Crescent Wolves (Supernatural Shifter Academy Book 1)

by G. Bailey

  Crescent Wolves

  Supernatural Shifter Academy Series

  G. Bailey

  Regan Rosewood

  Crescent Wolves © 2020 G. Bailey/ Regan Rosewood

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and formed by this author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Mirela Barbu.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About G. Bailey

  About Regan Rosewood

  Description

  Secret societies. Magical boarding schools. Supernatural beings…What could go wrong?

  I’m Millie Brix and apparently, I’m a supernatural shifter. Funny eighteenth birthday present, right?

  Chosen for Supernatural Shifter Academy, I have to learn which Shifter Clan I belong to and how to use my powers that are slowly growing out of control.

  Supernatural Shifter Academy only has five hundred places, and if I’m not strong enough to survive, I won’t get to walk away.

  The Sirens lure you in, the Wolves bite first and ask questions later, the Dragons only care for themselves, the Vampires plan to own the world and the Witches will do whatever it takes to win.

  I’m not going to let the academy beat me, that’s for sure.

  With a Prince of the Vampires seducing me, a secretive Siren dead set on making me his, a gorgeous wolf shifter who wants to claim my heart, and an alpha dragon who sees me as a prize he wants to keep… the academy is far more dangerous than it looks.

  In this academy, secrets are the only thing you can trade with and I’m right in the middle of the biggest secret the academy has.

  And when the truth comes out…the academy will fall.

  17+

  Chapter 1

  Sometimes when I look into the light of the sun, I can only see the shadows around the edges, waiting for their chance to smother what brightness is holding them back.

  But looking up at the sky, as I make my way down the sloping drive, I can only see big black thunderstorms forming on the horizon. I’m only just past the top of the hill on Bowery Street, and considering how quickly the weather is going sour, the odds of getting home before it starts to rain are slim to none.

  “Damn,” I mutter, pulling my backpack up higher on my shoulders and shaking my head. It’s times like these when I really wish Central High’s bus route included my neighborhood. Well, our neighborhood. Their neighborhood. Whoever’s neighborhood it is, it’s too far outside the city center for the school bus to reach, and since I don’t have a car, I’m what some might call shit out of luck. Normally I don’t mind the long walk home—in fact, I usually enjoy it. It’s a chance to listen to some music, stretch my legs after eight hours of sitting at a desk, and, most importantly, it means less time spent around Mark. When the weather’s bad, though…

  Kicking myself for not thinking to bring an umbrella, I continue down the road, hoping I’ll get lucky and not end up soaked by the time I reach the house. Doubtful. All I can reasonably do at this point is try not to get water all over the front entryway and pray that Mark won’t be in one of his moods when I get in. I can practically hear him snapping at me already, slurring his words as he gestures at me with an empty beer bottle: Damn it, Millie! You couldn’t even dry off before getting mud all over the front porch? What’s wrong with you, huh?

  I shake my head, feeling the first raindrop plop down on my shoulder like a warning. Yeah, I know, I think. It feels like I’m on my way to the gallows.

  Okay, maybe that’s a little overdramatic. But not by much. I’ve been living with my most recent foster parents, Mark and Tonya Stone, for going on a year now, and things haven’t been peachy. It’s not like I’m not used to bad foster family situations--in fact, that’s basically all I’ve ever known, with a few exceptions. It’s like the start of every fantasy story I’ve ever read: a baby girl, abandoned at the hospital when she was born by parents she never knew, drifting from one abominable living situation to another and wondering why she was put on this planet. Except if this was really a fantasy story, a fairy godmother would have appeared at my bedroom window a long time ago to whisk me away on some whimsical adventure.

  Instead, the only things that have ever appeared at my bedroom window are the eggs thrown by neighborhood pranksters and the occasional crow.

  It hasn’t been all bad, though; I think as the ground levels out beneath my feet. The raindrops are coming more frequently now, and I see the horizon light up briefly with the flash of lightning. Mollie, the foster mother I lived with from when I was nine to when I was eleven, was easily my favorite of the bunch. Mollie, I remember her saying when she first introduced herself. It’s only one letter away from your name, Millie. It’s like it was meant to be.

  And for a while, I almost believed it. With Mollie, I actually felt like I had a home, not just a place to stay. She showed me how to cook, let me watch her TV programs with her, and actually seemed interested in me as a person, not just a source of government-provided income. She even gave me a necklace—a little sterling silver pendant in the shape of a crescent moon—that I had worn until the clasp broke. Now I keep it tucked into the worn combat boots that I wear every day, no matter the weather. If I can’t wear it, then at least I can keep it—like a good luck charm, or something.

