“When are you going to stop lashing out at people who are trying to help you?”
“When are you going to stop acting like my damned shrink?” I shoved my chair back. “We’re done here, right?”
“Actually, Jade, we’re not. Sit down.”
Shaun glared at me, and for a moment I considered just walking out of the room. I didn’t owe him anything.
…Except I did. I slumped back into the chair and gave him my most unimpressed look.
“Well?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Go on, then.”
The muscles in Shaun’s jaw clenched and then smoothed out again.
“Firstly, you will remember who you are talking to. I am your instructor. You don’t have to like that, but you do have to treat me with a certain amount of respect.”
Respect. Etiquette. Dominance and submission. I had all that crap drilled into me twice a week in Cultural Studies, and it still seemed like a bunch of self-serving bullshit.
“This stroppy teenager routine isn’t going to cut it. If you’re not mature enough to get yourself under control and act like an adult, there are alternatives to completing this year.”
My blood ran cold, draining from my face. He was talking about the dungeon. He was talking about keeping me locked up there until the next intake. Eight months in a cell. I wouldn’t survive eight days.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I know.”
“It’s not like I try to escape anymore. I could have run on Halloween, and I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I’m doing my best! It’s not my fault that–”
That what? That I was acting like a spoilt brat? That I was taking my temper out on everyone around me? That I refused to accept the hand fate had dealt me, even if it was a shitty one? No. All of that was my fault.
“I’ll do better,” I said.
“Okay. Good. I’m only asking you to try. I’m going to schedule you some extra sessions with Brendon.”
I groaned.
“Aw, come on. I already see him every day. And I’m miles behind on the stuff for my other lessons.”
“If you don’t get some sort of control before your exams, you’re going to have to resit this entire year.”
“Exams?” This was the first I’d heard about any exams.
“Did you think you could just coast through lessons for three years, and then leave here without any sort of control, or understanding of how the shifter world works?”
Well, yeah, I kinda had. Attend Fur ‘n’ Fang for three years, and then I got my freedom back. No-one had said anything about exams.
“When you leave here, you’re going to need to find your place in our world. You’re a part of it now, and you need to start thinking about how big of a part you want that to be.”
“I’m going to UCL to study law,” I said without hesitating. “I’ll go as a mature student. That hasn’t changed. When I’m done at Fur ‘n’ Fang, I’m done with this whole world.”
“Well, that’s your choice, but first you’re going to need to demonstrate that you’re not a danger to the mundane population, and that you can follow our laws. You’ll have exams every year, and you’ll either graduate – or not.”
Shit. I really should have seen that one coming. I slumped over his desk and groaned into the wood.
“I am so screwed.”
Shaun laughed.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re not failing Tracking. And Lewis tells me you’re doing well in Law, too.”
Law being the only subject here that held any interest whatsoever for me, even if shifter law was completely FUBAR’d.
“So, you’re going to have private sessions with Brendon every Saturday and Sunday. You’ve got a few months yet. You can do this, Jade. We all believe in you. And if we didn’t, we’d be having a very different sort of conversation right now.”
I’m sure he meant that to be reassuring, but it really wasn’t.
“There’s one more thing we need to talk about.”
I straightened in time to catch the uneasy look on his face that matched the tone of his voice.
“Christmas break is in two weeks. Most of the other students will return to their packs. But you don’t have a pack to return to.”
“I’m going to get stuck here, aren’t I?”
“You should be, yes. But I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, and Alpha Blake agrees. You can stay here, if you want. Or you can return to the farm.”
I weighed that for a moment. I had no family at the farm, and I didn’t think going back to the city to catch up with old friends was going to be an option. And all my new friends were here. Cam was here. But they were probably all going home for Christmas.
Shaun kept quiet, giving me the space to work through my decision. But it wasn’t much of a decision, not really. Alright, I was never going to be Fur ‘n’ Fang’s biggest fan, but this place had become my home over the last few months. And I didn’t think it was the smartest move for me to spend four weeks by myself.
“I’d like to stay here, if that’s okay.”
Shaun didn’t quite manage to keep the look of surprise from his face, but I’d give him ten out of ten for effort.
“Of course. If you change your mind…”
“Yeah. And thanks.”
*
I didn’t change my mind. When the day came, the instructors opened up a dozen portals, sending the students back to their packs – but not before fitting each of the first and second years with a set of suppressor cuffs. At least staying here meant I wasn’t subjected to those.
I wasn’t the only one who stayed. Most of the wolves left – family and pack being as important as it was to them. A few stayed, though. Cam offered, when he found out I was going to be here. He didn’t want me to be alone, he said, but it would have been selfish of me to deny him his only chance to see his kid brother before the end of the academic year, so I told him I’d be fine. I wasn’t completely sure it was true – four weeks rattling around here by myself didn’t sound like much fun. Luckily, Mei was staying, too. Dean wasn’t, but at least that meant I didn’t have to watch him and Madison fawning all over each other.
