by Bailey, G.
“Hey,” I say, scratching the back of my neck as an awkward silence mounts. Okay, so maybe I didn’t exactly think this all the way through.
“Well,” he says at last, “I’m here, professor.” He spreads out his arms. “Work your magic.”
“Okay, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves,” I reply with a nervous laugh. “Let’s face it - I’m not the best shifter in the school.”
He returns my chuckle with a dry one of his own. “I didn’t want to say anything, but…”
“But we’re going to give this a try,” I finish for him, putting my hands determinedly on my waist.
“I swear, Boots, if this works, I’ll be shocked.”
“I know, I know.” I bite the inside of my lip, debating as to how we should proceed. The first time we worked together, Shade had me start by relaxing and getting in tune with my breath. “Okay, so… close your eyes.”
Hunter raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“No offense, Boots, but I’m not totally sure how I’m supposed to get in fights if I have to close my eyes every time I transform.”
“Not every time,” I protest, crossing my arms. “Just at first! You need to focus on tuning the world out before you transform.”
He snorts. “Right. Like that’s going to happen.”
“Okay, enough with the surly broodiness,” I tell him, moving to stand in front of him. “Just trust me on this, okay? Close. Your. Eyes.”
Hunter sighs, rolling his eyes, and I raise a hand to his face to smooth his eyelids shut, leaving it there for a moment while I wait for his fidgeting to stop. He reminds me a little of myself, the first time I tried learning how to transform, and I’m struck by an odd feeling. It hasn’t even been that long since my powers first manifested, and now here I am, trying to pass what little I know on to someone else. Talk about the blind leading the blind… literally. But I push the self-doubt away and drop my hand. Hunter’s eyes are closed but still fluttering with anticipation and thought. “Boots-” he begins.
“Not a word,” I tell him, rubbing my chin as I think back to that first training lesson with Shade. “Okay, so…” I purse my lips. “Tell me about your magic. What does it feel like?”
Hunter frowns. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
The vampire shifter shrugs. “I mean… It doesn’t really feel like anything. What’s it supposed to feel like?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Shade told me it’s different for everyone. But you know it’s your magic because you feel it right in the pit of your stomach, just below your tummy button.”
Hunter scoffs. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous, it’s true!”
He groans. “Okay, okay, let me think for a minute.” His brow furrows and his hand drifts to his stomach, almost unthinkingly, and there’s a long pause as he struggles to articulate what he’s feeling. “It’s a bit uncomfortable,” he says at last, “like there’s something in there that’s trying to get out. My sister always told me it was probably a stress thing, like an ulcer.”
I stifle a laugh and reply, “Well, maybe that’s your problem. You’ve spent all this time thinking your magic is a medical condition.”
“If your sister was like my sister, Brix, you would understand.”
“Ha. Fair point. Okay…” I take a hesitant step toward him, and then another. Hunter has always been the most aloof and standoffish guy in our group, and as I watch him, I think I’m starting to figure out why: the feelings of inadequacy that he must feel, seeing the rest of us shapeshift with relative ease while he can’t even master the most basic of transformations, can’t be easy. Add to that his overbearing family and the fact that everyone in the school knows who he is, and you’ve got yourself one unhealthy combination. I’m almost hesitant to touch him, as if he’s some cornered, frightened animal, and I’m the person who’s trying to gain his trust.
Tentatively, I reach out, the distance between us feeling miles long, and let my hands settle on Hunter’s shoulders. He straightens up, stiffening almost immediately at the feeling, as if my touch has sent a bolt of lightning through his body. “Easy,” I murmur. “Drop your shoulders. Let go of the tension you’re holding.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” he asks. “How am I supposed to concentrate at all, come to think of it? Amelia always says you should-”
“Amelia’s not here right now,” I tell him in an overly haughty tone of voice. “Now for the next…” I glance at my phone clock. “Hour, I want you to forget everything Amelia’s ever told you about shapeshifting.”
“I don’t think that’s-”
“Hunter. I’m the one in charge, here.”
“Great. Now she’s gotten power-hungry.” He throws his hands up in defeat, making me laugh.
“Focus,” I tell him, still with my hands on his shoulders. “I’m not moving until I feel you relax.”
Slowly, he lets out a long breath through his mouth, softening his posture and straightening his neck. I feel his shoulders drop ever so slightly, although there’s still a tension in his stance, and I can’t help but wonder whether it has more to do with the stress of the lesson… or our close proximity. “That’s it,” I say, letting go of him and taking a step back. “Now, I want you to just let your mind relax,” I tell him. “Stop paying attention to your powers for a while. Stop thinking altogether, if you can. Let your mind wander.”
“Boots,” Hunter protests, “this makes no sense.”
“I know it sounds counterintuitive,” I tell him, “but you have to trust me. This is what really opened the door for me with Shade. Your powers will sneak up on you when you’re ready, but first, you have to let them in.”
“I… okay,” Hunter says at last. “I do trust you, Millie.”
“Good,” I reply lightly, “because I trust you, too. Now listen to Professor Brix.”