  But, as I’ve been forced to learn again and again as I’m passed from one set of strangers to another, nothing good is meant to last. The economy took a hit, Mollie had to close down her bakery, and it was determined that she was no longer fit to support me. So off I was packed, to a new family, a new set of introductions, and a new set of disappointments. Rinse and repeat.

  With every good thing in my life, shadows seep into the edges and make it impossible to stay good for long.

  As I turn off the main road and into Mark and Tonya’s neighborhood, I remind myself to stop ruminating. What has that ever gotten me, other than resentment? Feeling the reassuring pressure of Mollie’s necklace against my ankle, I speed up a little, motivated to at least minimize my time outside in the rapidly increasing downpour. Once I get home, I’ll have to finish my trigonometry homework, as well as work on the English paper that’s due this coming Monday.

  It’s as I’m contemplating my schoolwork that I’m hit with an increasingly familiar new wave of anxiety. I turned eighteen last month, which means that not only am I in my last year of high school, but my days in the foster care system are numbered. One would think I would be happy to be finishing the endless cycle of lousy living situations, and I am, but I’m not bli
nd to what this next transition will mean: I’ll be on my own, for better or worse. And given my luck so far, my money’s on worse. I’m going to have to decide what to do about university, about getting a job, finding a place to live… the training wheels are coming off, and I’m in no way prepared for it.

  I guess that’s something every foster kid has to face, I reason, feeling the raindrops now pelting down on me. I lift my backpack and hold it above my head like a shield, aware that my papers are going to get wet but hardly caring at this point. But not every foster kid has had as hard of a go of it as I have. I know I’m just feeling sorry for myself, but it’s almost impossible not to.

  The truth is that I’ve never really felt at home anywhere, with the exception of those two wonderful years with Mollie. No matter where I go or who I live with, I’ve never really felt a sense of belonging. I’ve made friends here and there, but by the time I’m ever really starting to find a niche in one place, it’s time to pick up and move somewhere else. It’s like my life has never really begun, leaving me with a lingering sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction everywhere I go.

  By now, my blonde hair is beginning to dampen, and I pick up my pace, practically jogging now in a desperate attempt to stay dry. That’s enough chewing the cud, I tell myself. Just take things one day at a time. That’s all you can manage. By the time I reach Mark and Tonya’s old, single-story house, I’m thoroughly soaked and shivering. Like a lost kitten… or something. It takes me a minute to fumble my house key out of my dripping backpack, but eventually I get the front door open, pausing on the threshold like one wrong move will set off an explosion.

  And for all I know, it will.

  “Tonya, honey, is that you?” I can hear Mark’s voice coming from the kitchen. Good. If I’m lucky, I can get down to my basement room and change my clothes before he’s any the wiser.

  “It’s me, Mark,” I call back, hoping my tone comes across as jovial and unbothered.

  “Hmph,” he says, and then goes quiet. Judging from the sound of his voice, he’s been hitting the bottle for at least an hour already. Ever since losing his job at the factory on the other side of town, he’s been taking full advantage of the unemployment checks and letting Tonya put food on the table by herself.

  Tonya, a mousy woman who probably won’t ever have the gumption to divorce her deadbeat husband, pulls odd hours at the diner down the street to support his drinking habit. Funny how they should take me away from someone like Mollie and then stay silent when I end up in a legitimately dysfunctional living situation. But what do I know, right?

  I manage to slip out of the entryway and down the basement stairs, doing my best not to drip water on the grimy linoleum floor. The basement is half-finished, with a pull-out couch serving as a bed and my meager possessions all crammed into the closet by the back wall. It’s more or less a glorified storage area, but at least nobody comes down here to bother me. Down here, I can re-read my worn copies of Narnia, the Harry Potter series, and yes, even Twilight, in peace, daydreaming about being swept away into a life full of purpose and magic, where tragedy and boredom were always just the precursors to a grand new adventure.

  The grimy mirror on the back of the door makes me pause, looking at my blonde wet hair falling around my shoulders, dripping rainwater onto my drenched clothes. My very dark blue eyes stare back at me, daunting me with how much they look like the very water that smothers my clothes. Not for the first time, I wonder what my parents looked like. Do I look like my mother or father? Or neither of them.

  But the mirror doesn’t have answers for me. Of course it doesn’t. No one does.

  I’m just pulling on a dry sweater when Mark’s gravelly voice shatters the silence into a million pieces. “Millie, what the hell?!”

  My eyes go wide. “Yeah, Mark? What’s wrong?”