My time wasn’t entirely my own – some of the instructors were staying, amongst them Brendon and Shaun, which meant my daily dose of torturous shifting sessions would continue. But at least Shaun agreed that I didn’t need to see him every day for our chats – presumably since I didn’t have any proper lessons to show up my numerous inadequacies. For now, he agreed to cut our sessions to twice weekly.
Which meant I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands.
It turns out I wasn’t great with free time. I hadn’t had a whole lot of it up until now – what with school, and college, and trying to get accepted at UCL. And then coming here, being miles behind, and of course Cam keeping me busy…
My mouth stretched into a lazy smile that faded as I looked down at the book in front of me. It turned out Fur ‘n’ Fang had a library, which probably wasn’t that surprising given that this was an academy. It was just that I hadn’t had much cause to find it before now. But I’d meant what I said to Shaun – I fully intended to convince UCL to accept me as a mature student when I was done here, and since I wouldn’t be able to tell them what I’d been doing for the last three years, I figured I’d have to wow them with my legal genius instead. Unfortunately, it turned out Fur ‘n’ Fang didn’t keep that sort of book in their library. But since I was apparently going to have to sit a load of exams, and since apparently I was failing most of my subjects, I’d decided now that I’d found the library, I might as well use it to get caught up in some of them. The trouble was, there was nothing about the role of therianthropy in the first Roman invasion of Britain that particularly held my attention, and I’d read the same paragraph half a dozen times before my mind had gone to more interesting subjects. Like Cam.
…But, pleasant though those daydreams were, they weren’t going
to get this paper written. I scanned the book again and jotted some names down. Anarevitos was the guy in charge of the British defence, and by all accounts, he was a bit of a bastard. His druids had cast rage spells on a bunch of shifters he’d conscripted onto the front lines, turning them into mindless killers – right up until the Romans slaughtered them with silver-tipped spears. Even back then, druids had been controlling shifters and forcing us to do their bidding, the self-righteous, sanctimonious–
I heard a cracking noise, and glanced down at the splintered pen crushed in my hand. Great. Now they’d made me ruin a perfectly good pen. Bastards.
“I know the assignment is dull, but don’t you think that’s a bit of an overreaction?”
I twisted round with a grin.
“Mei! What are you doing down here?”
“I think that is my line. Brendon asked me to find you.”
“What? What time is it?” I threw a glance over my shoulder at the clock on the wall. “Shit. My lesson. Gotta go!”
I slammed the book shut and crammed my notepad in my bag, and almost fell over the chair in my haste to make it to Brendon’s lecture room before I gave him another excuse to chew me out.
“Here,” Mei said, untangling my bag strap from the chair leg. I nodded her my thanks. “I’ll walk with you.”
“How did you even know I’d be here?”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “I followed your scent.”
I groaned, hefting my bag onto my back, and wondering how quickly I could heal from a broken spine.
“I am so far behind everyone it’s ridiculous.”
“I can help you… if you want?”
I shot a glance at her to see her chewing her lower lip. I got the sense that offering to help me was a big deal, and I thought I knew why. I mean, I was an outcast because of what had happened to me at the farm. But before that, I’d fit in my entire life – more or less. Mei hadn’t. She’d always been an outcast. Therianthropy was genetic. Both her mother and her father had been leopards. There had never been any doubt that she would be, too. And in this world, if you weren’t a wolf, you were an outcast. People didn’t often turn to outcasts for help.
I, on the other hand, had no such reservations. A grin spread across my face.
“Mei, if you can get me caught up, I will love you forever.”
Chapter Eighteen
Of course, when I’d said that, I’d thought it would involve a little less… work. It turned out Mei was doing well in all our classes because she actually worked her arse off, which was a shame, because I’d really been hoping for some sort of magic shortcut. But beggars can’t be choosers, and it wasn’t like I had a whole lot else to spend my days doing, so we spent a couple of hours a day outside, with Mei laying scent trails and me attempting to follow them.
The days whiled away. I studied in the library, tracked with Mei, practiced shifting with Brendon, and questioned my sanity with Shaun.
“I’m impressed with how much effort you’re putting into your studies,” Shaun said, on the afternoon of New Years’ Eve – because apparently the fact the dozen of us who’d stayed at Fur ‘n’ Fang had plans to get very drunk tonight wasn’t enough to get me out of my counselling sessions.
I didn’t mind, not really – sometimes I even found them quite helpful. And honestly, I hadn’t expected Shaun to let it drop. It was the full moon last night – the one time a month when I couldn’t prevent myself from shifting. At least, not yet. Most of the wolves in my year had already learned to control it, and Mei’s leopard had never been subject to the call of the full moon, but I still had to be locked up in the shifting room from moon rise to moon set, and as usual when I’d come to this morning, I’d had no memory of anything that had happened between those two moments.
“Jade, did you hear a word I said?”
I blinked Shaun back into focus and tried to recall the last thing I’d heard him say.
“Uh… I’m putting effort into my studies?”