Hunter chuckles. “All right, all right.”
I leave him to focus in silence, and the sounds of the night fill my ears. It’s cooler after the sun goes down, and a crisp breeze gusts over us as we stand here on the hill. We’re the only students out here, and in the distance, I can see the lights of the academic building slowly going out, one by one. Farther out than that, the Boston skyline twinkles against the dark sky, and it strikes me that shifters are arriving from all over the world right now, all in search of a solution that will keep both us and humans happy. It’s a tall order, not least of all because our existence is a secret, and I can’t help but wonder if this conference will bring any real solutions… or leave us even worse off than we were before.
But now’s not the time to focus on that. Hunter needs my help, and he’s been standing there quietly this whole time. I shake myself and turn back to him. “How do you feel?”
There’s a long pause. “Relaxed,” he replies finally.
I nod. “Good. Now, what I want you to do is visualize your form. Picture everything about it that you can—think of Amelia when she’s transformed. Focus on all the details and try not to leave anything out. The rest will come naturally.” I hope.
Hunter continues to breathe deeply, his eyes closed and his red hair ruffled by the wind. I can’t help but appreciate his beauty while we’re out here like this; under the moonlight, he looks more like a vampire than he ever has, his skin pearlescent and pale, his body radiating power…
Wait.
My eyes widen as I see it: fangs, razor sharp and deadly, emerging from under his upper lip. I have to clamp my hands over my mouth to keep from exclaiming with delight, and when Hunter opens his eyes, I see that they’ve gone blood red. “Is this…?” he begins.
I nod. “Don’t look now, Hunter, but I think you might have just passed my class.”
“Holy shit,” he murmurs, staring down wonderingly at his hands before looking back up at me. I’ve never seen him so excited before; his face is lit up like a kid�
�s on Christmas. “Holy shit! Boots, it worked!” And just like that, he pops back to normal, his fangs receding and his eyes going back to blue in an instant. “Damn,” he says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“You did it,” I tell him.
He’s practically glowing with pride, his eyes wide with excitement and an exuberance I’ve never seen on him before. “I thought I was a lost cause,” he says quietly, staring at me.
“Nobody’s a lost cause,” I reply, and before I even realise what’s happening, he’s leaning forward, taking me by the back of the neck and pressing a quick kiss to my lips. Heat builds up in my body, a blush rising rapidly in my cheeks, and when he pulls away, he leaves me swaying on my feet.
“I… Sorry,” he mutters, looking at the ground. “Impulse.”
“Turnabout’s fair play,” I tell him, and kiss him back. This time it’s longer, less cautious, and I can’t help but let my arms creep around him as the vampire shifter pulls me close, his lips exploring mine with both sweetness and trepidation. It feels strange, but in a good way… It feels right.
Finally, we pull away from each other, each looking sheepish, and I clear my throat. “Well, I think that’s probably good for one night, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s more progress than I’ve made since I started school,” Hunter says earnestly, and grins at me. It lights up his face, and I’m struck by just how rare and beautiful it is when he smiles. My heart beats faster, and for a moment I forget how to use my legs.
It’s not until he begins to head back towards the school that I’m able to pull myself from my trance, feeling both exhilarated and hopelessly confused.
Chapter 36
The fact that we only had three days of classes at the American campus before our first weekend in Boston is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because, let’s face it, I’m not someone who’s used to plunging into anything headfirst. Ironic, I know, considering that I spent most of my life moving from new school to new school, but there it is. It’s a curse because that means we won’t get any downtime during our first weekend here—something I could desperately use right now. It’s not even a question of being rundown from the travel, which I am, but a question of where my head is at; in the aftermath of what’s happened with me, Lyle, and the rest of the guys, I could use some time to parse through everything before being plunged headfirst into the shifter-human conference. But that’s not going to happen, apparently, and on Saturday morning I find myself being roused bright and early by the bell, an automated sound that stands in sharp contrast to the chiming of the clock tower back home.
Groaning, I fling the sheets off myself and sit up in bed. My room is on the left-hand side of the suite next to Silas’ and Shade’s, with Landon and Hunter taking the others. As I poke my head out my door, my hair slightly mussed from sleep, I see that Shade and Landon are already dressed and seated at the kitchen table. “She rises,” Landon exclaims, grinning when he sees me. “We were wondering if you’d died in your sleep.”
“I might as well have,” I protest, running a hand through my tangled locks and stretching my arms up over my head. “What time is it? Seven?”
“Seven-thirty,” Landon replies. “We’re supposed to head straight out to the quad as soon as we’re dressed.”
“What, no breakfast?” Shade asks, crossing his arms. “This is just getting into torture territory, if you ask me.”
“Thankfully, no one did ask you, Ivis,” comes Silas’ voice from over my shoulder. I turn to see him emerging from his room, eyes still clouded with sleep. There’s good humour in his tone, though, and he gives me a very subtle wink as he heads into the kitchen alcove. “God, I need some tea.”
“You’re out of luck,” Landon tells him. “We’re in the States, remember? They don’t believe in tea.”
