Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101

by Marisa Claire

  “Remi,” Laith said softly, “I need you to know how sorry I am. It should have occurred to me.” He dropped his head into his hands.

  I rested my bottle on the arm of my chair and swiped my arm across my wet lips. “You keep saying that, but I don’t see why you should have known something even the Gladwells missed. You’re not respons—”

  His head jerked back, and he lifted a hand to stop me. He peered closer at the top of Mardone’s desk, and then batted at her mouse, waking up the computer so it shed a brighter light. He lifted a piece of paper off the desk. It rattled in his hand.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  His eyes flew up to mine, as wide as the empty sockets of the skull on the wall.

  “Tell me I’m reading this wrong.”

  I pushed out of my chair and went around to his side of the desk, leaning over his shoulder to see the piece of paper. A fancy letterhead at the top read: Tooth & Claw Society.

  “What the hell?” he repeated. “I mean, what the actual hell?”

  “Shhh, let me read it.” I snatched the paper out of his hands and sat on the edge of the desk. “‘To Dean Lenore Mardone, Gladwell Academy of Shifters. This year’s deadline for submission of your dean’s list is December twenty-first.’” I looked down at Laith. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Keep reading,” he said, voice strained.

  I cleared my throat. “‘The Tooth and Claw Society will make the final determination on all candidates for culling’… Culling?! Isn’t that when—?”

  He swallowed loud enough for me to hear. “When you weed out the weakest members of a herd.”

  “That has to be a typo.” I turned the paper over like there would be some sort of explanation on the other side. “Being on a dean’s list is a good thing.”

  Laith gave a dark laugh. “The only word I can think of even close to culling is killing. And that’s the same damn thing.”

  “No. No way.” I shook my head, laying the paper back down. “You can’t honestly believe that’s what this means. It has to be some sort of prank. The Tooth and Claw Society—that sounds like some kind of frat thing. What is that?”

  “I don’t know.” He tapped his finger on the page. “But look at the names.”

  Underneath the typed letter was a list of handwritten names, most of which I only vaguely recognized, except for the one at the very bottom, in the biggest, angriest-looking scrawl:

  Victoria Manuel

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The computer screen’s glow washed the color from Laith’s eyes. He held his jaw so tight that his cheeks had become two dark slashes of shadow. He didn’t look like he’d seen a ghost; he looked like he’d become a ghost.

  “Hey.” I laid my hand on his shoulder, ignoring the tingling under my skin. “We’re not going to let anything happen to her. And again, we can’t even be sure this is bad. Words don’t always mean the same things here as they do elsewhere. Shifting, for instance…”

  Laith’s hollow gaze drifted to my hand. “Why is that happening?”

  I jolted back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by—”

  Laith shook his head. “No. I didn’t mean why are you touching me, I meant why does it always feel like that when you touch me?”

  His words jolted me to the core, like that time I was staying on a farm with Foster Family #6 and walked straight into an almost invisible electric fence. It was the kind of shock that felt more like being walloped with a heavy stick. Equal parts painful and confusing. That was exactly what it was like to find out after all this time, that I had the same effect on Laith as he had on me.

  But we were staring at a piece of paper that suggested his girlfriend, who was the closest thing I had to a best friend in this insane place, was being offered up like some sort of a sacrifice to a spooky-named secret society.

  It was not the time to talk prickling.

  There would never be a time to talk prickling.

  My offending hand burrowed into the folds of my gown in lieu of a pocket to hide in. “I guess I don’t know what you mean.”

  He groaned and massaged his temples. “I’m sorry. Long night. Weird night. Getting a little jumpy. What were you saying?”

  “Just that we can’t know for sure this means what it seems like it means. I mean, that would be insane. With all the money they spend on us? That doesn’t add up.”

  Laith picked up the paper and studied it again. “Unless this Tooth and Claw Society… what if that’s where all the money comes from?”

