by Shay Cabe
Another dark thought creeps into my already crowded bubble of emotional turmoil. The guys are strangers too, in a lot of ways and I need to remember that.
“Sorry, I forgot about it already. Yeah, we’re going to skip it to do better things,” Hezekiah answers, stealing one of my cookies. He takes a bite and holds it up for me to take one. I don’t hesitate before taking the entire cookie from him with my mouth. I got Hezekiah cooties a long time ago. Ha.
Laughing, I smile at him and she clears her throat, realizing we’re all ignoring her. Honestly, I feel a little sorry for her and her dissed friend. It’s as obvious as the nose on my face that Hez isn’t interested in them or their party. At least, right now. The harder they try to make him notice, the worse it looks.
“For your sake, I hope that whatever shifter ate your mom doesn’t come back for you,” she says snidely, crossing her arms over her chest and giving me hate looks.
There goes my sympathy, for any of them—four sets of eyes narrow on her. Watching the blood leave her face as she pales is one of the most entertaining things I’ve seen in a long time. I laugh, I can’t help it.
If I’m guessing right, and I am, she thought I’d start bawling and dramatically run away to hide in the bathroom, lamenting the horrible life I have; all while she and her gal pals laugh, point and walk off into the sunset on the arms of the guys—predictably stupid behavior.
Raising her chin, she smirks and gives me a look of pure triumph. When I smile at her this time, she takes a step back, and that smile falls off her face.
She forgets herself; she really does. A piece of my hair tickles my cheek as magical winds stir around me. How dare she think I’ll be her prey. I’m the daughter of the former coven leader of all the witches in the United States. My Mom was the head of the Hex family and one of the strongest witches to ever exist. Witchcraft has been in my family’s bloodline since creation, and as her daughter, I exhibited powers before I could talk and broke every record of magic this town holds. I have the ability to turn her into a slug and squish her into the concrete like the nasty little goopy booger she is.
Things I’ll never say out loud but are true just the same. Bitches like this don’t deserve my sympathy.
With a smile still on my face, a drop of my magic alive in my eyes I ask, “Do you do this to people often?” She frowns at me and I continue, “You know… when you fail at being a fluffer for your friend over there.” When her frown deepens, I realize she has no idea what I’m saying. Pretty doesn’t equal smart. “Honestly, y’all just seem a bit thirsty to me.” The frown changes to anger, at least she understands the insulting part. I’ve never understood the way the herbivores are always attracted to the predators. For aesthetic reasons, I can see why… survival? Not so much.
My first day in school and I’ve already got an entire group of girls looking at me like I’m the new victim. They’re wrong. Most people are under the assumption that because I don’t talk a lot, I’m shy and easy to push around. A dangerous error on their part, equating quietness with shyness. I’m merely selective and never afraid to speak my mind—or turn people into slugs. The guys laugh again and turn their attention back to me, something I almost regret. Their attention is very concentrated and doesn’t leave me a lot of wiggle room.
Not having anything else to say to the girl, I turn back to my food. If she wants to stand there and throw a tantrum over something that has nothing to do with me—technically—more power to her. I’m perfectly capable of ignoring her.
Perhaps sensing that she’s not going to get anywhere, she wisely stomps off. I made an enemy of that entire group of grass eaters and mediocre witches, but I’m sure that happened the minute the lead-goat looked at me—silly girls. This isn’t an after school special, and I’m not the type of person to target. Ruby might have joined to save herself but I don’t need a gaggle of idiots to feel special.
Attempting to push me around won’t get them far; because of what happened to my mother, I train, and I train hard. I’ll never, ever be a victim again.
“So,” Oz says, drawing the O out, another reminder I teased him about his name and any word that had a long O in it. “What’s your next class?” he asks, sitting back against the chair, his arms crossed over his chest.
I can’t help but look a little, his hair is, in fact, midnight blue and, surprising me, he has his ears pierced. Small diamond studs in the shape of a wolf, look incredibly familiar. It takes me a few minutes of sitting there staring at them, but the memory eventually surfaces.
Those were mine. Dad bought them for me for my sixth birthday—three weeks after the fact. But I was mad at him for forgetting—a constant thing in our relationship—and threw them at Oz, proclaiming that I’d never wear them, ever. I screamed at Oz to throw them in the garbage.
Instead, he kept them.
“Art two,” I say swallowing the emotions that try to rise in me. Yeah, there’s that annoying breathy thing again in my voice.
All four smile at the same time, and for two heartbeats I forget to breathe. Holy baby Jesus. Yeah, I loved them as a child; they were my Hazard boys. Now when I look at them, it’s not with the eyes of a dumb little girl anymore.
I’m so screwed.
“Imagine that, we all have the same class,” Phoenix says, running a finger down the hyena tracks on my tattoo. Which is coincidentally, what he is.
“You never forgot us,” he muses, sounding a bit surprised. Wait until he sees the rest of my tattoo. Then he might lump me into a different type of person entirely.
Unsure of what to say, I say nothing.
When we were little, I’d ask them about their animal halves. I’m a witch, we don’t get to shape shift like they so awesomely do. At that time in our lives they hadn’t shifted yet, so looking back I’m not sure that we were old enough for the boys to discover their forms back then, but one night a few years ago—I had a visceral dream about them and their animal forms. A dream I know as truth.
