Dean Belhollow squeezed my elbow. She was the only professor sitting near me. Dean Embry sat at the Chancellor’s left hand, next to Professor Helms, who sat across from Dean Mardone, who sat beside the Vice-Chancellor. We were in the Board Room behind the Chancellor’s offices in the top of Therian Hall’s spired tower, and the floor-to-ceiling window behind them showed the formerly blue-green mountains blazing red, orange, and gold beneath a blanket of smoky gray fog.
I pulled my arms off the table, leaving two sweaty hand prints where my palms had been pressed. I tried to dry them discreetly on the simple black skirt Belhollow had advised me to wear to this emergency progress review. Six pairs of eyes studied my every move.
But that’s nothing new.
No one had seen hide nor hair of Wolf Remi in six weeks. Not since that first day when she’d tried to take a bite out of Winter Davenport and suddenly turned back into naked, human me—an incident Winter still reminded me of daily, as though a loser of my magnitude could ever pose any threat to her undisputed Class Alpha status.
“Six weeks,” the Chancellor repeated, running a hand through his floppy gray hair. “This is highly unusual.”
Dean Mardone snorted and tossed her red mane. “Unusual? Chancellor, it’s completely unheard of, and you damn well know that. It’s high time we—”
The Vice-Chancellor held up a hand, almost directly in front of Mardone’s face. “Get to the bottom of this, yes. Does anybody have any constructive thoughts on the subject?”
Dean Embry leaned forward, folding his massive forearms on the table. “I can solve this mystery for you right now, Vice-Chancellor. This girl is stubborn as a mule. That’s it. That’s all this is.” He leaned back in his plush boardroom chair again, shaking his head and glaring in my direction. “She’s a shifter. She can shift. She just won’t.”
Mardone pursed her bright red lips. “I disagree.”
Embry lifted his eyebrows. “Seriously, Lenore?”
“Oh, she’s stubborn, no doubt about that. She won’t even pretend to take my class seriously.” Mardone rolled her eyes, which I have to admit is pretty much all I could do during the ninety minutes we spent together each Monday and Wednesday. “But no one—and certainly no one her age—could intentionally hold back a shift for six weeks. We all know this, even if some of us don’t want to admit it. You lock a dog in a room, it’s going to chew its way out.”
“Watch your language,” the Vice-Chancellor growled.
Mardone laughed. “Oh, please, Cordelia. I’m one of three ailuranthropes on the entire campus. Don’t pretend my obvious use of metaphor was oppressing you.”
The Chancellor cleared his throat. “Let’s stay on topic, ladies. What are you saying, Lenore? If she’s not refusing, then she’s what, a—”
“A dud?” Mardone threw up her hands. “Yes! Clearly!”
Both Gladwells sighed, and Belhollow’s chair squeaked like she might be preparing to go over the table.
The Chancellor held an apologetic hand out toward me. “Remi, that is not the word I was going to use.”
“There is no such thing as a dud at the Gladwell Academy,” the Vice-Chancellor said firmly.
I shrugged, feeling very small in my overstuffed, high-backed chair. “Maybe I’m the first.”
Mardone smiled triumphantly, while Embry snorted with contempt. Professor Helms chewed on his lower lip and traced the grain of the table with one thumbnail.
“What makes you say that, Remi?” the Vice-Chancellor asked. “Care to shed some light on your experience of this dilemma?”
My eyes darted to Belhollow, who offered an encouraging smile. We had grown close these past six weeks, or at least it felt that way to me. Her portion of Health & Physical Education for Shifters was the only class that contained anything approximating facts, and I often found myself gravitating to her office in the health clinic throughout the week, examining the human and animal anatomy charts on the walls while she sang the praises of the Health and Science Major.
I still had some faint hope of waking up from this nightmare before I had to choose a career path, but since the only other majors offered were Physical Education with Dean Embry and Liberal Arts with Dean Mardone, I had grudgingly begun to imagine a future in shifter healthcare.
Not if you don’t get your wolf back.
