by Liz Meldon
While we didn’t talk about it, both Calder and I allowed ourselves to be tagged out by students toward the end of each match. If we didn’t, we’d be the final two standing every time—and that wasn’t fair either.
An hour and twenty into this afternoon’s practice, and forty-five minutes out from dinner, I called everyone in to discuss the final two games. Sweaty, panting, red-faced teens surged around me, gym shirts stained and wet, the poignant smell something I had long since adjusted to. From the look on Calder’s face, he hadn’t. At all.
Unanimously, the teams voted to play against Calder and me for our last match of the day—all thirty-two of them against us. I met his eye across the huddle, and his shrug and barely discernible nod had me giving the okay. Before that, however, I had the four teams split into two for one massive elimination round and added twelve more balls to the center line, just to keep everyone busy.
“This is… very enjoyable,” Calder said in passing, headed toward the left side of the gym, hands in his pockets. He turned, not breaking stride as he strolled backward, navigating around our students with ease. “I can see why they all speak so highly of it.”
My mouth stretched into a smile, something warm blooming in my chest, but I quickly looked away and bit my lower lip, smothering it. He didn’t need to think his praise meant something to me. I knew my dodgeball league was kick-ass. I wasn’t looking for his validation.
Even if it was kind of nice to hear.
Once we had everyone lined up against their respective back walls, I raised a hand, silencing the room. “On my whistle. Three, two—”
Thirty-two pairs of feet charged the center line, their drumbeats far more overwhelming and chaotic than when there was only half on the court at one time. Still, the chaos of double the balls in play made it more exciting. I hung back behind my cluster of teens, knowing I’d need to keep a more cautious eye out; with so many people running around, the risk of an accident had skyrocketed. On the flip side, with so many available targets, players were also being knocked out faster. At one point, I noticed Calder tracking my movements, mirroring me on the other side of the neutral zone, one of the smaller stinger balls in hand. I caught his eye, then shuffled back, using my team as human shields. He shook his head, chest deflating sharply in a huff, then mouthed, Come on.
I shrugged, on the verge of playfully poking my tongue out at him. No one said we couldn’t use our kids as bodyguards. In fact, there was a game that involved bodyguards protecting a lone player as the other team tried to get them out. I seldom ran it, as I didn’t like the idea of one person being the opposition’s main target, but maybe with Calder here, we could—
Screech. Over the din of bouncing balls and laughing teens, I heard it: the telltale sound of shoes catching on the floor, the very sound I had come to recognize as someone about to fall flat on their face. Eyes wide, I scanned the room, searching for the source, only to spy Grace Flynn tripping over her shoe’s untied laces. I was off like a shot, but my speed didn’t matter: she went down hard before I’d even reached the center line, plummeting face-first into the floor with her hands above her head, just about to catch a lobbed rubber ball.
My whistle screamed over the roar of the game, calling a timeout, and already her teammates had her surrounded.
“Move, move please,” I muttered, pushing through the clump as Grace’s wails turned shrill. Grace Flynn, sixteen years old and the daughter of a US military officer stationed in Germany, had been one of my less coordinated pupils last year, and it hadn’t surprised me in the slightest that she opted out of PE once she finished her sophomore year.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! My teeth! Did I chip them? Oh my god!” She pushed up on her elbow, still sprawled across the floor, surrounded by fawning friends. As I dropped to my knees in front of her, I heard Calder barking for everyone to get back, to give us some room.
“Okay, Grace, can you sit up for me?” My stomach looped when she lifted her head. That—was so much blood. Trembling, Grace shuffled into a seated position, bright red blood smeared across her mouth, her chin, dribbling down onto her white gym shirt. Her nose appeared to have taken the brunt of the fall, a sizeable bump protruding halfway up her bridge. Around us, the crowd slowly peeled back, yielding to Calder’s whip-sharp orders to move. Before they could all go, I tapped Grace’s best friend, Siobhan, on the arm, then motioned in the direction of my office. “Go get the first aid kit from my desk—it’ll be in the top drawer. Then grab the cold compress out of the little fridge.”
