm went off the second I stepped foot inside the building, but we needed the alarm anyway. When I got to Ky’s room, I found Damon and the rest of the boys out cold. And Ky was gone. I woke up Damon—”

  “By pouring a bucket of water on my head,” he interjected.

  “Hey, whatever gets the job done, right?”

  “Absolutely.” And he meant it. Though he wasn�
��t quite as colorful as Sadie, he was every bit as furious that their wards had been stolen from under their noses.

  “Leo and Boone woke up quickly enough,” she said, “and by then Fianna had arrived to find out who was breaking curfew. We told her what we thought was going on, and she took it from there. She went straight to Sir Lancelot.”

  I hung on her every word as she filled in the gaps of my assumptions.

  “By the time Damon and I and the guys reached the gate, the rabbits were out cold. By the way,” she said to Ky and Boone as if she somehow already knew of their plans to track Rage and Fury over the summer, “the rabbits seriously have a hate-on for Rage and Fury. They want to help find them.”

  Boone and Ky nodded. “We’ll take the help,” Ky said, and I decided my brother had lost his damn mind. They were killer rabbits as big as him and with a serious attitude problem.

  “I’ve never seen any of the rabbits so angry,” Orangesicle added, his moony eyes unmoving from the object of his affection across from him. “If they get their paws on those shifters, they’ll slice them to shreds.”

  Maybe having the rabbits along to guard Ky and Boone’s backs wouldn’t be so bad after all. A thought popped into my head: “Hey, what about Jacinda?”

  “What about her?” Sadie grumbled grumpily.

  “Well, she and her, uh, men, I guess, attacked us when we arrived at the start of term, right? Maybe that was Rage’s doing.”

  “Probably,” Damon said, “but she won’t be bothering you ever again.”

  “She won’t be doing anything ever again.” Sadie’s face split into a deranged grin, only making her admirer sigh like a love-struck boy. “Thane took care of her.”

  It seemed every one of us more or less sane people at the table decided we didn’t want to know. Whatever had happened to her and the others, she was no longer a threat.

  “And we’ll take care of Wendi,” Sadie said. “Damon and I won’t stop looking till we find her, isn’t that right, Damon?”

  “For sure. We’ll get her. She can’t evade us forever.”

  “Especially not when she has her mom with her. Her mom isn’t trained and eventually she’ll slip up.”

  “And the dead bodies from the mountain?” I asked, needing to know despite not really wanting to know.

  Sadie waved her hand across the table in a dismissive gesture. “Nancy took care of them.”

  “Nancy as in Nancy the staff witch?” Dave asked, sounding as shocked as I was.

  “Oh yeah, don’t let the sweet little old lady act fool ya. She’s tough as nails, that one. She incinerated the bodies with a flick of her hand. There isn’t even a bloodstain left.”

  I swallowed hard. The Menagerie revealed itself to be more terrifying with each new disclosure.

  “You know, Rina,” she continued on as she cut into what was left of her burritos, “it’s actually pretty damn lucky that you overheard Wendi talking, and that you fought those vamp bitches.”

  “Wait,” I said. “How’d you hear about that?”

  Her lips curved in a wicked smile. “You’d be surprised by the stuff I know.”

  I wouldn’t doubt it.

  “If you hadn’t figured out that Wendi was a traitor and which vamp students had taken you guys, we might’ve never figured it out. I really believed Wendi had been asleep in the room next to me the whole time.” Her chest rumbled. “That bitch.”

  “Breathe, Sade,” Damon said. She nodded, her ever-present ponytail bouncing behind her while he picked up where she left off. “The vamp students obviously messed up if they let Rina figure out their identity. Wendi has to have been the one who took out the rabbits.”

  “She has to have had some object or something that would’ve allowed her to take them down quickly,” Sadie said. “There’s no way she could’ve outmaneuvered all three of them if not.”

  “Agreed,” Orangesicle said. “Those rabbits are the best at what they do, behind us pygmy trolls of course.”

  “Of course,” Damon agreed diplomatically.

  “Anyway, however it all went down,” Sadie said with her usual gruffness, “we’ll find them all and make sure they’re punished for their bad choices.” Then her shoulders slumped in defeat and her gaze zeroed in on me like a missile. “I’m sorry I let you down, Rina. I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

  “And she has heart too,” Orangesicle whispered under his breath.

  I blinked away sudden stupid tears and nodded jerkily. “It’s not your fault.” My voice hitched, and Leander removed his hand from my thigh to wrap it around my shoulders.

  “It’s totally my fault,” she protested. “I was supposed to protect you so they couldn’t get at you. Now you’ve lost your magic, all because of me.”

