"It's the Fire-Breathers!" someone yelled, lining the long docks. Simultaneously, a red-tipped anchor dropped. Music rose within the ship as the hatch was released.
Out came the sour-faced dragon shifters.
"Come, we will show you to your rooms." A few members of the welcome committee seemed to remember what they were doing.
Azar jumped to attention and moved with the rest of the team to welcome the guests, smiling broadly. Their luggage had to have been the reason why the ship seemed to move slower because each person looked like he or she carried their entire closet.
Okay, Azar took a deep breath, time to get social.
Ava watched Azar greet the visiting students. Wow. What had gotten into her? She was suddenly a social butterfly?
Tarun was off doing his committee business, so that left Ava to greet the two people she was most looking forward to seeing: Kostas and Angela.
She hadn’t been one hundred percent sure they would come, but she certainly hoped so. And, to her excitement, Angela, the muscular blonde from Fire-Breather Academy she had competed side by side with in the Winter Games last year, came dashing over to her to embrace her in a hug.
“You’re here!” Ava exclaimed as she hugged the pretty dragon shifter back.
“And I see Kostas over there,” Angela barked out in her thick Russian accent as she pointed.
“Ava! Angela!” Kostas ran over to join them.
He was even more gorgeous than Ava remembered.
“And did you hear?” Angela asked them after hugs all around. “Kachi is coming, too!”
Ava and Kostas exchanged confused looks.
“How?” Kostas questioned. “His school didn’t make the cut.”
Kachi came from a school in Nigeria and had competed on their team with them in the Winter Games. A cheetah shifter, he had also raced Ava at the tryouts and gave her a run for her money before she let loose her unicorn form.
“He transferred to Bravura this year,” Angela explained. “So he’s coming with them.”
“That’s so great!” Ava clapped her hands and jumped up and down like an excited little girl. “I can’t wait to see him!”
Right then, as if on cue, a horn rang from the woods, signaling the arrival of the Bravura Shifter Academy.
19
Winta pushed against the stone lodged in her throat, but it wouldn’t let up. Now only one school was left to arrive, and when they did, she'd face her worst decision of the year.
Would James talk to her?
Or would he just walk past her like she didn’t exist?
She ignored her peers and ran past them to her room—the room she once shared with Michaela, and even slept in now that she could control her sleep-shifting. But with Michaela’s departure to BSA, it was now hers alone.
There, breathing heavily, she collapsed on her bed, whimpering. Oh, this was a great idea: she could spend the night and next morning inside. He wouldn't come to her room, and she would have a peaceful time tucked in her bed.
But she was interrupted by several knocks on the door. Sounded like someone planned to break down her door, actually....
"What?!" she snapped as she yanked it open.
Ava and JiSoo hustled in. JiSoo's elaborate hair was in tatters, her traditional Korean hanbok unbuttoned. Ava paced fast behind her, looking just as disheveled.
"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on here?" Winta asked dully. What crisis had dropped now?
Ava stopped pacing. "Big trouble. I did a thing. I didn’t mean to."
"Well, what is it?" Winta probed impatiently.
"I may have made a teensy little mistake," Ava squeezed out after opening and closing her mouth like a fish.
"If it's teensy, then why do you both look like you just came out of a hurricane?"
“I—I—it was an accident. I just wanted a little bit of calm—everything was spiraling out of control..."
"Okay, enough with the suspense, Ava. What is it?"
"I may have put everyone in school to sleep." Ava continued to stand there looking like a deer in headlights.
"WHAT? How?! Omigod, the guests too?"
"Yup. All out cold."
"Ava, the formal is supposed to start in three hours! What do we do? Wait, I don't understand, why are we still awake?"
"I don't know! I freaked out. Everyone kept talking to me at once, so many things to do...I was hugging Kachi...and then—thud. Everyone dropped. I panicked. When I saw JiSoo still moving, we came to find you."
JiSoo just nodded by Ava’s side.