“Yes, Miss Kingsley.”
“Why is no one answering me?” Grace snapped, her hazel eyes wild and panicked as Calder crouched down beside us. “Are my teeth chipped or not?!”
She peeled her lips back, thrusting her face into mine, and I planted a firm hand on her shoulder. “No, I don’t think anything’s chipped. It’ll be hard to see until you wash your mouth out. I think you split your lip—do not spit on the floor.” My eyes narrowed, catching that train of thought before it flew off the tracks. “But I think your nose, uh…”
I hesitated. I’d gotten in trouble for differentiating between a fracture and a sprain last year and had been on the receiving end of a nasty lecture from the head nurse; if I didn’t have a medical degree, I couldn’t “diagnose” an injury. At the time, I’d wanted to remind her that she wasn’t a doctor either, but that hadn’t seemed productive. Still, I’d been teaching gym class long enough to familiarize myself with all the common injuries. Grace’s nose looked broken as fuck.
But then again, telling her that might only cause her more panic.
“No, don’t tilt your head back,” Calder admonished lightly. His hand smoothed up Grace’s back, fingers brushing mine before he scruffed the back of her neck. “It doesn’t matter if it dribbles on the floor. Lean forward or you’ll swallow the blood and make yourself sick.”
Blood. A bolt of panic sliced through me. All that blood—in front of a vampire. It was practically a marinade. Protectiveness flared, my inner wolf grumbling as I shuffled in closer and wrapped an arm around both of Grace’s shoulders. I pinned Calder with a glare, a narrowed look that dared him to so much as sniff in her direction, but the vampire seemed not to notice as Siobhan returned and dumped the first aid box in front of Grace, then handed me the cold compress.
“Is she going to be all right, Miss Kingsley?”
Calder glanced up as he undid the first aid kit’s clasp, brow furrowing at my silence, only to glare right back when our eyes met.
“Emma.” His lips barely moved, the sound almost inaudible over the chatter of the other students. Heat prickled through me, a familiar sensation—the kind that consumed my body before a shift.
I blinked hard. My eyes—had they started to change?
Fuck.
“She’s fine, Siobhan, thank you,” I said quickly, face flushed as I passed the cold compress to Grace. She gripped it tight, tears slicing down her cheeks, her shoulders starting to shudder, and I gently lifted her arm up, a wordless command to hold the cloth to her nose—may as well get the swelling under control as soon as possible.
Calder quickly found some sanitizing wipes inside the first aid kit and began cleaning Grace’s face in silence, wiping away blood and tears alike. My nostrils flared, the blend of metallic iron and rubbing alcohol more potent than I cared to admit. With Siobhan still looming over us, I motioned to her classmates. “We’re done for the day. Tell everybody to change and get to dinner.”
With a nod, Siobhan disappeared in a whirl of blonde ringlets, and within moments I heard the telltale sounds of exhausted, sweaty students filing out to the change rooms. As soon as an echoey silence descended on us, punctuated by the metal door slamming shut, Grace released a strangled sob, both hands flying to her nose.
“Ow.”
Broken. Definitely broken.
“Okay, let’s get you to the infirmary. You might need a splint.”
“I can take her,” Calder muttered as we both helpe
d Grace up, each of us taking one arm. My inner wolf snapped, growling low as I frowned at him.
Without an audience, there was no need to be subtle, and I looked pointedly at the blood on Grace’s face, then up to Calder. “Are you sure?”
It took a few seconds for the message to sink in, but once it did, Calder rolled his eyes and shot me a very poignant are you fucking kidding me? look before steering us toward the emergency exit doors at the far side of the gym.
“Of course I’m sure,” he said, low and deep, offering a growl of his own as he marched along stiffly next to Grace. He kept his strides short, as did I, Grace shuffling at a glacial pace between us with the compress on her face and blood on her shirt. Just before we reached the large metal doorway, Calder veered off and made a beeline for one of the benches, on which sat a bundle of black.
