“Who do you think owns the Gladwell Academy?” Victoria asked.
“Um… the Gladwells?”
“Nope. The Board. The Gladwells used to own it, but they had to sell out. So now there’s a Board, and they decide how things are done here. And they decided that the Gladwells had to have a diverse staff. Before the Board, everything was very lycan-centric.”
I stiffened. “Oof. They don’t put that in the promo video, do they?”
“No, but it is all on the record. I did a research paper on the history of the school last year. You can fact check me with Ms. Shirley. The Gladwells aren’t really ashamed of their past species-ism. If you ask them, they’ll just say their views have ‘evolved.’ I know because I asked them. Anyway, where was I going with all this?” She scrunched her forehead.
“Dean Mardone. Her creepy dean’s list.”
“Right.” Victoria nodded. “If she’s made some sort of shady deal to ship graduates she doesn’t like off to this… what was it?”
“Tooth and Claw Society,” I said.
“Yeah, them. Whoever they are. Whatever they want with us. It’s probably safe to assume Mardone is working alone, but—”
“So shouldn’t we just tell the Gladwells. Or, I guess, Belhollow right now?”
Victoria pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. Not yet. We need to know for sure who all is in on it. What if every Dean has their own list?”
I shook my head. “Embry, maybe. But Belhollow? No way.”
“We have to be certain,” Victoria said firmly. “If we go to the wrong person, we might just all end up on a list.”
I leaned back in my chair. “So what do we do? Just ignore it and hope nothing happens?”
“Oh, hell no,” Victoria said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I am not about getting trafficked to some seedy shifter underbelly or whatever this is. Or letting anyone else be either. Which brings me back to what I started out to say. As an intern, I’m in a much better position to do some investigating than you are, or even Laith. So, if you want to help, the best thing you can do is take being Laith’s fake girlfriend off my hands and keep Mardone distracted.”
My jaw dropped. “You want me to pretend to date Laith?”
“Don’t worry, it’s super easy. If I can do it, anyone can.” She smiled brightly. “He’s very low maintenance, except be careful with the hair.” She whispered, “He spends hours on it.”
Really? It looks so effortless…
“What? Victoria, no! I cannot pretend to date Laith. Why does that need to be part of it?”
Victoria sighed like this should be very obvious. “Because Mardone is holding Laith’s secret over his head. Someone has to be a buffer to keep her from… increasing her expectations of him. Plus, if all she’s thinking about is how to get rid of you, she’s more likely to make more amateur mistakes like leaving her incriminating paperwork lying on her desk in plain sight.” Victoria rolled her eyes.
I squirmed in my chair. This did not seem like a fool-proof plan. This seemed like a plan that ended with me being made a fool of.
“I don’t know.” I chewed on my lip. “What does Laith think of all this?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Laith dropped his tray next to mine on the table. “Hey, babe.”
The nerds’ mouths dropped open, revealing way more of their pizza than I needed to see. They had done a sufficient enough job of groveling for forgiveness when I came downstairs for dinner that I decided not to expend any extra effort on torturing them with the suspense of whether or not I would grant it.
Who among us hasn’t danced with the enemy?
I elbowed Laith in the ribs when he leaned in for a cheek peck. If I was going to pretend to date the hottest guy on campus, he was going to have to step up his game. It may have worked for Victoria, but I was ready to be treated like we already spent our Friday nights playing gin rummy.
“Rule number one: If you ever call me babe again, I will neuter you.”
His golden flecks sparkled. “You prefer yappy dog breeds?”
“Yes, actually.” I leaned in to his ear and whispered, “It will remind me that I don’t actually like you.”
He scowled. “You got it, Puggle.”
I drew in a sharp breath and reminded myself not to hit him. “Okay, just, no.”
“Um… what’s going on?” Xander asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose like he needed to see us better to believe it.
“What does it look like?” Laith drawled, sliding his arm around my chair. “Remi and I had… a really nice time at the masquerade.”
Oh, great, make me look easy. This is why I’m only pretending to date him.
Kanze narrowed his eyes. “I though Remi was almost kidnapped by a Manip who’d been keeping her from shifting and you strangled him together and then he woke up and ate the Chancellor’s eye?”
There had been a special assembly this morning before I woke up in which the rest of the student body had been filled in on our Halloween escapade.
Parts of it.
Laith grinned and shrugged. “What can I say? We really enjoy a good strangling.”
I let my forehead hit the table top. Why does everything he says sound so wrong?
“Hi, Remi! Can I sit here?” Hickoree chirped from just behind me, and wow, just like that, I was happy to have her here.
I lifted my head and found Xander staring wide-eyed at a point just behind my shoulder. I turned and came to face to face with that same screen print of those damn actors from that damn TV show.
Seriously? Wearing a shirt about a supernatural TV show to your first day of supernatural college? Isn’t that a little like wearing a band’s T-shirt to their concert?
Lifting my eyes to her face, I started to give Hickoree a hard time, but my mouth clamped shut when I saw the googly-eyed expression she was making. I followed her gaze back to Xander… and realized for the first time that the random list of names on the T-shirt he was wearing over a long-sleeve shirt were from that same terrible TV show.