"Well, there's only one thing to do now." Winta said it patiently, as if explaining it to a child.
"Huh?"
"Okay, take a deep breath...just breathe," Winta cooed, leading Ava to her bed. So much for alone time.
"How's this supposed to help? By the time they wake up from the longest nap of their lives, I am going to be in SO MUCH TROUBLE!" Ava shrieked.
"Can I talk now?” Winta asked patiently. “You said this happened when you got overwhelmed, right? I think the solution is to find your peace."
Ava rolled her eyes.
"It sounds corny, but it makes sense.” JiSoo tapped her chin with her index finger. “You just need to chill out.”
Ava let out an exasperated sigh. “Let's go downstairs. It happened at the reception hall."
Together the girls rushed out of the room.
Ava felt her heart hammering—this was certainly the kind of mess she preferred to avoid. If only Matilda hadn't encouraged her to hone such skills….
One minute was all it took for her to lose control.
As they bounded down the stairs, Ava tried to recall all that led up to that moment. That's when it occurred to her that there was another, just beyond her peripheral vision, skulking beside a wall.
Tarun.
Apparently her ties to her friends were stronger than her magic. He stood near one of the common-room chairs holding an incapacitated Colin. Tarun stared around him—he was surrounded by students, each peacefully zoned out. His eyes lit up as soon as he saw her.
"Omigod, Ava, did you know you could take it this far?"
"No!" Ava yelled.
JiSoo flitted about the room, putting some of the students in better positions; a boy about to twist his neck, a professor with an oddly shaped ankle—he grunted when JiSoo untwisted it.
"Okay, this is where you stood? Breathe, focus...do you feel anything? A drain on your energy? Anything like that?"
Ava shook her head, no. Knowing she was the only one with the power to do this was what had her panicking in Winta's room. Especially when she saw Headmistress Levine (!) sprawled on the floor, lost to the world.
"Ava, this may not have been you," JiSoo muttered, fretting over a first-year and his lost tooth.
At that moment, something darted past Ava's head. It was small and made entirely of light, or so it seemed.
Upon closer scrutiny, she glimpsed a pair of wings not unlike a butterfly’s, only larger.
"Professor Liston?" she called. Her friends stopped and saw it too.
Then came a sharp flare of yellow force from the fairy as she grew to her full size. She wore the same arrogant grin as Ava recalled from her human form: Matilda.
"You should listen to your friends more," Matilda said in a mocking voice that irked Ava to the core.
Before she could get her act together, reeling from the thought that the professor might have had a hand in all this, Ava stumbled over her words. Wasn't it just moments ago that all she had to worry about was Winta’s drama and matching forks?
Matilda opened her mouth, and an intense, piercing sound emitted from her. JiSoo and Winta pressed their hands over their ears, but the sound had no effect on Ava.
Ava dived for Matilda, thinking it was time she got an explanation, but the professor was prepared for her and slapped her away like an irritating fly. Ava crumbled in a heap at Tarun's feet.
Her friends rushed for her, but they col
lapsed when the earth itself shook.
"Yes," Matilda cackled, a strange sound from the calm. "They're here."
20
Ava struggled to raise her head. A dark force swirled around the professor, keeping Ava pinned to the ground.
"What are you doing?!" Ava asked, terror clawing from her gut. Choking her.
Her head was forced down again. "Who are ‘they’?" Her eyes darted to Tarun, JiSoo, and Winta. They'd been knocked out.
Actually, she worried they were more than knocked out.
"My people," Matilda replied cooly, then marched toward the door. The vibrations of the ground didn't hold her, didn't shake her.
Footfalls—Ava heard hundreds of them as they advanced into the school.
You have to stand up. Wake up, Ava! Wake up!
Ava tried to move, but her body felt heavier than a truck, her head pounded with the effort, and nothing moved. Not even a twitch.
She could hear Matilda taunting her—that awful traitor. That thought spurred Ava to brace her arms on the quaking floor.