“How are you feeling, Grace?” I murmured, eyes darting between her and Calder over her shoulder, who was shaking out his thick wool coat. Grace shrugged.
“Like shit?”
“Maybe be a bit more descriptive when you talk to the nurse,” I said with a grin. From behind the once white cloth, now stained red, Grace smiled back—which split her busted lower lip wider, and I hastily stuck the end of the cloth to it. “Hold this there for a second, and—just give us a minute.”
I didn’t want to make her wait any longer than necessary, but I had to be completely sure that a bloodthirsty vampire could handle escorting one of my Solskinn kids anywhere by himself. Clearing my throat, I power walked over and held up a hand. He huffed at me, eyes flashing with annoyance, and roughly folded his coat over his arm.
“What, Emma?”
“Look, I’m really not trying to be rude,” I told him. This afternoon, having him join the teams—it had been a lot of fun. And given the terse nature of our professional relationship, what I was about to say could be like shoving a pin in a balloon. “And I’m genuinely not trying to be a dick to you right now, but I just thought—”
“Emma.” He spared a quick look to Grace, then leaned forward, dropping to my eyeline, his voice a sharp whisper. “I am far from newly turned. I can handle a bit of blood, I promise. You really don’t need to worry about her.”
“Of course I’m going to worry—”
“I know you don’t want to trust me,” Calder continued, suddenly clutching my forearm. I looked at his large porcelain hand with a frown, and he dropped it back to his side, jaw briefly clenched. “But when it comes to the well-being of my students, you can trust that I have their best interests in mind. Or… you’re just going to have to try.”
He darted around me, not bothering to wait for a rebuttal, and I watched him cross back to Grace with a hand pressed to my forehead. Instinct demanded I argue, shove him aside, whisk Grace off to the third-floor hospital wing in the main building by myself. Wolves were protective—obnoxiously so when it came to our pups. These kids were my pups, the people on this campus my pack. They might have been human, but they were all I had.
Well, them and the dogs. Even if I spent my weekends talking to no one, full lone-wolf style, I always had the rescue dogs.
Yet as Calder wrapped his much-too-big jacket around Grace’s shoulders, then gently fed her arms through the sleeves and bent down to button it up, I finally found a way to keep that innate protective streak in check. How would I feel if someone questioned my integrity with these kids? What if someone came at me, insisting I couldn’t be around them ever because there was the slight risk that I might wolf out during a state of heightened emotion? It was rare for an adult shifter to lose their cool, to unwittingly let the beast free—but it could happen. Crazier things happened every day.
Like a vampire waltzing into my territory—because he wanted to teach.
What if that vampire outed me, questioned me, doubted my ability to look after my students?
I’d hate it. It would be a personal attack, a strike to the foundations of my being.
So, without a word, I hurried over and opened the thick metal door for them, immediately assaulted by the elements. What had started off as a gentle smattering of snow had morphed into a full-blown gale as the day went on, blustery gusts of freezing air kicking up the few inches of white powder that had stuck, the sky grey. It would melt by the weekend, but that didn’t help Grace right now. Calder tucked her under his arm, shielding her from the screaming winds.
Propping the door open on my hip, I watched them go, squinting against the storm. They puttered along, taking the most direct route to the main building rather than the winding underground tunnels. The wind erased Calder and Grace’s footprints, a sea of shifting white shrouding the ground. At the halfway point, he glanced back over his shoulder at me. Our eyes met through the pelting snowflakes, his bright blues clear as anything, even in the storm. I clutched the end of my fat, frizzy fishtail braid, nibbling my lower lip, and then nodded. He nodded back.
Swallowing hard, I stepped inside, dragging the door with me against the wind. Once it clicked in place, a thick, palpable silence settled around me, my ears ringing.
Just like that—a spark of trust. It flickered to life in my chest, burning bright as melted snowflakes trickled down my skin.