  “Get up here,” he yells, and even from down here I can hear the alcohol in his voice. Swallowing hard and bracing myself for the worst, I pad back up the basement stairs to find Mark standing in the entryway. His hulking figure makes me feel even smaller than I normally do, and with his shoulders hunched, his beer gut sagging over the top of his trousers, he looks more like a troll than ever before. “What the fuck is this?” he demands, pointing down at the floor by the welcome mat.

  “What…?” I begin, taking a step closer, and then I see it. A set of streaky, damp boot prints leading to the basement door. Shit. Why the hell didn’t I take my shoes off?! “Oh,” I say, blanching as I turn to look at him again. “I, uh… I’m sorry. It’s pouring outside.”

  “Yeah?” Mark rounds on me, his bloodshot eyes flashing. “Is that right? And why the hell didn’t you think about that before you went and got mud all over the floor?”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat, inching back as he takes a step toward me. “I’ll clean it up. I didn’t even think about it—”

  “Of course you didn’t, because you don’t think, period,” Mark says, swaying slightly on his feet, and I can smell the stench of booze coming off him. Not beer this time, either. Something heavier. Whiskey, maybe. And there’s something in his voice that floods me with unease. Have I ever seen him this drunk before? “Sometimes I wonder why the hell we’re even keeping you,” Mark continues, running a hand through his thinning hair. “I mean, you’re useless, do you know that? We spend all this time and money providing for you, and what do we get?” He advances on me, making my heart jump to my ears. The unease is turning into full-blown fear. “Nothing,” he finishes. “That’s what.”

  “Mark,” I say, my voice coming out embarrassingly small, “please… I’m sorry. Really. I’ll—”

  “Did I say you could talk?” he roars, and then he does something I’ve never seen him do before, no matter how drunk he’s been. He takes a swing at me. It’s sloppy and uncoordinated, and I’m able to duck out of the way. His fist connects with the wall, and he roars in pain. “You little…” he begins, winding up to throw another punch.

  Where’s Tonya? She won’t be back until dinner time, at the earliest. It occurs to me that he could do whatever he wanted to me right now, and no one would be the wiser.

  He’s going to hurt me, I think, heart thundering as I continue to back up. He’s actually going to hurt me.

  In that instant, with that realization, I feel something strange welling up in the pit of my stomach, something cool and insistent—a feeling I’ve never experienced before. For a moment it’s enough to draw my attention away from Mark, away from school, away from everything. The novelty of it makes me wonder if this is how newborn babies feel.

  I can feel something in me waking up, something I couldn’t put my finger on even if I tried. And one thing becomes clear to me, a truth I think I’ve known for a long time but was unable—or unwilling—to face until now.

  I need to get out of here.

  Chapter 2

  I don’t have time to think before Mark is winding up to hit me again; I turn on my heel and make a break for the basement door like my life depends on it. I almost slip on the rainwater staining the floor, and I feel the air behind me move as another one of my foster father’s uncoordinated swings narrowly misses me. My heartbeat is so loud it’s all I can think of, all I can worry about. Scrambling to keep my balance, I throw the door open and bolt through, barely remembering to lock it behind me before Mark arrives, his slurred yelling muffled as he pounds on the door.

  Racing down the stairs, I begin to frantically gather up my things. There isn’t much to collect—a half a dozen articles of clothing, a couple of books, my cell phone—and before I know what I’m doing, I’m dumping out the contents of my school backpack, papers and pencils showering onto the carpet. I cram the backpack full of my stuff and look around. My mind is already made up; I’m not staying here a minute longer. It doesn’t matter where I go, as long as it’s away from here. Because if Mark can cross that line once, then he sure as hell can do it again, and I might not be so quick next time.

  Being hurt at this place i
sn’t worth the roof over my head.

  Shouldering my backpack, I turn to the other set of stairs, the ones leading out to the garage, and head for the door. I feel a pang of regret that I won’t get to say goodbye to Tonya--she was always nice to me—but there’s no looking back now. After taking one last look around the basement to make sure I’m not forgetting anything, I shove the door open and leave the house through the garage. I am half-expecting Mark to be waiting for me, but he seems to have given up and stumbled back to his booze. Thank god for small favors, I think.

  It’s not until I’m outside again that I realize it’s still pouring. At least I didn’t forget my umbrella this time; the last thing I need right now is all of my clothes getting soaked from the rain. Not sure where I’m heading, I pick a direction and make my way down the street, feeling cold again as the downpour continues.

  I start to calm down as I walk, my heart rate slowly returning to normal, and it occurs to me that I don’t have a plan, or anywhere to go. The child services offices won’t be open until tomorrow morning, and they might not even care that I ran away. I’m eighteen now; it’s not like I’m their responsibility anymore. I take stock of my few school friends, who are really more like acquaintances, and it’s immediately clear that my options are limited as far as places to stay.