Lion Shifter

by Lucia Ashta

  He was already shaking his head before I finished. “I’m going to stay with Boone. His dad’s sending a bunch of his wolves to help us track Rage and Fury.”

  “What about me, then? You’re sending me home to Dad alone?” I gulped nervously. Though I’d texted Dad a few times since the kidnapping, I hadn’t actually spoken with him. Unless Ky told him what happened, he didn’t know. Which meant I’d have to relive it all over again when I told him the story. And I’d be stuck in the house alone with him for an entire month.

  Leander placed a hand on my knee. Ky’s gaze shifted to where his skin touched mine like a laser beam, but Leander ignored him. “I’d like you to come home with me.”

  I blinked in surprise. Ky, Boone, and I had spent last summer in the fae’s Golden Forest, but I’d thought that was a one-time thing. “But … but why? Your dad offered Ky and me asylum last summer, but that’s when Rage and Fury were actively hunting us. Now that they got what they wanted, why would he extend a repeat invitation?”

  “Because I asked him to.”

  “Oh. And he’s okay with me coming there alone? With you? He didn’t exactly seem pleased to have me around last summer.”

  “He’ll live.”

  “Does that mean he’s going to keep you so busy all break that you won’t have the chance to spend any time with me again?”

  “I won’t let him. My father is a powerful, stubborn, hard-headed elf. But so am I, and he knows it.”

  I bit my lip. “He’s still the king.”

  “And I’m his son. I choose what fights to wage with him, because it’s a headache to take him on. I fought him on this, and I won.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. For now, anyway.”

  Whatever that meant. No matter what Leander said, I’d met his father and felt all the angry glares he’d leveled my way. There was no way that man would allow Leander and I to be together. But if Leander was willing to take his father on, maybe we could at least get to know each other better. It was about time. Despite the nature of my preoccupied thoughts as of late, I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d kissed me on the night of the party. In fact, I’d taken to reliving the kiss and the feel of his hands on my body.

  “Leo has already promised me that he’ll be a proper gentleman with you,” Ky said, his words tumbling out in a moody grumble.

  I barked out a laugh before I could think better of it. “A proper gentleman? What, you mean like you are with girls?”

  Ky grunted. “I’m plenty nice to girls.”

  “Yeah, to all dozen of them you cycle through at once, unless you’ve changed and I don’t know about it.”

  He scowled, the gesture on repeat. “My best friend here has promised to treat you like he would his own sister in my absence.”

  “Oh dear God, I hope not.”

  “Those weren’t my exact words,” Leander said, an amused air to him. Boone waggled his eyebrows at the handsome prince. Obviously the werewolf wasn’t opposed to our coupling as Ky was.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Jas called from thirty feet away, oblivious to the moment she was interrupting, as usual. For once, I welcomed the intrusion as she, Wren, Dave, and Adalia cut across the grass toward us from the direction of Irele Hall.

  The skunk shifter plopped down between Boone and Ky, and sidled closer to Ky, seemingly uncaring that he hadn’t done anything to return her blatant interest. She flipped the white streak in her hair back from her face, pulled her legs—clad in knee-high Minnie Mouse socks—under her, and shot my brother a saucy look. Her dangling nose ring swung as she batted heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him.

  I waited for the inevitable brush-off … but it didn’t come. He smiled at her instead.

  Shit. Double shit.

  Wren claimed the seat on the other side of Boone and shot him timid looks when she thought no one was looking. From her other side, Dave watched the interaction with interest, and I wondered if he might not have a thing for my roommate. He and Wren would be sweet together.

  “I can’t believe you skipped the last day of classes,” Jas was saying to me across our haphazard circle of bodies. “You’re my hero, girl. I thought I was going to have to jab my eyeballs with my pen just to keep myself from dying of boredom in Whittle’s class. I hoped the guy would give us a break since, you know, it’s the last day of classes and all. But nope. He just droned on and on like he always does. I don’t even have a clue what he was talking about.”

  “He was talking about the history of the fae,” Adalia said from her place between Ky and Leander. She gazed reverently at her prince.

  “Was he really?” Jas asked while I kicked myself for not attending the class. I could’ve used more information about the people I’d be sharing winter break with. I was going to read as much of Dad’s Compendium over the break as I could; I’d barely made it halfway through volume two so far with all the distractions. But Jas didn’t seem to care about the information she’d missed, fiddling with the clasp of her Doc Martens. “Well, whatever he was talking about, I’m so freaking glad I won’t have to hear his voice for the next month. Shit, I hope it doesn’t haunt my dreams. That would suck.”

  “You’re so dramatic,” Wren commented.

  “You can’t seriously be such a goody-two-shoes that you’re going to argue with me about how terrible his class is. You must struggle to stay awake in there, or else, I don’t know what … you’re like a god or something.”

  Wren smiled timidly, allowing her long brown hair to sweep around her face to partially conceal it. “I do fight to stay awake.”

