by Rye Brewer
How could she do this to me?
I hated her. I hated myself.
I felt the panic rising again. This time, I couldn’t control it. My heart beat in double time and my breath was coming in pants.
Your life is over, your life is over, your life is over…
My mind repeated the cruel mantra to me like a poem, each word beating in time with my heart.
You’re a freak. You’re an abomination. Your friends will hate you when they find out the truth. Nobody will ever love you.
A tiny, infinitesimal part of me knew that I was probably being a dramatic teenager and that this wasn’t necessarily the end of the world.
But most of me believed the unfair words that I told myself internally.
A sob burst forth from my lips as I folded in on myself, arms trembling.
As the panic in my chest grew stronger and reared its ugly head, I stared down at my hands. They were as white as paper in the moonlight. Small and slender. Human, at first glance, but capable of all manner of magical things upon closer inspection. They could hold precious flames and brew impressive potions.
I tried to focus on my hands to calm myself down. They were the only real thing about myself that I could see through the dark and, while my entire world crumbled around me, they felt like a true anchor to reality.
However, much to my horror, as I stared down at my hands, they began to change.
No, no, no… I thought. This can’t be happening.
As utter dread spilled down my spine like ice water, the doomed thoughts in my brain fizzled out into nothingness. All there was room for was panic.
My hands were no longer my hands.
Right before my eyes, they were changing. The short, rounded nails that were coated in a cracked layer of black nail polish started to lengthen.
Blinking furiously, I wondered if I was simply panicking so much that I was starting to have delusions. Maybe I could snap out of it. I lifted my head to the sky and glared up at the moon, willing it to stop its cruel tricks of light.
However, when I dropped my gaze back to my hands, half-buried in the soft bed of fallen pine needles and smooth mountain dirt, I realized that what was happening was very real.
I should’ve been used to my body betraying me at this point. I should’ve realized that it was better to expect the unexpected rather than be horrified by the unforeseen.
Maybe I wasn’t that emotionally mature yet, though. I was only seventeen, after all.
I watched with growing dread as my nails lengthened to points and thickened. Lifting my hands up in front of me to get a closer look, I heard my own sobs grow louder as if I was outside of my own body and witnessing this from a distance.
The space between my fingers grew a thin, web-like skin between them as my nails curved slightly.
They were less like fingernails and more like talons.
I was transforming… shifting.
However, the dull ache between my shoulders had inexplicably faded. I didn’t think I would be cursed to shift into my full dragon form that night, not if my wings were still bubbling on the surface like that. I was going to have to find a way to stealthily do research on dragon shifters in the school library so that I could figure out what to expect moving forward.
Now that I knew the truth, maybe I could figure out how to hide it better.
I glared at my hands, mentally willing them to return back to their normal shape. Witch shape. These hands were mine, too, but they didn’t quite feel like it. I felt like a stranger inside of my own skin as I observed the pointed tips of my dragon talons, which were probably sharp enough to be lethal.
Suddenly, I heard a twig snap several feet behind me and I spun, standing up instantly.
I was no longer alone.
Aidan stood at the edge of the clearing. His chest was heaving as if he just ran a marathon. Had it really taken him that long to find me? Perhaps he’d been stumbling around the forest this whole time, unable to see through the moonlight like I somehow could.
Or maybe what felt like the past several hours had merely lasted only a minute. I wasn’t sure. In my current state, I had no concept of the passage of time.
“Moira,” he gasped, lifting his hands, palms facing toward me. It looked as if he was trying to calm a rabid animal as he approached it, and that only caused me to grow more upset.
“Go away,” I shouted through my tears. “Go away.”
But Aidan stepped forward a few paces. He moved slowly, but surely. “Moira, it’s okay. You’re okay. Everything is going to be alright. I’m not going tell anyone what—”
“Shut up,” I practically screamed. “Back off. I could hurt you.”
The last sentence came out in a stuttered sob.
That’s when Aidan’s eyes flicked down to my hands. I took a step back, watching as the shock grew in his dark gaze, but he didn’t look afraid. He simply took in the sight of the double monstrosity that my formerly unassuming, feminine hands had become.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he murmured, forcing me to hold his gaze as he stepped closer. I held my hands up in front of me like they were foreign objects and stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from him. If he came too close, if I got too scared, if I temporarily lost my mind like that Briar Academy werewolf boy… my talons could slice Aidan apart.
That would truly be the end of the world.
If I hurt him, I’d never be able to hide this side of myself from the world. Everyone would know that I was a dangerous monster.
“No,” I screamed, staggering backwards. “No, stay back. I’m a freak. Stay away from me.”
“Moira, you’re not—” Aidan’s sentence was cut off as I tripped over a protruding root and fell backwards onto the forest floor. He hurried forward as if to catch me and knelt down in front of me, barely a foot from me.
Freakish talons scraping against the ground, I tried to scramble away from him, but I only ended up backing myself into a tree.