  He jumped up, the chair rolling back into the little fridge. He yanked open the top left drawer and gestured to the right side where I perched. “Hurry. Search those. Anything with Tooth and Claw, or maybe just T and C.”

  “Laith!” I slid over, catching him by both wrists before he could start pawing through Mardone’s staples and ink pens. “Let’s just take some deep breaths. Watch the thoughts float by or whatever that is you hate me for not doing.”

  But Laith’s eyes lit on something in the spot I’d just abandoned. He wriggled out of my grasp and pounced on a pile of manila folders I guess I’d been sitting on.

  “Here. See what she says about this one.” He pressed one of the student files into my hands and tore through the others, undoubtedly searching for Victoria’s. There was no stopping him.

  With a sigh, I opened the file in my hands. It was for a senior named Jake Powell, who I recognized from the photo clipped to the first page as this oddly scrawny senior bear I’d often seen sitting in the courtyard sketching anyone who would shift for him. I’d only ever known him by his nerd-given name of Creepy Crayon.

  Flipping through seven semesters of lackluster grades, I finally came to a comments section where all of his professors had shared their notes about him. A lot of them were probably decipherable only to the person who’d written them, but Dean Mardone’s handwriting was neater—and loopier—than most.

  Daydreamer. Lacks focus and ambition. Mentally weak, even for a bear.

  I double-checked his name against the list she was submitting to the Tooth and Claw Society. Sure enough, Jake Powell was there. Her unflattering notes lent little credence to my theory that this was actually some sort of honor they were being nominated for.

  “Got it!” Laith said, dodging around me to hold Victoria’s folder closer to the pale blue screen. He left a puddle of spilled folders on the floor behind him.

  “Laith!” I groaned, kneeling to put them back in some kind or order, but everyone’s pages were mixed together. “How are we going to explain this?”

  Laith let out a string of curses, slamming Victoria’s folder onto the desk.

  Abandoning my impossible task, I jumped up and leaned over his shoulder, just as he dropped his head onto the desk and let out a hoarse cry. I tugged the papers out from under him and left him to his histrionics—What was it Victoria said about shifting giving him a sense of control?

  My eyes roved the messy comments page until I picked out some of Mardone’s handiwork. Lazy. Insolent. Reactive. Holding the folder so close to my face, I got a sudden whiff of fresh ink. Little marks all over the page began to glow.

  Holy shift.

  Not only had Mardone written those terrible things herself, but she’d been systematically editing other professor’s glowing reviews to fall more in line with her own, like changing appealing demeanor to appalling demeanor.

  “Why would she lie like this?” I let the folder fall, unsure if Laith had any way of picking up on Mardone’s edits, or if he only knew about the comments she’d written.

  “To get her out of the way.” Laith shook his head miserably and muttered, “Dammit, Victoria, I knew this was a stupid…”

  A thunderous roar rattled the floorboards. For a moment, I thought it was one of the bears, but then I heard a door opening and closing, and the thunder took on a metallic quality.

  “Someone’s on the stairs!” I hissed.

  Laith straightened up and recoil
ed at the sight of the mess he’d made. Another string of curses left his lips and he grabbed two handfuls of his hair. “Hurry! Help me!”

  Voice gathered outside the third floor door, which luckily Laith had also thought to lock, but already a key was fumbling at the door knob.

  “There’s no time,” I growled, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him to face me. “Kiss me.”

  “What?” he yelped as the outer door swung open.

  “Kiss me.” I grabbed him by his tuxedo lapels, pulling his face close to mine. “And kill two birds with one stone.”

  His brow wrinkled for the briefest of seconds, and then his eyes grew wide. He got it.

  His hands slid around my waist in the same moment that I jumped backward to sit on Mardone’s desk, sweeping my skirt in a wide path that knocked aside everything that wasn’t already on the floor. My arms encircled his shoulders, my fingers tangling in the curls just above his cape, and in the flash of breath before his lips touched mine, I realized I had seen this all before, that day I caught his scent in the cafeteria after he’d tried to warn me…

  Laith Brighton kissed me, his lips as soft as his stubble was rough, and the rush of fiery prickles I had braced for never came. Even so, I made an embarrassing noise of relief, which, thank goodness, he must have mistaken for part of the ruse because he let out an equally mortifying groan. A key clicked into the office door, and Laith leaned in, bending me backward.