I took a deep breath, heart pounding for no reason, then brushed the streaks of ice water away and went to check on the rest of my pups.
8
Calder
Another human missing—a father of four this time, the first disappearance since the summer. The newspaper crinkled as I folded it over and scanned the rest of the article for any pertinent information. While nothing more than a local tabloid, a somewhat gossipy comings and goings of Solskinn proper, it had broken the story before the academy’s administration, before the larger national papers.
Heidrick Thompson, forty-eight, missing since last Sunday. Lived one town over. Took the dogs for a walk—and while the dogs eventually found their way home, unfazed by the frequent dumpings of snowfall, the same couldn’t be said for Heidrick. His wife suspected foul play, but the police had yet to issue a statement. My brow furrowed. That made seven, if I wasn’t mistaken, since the start of the summer.
As I read the personal testimony from Heidrick’s family, his friends, I considered finally taking this matter into my own hands. If these people really were dying, if it was all connected, then the sleepy village of Solskinn, nestled between forest-covered hills and a smattering of streams, lakes, and waterfalls, was about to get a whole lot of media attention.
And I had chosen this region for its isolation, for its distinct middle-of-nowhere-ness that would have had others in my professional position scoffing. Media, police, private investigators—I wanted none of it anywhere near my new home.
Perhaps I ought to look into—
“Would you like me to translate that?”
I looked up sharply, startled, so deep in my own head that I hadn’t even registered Marte’s return. Mercifully, my days of blushing had long since passed, and I set the newspaper atop the nearby stack, right next to a bin of used books and a cooler of local-brewed beer.
“I understood a few of the words,” I told Marte, the youngest of the academy’s nursing staff, flashing what I knew to be a handsome smile—dazzling, the kind that made human hearts pitter-patter. “Another man’s gone missing, I think.”
The svelte woman, beautiful with her white-blonde pixie cut and angular features, moved closer and ran her fingers across the front page, lips moving as she read the news in silence. A native Norwegian and notorious flirt, she had been offering to teach me her mother tongue since I arrived in August. Little did she know, I spoke it fluently already.
Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish.
German. Icelandic. Spanish. French. Italian. Chinese. Latin. Greek. Arabic.
With nothing but eternity ahead, immortal in the truest sense, I had embraced my affinity for languages long ago, taking time here and there over the last century to familiarize myself with whatever caught my interest.
Naturally
, I told no one, not even the locals. I stammered my way through basic sentences, which always made them smile and immediately take pity on me. Ah, look at the foreigner trying so hard. All my disarming tactics had become habits, remnants of the past, of a crueler time in my very long life. While I had shirked most other tricks, it worked in my favor to appear likeable, to subtly encourage humans to accept me, underestimate me, as a newcomer and a supernatural predator.
Charming.
Attentive.
Perhaps even a bit bumbling.
Women like Marte lapped it up. My colleagues thought me worldly yet eager to learn, both seeking out my advice and always trying to teach me something new, something I usually already knew. The only one I hadn’t been able to fool had been the woman who saw me for what I was from the beginning. Though now, three weeks into October, I had finally started to chip away at that icy wolf exterior.
Marte, meanwhile, needed no chipping whatsoever. Once she finished reading the paper, she touched my arm and peered up at me like some lost lamb, then nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Another gone, just like the last.”
“I’m sorry. Did you know him?” All these northern communities, the ones within walking or driving distance of each other, had so much crossover, so much cross-pollination; everyone seemed to know everyone, and if not personally, then they had some connection to the family name.
Marte shook her head sadly. “No, but it’s a shame. He was a father to four girls. I can only imagine how distraught they are.”
I hummed in agreement, noting that her hand lingered on my arm, gripping softly through the leather. For the school’s first trip to the village since term started, I had dug out the old vintage leather jacket, recently tailored for a better fit. I’d received compliments the entire ride out, situated in the middle of the small grey academy bus, monitoring a bunch of very loud seniors, and the garment proved once again that it was catnip to women of all ages.
