Secret Wolves: Supernatural Shifter Academy Series

by Bailey, G.

  “You could at least stay long enough to find out what they’re planning,” I finish for him.

  The vampire shifter nods. “Exactly.”

  There’s a long moment of silence as we consider his offer. “Damn, Ash,” Landon says at last, raising an eyebrow at him. “Daddy’s little boy is finally starting to grow up.”

  “Shut up, Landon.” Hunter shoots him a glare, but looks like he’s struggling not to smile.

  “So are we doing this, then?” Hazel asks finally. “Hunter’s going to try to listen in?”

  “I’m in if Hunter is,” I reply, turning back to him. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Not at all,” Hunter replies, “but if this lets us get a step ahead of the Academy, then I’m willing to give it a shot. It still hurts knowing that my dad might be in on this… but then again, he might not be. How will I ever know if I don’t try to find out, though?” The corner of his mouth twitches. “Besides, I shouldn’t be thinking too hard about this. I might chicken out.”

  “This could be our shot at finding out the humans’ plans,” Silas says thoughtfully, nodding. “I’m for it. We’ll need some way of listening in, though.” He turns to me. “Boots, do you have some kind of witch spell? Something you could do in-form that would let us hear what they’re saying?”

  “I can barely even get into my witch form, let alone cast complicated spells,” I reply. “Besides, they’re probably going to have wards up against magic. I have another idea, though - something a bit more… old-fashioned.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Silas asks incredulously as we sit together in the shadows. We’re back at the seaport, our backs against one of the nearby buildings as we watch the water lap at the docks and the passersby move back and forth near the railing. With any luck, we’ll be inconspicuous here - just a handful of convention-goers who wanted to take a break from the endless meetings. My cell phone is in my lap, and my knee is bouncing up and down in anticipation as we wait with bated breath for Hunter’s call.

  “Have a little faith,” Landon says, elbowing him playfully. “Boots has got this.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Silas replies, shooting me a grin. “I’m more worried about Hunter, if I’m being honest. What if they catch him?”

  “We’ll be on mute,” I reply. “He’s going to put us on speaker so we can hear what the board is saying. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, they won’t be able to hear anything we say.”

  “Emphasis on everything going the way it’s supposed to,” Shade remarks dryly. “Let’s just hope Hunter’s dad hasn’t already sold him out.”

  “He wouldn’t,” I reply, although deep down I’m not so sure. I can’t shake the feeling like we’re about to find out something that will turn the whole world upside-down, but I’m afraid that saying it will just make it real, so I keep my mouth shut. We’re all nervous enough as it is without any more ominous predictions.

  As if on cue, my phone begins to vibrate, and I quickly hit the answer button before muting our end. Hunter’s voice comes through, speaking in a hushed whisper: “Okay, I’m by the back entrance to the auditorium. There’s a bouncer there—I’m going to try to talk to my way in. If something happens to me, then… call the cops, or whatever.”

  Shade snorts. There’s the sound of rustling fabric, and I realise Hunter’s put his phone in his pocket. We look at one another as we wait for something to happen, nearly jumping at the sound of a gruff American voice. “I’m sorry, but this meeting isn’t open to the public.”

  “Oh, I know,” comes Hunter’s reply. “I’m actually the son of one of the board members—David Ash. I brought him something.”

  There’s a sigh. “Look, kid, I don’t care if you’re the president. I was told not to let anyone in here who’s not on the board.”

  “Do you want to see proof?” There’s a rustling sound. “Look, here’s my ID. My dad is David Bartholomew Ash, and he’s on the school board for the U.K. Academy. I have a blood bag for him.”

  “A blood bag?”

  “Hello - he’s a vampire shifter.” Hunter’s tone is making him sound eerily like his sister. “He needs to feed or he’s going to pass out.”

  “I… didn’t know vampire shifters worked that way.”

  “Well, of course you wouldn’t. Where did you get your education? The American Academy?” he snorts. “Honestly, I’ve heard your school system was bad, but I didn’t realise it was that-”

  “All right, all right, enough,” the bouncer says, sounding exasperated. “You’re giving me a migraine. Get your dad his blood, or whatever, and then I want you out of there. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely,” Hunter replies, sounding overly chipper. There’s the sound of a door opening and closing.

  “I’ll be damned,” Shade says, shaking his head in disbelief. “He actually got through.”

  “He really ought to pull out that Amelia voice more often,” quips Landon. “He could get us whatever he wants.”

  I hold up my hand to silence them; the sound of more voices is coming through. It’s muffled, like they’re on the other side of a partition, but if I concentrate, I can just barely make them out. “...I really think we should be focused on the matter at hand, Hawthorne,” comes an American voice. Russo’s, if I’m correct.

  “This is the matter at hand,” comes another voice, this one I recognise as Hawthorne’s. “You’ve heard how the peace talks are going. The politicians are deadlocked. How many more skirmishes are there going to be before you realise that the humans are outmatched, here?”

  “Outmatched?” This one I don’t recognise. “You’re making this sound like it’s a war, Hawthorne.”