Shaun shook his head slowly from side to side. I think he moved passed exasperation to acceptance a long time ago. Guess I’d zoned out for a while there.
“Never mind, it wasn’t important. Rough night?”
“The same as always – I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.” I groaned and leaned back in my chair. “Why can’t I ever remember what happens?”
“The full moon has a powerful influence over your shifted form, like a drug. Until you learn to resist its call, it will control your inner-beast.”
“I know, I know… When the beast controls me, the memories are hers, not mine. But I can’t control that side of me.”
“It will take time. You just have to be patient.”
“No-one else is taking this long.”
“They all grew up in this world. Eighteen years. And we both know there are still students in your year who can’t control the change. You’ve been a shifter for four months. So cut yourself some slack. It wasn’t that long ago you were trying to dig under the walls. Yes, I was aware.”
He watched me with amused eyes, so I figured I probably wasn’t in that much trouble. It had been months ago, not long after I’d discovered the walls were unclimbable. And I’d figured if I couldn’t go over the wall, I’d go under it. Back when I still thought I could outrun this. But it turned out wards didn’t work that way. Neither did running.
“I was an idiot.”
“No. You needed time to accept what happened to you. Believe me, Jade, you handled it much better than anyone could have hoped.” He leaned back and regarded me for a long moment. “And you’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
I barked a bitter laugh.
“How many conversations are we going to have where you tell me things I don’t like?”
“Well, to be honest, Jade, I thought we’d reached the end of them, but it turns out I was wrong. It’s about Leo.”
My right hand twitched, and I made a conscious effort to still it. Just his name was enough to burn my insides with white hot fury. But if Shaun was bringing him up…
“The druids aren’t handing him over, are they?”
“No. But not for the reasons you think. There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Leo is innocent. The wolf who attacked you is still out there.”
“What? No, he can’t be. He… He bit me. You said so. Draeven said so.”
“We were wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Then… who?”
Shaun shook his head.
“We don’t know. But we will find them, and they will pay for what they did to you. I promise.”
Leo was innocent. This whole time, these last two months, I’d had a name to pin on my attacker. I’d known that someone would face justice, one way or another, for the shit show my life had become. Someone would be held accountable. It made getting out of bed more bearable. And now Shaun was telling me they’d had the wrong guy? After all this time, they had nothing. I was no closer to getting closure than the day I’d been bitten.
“Wait.” An icy feeling was clawing its way up my spine. “How do they know it wasn’t him?” Because I doubted they’d have taken his word for it.
“Someone else was attacked. They turned last night.”
My stomach churned, and I doubled over. Someone else. The shifter who bit me had gone after someone else. Their life had been ruined, because Draeven and the druids had been fighting over the wrong guy. A guy who’d been locked up because I hadn’t been able to tell Draeven anything about the night I’d been attacked. Because I hadn’t been able to identify the wolf that had done it. I was as guilty as the wolf who’d bitten me. That wasn’t acceptable.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself back upright.
“What can I do to help?”
“You need to focus on yourself.”
“That’s not going to cut it, Shaun,” I said, and caught the rising volume of my voice. I lowered it and made myself carry on. “This is m
y fault. I need to make it right.”
“No. This was the action of a criminal. You aren’t to blame, Jade. Look at me. This is not your fault.”
His eyes burned into mine and I broke away, not because of any compulsion to submit, but because I couldn’t stand to see the faith there. The sincerity. Because I could have stopped this, and we both knew it.
“Look at me,” he said again. “This is not your fault. You didn’t bite that man.”
“No, I just didn’t give Draeven what he needed to know he had the wrong person. Two months, Shaun. Two months they could have been looking for the shifter responsible. That’s on me.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, like I could disappear into them and hide from this whole sorry mess. This sorry mess I could have prevented.
“No, it’s not. What happened is not your fault.”
“Please,” I said, and my voice came out as little more than a whisper. “Please, stop saying that.”
“You need to hear this. It was not your fault.”
“I should have found a way to remember. I should have fought back harder when he attacked me. I should never have gone to the farm alone. I should–”
The words dissolved into sobs, and then Shaun’s arm was around me, comforting me when I didn’t deserve any comfort, and I gave in to the tears and just let them flow.
I don’t know how long I cried – truly cried for the first time since this had all started, but Shaun just let me get it all out, making soothing noises until I ran out of tears.
I drew in a shuddering breath and dragged my hand across my eyes. Shaun squatted in front of me at arm’s length.
“I’m going to say it one more time,” he said. “And then you’re going to say it. Okay? It was not your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”
“It… it wasn’t my fault,” I mumbled, my voice uncertain. Shaun nodded his encouragement. “There was nothing I could have done.”
“Exactly.” His eyes searched my face, and I wasn’t sure what they found there. “You’re not responsible for the actions of another person. Nothing you did caused any of this. None of it, you understand?”
I nodded and he got up and moved away, then returned with a glass of water. We both sat in silence until I finished it.
Moon Bitten (Fur 'n' Fang Academy Book 1): A Shifter Academy Novel Page 12