“Stop,” I shouted in his face. “You don’t want to be near me. You saw my hands. I’m dangerous. I can’t control it and I don’t want to hurt you. Please, please just go away. Please leave me—”
Aidan interrupted me. Not by interjecting with words of his own, as was our typical argumentative style. Not by shushing me in this unfamiliar, oddly gentle side of him that I’d never witnessed before. Not even by smacking me in the face to snap me out of it, which it what I secretly wished he would do.
Rather, Aidan interrupted me by reaching out a hand and cupping my face, his expression simultaneously soft and determined as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.
He kissed me.
He was kissing me.
Aidan Grimsbane… Aidan Grimsbane… was kissing me.
Aidan Grimsbane and Moira Bloodworth were kissing.
Despite everything—despite my whirring thoughts, despite my panic, despite the horror that raged deep inside of my bones—I found my entire body relaxing in response. Then, much to my surprise—and severe alarm—I kissed him back.
It only lasted a handful of seconds, but the entire world felt suspended in that moment. Like, for the smallest of sliver of time, the universe turned the noise off.
When Aidan pulled away from me, he sat back on his heels and bit his lower lip. His expression was confusing. It was as if he was frightened, embarrassed, puzzled, and radiant at the same time.
I felt an odd tingling in the palm of my hands and lifted them up in front of me.
Miraculously, they were normal again. I wiggled my fingers back and forth to be sure.
Somehow, the talons were gone. My regular old witch hands were back.
When I glanced back up at Aidan, the corner of his mouth curved up in a smile as he noticed the freaky dragon claws had disappeared. The grin caused his dimples to appear.
For the first time, I realized how cute he was.
We were both clearly at a loss for words.
After what felt
like a lifetime of shocked mutual staring, I finally managed to speak up. I asked the first question that came to mind.
“What the hell did you do that for?”
14
Aidan stared at me, clearly as shocked as I was about what had just transpired between us.
We kissed.
I was sure that not even the most skilled fortuneteller could’ve predicted something like that. Aidan and I were sworn enemies since day one, warring rebels ever since middle school. Everyone at school—even the newest students—knew that Aidan Grimsbane and Moira Bloodworth didn’t like each other.
However… if I were honest with myself, I hadn’t minded the kiss.
I hadn’t minded at all.
“I don’t know,” Aidan finally answered. “I guess it was just the first thing I could think of to snap you out of it. Would you have preferred that I slapped you?”
I managed to crack a smile at his words.
“No, I…” I searched for the right words. Not only had he run after me following the breaking news that I was half monster, but he also hadn’t run away when he caught a glimpse of the sight of my monstrous transformation.
Well, partial transformation. What I now knew were dragon wings hiding under the surface of my skin still had yet to make their appearance, for which I was very grateful.
“Thank you,” was all I managed to get out in the end.
“Yeah,” Aidan breathed. “No problem.”
I continued to stare at him as he climbed back to his feet and brushed the dirt and stray pine needles off his trousers.
Then, much to my surprise, he leaned over and offered me his hand.
Were we on another planet and I didn’t realize it? Why was Aidan being so nice to me?
What had changed?
Still, despite my confusion, I slipped my—now normal witch—hand into Aidan’s and allowed him to pull me up into a standing position. We stood there for a minute in silence, facing each other, mere inches apart in the silent forest as the moon shone brilliantly above us.
“Um, I’ll walk you back to your door,” Aidan said after a moment. He took a step away from me and gestured for us to walk side by side out of the forest.
We walked quietly together for a few minutes. I’d run deeper into the trees than I originally thought I did, which explained why it took so long for Aidan to find me.
It was obvious that neither one of us really knew what to say after the unexpected and chaotic events of the past couple of hours. My mind was still whirring with all of the information I’d gained about my past and my parents, not to mention the fact that I’d just shared a weirdly intimate moment with the boy I’d proclaimed to hate for years.
When we broke through the barrier of the forest and made our way across the front lawn to Under Realm’s entrance doors, Aidan cleared his throat.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, his voice surprisingly timid and uncertain.
“I mean, you’re pretty much the only person alive who knows my deepest, darkest secret,” I told him in response. “So, I think it’s only fair that we trade.”
Aidan chuckled and looked down at his shoes. “The truth is… I had a feeling that you were a hybrid,” he told me.
My steps faltered. “How?”
Anxiety rose up in the pit of my stomach once more. If Aidan had been able to deduce that I was different, how easy would it be for someone else to do so?
“You can’t tell anybody this, okay?” Aidan inquired.
“I won’t tell anybody your secret if you don’t tell anyone mine,” I countered.
Aidan nodded solemnly as we climbed the grand front steps. “Deal.”
I waited for him to continue as we slipped through the front doors, doing our best not to open the door too wide because both of us knew that the hinges tended to squeak. Two school rebels who were well-versed in sneaking around the Under Realm castle were the perfect pair for not getting caught.
Aidan lowered his voice. Both of us kept an eye out for any professors who might be patrolling the halls for students out after curfew, but Under Realm students were usually so well-behaved that such patrols were hardly necessary. It didn’t surprise me that Aidan and I didn’t run into anyone on our way back to the witch dorms. If no one had been alerted by the sound of my frantic escape earlier, it was doubtful that anyone would find us now.