  Jas clapped, startling all of us. “See! I knew it. The man is like the Sandman or something. Shit, maybe he is.” Her light blue eyes widened at the idea. “Is the Sandman real?”

  “Probably,” Dave said. “We’re all real, and according to humans, none of us exists.”

  “That’s an excellent point, Davey Wavy.”

  Experience suggested that Jas would continue monopolizing the conversation so long as we let her, while the topics of conversation quickly digressed. Several of us started to speak at once, probably with the same idea of cutting her off, when Sir Lancelot zoomed across the quad from the direction of the library. I stopped what I was saying to watch his flight, graceful and swift as ever.

  He landed with enviable grace in the midst of our circle, Fianna and Nessa arriving several moments later, slightly out of breath from keeping up with the larger owl.

  I stiffened at their arrival, wondering if he was here to scold me for my absence in classes today, or much of the days before. But when he pinned those wide, yellow eyes on me, I relaxed. They brimmed with compassion, and I found myself smiling at the headmaster.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Rina,” he said, before giving a slight nod toward Leander. “Prince Leander Verion, good day.” As if unable to disobey etiquette despite the ridiculousness of addressing each one of us individually, he turned his head to take all of us in while his body remained stationary. “Lady Adalia, Lord Kylan, Lady Jasmine, Heir Boone, Lady Wren, and Lord Dave, good afternoon to you all.”

  The crimson fairy Fianna tapped her tiny foot impatiently while she hovered just above the grass—probably because its blades, though relatively short, would rise beyond her waist. When Sir Lancelot circled his head back around to me, she immediately ceased tapping her foot and plastered a patient smile on her face. It didn’t suit her at all; I almost burst out laughing, but the thought of the fiery fairy’s vengeance was enough to encourage restraint.

  The sapphire fairy Nessa flew closer to me, flanking Sir Lancelot, looking at me with tiny, doleful cerulean eyes. Uh-oh.

  Sir Lancelot brought his wings in front of him in a plaintive gesture. “I wanted to stop by before you departed, Lady Rina, to tell you that I sincerely hope the Academy Spell chooses to allow you to remain as a student of the school. I’m uplifted by the fact that it hasn’t dismissed you yet. Perhaps you yet hold secrets we haven’t anticipated.”

&n
bsp; I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to say anything.

  He stared into my eyes as if he were staring into my very soul. “I’ll be very pleased to see you at the beginning of next term. I hope that will be the case. Until then, be well, Lady Rina. I leave you in Prince Leander Verion’s capable hands.”

  “Thank you, Sir Lancelot,” I said, grateful that I managed to get it all out without a hitch. My insides rolled like molten lava. Not even the mention of Leander’s capable hands was enough to distract me from the uncertainty of my fate.

  He stared at me for longer than etiquette warranted as if memorizing my face, then dipped his head to me, flapped his wings, and rose into the sky.

  “We’ll catch ya later, Rina,” Fianna said while she tugged at her short red skirt. “Hang in there.”

  “Thanks, Fianna.”

  The fairy with the scarlet hair flew off after her boss, and Nessa appeared ready to do the same before she zoomed straight at me at alarming speeds. I jerked backward … and she placed a kiss so small and so light on my cheek that I barely felt her lips alight on my skin. But her kiss warmed my heart as if she were a thousand times her size.

  Clutching my cheek with diminutive hands, her wings a blur of movement behind her, she whispered. “I’m rooting for you. Make sure you come back.”

  “I’ll do my best. Thanks, Nessa.” And then my voice did crack.

  She patted my cheek with one hand before rising to follow the others.

  I swallowed thickly. “All of you, if I don’t come back … I mean, if I’m not allowed back, promise me you’ll keep in touch. Text or call me or something. I’ll miss you all tons.”

  Wren’s eyes watered, and even Dave blinked faster than usual before Leander jumped to his feet and extended a hand to me. I allowed him to pull me to my feet while arching my eyebrows at him. “What?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I can’t take you being sad anymore. I’m making it my mission to cheer you up.”

  “Oh yeah? What makes you think you can?” I couldn’t restrain the coquettish smile as it turned up the corners of my mouth.

  “Because I’m about to unleash the entirety of my irresistible charm on you. You won’t stand a chance.”

  I chortled. “Full of yourself much?”

  “You tell me.” In a swirl of silver light, his wings burst from his back in a ripple of magic strong enough for me to sense it. His wings were pure white, tipped in silver, their feathers perfect. I couldn’t help but stare at them as he spread them wide.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Uh … ready for what?”

  He chuckled, the mirth lighting up his silver eyes that rolled like liquid mercury, pulling me into them with a magnetism I couldn’t resist, didn’t want to resist. If his plan was to distract me from the loss of my mountain lion by immersing me in him, then as far as plans went it was a damn fine one.

  I yelped as he swept me into his arms and pressed me against his shirt front. Before I could say or do a thing, like make sure I wasn’t flashing my brother with a view right up my short skirt, he pivoted, took a few running steps in the other direction, and leapt into the sky.