  I shook my head vehemently, trying to reassure her, but I couldn’t get my words to move past the gigantic lump in my throat. I hated being such a wuss.

  “I know it’s too little, too late, but I got your back, girl. And even if the powers that be decide to remove your protective detail, I’ll still watch out for you.”

  My gaze flashed to the maybe-brothers Enforcers, only to discover them gone. Wren followed my thoughts and asked for me. “Where’d they go?”

  “Now that Sadie and I are back,” Damon said, “they left since we’re so understaffed. But there’s been some discussion that Rina no longer needs protection...” He trailed off while everyone at the table must have filled in what I was thinking: Because I no longer have shifter magic. I was no longer valuable or important.

  Damon shrugged by way of apology. “They don’t think Rage will come after Rina anymore now that he’s gotten what he wanted.”

  “Makes sense,” I said weakly. But the truth was that little made sense in my world anymore. I didn’t have the heart to ask any additional questions, and my friends, who’d been so sensitive not to say the wrong thing since I’d returned to the academy—well, all except Jas of course—let the topic fall, filling the silence with mundane conversation about classes and the weather, though the weather varied little in the protected bubble within Thunder Mountain.

  But even within the mountain, it wasn’t safe. Not safe enough at least.

  I allowed Leander to pull me against his chest, not even checking if this bothered Ky. I’d barely begun to be a part of the supernatural world, I was nowhere near ready to give it up yet.

  Somewhere deep within me, hope rekindled, reminding me that I still had my mage magic. But I snuffed its subtle messages. I wasn’t ready to pull myself back into the saddle just yet.

  22

  The warm sunshine across my bare legs and arms was pleasant enough to allow me to put aside all my worries. I was fed up with concerning myself about things I couldn’t change. I was ready to move on with my life—whatever that looked like. I tilted my head back, my long hair snaking across the grass of the quad behind me, and let the sun beat against my face, pretending the heat could reach deep inside to warm that part of me that had remained frigid and empty since I’d lost my lion. Sadie had taken a seat on the grass far enough away that she wouldn’t intrude on my moment while she kept an eye on me. For now at least, she continued to fulfill the role of my protector.

  The spark of my mage magic had grown stronger since it no longer competed with my shifter powers. I could now find it whenever I looked for it. But I didn’t yet have the heart to explore it, though I’d have to soon. It was nowhere near as potent as my shifter magic had been, but perhaps it could eventually fill some of the gaping pit within.

  I peered up at the wily willow behind me. Its branches hung low, nearly skirting the ground, swaying in the slight magical breeze that seemed to continually waft across campus. As if the tree relished my sudden attention, it danced its long, flowing branches in my direction, brushing against my skin and uniform. I giggled before realizing what I’d done.

  “See, there’s hope for you yet,” Boone said as he, Leander, and Ky plopped down next to me, Damon taking a seat next to S
adie across the way.

  I caressed the wily willow’s branch, covered in long, tendrils of leaves, before turning my attention to the guys. “Did you just get out of class?”

  “Yeah.” Ky peered at me in that calculating way he’d developed lately, as if he were taking my emotional temperature. “You skipped classes again?”

  “Yep. I just wasn’t feeling it today.” I’d finally started attending classes again this week. “There doesn’t seem much point to going to shifting class or Defensive Creature Magic when what’s being taught no longer applies to me.” I could’ve gone to Beginning Creature History more often than I did, since whatever I learned there might still be potentially relevant, but it was hard to care, especially when Professor Whittle was a walking, talking sleeping pill.

  Ky scowled in disapproval, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring at me to make sure I got his point. I smiled like being the only one who no longer belonged didn’t get to me, though none of the guys there would believe my act. “Besides,” I said, “it’s the last day of classes. I think you can cut me some slack.”

  “All you’ve had is slack lately.”

  I waggled my jaw, refusing to fall for his bait. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to rile me up.

  “Come on, Rina, snap out of this funk. You can’t keep wallowing.”

  I sucked in a harsh breath. “I am not wallowing. I’m recovering.” But shit, what if he was right?

  Leander scooted closer to me so that he sat beside me instead of facing me. “Back off a bit, Ky. It’s reasonable that she should need a lot of time to come back from … what happened.”

  Ky’s scowl deepened. “Maybe.” I no longer could tell if his frustration was directed at me or the situation.

  More than ready to change the subject, I asked Ky the question I’d been dreading: “So... What are we going to be doing for winter break? Are we going home to Dad?” I hadn’t forgotten that he’d planned to chase after Rage and Fury, but I was hoping he had.