“Sometimes…” I started, and then swallowed the lump in my throat. “Sometimes I get this prickly sensation, like up and down my arms, or on my back, and I think, ‘Oh, no, it’s happening!’ and it’s like a wall comes down. Nothing happens after all.”
Professor Helms drew in a sharp breath, but no one else noticed because Embry pounded his fist on the table and shouted, “Aha! See! Right there. She thinks ‘oh no’ and then she shuts it down. Who does that? Who thinks ‘oh no’ when they start to shift?”
“Maybe someone who had a traumatic experience her first day on campus?” Belhollow countered, and even though I knew she was on my side, my face flushed red. I didn’t want the faculty thinking about me naked on the floor in the Great Hall. She sighed and continued. “I’ve done a thorough physical examination and found nothing that would be preventing her shifts. I believe Remi is suffering from a mental block. Unintentionally.” She glared at Embry.
The Gladwells glanced at each other. The Chancellor shrugged, and the Vice-Chancellor turned her eyes back to me. “Remi, when was the last time you felt like you might actually shift?”
My mind travelled through back time. I felt the prickling often, but the last time anything had come of it had been that day in the bookstore. My lips parted to say so, but Professor Helms caught my eye as though he could read my mind. His head shook almost imperceptibly.
“Um…” I trailed off.
Dean Mardone blew air through her lips. “Oh, I can tell you that. Every day in my class.”
“Those are just prickles.” I ducked my head to hide the blush. “And how would you even know that?”
She shot me a withering glare, leaning in my direction. “Because unlike you, I take my meditation practice seriously, and I am in tune to my surroundings in ways you can’t even imagine. I can feel every time you prickle.” She spat out the last word.
The Chancellor frowned. “Well, Lenore, that seems like relevant information you might have shared with us sooner.”
Mardone turned to him with a syrupy smile. “I didn’t want to embarrass the child, Oberon, considering what triggers these episodes.”
My skin prickled now, but with rage, not the stirrings of the wolf. My hands clenched around the arms of my chair, and Belhollow reached over and grabbed my wrist, as if to remind me that my manners needed to be minded, even if no one else’s were.
“Lenore, please explain.” The Vice-Chancellor rubbed her temple like she needed more coffee—or something even stronger.
Me too, V.C., me too.
Mardone shrugged and her breasts nearly heaved out of her blazer, making Professor Helms’ eyes widen across the table. He quickly lowered his head and seemed to dig his thumbnail even deeper into the table.
“Whenever my teaching assistant so much as breathes in her vicinity, Remi gets, shall we say, shifty.”
That’s not true!
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from saying anything out loud. It was only partially not true. Laith Brighton did still bring out the beast in me, but he had to do a little more than breathe. He had to bite one side of his lip while the other side smiled after we exchanged barbs, or he had to come up behind me and correct my slumping shoulders as I sat dozing on my meditation mat.
“And who is your teaching assistant?” the Chancellor asked.
“Laith Brighton.” Mardone purred his name like she owned him, and the hackles on my neck rose, wolf or no wolf.
“Oh,” Belhollow said softly beside me, and a moment later the Chancellor very loudly echoed, “Ohhhhh!”
He glanced at his wife, who peered at me with furrowed brows. She tapped her finger on the sid
e of her head. “I wonder…”
“If I may speak!” Professor Helms said way too loudly, making everyone in the room jump. He immediately shrank back in his chair.
The Chancellor made a dramatic show of putting a finger in his ear. “Go ahead, Dan. Don’t be shy or anything.”
Helms cleared his throat. His smiled wavered, and a cluster of butterflies made a lap around my stomach. I had been carefully cultivating a crush on him all semester to distract myself from Laith. It’s not like I thought anything was going to come of it, but whenever my thoughts drifted to Laith and his stupid eyes and his stupid smile and his stupid forearms and his stupid neck, I would just gently bring my thoughts back to Professor Helms and his adorable, absent-minded professor aesthetic.
And Mardone says I haven’t learned anything from meditation!
