Moon Bitten (Fur 'n' Fang Academy Book 1): A Shifter Academy Novel

by C. S. Churton

  “No control? Listen, I’ve wanted to rip your throat out since the moment you walked through that door, but do you see me hulking out into Xena-wolf?”

  “The cuffs you are wearing are laced with silver and engraved with arcane symbols. While you wear them, you cannot change forms.”

  I looked down at the cuffs locked around my wrists, examining them for the first time. About three inches wide, and silver in colour, they fit snuggly around my wrists. They had a whole host of weird symbols carved into them, and if I looked closely, I could pick out streams of silver running through the iron. More than that, I could sense it on some instinctive level. Each cuff had two small keyholes, and the short chain that linked them was lightweight, each individual link was thin. It had no engravings – I figure it was just there to make it harder for me to throttle people who try to lock me in cages. As long as I wore the cuffs, there was no changing shape, and no busting out of this cell.

  I contemplated that for a moment.

  “That’s great news. Let me out, and I’ll keep the cuffs on and go back to my life like this never happened. Problem solved.”

  “I would that it were, Jade,” Blake said. “But we have laws, and amongst them is that every wolf coming into their power must learn how to control it. Like it or not, you are now a student at this academy, and I will be your… headmaster until you graduate.”

  I didn’t like it. Not one damned bit. But I could see there was nothing to be gained from arguing. Besides, the more fuss I kicked up right now, the more closely they’d be watching me later when I escaped from this hellhole.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “I’m a student. So teach me, oh great one.”

  “Your flippancy will not benefit you.”

  He seemed to think that about a lot of my personality traits, but I really didn’t give a damn. Any guy who thought he could walk into my life and tell me what I would and would not do was going to find out pretty damned quickly that there was more to my personality than temper and flippancy.

  “Give me your hands.”

  I eyeballed him, then thrust my hands through the bars towards him, and he reached for them, taking care not to touch the metal manacles. I guess the whole werewolves and silver thing was true. It was as much a part of why these cuffs worked on me as the engravings.

  He slotted a small key into one of the cuffs, turned it, and then tugged the chain away. I held still as he did the same to the other cuff, and then he stepped back.

  “Hey!” I protested. “I thought you were taking them off.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I will remove the cuffs in due course. Should you prove capable of self-restraint, that will be before the semester starts.”

  He didn’t sound like he thought that was very likely, which filled me with all manner of confidence.

  “Wait,” I said, staring down at the cuffs, a dubious feeling starting up in the pit of my stomach. “I’m going to be the only one wearing these, aren’t I?”

  “The other students will wear a single training cuff to assist their control,” he said.

  “A training cuff. But not these? Level with me – am I going to be the only freak walking round here wearing these like some sort of prisoner?”

  Some sort of prisoner. Who was I kidding? That’s exactly what I was. I was stuck here, like it or not – and I’d go with not – until they decided to let me go. Or I escaped.

  “I would urge you to stay positive,” Blake said. “There is every chance you will learn to exert some control over your inner beast before that time comes.”

  “And how long exactly do I have?”

  “A week.”

  A week. Screw it. I’d be gone from here long before then, anyway.

  “You’re not going to keep me in this cage for the entire week, are you?”

  “Do I need to?”

  I shook my head, feigning defeat.

  “Look, I get it. I’m dangerous. Where else would I go?”

  Blake stared at me for a long moment, and the longer he stared, the more I felt the urge to do something – fight him, back away, hide, I didn’t know what. Eventually, he nodded, and some of the pressure building inside my skull eased.

  “Good. I will send Dean to you shortly. He will help you get acclimated, and show you to your room.”

  He started for the door, and I leaned against the bars, watching his retreating back. As he reached for the handle, I broke the silence.

  “How long am I– How long do I have to stay?”

  He turned to face me.

  “Many students graduate within three years. Some take a little longer to reach the required standard. I know that may seem like a long time to you right now, but trust that it will pass in the blink of an eye.”

  I nodded, and my body sagged as he stepped out of the dungeon, shutting the door behind him. Three years. They wanted to keep me here for three years. Longer, if they decided I couldn’t do everything they thought I should.

  But they were going to let me out of this cell today. And I would find the way out of here. Semester started in one week? Well, they’d be missing a student when it did. I’d be gone by then. I just had to play along long enough for them to drop their guard.

  I paced to the back of the cell and sat, my back pressed against the wall and my knees curled up to my chest. At least I could move my arms now, that was something. Not much, granted, but I’d take what I could get. I wrapped my arms around my legs and slumped my head onto my knees.

  After a moment, I hiked my jeans’ leg up again, and looked down at my scar, running one finger over the puckered skin. Two days. It had healed from a ragged, bleeding mess to this in just two days. Maybe, just maybe, there were some perks to this whole werewolf gig. Not enough to stick around for, but super healing? It wasn’t a bad consolation prize.

  I let the fabric fall back over the scar and sat staring at the floor for a long while, my eyes drifting in and out of focus. I couldn’t keep track of how much time passed, but I suspected Blake was doing it on purpose, leaving me here to mull things over. Maybe he thought if he left me alone long enough, I’d realise that I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Maybe he thought I’d come to the conclusion that three years really wasn’t that long, and that I should just go along with it, and make the most of my time here, surrounded by people who knew more about my new curse than I did. He’d have to lock me up for a bloody long time if he wanted me to start thinking like that.