Finger to finger, blood pumping rapidly—in her head she imagined it rejuvenating her, making her stronger, giving her the essence.
Her thumb moved, and she caught her breath. Matilda spun around, and Ava played dead for a few seconds, not sure what the professor was capable of.
Then it was her head—she could move it from side to side. She quickly turned to the double-door entrance to see Matilda standing akimbo. Ava stretched her neck to see more but felt her heart drop to her toes as she saw the mayhem.
About ten heavy ‘men’ approached Animage slowly. Each step thundered, shaking everything in their path.
They were unlike anything Ava had ever seen or encountered, not in any of the history books Bills assigned.
Bulbous, hairless heads, lumpy muscles, at least eight feet tall. Their eyes weren't visible under their droopy, leathery lids. They weren’t trolls, nor were they human—but something else Ava couldn’t identify and didn’t want to….
They carried heavy spiked clubs, and as they got closer, Matilda increased her humming.
Ava pulled the reserves of her strength, and with an agility she never knew she possessed, she pushed herself from the floor and crushed herself to the wall.
She scrambled to her feet as Matilda veered around and zipped to the nearest office, slamming the door behind her.
"You can't run from me, Unicorn. We will harness your power and take over what was once ours!"
What was she talking about?
Ava blocked the door with a chair and rushed to the window. From there, she could see shapes approaching across the lawn, close to her precious oak tree.
What was fluttering?
Now, through the blinds, she saw clearer what she'd missed before.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of fairies headed for the school.
‘My people’ Matilda had said.
What was she supposed to do? Ava scoured the office with her eyes: desk, chair, books, nothing substantial, nothing that prepared her on how to fight a fairy.
She paused when the noise outside ceased. Then listened—her heart was in overdrive, palms clammy and ice cold.
Matilda spoke in an eerie voice, in a language Ava couldn't understand.
Fairy tongue, apparently.
One of the deformed humanoids, she assumed, came pounding at the door.
Ava sucked in a breath and stayed quiet. Soon, the door began to splinter under the hard hits from the spiked club she'd spotted earlier.
Another whack and the door crashed into pieces. Ava stood rooted to the spot, shivering from a chill that brewed inside her. Before her, the man/troll-like thing rushed in head first, grunting as he threw a protesting Ava over his shoulder and clambered out.
"For years, we have been stuck in these forms, hiding, unable to live our lives," Matilda was saying to a bunch of twittering fairies when he brought Ava to the reception hall. "That will change today, as we harness the energy...that's right."
She barely spared Ava a glance as she crossed into the common room. Then another one of the creatures walked out with a girl… No! Ava screamed inwardly.
It was Azar. Deeply asleep.
"Her ashes will redeem us from the curse." Matilda gestured to one of the humanoids.
He came toward her with something that looked suspiciously like a lighter.
Ava couldn't take one more moment of it—resisting the powerful urge to close her eyes, she reached deep within her soul for her true form.
When her bones crackled, shifting, suppressing the force that held her friends, she felt it push at her, felt the voices: Lie down... A little sleep...
Matilda whirled around—too late.
Ava stopped, covered in purple light. She neighed, proudly stomping her foot. The man closest to her stumbled, fell face first into his club. Acrid dead black goo splattered all over the walls.
“No!” she heard Matilda yell. Too bad.
Ava charged at the one holding the lighter to Azar, her horn knocking him to the ground. Ava felt his blood flow down her twirling horn—she didn’t have time to feel grossed out.
With every creature she slashed open, Matilda yelled louder. Ava was her biggest threat. Matilda couldn't touch Ava; she only watched, twittering with the other fairies.
When Ava’s gruesome rampage was over, Matilda's voice echoed outside. "This is only the beginning, Pure One. The beginning. I will be back with my people, my ogres, and many creatures of the night. A war is coming..." And her voice faded.
Looking around at the gore, Ava’s eyes grew wide. Ogres. So that’s what they were. It was the first time she took a life—monster or not—and it wore her down.