“Right, then.” Helms flattened his palms on the table and took a deep breath. “Well, as I’ve sat here listening, it’s occurred to me that perhaps what Miss St. James requires is some one-on-one attention. It’s not been so long since I was a student myself—” He laughed nervously, like he didn’t really want to bring that up. “—and Practical Shifting can be quite an overwhelming class. The paper vests. Everyone staring.”
Embry scoffed. “Everybody wears the same stupid paper underpants and gets stared at by the same eyes, but nobody else is having problems. Even those nerds she packed up with are holding shifts for up to ninety minutes now.”
Oof. Low blow, dude.
“My class is not the problem.” Embry pointed at me. “She is the problem.”
“On that, we can agree,” Mardone said. “But what can we do? We can’t even—”
The Vice-Chancellor slammed her hand on the table. “Mind your tongue, Dean.”
Mardone scowled. “I’ll mind it, but you still know what I mean.”
Embry frowned, glancing between the women suspiciously. “I’m not sure I—”
“Let me work with her privately,” Belhollow cut in, resting her hand on my shoulder. “Daniel may be on to something.”
The Vice-Chancellor sighed. “I think it’s as good an idea as any.”
Embry laughed. “If I can’t teach her to shift, no one can.”
“You don’t teach!” I blurted out, banging my fists on the arms of my chair.
Six pair of eyes widened at me. Embry’s lip curled back in a sneer. “Come again?”
My instincts told me to sink into my chair, maybe expose my throat like a chastened puppy, but my commitment to the truth overpowered them.
“You don’t teach,” I repeated in as steady a voice as I could muster. “You’ve never taken one second to tell us how to shift or unshift. It’s just, do this, do that, figure it out right now.”
Embry’s jaw flexed. “You might have a point if you weren’t the only student on the verge of flunking out their first semester.”
Flunking out? No one had used that kind of language yet. Panic bubbled in my lungs, making it hard to breathe. It’s not like I’d ever wanted to be at this stupid Academy, but too much time has passed to return to the life I’d been planning. My scholarship to Keller Parks was long gone. I had no money, no car to drive home in.
No home to drive to.
“Even Robert Borden made it to his second semester,” Mardone said, like this would really explain what a screw-up I was.
“Who’s Robert Borden?” My voice came out way too high. “What happens if I flunk out?”
“No one’s flunking out.” The Vice-Chancellor glared at Mardone. “And don’t you worry about Robert Borden. Entirely different story. As long as you’re willing to make an effort, you’ll always have a place here.”
Belhollow tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “We aren’t going to kick you out for something you can’t help, sweetie. You and I will work together, and we’ll get your wolf back.” She smiled, and if we’d been alone, I might have fallen onto her shoulder and cried like the day she gave me the socks.
“Ah, if I might speak again?” Helms said, at a normal volume this time.
The Chancellor threw his hands up in the air. “For the love of shifting, Dan! You’re in America now. You don’t have to be so polite all the time. If you’ve got something to say, just jump on in.”
“Oh. Alright. Yes.” Helms bit his lip, but then he couldn’t hold it back. “Sir.”
The Chancellor slumped forward, propping one elbow on the table and resting the side of his face in that hand. “I’m hungry, Daniel. Come on.”
Daniel—I mean, Professor Helms—swallowed hard and shifted in his chair. “Well, it’s just that what I meant to say earlier, what I wished to suggest… Perhaps Remi might benefit more from instruction by someone of her… own kind?”
My own kind. Normally, I hated when professors talked like that—which they did all the time—but something about the way he said it made my heart flutter against my ribs.
Belhollow chuckled. “Surely you aren’t suggesting yourself, Daniel?”
He shrugged and looked down at his lap. “Well, I just mean to say that I’m willing. That’s all. If the Gladwells felt it might be in her best interest.”
“I hardly think that would be appropr—” Belhollow started.
The Chancellor cut her off. “We’re all adults here, Cherish. Even Remi. No need to molly-coddle her. Not with a guy like Dan.” He waved his hand at Helms dismissively and Helms’ jaw tightened. “I say let him give it a shot. Cordelia?”