  Sometime later, the heavy wooden door creaked again, and a new figure stepped through, this one younger than the other two. He was about my age, or maybe a year or two older, and he didn’t bother to shut the door behind him. I straightened, regarding him as he came closer. He had a bundle in his hands, and a look of curiosity on his face, which he quickly buried when he stepped into the light of the single bulb. But I’d been down here long enough for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  “You must be Jade,” he said, stopping outside my cage.

  “Must I?” The words came out bitter and left a nasty taste in my mouth. I was supposed to be making them trust me. I sighed and got to my feet. “I mean, yeah, that’s me.”

  “I’m Dean,” he said. “Alpha Blake said you were having some trouble adjusting to what happened.”

  “Alpha?”

  “His rank,” Dean said. “He’s the alpha of the academy. He’s in charge of it.”

  “Oh.” I frowned, moving closer to the bars, and recalling Caleb’s words. “And the alpha pack?”

  “You… don’t want anything to do with them,” Dean said, looking wary. “It’s not a pack, as such. More like… like a council, I guess. It’s made up of every alpha in the country, run by the Alpha of Alphas. They’re in charge of law keeping.”

  “They’re not good at it,” I grumbled, rubbing at my leg.

  “What happened to you is rare,” Dean said. “Unheard of, really. There’s never been another Bitten in my lifetime.”

  “Not so rare that you don’t have a name fo
r it,” I observed.

  “Everything has a name,” he said. I nodded.

  “What you’re doing has a name, too. It’s called stalling.” I rattled the bars with one hand. “How about you let me out of here?”

  He laughed.

  “I think it’s called ‘conversation’, but sure.” He pulled a long, heavy key on a wide iron loop from his belt and slotted it into the lock, then paused.

  “You’re not going to do anything reckless, are you?” he asked.

  “Scared of a girl?”

  He shook his head and turned the key.

  “Of you? Nothing personal, but no. Now Alpha Blake on the other hand – well, you don’t get to be alpha of a whole academy unless you’re tougher than you look.”

  I mulled that one over as Dean pulled the door open, then I sashayed through it.

  “Aren’t you a little too grown up to be scared of the big, bad wolf?”

  “Oh, you’re going to be a bad influence,” he said, his lips curving into something not quite tame enough to be called a smile. “I like you.”

  I brushed past him and headed for the door. He moved quickly, so quickly that I wasn’t sure I’d even seen him move. One moment he was behind me, the next he was in front of the door. Blocking my exit.

  “How did you do that?” I narrowed my eyes at him, and he shrugged with practiced nonchalance.

  “Stick around, and you’ll find out.”

  I shrugged right back at him.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Yet.

  “Well, if you’re staying, you’re going to want this.”

  He held out the bundle to me, and I eyed it suspiciously.

  “And what’s that supposed to be?”

  “It’s your uniform.”

  “Uniform? Yeah, good one.” I paused, but his expression didn’t change. “Wait, you’re serious? What are we, twelve? I’m not wearing that.”

  “Everyone here wears them.”

  “Not me.” I frowned at him, or more precisely, at his jeans and hoodie combo. “And not you, either, apparently.”

  “I just got here,” he said. “Alpha Blake called me in at short notice. It was all a bit last minute, what with…”

  He trailed off, casting a meaningful glance at my leg.

  “Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” I brushed past him again. “I’m not wearing that, so you can forget it.”

  He shrugged like it was no big deal.

  “Hey, if you want to break the rules, it’s your funeral.”

  “Wait… literally?”

  He snorted in amusement.

  “For this? Probably not. You might want to watch out for the big rules, though.”

  “What, like biting a mundane?” I held up a hand before he could answer. “Are we getting out of here, or not? I’ve seen enough of creepy dungeons for one day.”

  “This way,” he said, and led me out of the room. I crossed the threshold with a shudder. If I never wound up back in there again, it would still be too soon. I’d hated being cooped up even when I lived in the city. Trapped underground in some creepy werewolf academy? No, thanks.

  I cast one last look back over my shoulder. Whatever happened, I would fight to the death before I let them put me in a cage again.

  Chapter Five

  “This is it,” Dean said, swinging open a door that looked like the last fifteen we’d already passed. Maybe he’d been counting, because I could see no other way to tell it apart from them.

  “This is what?”

  “Your room.”

  I peered inside, pleasantly surprised by the presence of windows and the lack of bars across them, and the distinctly non-dungeon-like décor. There was a decent-sized bed, and folded on it were several more sets of the uniform Dean had carried up from the dungeon, as if under some sort of deluded impression that I was going to change my mind on the way. Next to those was a cluster of toiletries that looked somewhat familiar. Sure enough, as I got closer I recognised my toothbrush, washcloth, and seriously indulgent shower gel, amongst other things. I guess Caleb wasn’t quite as much of a barbarian as he seemed. He was still a dick, though.