  “It is a war,” Hawthorne insists. “You all know this; I’m just the one brave enough to say it out loud. We’re woefully unequipped to deal with the shifters anymore. Not with them mobilising, threatening to rise up. The dam is going to break, ladies and gentlemen; the only question is when. The only way we’ll have any hope of surviving when it does is by leveling out the playing field.”

  “You’re talking about restarting the hybrid experiments,” someone else pipes up. My eyes go wide as I look up at the others; they look as stunned as I feel.

  “That’s a dangerous proposition, Hawthorne,” Russo replies. “The U.K. Academy already tried that; we’ve seen how it ended.”

  “There were… outside factors,” Hawthorne concedes. “It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to continue our research. Don’t you people understand? Granting humans shifter abilities will make the whole conflict irrelevant. We won’t have to worry about regulations and integration if we do this. Hell, we might not even need Academies anymore.”

  “But it’s a dangerous procedure,” pipes up another board member. “Even if it does work, we’re talking about hundreds of shifter lives lost. You can’t just replicate magic like that without a sacrifice.”

  “And what would you rather sacrifice,” Hawthorne fires back, “a few thousand shifter lives, or a few million human lives? Because these are the stakes we’re talking about, here.”

  “That’s hyperbole!”

  “I do think President Hawthorne has a point,” Russo says with a sigh. “It’s clear that the landscape is changing for us, and this conference isn’t getting us anywhere. It might be time to take things into our own hands.”

  “What you’re suggesting is unethical,” protests another board member.

  “Not to mention unsanctioned,” adds another.

  “Enough,” snaps a new voice, this one deep and authoritative. “Hawthorne, you’ve said your piece. We will… need to think about this, before we take any further action. Maybe it would be best to take a recess for a few days and consider this proposal. We can reconvene and take another vote when we’re all fresh.”

  There’s an uneasy murmur from the assembled board members, followed by a rustling sound that signals some of them are getting to their feet. Hunter begi
ns to move away, making it harder to catch what they’re saying, but it hardly matters; we’ve gotten the gist of it.

  And the gist is not good.

  Chapter 42

  The next twenty-four hours pass by in a haze. Whatever sense of excitement permeated our group before has vanished entirely in the aftermath of the board members’ meeting, replaced by a shroud of unease that has us all on edge. Everything said at the conference suddenly feels like white noise, a bunch of nonsense compared to what we know is happening behind the scenes, and the worst part is that I should have known it would come to this sooner or later. This was exactly what Silas was talking about when he mentioned being worried before we even left the U.K.. This is what comes of leaving the fate of an entire population up to a handful of bureaucrats. It doesn’t matter that there are shifter representatives involved in this too, because the humans are the ones who run the Academy. It all feels too cunningly perfect, engineered so that no matter what we do, as students, there’s no way to fight their decisions. I can’t help but wonder how many of the shifter politicians have any real power, and how many of them are just puppets, put in place to keep the shifter community from rebelling. It’s a system that’s worked fine until now, but for some reason—maybe the modern world, maybe the fact that shifters have finally seen through the bullshit—it’s not working anymore. I should be grateful for that, but I’m not; everything feels like it’s about to fall apart again, and we’re hopeless to stop it.

  I try to tell myself at dinner that night that maybe things won’t take a turn the way they did last time. The board didn’t seem too keen on Hawthorne’s proposal; at least, most of them didn’t. Maybe he’s an outlier, and the humans really are just trying to promote peace and coexistence between our species. But maybe not. Is that really a chance we can afford to take, anyway? What happens if they decide Hawthorne is right, that the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few? What happens if, with the board backing him, Hawthorne is finally able to come out of the shadows, to restart the experiments with the permission of the entire administration? Images of my friends tortured and drained of their magic flit through my mind, making it hard to choke the food down, and it’s all I can do not to fall into a complete panic attack at the prospect of that kind of subjugation.

  I’m sitting on my bed in my room that night, staring down at my hands, which are balled into fists in my lap, when I hear a quiet knock at the door. “Come in,” I call listlessly. Moments later, the door opens, and I see Landon standing there, looking apprehensive.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you,” he says after a long pause.

  I shake my head. “No, not at all. I was just… thinking, I guess.”

  “You and me both.” He shuts the door quietly behind him and comes over to me; I pat the spot beside me on the bed and he takes a hesitant seat, folding his hands in his lap. “You know, I do really like this set-up,” he remarks, looking around the room. “All of us being in the same suite, I mean. It’s nice. Forget about all the talk of conspiracies and experiments, and I could get used to this.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, adding dryly, “although it’s a little hard to see the bright side when the Academy is talking about turning us into test subjects.”

  “Well, we’ve been test subjects once,” the siren shifter remarks, “and we survived that. I’d say we have a pretty good track record.”

  “Thank god for that,” I agree, turning to him and forcing a smile. “I just hope that’s not a theory we have to test out.” There’s a long moment of silence, both of us struggling to think of something to say. I bite my lip, but the words come tumbling out before I can stop them. “I got a text message,” I blurt out. “From an unknown number. It was during the peace talks the other day.”

  “Really?” Landon frowns. “Can I see it?”