Soon, Tarun stirred along with the others. Some jumped up, dazed, to find icky gooey liquid all over them.
Questions upon questions, and Ava could only sag to the floor, wretchedly tired, but feeling somewhat accomplished.
21
Later that night, under the twirling light, Ava danced in Tarun's arms. Everywhere she turned, there was a curious guest staring at her. She'd refused to give out the details of that evening to the public. No one knew what took place exactly, except Levine and a handful of teachers.
Levine contained it, afraid to let out more news of how unsafe Animage had become. Now another murderous creature had not only made it onto Animage property, but had been employed to teach!
"You are beautiful," Tarun muttered, leaning into her.
Ava whirled around, watching as her blue dress, sprinkled with gems (a gift from her father) sparkled under the lights.
"You're not so bad yourself," she replied, her voice husky.
He laughed, the sound, intense and soft. She shivered.
"Cold?" he asked.
"No. I—I told you they'd make up."
"Who?"
Ava pointed, and he turned to see James sail past with a very content-looking Winta.
Nearby, Kachi danced with JiSoo, looking comical because there was a two-foot height difference between them. Although JiSoo had been disappointed that Kealan hadn’t come to Animage with the BSA students, Kachi seemed to be taking good care of her for now.
Elaine had still insisted on kicking off the centennials at the allotted time—not understanding the extent of what had gone on while she was unconscious—and the halls were filled with chattering shifters.
When the music changed to a waltz, Tarun led Ava across the floor until she was breathless. Teachers, guests, students, everyone joined. No wallflowers allowed.
As quickly as it began, the music stopped at the end of the song.
The speaker system cackled loudly as Levine took the podium. For a few minutes, the woman was short of words. Ava thought she spied sparkling eyes.
Centennials or not, the woman stuck to her trim jumpsuit--this one black. She brushed back her silvered hair and spoke, her voice quiet. "Professors and our precious guests, we are honored to have you in our school. The tourname
nt is slated for tomorrow, but we could not resist the opportunity to have you here with us for the celebration."
A spattering of murmurs and clapping broke the momentum before she continued. "My ancestors established this academy hundreds of years ago as a safe haven for shifters, and that is what we continue to represent."
Ava tuned her out because she couldn't bear to hear another word when those things—the ogres—kept assaulting her memories.
"Wanna get some air?" Tarun whispered.
"Sure, why not?"
He led her through the throngs of people, shoving and tapping until they were outside. Other than a brief glance at the cause of the disturbance, Levine made no move to stop them.
Under the star-spangled sky, calm ocean, and draw of the full moon, Ava felt better within seconds.
"Phew! It's really stuffy in there." Ava waved her hand, but Tarun squared her shoulders with his hands and looked her in the eyes.
"Ava, are you prepared for tomorrow? I know you're shaken up about...just—are you okay?"
She met his gaze boldly. "No, Tarun. I'm not okay. But I will be. Just have to get through this night."
"Come here." He pulled her against him.
She went willingly into his arms. This wonderful young man. She pondered the luck of coming in contact with him at the academy. He was the kind of person she never wanted to let go.
"She said it's not over, Tarun. We gave her everything she was looking for. Azar's ashes and access to me. She only waited for the perfect time to strike. What do you think she’s playing at?"
"She fooled us all, Ava, even Levine. Don't beat yourself up over it. If she returns, we'll be ready. Okay?"
"We better be," she whispered as he pulled her into another tight embrace. She breathed in his cool, woody aftershave.
They stayed that way until stars receded into the skies.
In the wee hours of the morning, Ava stretched in her room, forward, backward, sideways, pumping her feet into the air, arms flying.
JiSoo grumbled awake to see her, already in Animage's yellow and gold tracksuit, hair tied back, face bare, with a small sheen of sweat.
Animage Academy: Year Three ~ The Shifter Academy Down Under (The Shifter School Down Under Book 3) Page 13