  Victoria! You’re doing this to save Victoria!

  The door swung open and the light directly over our head blazed on, nearly blinding me even through my tightly shut eyelids.

  ***

  In the middle of the night, the window behind the pacing Chancellor had become a dull mirror, reflecting the faintly distorted images of everyone gathered in the Board Room—the Gladwells, all three Deans, the golden wolf sitting smug in his usual chair, Laith in handcuffs, and me.

  The Chancellor rubbed the back of his head. “Well, this is certainly some kind of pickle we’re in. I’ve got Lenore telling me Dan is a Manip, and Dan telling me Laith is the Manip—”

  “It’s not Laith!” I slammed my fist on the table and pointed at Helms. Rough red lesions encircled his neck where Belhollow had shaved him down to pink skin—to assess how much damage I’d caused, I guessed. “But that fact that you’re letting that monster sit there like some kind of fancy house pet tells me you’ve already made up your minds.”

  “I’m sorry, Remi,” the Chancellor said. “I realize that either way, this night has been very hard on you, but Dan’s version makes a lot more sense. Manips are much more common among mountain lions—”

  “I have been helping Laith train his mind for two and a half years now,” Mardone said. “If he were a Manip, I would know about it.”

  “Not if he doesn’t want you to,” Helms voice oozed into my mind, and I flew out of my chair.

  “You stay out of my head!” I shouted. “I know what you did.”

  “Remi, please sit down,” the Chancellor said. “You are perfectly safe—”

  “Let her talk, Oberon,” the Vice-Chancellor snapped from her chair near the head of the table. “Hers is the version I’m most interested in.”

  “Yes,” Belhollow echoed, coming over to stand beside me. “She’s the one all this happened to.”

  The Chancellor sighed and dropped into his chair. “Very well. But if she’s under the influence of the mountain lion, I don’t see how—”

  “His name is Laith,” I snarled. “And he’s the only reason I’m not… I don’t even know what Helms was going to do, and frankly I don’t really want to. But I do know that on the first day of class, I started shifting in the bookstore and…”

  For the second time that night, I told about the reverse shift, and his private confession, and the creepy time loss during the dance, and the attempted kiss, and the hand where it wasn’t invited, and the anger when I tried to leave. And, once again, I left out the part where I could smell the disgusting truth all over him.

  “I can’t explain it,” I said, when they asked how I knew it was him, as though everything else about his behavior wasn’t incriminating enough for me to have made an educated guess. “It’s like my wolf was barking, telling me I had to get away from him. And then it all just clicked.”

  The golden wolf yawned. “And moments later, that litter-sitter over there conveniently showed up with some contrived story about a dance emergency.”

  “That part is true,” Mardone said with a triumphant laugh. “Miss St. James’ pack mates were causing quite a disturbance. I sent Laith to look for her myself. Which is why I then went looking for him when he never came back.”

  The golden wolf fidgeted in his chair. “Ah, well, all the same. He had the opportunity, and as we saw in your office, no small amount of motive.”

  “Believe me, Professor, no one is more disappointed than I am with these two’s complete lack of respect for my personal property. However, I don’t see how that has any bearing on your claim. From where I stood, their feelings seemed extremely mutual.” She curled her lip with disgust. “Perhaps it was you who flew into a jealous rage?”

  “I shifted to protect my student,” Helms shot back. “And look what it’s gotten me. Trapped! Same as Remi! I couldn’t do that to myself.”

  “He makes a good point,” the Chancellor said. “And besides, all this talk about him making a pass at Remi… that’s obviously someone else putting ideas in her head. Everyone knows Dan doesn’t swing that way.”

  The golden wolf yelped.