  I nod, fishing my phone out of my pocket and handing it to him. His eyes narrow as he reads over the anonymous message, his forehead lined with worry. “What does this mean?” he asks finally.

  I shake my head hopelessly. “I don’t know. But it feels like a warning. Do you think whoever sent it to me knew Hawthorne was planning on converting the rest of the school board?”

  “I mean… maybe.” He sighs, handing me my phone back. “Any idea who it was?”

  “No,” I reply. “None. For a while I thought maybe it was Hawthorne himself, but now I’m not so sure. It could be anyone here. Whoever it is, though, they seem to know something that we don’t.”

  “Let’s just hope they’re on our side, then,” Landon remarks grimly. There’s a long pause, and he looks at me, his dark eyes meeting mine. “Listen, Boots,” he says, “today was rough. For all of us. I don’t want to think about what will happen if the Academy listens to Hawthorne, but I wanted to see how you were doing. I can’t even imagine what this must all be like for you.”

  “Not great, Landon,” I reply, a humourless smile appearing on my face. “Not great.” I reach out and take hold of his hand, the warmth of his skin filling me with a sense of hope I didn’t even know I needed. “Thank you, though,” I tell him quietly. “It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this.”

  “You’re not alone, Boots,” Landon replies, leaning forward to kiss me quickly on the cheek before pulling back. “You never were.”

  * * *

  “I’m surprised they’re even still doing this whole song and dance,” Shade remarks as we come to a stop outside the convention center the next morning. It’s a routine that’s getting old for all of us now, and I think it’s starting to wear on the other students; allegedly, this is the last day we’ll be spending at the conference before it’s back to classes as usual at the American Academy. I wish I could say that’s a relief, but at this point, I’m not sure anything is going to be enough to quell the growing dread I’m feeling.

  “What do you mean?” asks Hunter.

  The wolf shifter shrugs. “I was half-expecting them to drag us out of our beds kicking and screaming in the middle of the night. They’re obviously thinking about it.”

  “A little optimism would be nice, Ivis,” Hazel fires back from where she’s walking next to Xander. They’ve been joined at the hip all morning, and she has a glow about her that suggests something more than just idle chit chat happened in their dorm room last night. I’m happy for her; a little comfort goes a long way in times like these. “They didn’t agree to anything.”

  “No, but they sure as hell might,” Shade replies, crossing his arms. “And what are we going to do if they do, huh?”

  “As much as I hate to admit it, Shade is right,” Silas agrees. “We’re going to need to think about some kind of exit strategy.”

  “Exit strategy?” I ask, shaking my head. “What does that mean?”

  The dragon shifter turns to me. “Who do you think they’re going to start with if they do decide to start this project up again, Boots? The answer is you. You’re one of the few successful hybrid experiments, and they’re going to want to study you. The rest of us, too, probably. We need to consider the possibility that the Academy might not be safe for us anymore.”

  “Was it ever?” I ask, feeling hopeless.

  None of the others respond, looking away from me, but that’s all the answer I need. Silas is right, even if I don’t want to admit it; it’s not a possibility I want to consider, but this is the reality of the situation. “So what are you saying?” Hunter asks finally, breaking the silence. “Are we going to have to run away or something?”

  “I don’t know,” Silas admits, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe. All I know is that we’re going to want to get ahead of the school board, no matter what the Academy ends up deciding to do. We’re going to need a plan if things go south.”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can just up and leave,” Hunter protests. “I have family here.”

  “You’re our family, too, Hunter,” I protest. “How do you know your father won’t end up siding with Hawthorne?”

/>   “He won’t,” the vampire shifter snaps. “He… he can’t. I won’t believe that.”

  “But what if-” begins Hazel.

  “What are you all doing standing about?” comes the sound of a new voice, making all of us jump. I turn around to see Josie approaching us, her hands in her pockets and her dark hair pulled up in a ponytail. “Last I checked, the conference was happening inside.” In spite of her scolding, there’s a twinkle in her eyes, and she grins when she comes to a stop in front of us.

  “Sorry,” Landon mutters, looking at the ground. “We were just… uh…”

  “Trying to figure out where to go next,” Ruby hurries to supply. “To be honest, it feels like we’ve sort of exhausted our options.”

  “You’re telling me,” remarks Josie. “Try spending three days going to nothing but faculty meetings. It’s enough to drive a person insane.”

  I exchange a look with Silas before turning back to her. “Josie,” I say tentatively, “can you tell us anything about what the faculty thinks? About this whole conference?”

  The recruiter gives me a long look. “Are you asking on the record, or off the record?”

  “Off,” I reply without hesitation. “It seems like not much progress is being made.”

  “I…” She hesitates, a flicker of doubt passing through her eyes. “To be honest, I really can’t say. It sounds like something’s been put to the board, but they’re deadlocked right now. A lot like the politicians, now that I think about it.”

  I don’t need to ask what it is that’s been suggested to the board. “What do you think is going to happen?”

  Josie just gives us a sad smile. “That’s getting into dangerous territory, Ms. Brix.” There’s a long pause, and it seems as if she’s getting ready to say something else, but then decides against it. “You all had better get inside,” she says at last. “They’re going to want us to do a headcount before too long.”