He scrambled to his feet and stuck out his hand over the table. “Hi! I’m Xander! I love your shirt!”
Hickoree held his hand for way too long. “I’m Hickoree. Like the tree. But with two e’s. Like a tree.”
“Wow,” Xander breathed. “That is so cool.”
Kanze glanced up and rolled his eyes.
Same, buddy. Same.
Hickoree sat down and immediately launched into a run-down of her top ten favorite episodes, which quickly turned into twenty, but who’s counting?
Me. I was. Because I kept thinking surely it was about to be over, but by episode number twelve, it was obvious now that Hickoree was here, this was never going to be over. Eventually, Kanze sighed, grabbed his tray, and stomped off.
“Yikes,” Laith said quietly. “Trouble on Geek Street.”
“Rule number two: Only I get to make fun of my nerds.”
Laith grinned. “You sure do have a lot of rules.”
“You think two is a lot? We’ve barely even scratched the surface. Which reminds me, rule number three is no sharpening your claws on the drapes.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Is that an invitation to see your drapes?”
“No. It is not.” I made a little hmph sound. “We haven’t even had our first fake date.”
“What? Last night definitely counts.”
“Um, no.”
He propped his elbow on the table and leaned his head on his hand. “Okay, but come on, tell me the truth. Now that you know I was never really a smarmy philanderer—”
“Feline-derer,” I whispered, about to crack myself up.
His eyebrows flattened. “You’re a laugh riot, St. James.”
“I’m sorry. Go on, you were saying?”
He cleared his throat. “I was asking if maybe you wanted to change your opinion on my kissing skills. Now that you have the full picture?”
I ducked my head, pretending to be really intere
sted in the last pizza crust on my plate. “Nope. All decisions are final.”
He groaned and let his arm flop onto the table. “You’re killing me, Poodle.”
A shadow fell over my plate. “Hello, James.”
Ugh, not now!
I turned in my chair, finally ready to chew Winter Davenport the new one she deserved, but I stopped short. She had her arms clasped behind her back in what appeared to be a close approximation to a posture of humility.
“Hello, Port.”
She ignored the new nickname I had come up with on the spot, and took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say that what happened to you was really messed up, and I hope you get your wolf back so I can be better than you fair and square.”
My mouth fell open. “Um, thank you?”
She nodded curtly, flipped her hair, and hurried back to the table with the rest of her pack.
“Well, that was… special?” Laith offered.
I pushed back from the table, grabbing my tray. “I’ve got to go.”
Laith started to stand up. “Are you o—”
“Sit. Stay.” I rolled my eyes. “I know those words probably aren’t in your vocabulary.”
But Laith did settle back into his seat. Good boy.
“There’s just something I have to do,” I said. “Alone.”
***
The forest rattled with dry leaves as a cold wind whipped through the trees. Goosebumps rose all over my naked body as I tucked my clothing back into the tunnel entrance so nothing would blow away. And then I crawled carefully over the slick moss to the tip of the rocky outcropping where I had sat with Victoria two weeks ago, before that first private meeting with Helms.
I shuddered, and not from the cold.
A full moon hung just over the mountain across from me, and even though Helms had drilled it into our class that the lunar cycle had nothing to do with shifting, I couldn’t help but feel like it was going to help.
I crouched on my heels, fingers gripping the edge of the rock. I focused on my breath, lifting and sinking in my chest, the air from my lungs becoming one with the wind that swayed the trees. I tried to do the thing I always refused to do during Mardone’s class, which was to watch my human thoughts float by on the river of consciousness until they became fewer and fewer.
I could hear Dean Embry barking at me to just do it. Just shift. But I didn’t understand how to make the wolf come out when it wasn’t the wolf’s idea.
Just ask.
I licked my lips. Things couldn’t get any more ridiculous.
“Um, Wolf Remi? Me? Hello, I don’t really know how this works. But if you, uh, if you want to come back now, you can.”
Not even the slightest prickling. Aside from the multiplying goosebumps.
“It’s safe,” I said, my voice growing stronger. “He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”
Did I really believe that?
And if not him, wouldn’t there maybe just be someone else?
“Okay, I guess I really don’t know how safe it is here. Things are pretty weird. But I do know…” I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “I know that I wouldn’t have gotten away without your warning. You saved me.”
A whine started in the back of my head and then moved into my throat and out my lips.
I saved me.
My heart sped up, blood rushing into my brain and all my limbs with pounding force. The forest tilted, and I looked down in time to see my fingers shortening even as my nails lengthened into claws. I gasped, those claws scratching the rock as every muscle spasmed and my brain exploded into a million tiny points of light.
I sat back on my haunches, tail sweeping across the moss, and lifted my muzzle to the stars that were singing just for me. I howled, a terrible, beautiful, eerie sound that echoed across the wilderness like it were bouncing right off the moon.
And then, somewhere way behind me, from the other side of the stone wall, another voice joined in. And another, and another, and another, until it seemed even the wind had stopped to listen.
My powerful leg muscles bunched and I sprang off the rock into the forest, my massive paws carrying me over a carpet of pine needles and dead leaves, over fallen logs and trickling streams, until I was standing on the other side of the campus, on the knoll looking down on the buildings with their warm yellow windows and the wolves still singing their impromptu song.