  Sadie and Damon were scrambling to their feet, but they couldn’t reach us up here. Nothing and no one could touch us.

  He looked down at me while ascending past the wily willow that had caressed me minutes before. “I’ll make it better, Rina, I promise. I’ll distract you so hard that you’ll forget you were ever sad.”

  I wasn’t sure he could deliver on that promise, but I sure as hell would let him try. I grinned. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Fly me away, miracle man.”

  “You got it, beautiful.” And as he soared toward what appeared to be infinite sky, but surely couldn’t be within the enclosure of Thunder Mountain, I focused on nothing but the rush of air against my face, the steady beating of his heart beneath my ear, and the way my flesh tingled with heat everywhere he touched me.

  If he wanted to distract me until I thought of nothing but him, I’d let him rise to the challenge—pun intended. A month alone with the prince might be just the medicine my broken heart needed. Right then I decided I was finished playing it safe. I had nothing to lose, everything to gain. I was through holding back with Leander. In fact, I was through holding back with life. I might have lost my lion, but there was plenty more to live for. I’d find every good thing in my life and celebrate the heck out of it.

  The winter break promised to be sinfully pleasurable. Just the thing to turn my life around.

  Want More?

  Rina’s adventures continue in

  MAGE SHIFTER

  Book Three of Magical Creatures Academy

  ~ Pre-order now on Amazon ~

  Read about half siren, half angel Selene

  as she fights to make her way to the

  Magical Creatures Academy

  in SIREN MAGIC.

  ~ View on Amazon ~

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  As always, thank you for reading!

  I write these books for you.

  Mage Shifter

  MAGE SHIFTER

  Magical Creatures Academy: Book Three

  Rina has lost her shifting mojo.

  Will her mage powers be enough to subdue Rage and Fury?

  ~ Pre-order now on Amazon ~

  The Sirangel Series

  Upper YA Urban Fantasy by Lucía Ashta

  The Magical Creatures Academy has sent its finest fairies to recruit her.

  As a hybrid shapeshifter—half siren, half angel—Selene of the Kunu Clan is one of a kind.

  It’s a label that makes her the target of a rebel faction of supernatural creatures that seeks to claim her power.

  But her power is undeveloped and more a danger to herself than an aid. Yet her magic is her only advantage over the vicious vampires and fierce shifters who seek to eliminate her.

  Soon Selene is on the run in an unfamiliar world and unable to return to her ocean home. At least she’s not alone. Quinn, a shifter with his own secrets, has her back. Selene and Quinn must find a way to escape those that hunt them while surviving their unstable powers. But can Quinn help her stop vampires and shifters who’ve had centuries to master their abilities?

  ~ View the Sirangel series on Amazon ~

  The Magical Arts Academy Series

  YA Historical Fantasy by Lucía Ashta

  Isadora is recruited to attend a secret school of magic.

  As she makes her way to the academy, a dark sect of sorcerers pursues her relentlessly, willing to use any spell in their vast arsenal of powers to stop her.

  With the help of Trixie, her horse, a dragon named Humbert, and a clandestine band of magicians, Isadora will work to overcome the sorcerers to begin her education in wizardry.

  What would you do if you were invited to study at the Magical Arts Academy? Enroll, of course! Join Isadora and her crew of magical misfits today.

  ~ View the Magical Arts Academy series on Amazon ~

  The Witching World Series

  YA Historical Fantasy by Lucía Ashta

  Magic is forbidden … but it’s coming for Clara.

  With Clara on the brink of death, her father calls on a mysterious man whose expertise is in the banned arts. Now a wizard is her only hope of survival. Under his care, an unexpected side effect develops
. Magic awakens in Clara, gifting her with a second chance.

  Her entire life, she has resisted the lure of magic. But nothing has prepared her to deny the temptation of the only man willing to save her … from herself.

  ~ View the Witching World series on Amazon ~

  The Dragon Force Series

  YA Space Fantasy by Lucía Ashta

  Rosie, a baby dragon, is left for dead. Anira is an outcast from her people. Together they will fight to save their families and each other.

  On her own, yet watching from afar, Anira discovers a plot against her tribe. Their leader has enchanted everyone into believing he is their only hope. But Anira knows better. She alone sees how the chieftain uses his power to steal magic from the people, and now, from the dragons.

  Anira will be tested to the limit as she and Rosie attempt the impossible—to stop the chieftain and free her people and the dragons they protect.

  ~ View the Dragon Force series on Amazon ~

  Acknowledgments

  I’d write no matter what, because telling stories is a passion, but the following people make creating worlds (and life) a joy. I’m eternally grateful for the support of my beloved, James, my mother, Elsa, and my three daughters, Catia, Sonia, and Nadia. They’ve always believed in me, even before I published a single word. They help me see the magic in the world around me, and more importantly, within.