  The Vice-Chancellor buried her face in her hands. “Oberon, please.”

  Dean Embry rolled back form the table with his hands up. “I’m not touching that.”

  Dean Mardone threw her head back and laughed. “Are you insane?”

  Dean Belhollow swore under her breath and turned to me, whispering, “Honey, I am so sorry.”

  The Chancellor’s brows furrowed as he took in all of our reactions. “We do all know that, right? I mean, I never would have let a female student take private lessons with an instructor if…”

  Another chorus of groans filled the office.

  “Stop speaking, dear,” the Vice-Chancellor sighed. “Just… stop… speaking.”

  The golden wolf placed both front paws on the table. “Ah, yes, well, actually, that is true. I’ve been quite open about it. I’m surprised you don’t remember me showing you, um, my, er, partner’s photograph. It’s in my wallet, if you’ll just let me run back to my apartment…”

  Laith banged both handcuffed fists on the table. “He’s doing it right now!”

  The Gladwells and all three Deans blinked their eyes and shook their heads, like they’d all had one of those split second dreams where you’re falling off a cliff.

  “You see?” Mardone shrieked. “It’s him!”

  The golden wolf sat back on his haunches, eyes rolling wildly. “No! That was him! He made me say that!”

  The Chancellor launched to his feet, nearly knocking his chair over. He stalked back and forth, ferociously rubbing the sides of his head. “How the hell are we ever supposed to figure this out?”

  “I don’t know, Oberon,” Belhollow snapped. “Perhaps we could listen to Remi?”

  It occurred to me that the Chancellor’s behavior was so unhinged because someone in this room had the power to bend everyone else to his will, and that meant the Chancellor was currently not the most powerful shifter on his own campus.

  But he never really has been, has he?

  “Ms. Shirley!” I shouted.

  Now it was my turn for everyone to look at me like I was insane. Even Laith.

  But not the golden wolf. He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. He was the only one who knew what kind of risk I was taking—if I was even taking a risk at all. But given the disturbing letter from the Tooth and Claw Society, I feared that may have been the one thing about which he was honest.

  “Ms. Shirley,” I repeated, glari
ng right into Helm’s eyes. “Call her in.”

  The Chancellor scratched his head. “I’m not sure what a librarian is going to bring to the table, Remi…”

  “But she’s not just a librarian, is she?” I turned my gaze on the Gladwells. “She can smell things.”

  The Vice-Chancellor tilted her head. “We can all smell things, Remi. I’ve got to agree with my husband on this one thing.” She shot him a hard look.

  I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. Just like the Chancellor taught me. “Ms. Shirley has the scent-sight. Or did you seriously believe no student has ever noticed she can literally read our schedules with her nose? It’s not just some parlor trick.”

  The Gladwells exchanged glances. Mardone and Embry shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

  “Doesn’t miss a thing, does she?” Belhollow patted my arm. “And she’s right, of course. We should have thought of it ourselves.”

  The golden wolf turned an anxious circle in his chair. “This is absurd! Dragging the poor old woman out of bed at this hour!”

  The Gladwells held each other’s eyes for a long moment before the Vice-Chancellor nodded.

  “You can’t be serious!”

  The Chancellor narrowed his eyes at Helms, his first shrewd look of the night. “It’s the fastest way to clear your name, Dan. I would think you’d be relieved.”

  The golden wolf stamped his paws and glared down the length of the table at me. It seemed my gamble might pay off. If Helms outed me, he would never get the chance to take me back to Hawtrey. The Gladwells would hold on to me forever.

  The Chancellor sank back into his chair, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Five seconds later, they popped open and he smiled. “She’s on her way.”

  Several minutes passed.

  And then several more.

  The Chancellor drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Gareth, go carry her up here!”

  Dean Embry left, and then returned a few moments later with Ms. Shirley—still wearing her fluffy white Academy-issued robe—cradled in his arms. Before he had even set her tiny feet on the floor, she began coughing.