This was my home.
And I was going to fight for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Brown leaves frolicked across the yellow grass, driven by a strong breeze that would have been chilly had I not been wrapped head to tail in my own glorious fur coat. Tomorrow, we would all be shipped home for the holidays—from Thanksgiving until New Year’s—so today, we were allowed to spend as much time shifted as we could manage. Get it out of our system.
A black wolf and a white wolf—Xander and Hickoree—scampered after the leaves, snapping them in their jaws and watching the tiny piece float away. I couldn’t tell if they both thought this was genuinely great fun, or if they were both pretending for the other.
My nose showed me a gray wolf creeping up the other side of the little hill we’d staked out for our pack. And three… two… one…
Kanze rocketed into plain sight, barreling his shoulder into Xander’s side and sending the black wolf rolling through the leaves. He came up snapping and the two boys reared up on their hind legs, scrabbling at each other’s faces and chests with their big hairy paws. Hickoree yelped and scooted out of their way as they went tumbling tail over tail down the hill.
She walked up and sat beside me, wrapping her fluffy white tail over her paws. The funny thing was that she still had an electric blue streak down the top of her head.
“It’s not fair,” she whined. “I like them both. Xander is so sweet, but Kanze… I always did have a thing for swimmers.”
I thumped my tail against the ground and wolf-laughed. “Dream big, Hickoree. Have them both.”
Somewhere down the hill one of the boys squealed in pain.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work.” She huffed, sinking down with her head on her paws.
“Well,” I said, getting up on all fours. “I’m going to leave you three to sort it out. The Gladwells want to see me now that they’re back.”
“Good luck with that.”
I trotted down the hill, past the boys, who were chewing on each other’s ears, and back to the sidewalk that led up to the courtyard behind Therian Hall. I was walking under one of the small trees that still had most of its leaves when a yellowish-brown snake dropped down right in front of my face.
I yelped and scooted backward.
Laith’s laughter drifted into my head.
Not a snake then. A fuzzy tail. I snapped at it, and he flicked it just out of reach.
“Nice try, Poodle.”
I looked up and there he was, muscular feline body slung over the lowest branch.
He peered down at me with half-lidded amber eyes. “All ready for our Texas adventure?”
Laith and I couldn’t talk to Victoria very often around campus with the whole charade we had going, so we were secretly meeting up with her in Texas to talk about what, if anything, she’d been able to learn so far. Before Gladwell, I had never even left the state of Alabama, so I was pretty excited for the change of scenery, even if it was going to be a month full of awkward moments. The last two years Laith had gone home with her, he was pretending to be her boyfriend for her family’s sake, too. But not this year.
“I’m socially exhausted just thinking about it,” I said.
Laith sighed. “You’re such a waste of a perfectly good feline, you know it?”
“You wish,” I barked.
His ears twitched, which was about as much of a mirthful expression as his serious mountain lion face could muster. I had to admit, my wolf-self did not find his cat-self at all attractive, because…. nature, I guess. But his human-self got harder for my human-self to
resist every day, because also… nature, I guess.
“Got a meeting with the Gladwells,” I said. “See you at dinner?”
“Okay, but here’s an idea. What if, just this once, we didn’t sit with the people I’m not allowed to call nerds, but who totally are nerds, I’m sorry?”
“Laith Brighton, are you finally asking me on a proper fake first date?”
He sniffed his pinkish-red nose. “No, I’m asking for a little peace and quiet before the socially exhausting situations commence.”
“We’ll see,” I said, trying not to wag my tail as I walked away.
I went back to my room and shifted—it finally made sense why there were so many scratch marks in the hardwood floor—and threw on some clothes, which honestly felt weird after several hours spent with my ‘clothes’ growing out of my skin. They just sit there on top of us, all loose and fluttery and… weird.
I grabbed a stack of books I needed to return to Ms. Shirley—books that had seemed like they might have some mention of Tooth and Claw, but no such luck—and headed for the tower. I dropped the books off on the counter, careful not to disturb Ms. Shirley, who was asleep in her dog bed under the stairs. She hadn’t been feeling well lately, which was sad, and also kind of scary. Helms’ warning still rang in my ears.
The faculty door in the attic was propped open with a flower pot full of dead mums. I hurried up the spiral stairs. Being in the stairwell by the door always gave me gross memories.
“Remi!” The Vice-Chancellor rose when I walked into her office and came around the desk to hug me. “It’s so good to see you again. How are you? I hear you’ve become something of a shift whiz since we last met.”
I shrugged, but couldn’t hide my grin. “It’s definitely not a problem anymore.”
“That’s wonderful. Here, have a seat.” She touched the back of a chair. “The Chancellor will be here in a moment.”
I sat down. “Is he doing okay?”
“Oh, you know men. Always such babies. But he’s fine. Don’t let him fool you.”
As if on cue, The Chancellor limped into the room. His cheeks were a little sunken and he wore a black patch over his left eye. “Remi,” he said, and his voice sounded thin, almost frail.
Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101 Page 18