Silas groans, rubbing his hands over his face. “Seriously? Coffee makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Aren’t you precious,” Shade mutters dryly, leaning back in his chair. Silas just shoots him a dirty look over his shoulder as he fumbles with the coffee machine, leaving me to retreat back into my room and get dressed. The sound of the guys’ bickering continues on the other side of the door until it’s joined by additional voices that I recognize as belonging to Hazel and the Murakami twins. By the time I emerge, it’s damn close to a party in the common area, with the others all hovering around the table.
“I hope you don’t mind if we tag along with you,” Hazel says when I enter the room. “It’s going to be crowded today, and if they let us roam around, we might lose track of one another.” She’s sitting between the twins, who are in the middle of an animated conversation with Landon. The others quiet at her question, all turning their gazes on me at once as if waiting for me to give my permission.
I blink, realising in an instant that they’ve come to see me as some sort of de facto leader—or at the very least, someone they can trust to make decisions. I’m not sure I like that, not least of all because that implies that this is an us versus them situation, but I guess I can’t blame them. For better or worse, I’m in the middle of all of this, and the sooner I can accept that fact, the better.
Clearing my throat, I reply, “Of course. The more the merrier.” I turn to the Japanese-American siblings. “You guys are… Ruby, right?” I ask. “And Xander?”
“In the flesh,” Xander replies, grinning. “And you’re the hybrid.”
I rub the back of my neck. “I guess Hazel must have filled you in.”
“I’m sorry,” Hazel says, holding up her hands, “I didn’t mean to-”
“No, no, it’s all right,” I assure her quickly. “Any friends of yours are friends of mine.”
“And we’re no friends of the Academy administration,” Ruby adds, meeting my eyes with her own. “We won’t go around blabbing about your history. At least… I won’t. I can’t speak for my brother, but-”
Xander elbows her. “Ruby!”
They both start to laugh, and the rest of us join in after a moment’s pause. It’s nice to know that all the U.S. students aren’t as mean-spirited as Lyle. Maybe things will turn around, yet.
“So what are we waiting for, then?” Hazel asks, getting to her feet. “We’ve got a peace talk to attend - don’t want them leaving without us.”
* * *
“Remind me again why we’re using human transportation,” Landon says, taking hold of one of the railings in the Blue Line train car, a wave of white and gold clad students that couldn’t stick out from the Saturday-morning traffic more if we tried. It’s impressive to me that we were even all able to get underground and into the metro station without incident, although with a dozen magically equipped faculty fellows herding us around like sheep, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. We didn’t get nearly as many weird looks from the humans as I was expecting us to; considering the campus’ proximity to the city, they’re probably used to seeing Academy students out and about. If only any of them knew what we really were.
“If you were a witch, would you want to bother tapping out your powers just to jump us from the suburbs to downtown?” Hazel asks him. “It’s exhausting.”
Landon sighs. “Fair point. It’s just weird, is all. I’m not used to public transport.”
“None of us are,” Hunter replies from his seat.
“Think of it as a learning experience,” I say. “That’s what this is all about, right? Learning to coexist with humans?”
“Fair point.” Although he looks visibly uncomfortable amongst the crowd, the vampire-shifter’s blue eyes meet mine for an instant, and something approaching a smile appears on his face. We haven’t really talked since last night, and the kiss we shared; I don’t think either of us is really sure what to say. It’s not that I’m worried about him blabbing about it—Hunter’s always been reserved, bordering on shy, and I doubt he’ll bring it up unless I do. The problem is how he fits into everything else, and what a certain dragon shifter might say if he found out that we
kissed. I realise I’m making a lot of assumptions about Silas here, but I’ve never been in a situation like this before, and overthinking things is sort of my specialty.
Deciding it would be better to focus on something else, I let my eyes drift to Hazel, who’s standing next to the twins. Her eyes slide over to Xander for a moment before meeting mine, and she winks at me before sticking out her tongue. I can help but laugh, disguising it as a cough at the last second.
“This is how we usually get downtown,” Ruby explains. “If we were witches, I suppose we could transport, but there’s always risk to that, you know? The campus is isolated enough, but it’s pretty much open season once you get into the city proper.
“Come to think of it,” I say, turning to her, “what kind of shifters are you guys? I just realised I have no idea.”
“I’m a wolf shifter,” Xander replies. “Ruby here’s a dragon.”
“Seriously?” Shade raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know siblings could be different kinds.”
“It’s rare, but it does happen,” Ruby replies. “We used to get a lot of shit for it when we were younger - even our parents took a while to warm up to it. It’s a little taboo in the shifter community - sort of like hybridism. We’re in the same boat, Millie.”
“Boots,” I say, feeling a sudden sense of camaraderie with the siblings. “Call me Boots.”
Xander’s brow furrows. “Boots?”
I nod, instinctively reaching for my foot and fingering the broken pendant I keep in my worn shoe. It was a gift from Mollie, something of a good luck charm. Although I feel a twinge of sadness whenever I think about her—whatever happened to her, anyway?
“All right,” he says, laughing. “Boots it is, then.”