  Dean set my uniform on the bed next to the other piles.

  “Is there some reason I have a dozen sets of a uniform I’m never going to wear?” I enquired, my voice politely disinterested – because like I really cared.

  “Have you ever seen anyone shift?” Dean asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Caleb.”

  “And did you wonder why he stripped off before shifting?”

  “Uh…”

  “This isn’t Disney. Our clothes don’t shift with us.”

  “I don’t think Disney ever made a movie about werewolves.”

  “If you shift fully clothed, they’re getting shredded. There won’t be enough left to repair.”

  “Right. That still doesn’t explain the uniforms.”

  “When you get those cuffs off, it’s going to take you a while to get the hang of staying human. You’re going to shred a lot of clothes while you get control.”

  “Oh. Wait, this is a mixed sex academy, right?”

  “Everyone here’s an adult,” Dean said. “And no-one’s going to be looking, trust me.”

  “Is that like a catch phrase around here? Because I have trust issues.”

  I perched on the edge of my new bed, contemplating what a monumental balls up my life had become, and my eyes drifted over the three other beds in the room. Dorm living – exactly what I’d been hoping to avoid by moving into Oak Ridge Farm in the first place. Fate really was a bitch.

  “Who am I sharing with?” I asked, jerking my chin at the empty beds. It was too much to hope they’d stay empty for long. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself. I wasn’t sticking around.

  “That one’s mine,” Dean said, gesturing to a studiously neat bed in the corner.

  My mouth popped open. That settled it. I definitely wasn’t sticking around.

  “You? I’m sharing with you?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Hell, yeah, it was. For one thing, sneaking out just got ten times harder. Dean wasn’t going to take his eyes from me. But I couldn’t tell him that, so I just shrugged.

  “Hadn’t expected mixed sex rooms, is all.”

  “In some ways, shifters are very traditional. In others, not so much. We don’t have a whole lot of space at Fur ‘n’ Fang, and the shifter population keeps growing. I guess somewhere along the way, someone stopped caring about mixed rooms.”

  “Fur ‘n’ Fang?” I raised an eyebrow. Dean grinned.

  “What, you don’t think the Sarrenauth Academy of Therianthropy is a mouthful? Everyone round here just calls it Fur ‘n’ Fang.”

  “What’s a… therianthrope, anyway?” I asked, sounding out each of the syllables.

  “It’s someone who can shift into an animal. Or partially shift, but you don’t really see that anymore.”

  “I thought we were werewolves.”

  “Werewolves – lycanthropes – are the most common, but there are a couple of other species that come here. Wolves are the best, though,” he added, flashing his teeth at me.

  “Well, I kinda thought being human was the best until this morning, so I’m gonna withhold judgement on that one.”

  Dean pulled a face. “Human-schuman.”

  “You seriously did not just say that.”

  “I did. And I’ll say it again. Human-schuman. Shifting is way cooler.”

  I shook my head in mock-dismay, but I couldn’t quite suppress the smile tugging at my lips.

  “Just telling it as it as,” he said.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “The plan?”

  I groaned.

  “Please tell me we’re not spending the next week locked in this room, because I’m already going stir-crazy.”

  “Oh. No, you’re free to explore the castle, or head out into the grounds. As long as I go with you.”

  “I don’t need a chape
rone.”

  “No? So you’re not planning to jump the wall and head back to your hometown first chance you get?”

  “Hometown? No. Alright then, can you at least give me the tour, if we’re stuck with each other?”

  “Ouch. I’m not that bad, am I?” A look of genuine hurt flashed through his eyes before he covered it up with a smirk.

  “As jailors go,” I said, “you could be worse.”

  “Good enough. Come on, let’s take that tour. We can start with the dining hall.”

  The dining hall was huge – and deserted, apart from us, and a middle-aged guy working from a hatch in the kitchen.

  “Dean,” the man greeted him with a nod. “I heard you were here early.”

  “Hi, Mickey.” He gestured to me. “This is Jade. She’s… new.”

  Mickey’s eyes sharpened, and he searched my face. I guess I was going to get a lot of that. Sucks to be the new kid, but it wasn’t the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I set my jaw and returned his scrutiny.

  “Good to meet you, Jade.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  I didn’t break eye contact and he chuckled, flicking a glance back over his shoulder into the kitchen, at the array of pans lined up by the hob.

  “She’s a feisty one, huh?” He didn’t meet my eye again. “A couple of steaks?”

  Dean nodded. “Sure. Jade, what do you want?”

  I laughed, then realised he was being serious.

  “Oh. I’ll have whatever. Thanks.”

  Mickey turned and ambled back into the kitchen. Dean made to take my elbow to steer me across the room, and I jerked it away, fixing him with a glare.

  “Easy,” he said, holding his hand up and sounding a little irritated. “Not everyone round here is your enemy. Some of us just want to help you. Most of us, actually, if you give us a chance.”

  “Well, excuse me if–” I broke off and exhaled, long and low, and got my voice under control. “Never mind. It’s been a long day.”

  “It’s going to get a lot longer if you keep challenging everyone you meet,” he said, steering us to a table near the back – this time not making the mistake of trying to touch me.