The Vice Chancellor looked from me to Helms and back again. “I think Daniel has a point, Cherish. No offense to you, of course. But we’ll leave it up to Remi. Would you be comfortable taking private lesson from Professor Helms?”
Belhollow shot me a look that said, You can say no.
But Helms was also shooting me a look from beneath his thick eyelashes. A look both shy and pleading, and even though I didn’t want to hurt Belhollow’s feelings by not working with her, I also kind of really didn’t want to say no.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I’ve got it.” Xander dropped his dinner tray on our usual table in the corner of the food court. He grinned as he plopped down next to Kanze. “Cerberus.”
I gave him a look over the panini I hadn’t quite gotten to my lips fast enough. “You know I don’t speak geek.”
“Do you mean Greek?” Xander waggled his eyebrows with a grin.
“I meant what I said.” I stuffed the crispy edge of the panini into my mouth and closed my eyes, savoring the juicy roast beef. I’d always eaten meat in what I’d considered normal amounts, but lately it had become an obsession, which if left un-indulged would quickly transform into a frantic need.
When I opened my eyes, Kanze was shaking his head. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”
Xander groaned. “Come on, dude. It’s perfect.”
I raised my hand that wasn’t clutching the panini. “Still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kanze rolled his eyes. “He wants us to dress up like a three-headed dog.”
“Nope. Uh-huh. Not happening.” I shook my head, ripping off another chunk of panini because I couldn’t resist it anymore. “Not in a million years.”
Xander threw his hands up. “Guys! It guards the gates of Hell!”
This time, I didn’t bother swallowing before I said, “And that’s where you’re going soon if you don’t shut up.”
Xander banged his head on the table, nearly spilling his steaming bowl of stew. For a split second, I seriously considered snatching it off his plate and guzzling it down.
“Don’t. Touch. It.” he growled, curling his arm around it without lifting his head.
He’s still sore about last time.
Kanze grabbed Xander’s shoulder and tugged him upright. “I never even agreed to matching costumes, much less sharing one.”
“And I never agreed to costumes at all.” I shuddered. “Sorry, boys, but Halloween ain’t really my thing.”
Xander made a face like I
’d punched him. “You’re killing me, Remi. We are not letting you spend Halloween night moping in your room. I mean, it’s a Ball. It’s like Prom, but without all the mean kids.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” I cut my eyes at the table where Winter’s pack sat laughing it up, most likely at my expense.
Xander glanced over and shrugged. “She’s not that bad. All she does is talk.”
A scoff escaped me. “Easy for you—”
“Has she ever put you in a dumpster?” Kanze asked.
Xander lifted an eyebrow. “Or dunked your head in a toilet and stole your shoes while you were upside down gasping for air?”
I sighed and looked down at my plate. “No.”
“See? All talk. Plus, she keeps those goons on a tight leash.”
Kanze stroked his chin, gazing almost dreamily in her direction. “I think she’s just very insecure.”
Xander made a grunt of agreement. “Definitely. It’s like, who hurt her, you know?”
I kicked them both in the shins, eliciting two high-pitched yelps.
“What’s Pack Rule Number Two, guys?”
Kanze grimaced, rubbing his leg under the table. “No crushing on the enemy.”
“And in light of this Ball, let’s review Pack Rule Number One.”
“No crushing on you,” Xander mumbled, shoving a spoonful of stew into his mouth.
“Very good.” I took another bite of panini, and this time it sent familiar prickles racing up and down my arms. “I will go to the stupid Ball, but I’m not wearing a costume, and I’m not going to dance.”
“Well, damn.” The chair beside me squealed out from the table, and my least favorite person dropped into it. “Here I’d been hoping you’d go as a sexy lion tamer.” Laith made the sound and motion of cracking a whip.
The nerds’ wide eyes bounced back and forth between us.
“Ugh.” I turned slightly away from him, so I wouldn’t have to see that stupid, lip-biting grin. Now I knew where those prickles really came from. “Never mind. I’m not going.”
Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101 Page 10