“You know how my parents are divorced, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t a secret. Even in the magic world, marriages didn’t always work out. It was common knowledge that Aidan’s parents hadn’t been together since he was young.
“Well, the reason for that is because, when I was little, my dad had an affair,” he continued.
That particular piece of information was brand new to me.
“In fact, the woman he had an affair with was a hybrid,” he said, a tic taking residence in his jawline. I raised my eyebrows at him as he continued walking. “Half necromancer, half dragon shifter.”
At that, I stopped walking.
Aidan halted too, glancing at me.
“Seriously?”
He nodded.
I was surprised that Aidan was revealing something so personal to me. I doubted even his best friend Calder knew about a scandal like that.
“Wow,” I whispered in response, and continued walking toward the dorms. We were getting closer now, but I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to be able to go to sleep after everything. It seemed like the night would never end and that I’d be stuck in a perpetual aura of confused darkness until the end of time.
Okay, maybe that was a little melodramatic.
“And they also had a kid together,” Aidan admitted, lowering his voice another octave.
Oh.
I didn’t know Aidan had any siblings. In fact, now that I thought about it, I didn’t know much about Aidan beyond the basic and general information that one tended to gather about a person they went to school with for almost seven years. I was struggling to remember why I hated him so much from the very beginning.
“So, you have a sibling?”
Aidan nodded. “Yeah, a brother. Matthieu. He’s fourteen. And a quarter dragon shifter. I don’t really talk about him because I don’t get to see him very much. I don’t talk to my dad often, so, unfortunately, I only see Matt on holidays and during the summer.”
I frowned in confusion. “But my mom said that, with other species like necromancers or demons, hybrid kids usually only exhibit powers from the dominant genes.”
Aidan shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “No offense, Moira, but I don’t think your mom knows as much as she thinks she does. Interspecies reproduction is a lot more common than you fancy, well-bred Bloodworths would like to think.”
His standoffish tone immediately reminded me of the arrogant Aidan Grimsbane that I disliked so much, but for some reason, it didn’t bother me as much this time around.
He kind of had a point. The Bloodworths were fairly privileged witches, as evidenced by our surname being plastered across history books and political texts for centuries. Headmistress Somers was good enough friends with my family for it to get me out of serious trouble on a number of occasions, too.
I started to understand a little bit why Aidan might have resented me enough to treat me as cruelly as he used to. My last name gave me a lot of natural advantages that even I had failed to truly acknowledge.
Yikes… was I a spoiled brat?
I chewed my lip and then decided to speak up. “So is your brother like me? Does he…?”
“Does he grow claws and breathe fire?” Aidan replied, the ghost of a smirk on his face.
I rolled my eyes but nodded.
“Yeah, sort of. He has necromancer abilities, but he’s kind of going through what they call animal shifter puberty right now. Lots of fevers and back pain and coughing up smoke. His eyes have already turned completely black.”
I sighed. So, that would explain why A
idan had been so utterly fixated on my black eyes the other night. Not only that, but he had witnessed with his own eyes the thick, black smoke that billowed out of my throat when the sudden hacking fit caught me.
“You knew I was a dragon shifter, then,” I replied.
Aidan exhaled slowly as we rounded the corner into the common room. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that we stumbled upon the sight of Kendra and Luca wrapped around each other in an embrace on one of the sofas.
They jumped apart the moment they realized they were no longer alone.
“Moira?” Kendra squinted in the dark. The only light in the common room came from a few stray candles scattered about the cavernous space.
I bit back a giggle at the sight of my blushing best friend and her thoroughly embarrassed boyfriend.
“Kendra,” I gasped.
“Wait… Aidan? Is that you?” Luca asked.
“Aidan Grimsbane?” Kendra added, shifting around on the sofa.
Her eyes grew wide and, from the expression on her face, I knew she couldn’t quite believe what she was witnessing. Never before had Aidan and I ever chosen to be alone together, so her blatant surprise was justified. I was going to have to come up with a very believable explanation later.
The four of us stared at each other in shocked silence for a full minute. I knew what it looked like. Two couples, meeting up hours after curfew in the romantic hush of the ancient castle.
Oh, God.
“Yeah,” Aidan finally replied to Luca and Kendra. “Yep, it’s me. Aidan Grimsbane. Um, and it looks like Moira and I are interrupting something very private, so we’ll just continue on our way. Goodnight.”
Without another word, I allowed Aidan to grab my elbow and steer me away from the common room and down the hall where my dorm was located. I shot a glance back at Kendra, who was staring after me with utter confusion on her face. Luckily, she didn’t follow after us.
Yeah… this was not good.
Aidan dropped his hand from my elbow the second that we were out of sight and we both hurried down to my door.
Once we reached it, we stood in the darkness and awkwardly looked at each other.
“Um, I’m not really sure what to tell Kendra,” I whispered. “But I’ll have to come up with something… so will you just play along with whatever it is?”