All of them are witch-born shifters. Which roughly means their ancestors were shifters that were twisted by spells into changing into a magically enhanced species. The spell was inherently flawed and killed as many as it changed and it left the witch-born needing to bond with witches to keep their animals under control. Nothing is ever easy when people choose to mess with nature like that.
I wonder what witch they bonded with? It’s the only way that they’re sitting here right now, a bond. I refuse to acknowledge how the thought of that makes me feel. Instead, I focus on studying the changes in them and what I know about their animal halves.
Oz is a Black Lion. Twice the size of a wild lion—or even a normal shifter one, his midnight black mane is tipped with blue, and his eyes are ethereal in the darkness of his face. He’s silent, deadly and a walking weapon. Black Lions feed on negative emotions and were created to cut through an army once their defenses had been breached. The more afraid you are, the stronger they get.
Berserkers, some call them. They’re so rare that the fur of one can sell for millions of dollars; as awful as that sounds, it has been done.
Hezekiah is a White Dredge Wolf. Thick, white fur, as strong as steel, encases him in supernatural armor. Dredge wolves look nothing like their modern-day counterparts. He has teeth for days and paws the size of my torso. He’s all muscle and fur and danger. His amber eyes shine like a beacon to me. A predator who can blend in with the snow and wait for the unwary victim. They are designed for protection. Possessing fur that hardens and get stronger with every hit they receive, makes them able to take more damage than any other shifter in existence. When they’re defending, they feel no pain.
There are stories about how some witches still enslave them to guard their family conclaves. It’s outlawed, but laws don’t stop everyone.
Phoenix is a Blood Hyena. They are the ultimate siege weapons. Immune to most types of magic, they also possess the ability to break wards and spells by simply walking into them. The only creature in existen
ce that can do that. They’re strong, large—easily topping three-hundred pounds—and they have the most dangerous bite in existence. It’s called the Rot and will slowly, but inevitably kill their victims. There is no cure. Their cackle is also a weapon and has its own magic, inciting absolute fear in those that hear it.
Phoenix is rare amongst the rarest. Only one at a time can exist in the world. Magic keeping the balance in check. Blood Hyenas are one of the most deadly and one of the most hunted of the witch-born.
Barrett, the only reptilian of the four, is a Butcher Boa. His species is true to its name and his ancestors are long extinct. They were designed to infiltrate and assassinate and in some cases control. Silent, strong and able to kill without the use of physical weapons, they could once control entire kingdoms for their witch masters. A Boa’s special ability is Growth. They can grow until they tap their power limit. The more powerful they are, the larger they are. I’ve read about ones the size of houses.
Their strength and ability to enthrall make them one of the most sought out witch-born. They’re scales are used in most forms of persuasive magic and the only way to get their scales is to kill them.
Those kinds of witches are bitches and typically end up in prison or dead. If they get caught.
Other than a few rough sketches I couldn’t find any actual images of their animal forms to see if they matched my dream. So I winged it. If not for the unique artist I commissioned to draw the tattoos, they wouldn’t be true to that dream. Thankfully, he wasn’t human. In fact, he was a blind seer, and purely by touching me saw them as I did. Now, I have to wonder if they think I’m super strange for getting it. For knowing what I do about them.
“Why stay gone?” Oz asks, and since his voice is barely above a whisper, I don’t think he means to say it out loud.
I’m many things, good and bad, but I’m not a liar. “I was just…” My voice trails off as I search for the right words. “I was in pain and trying to hide from the world that hurt me, Ozzy.” My nickname for him, from childhood, slips off my tongue before I can catch it. The dimples peek out of his cheeks when he smiles, a sweet, sad one that makes me want to hug him, and hit my face on the table a couple of times.
I know then, whether it’s ever admitted, that I hurt them. I want to say I’m sorry, but it won’t do any good because part of me won’t mean it. I needed that time, hurting them wasn’t an intentional part of it. Maybe I should’ve been more honest about it but I wasn’t in a good place for a long time.
I almost tell them I think of them every single day, then stop and only say, “I was a coward.”
“I don’t think there’s a cowardly bone in your body, Nora,” he muses after staring at me thoughtfully. I don’t say anything, I’m stuck sitting there mute and wondering if I should get up and walk away. “Your eyes aren’t the same color anymore,” he observes, changing the subject. Maybe for me, maybe for him; I’m thankful either way.
My eyes are a source of bother to me. True golden they stand out and get me way more attention than I want. Other than when using magic, witch’s eyes look human. Before the attack, my eyes were a nice light, plain brown. My mom used to call them teddy-bear brown. After the attack, they changed to this ridiculous gold color that won’t let me hide them with contacts or spells. The contacts burn out and the spells refuse to stick. It sucks.
To my trepidation, it wasn’t just my eyes that changed. Everything did.
The thoughtful look is back on his face and mirrored with the other three. Yeah, the subject change is to ease the emotionally charged tension, but I’m a fool to think it’ll be dropped. Looking around at their serious faces, I realize none of them will. I laugh. If anyone in the world can get me to do something I don’t want to, it’s this squad of heathens.
“I sat in my Jeep for twenty-minutes before I had the courage to come in the school,” I blurt out. Feeling the annoying need to prove my cowardice.
“Doesn’t make you a coward,” he counters stealing the last piece of cookie.
“Hey!” I try to snatch it back, but he pops it into his mouth and chews it with a smirk. The next ten minutes I spend smiling and realize that I honestly have missed these boys. Men… boys, whatever. They will always be the Hazard Boys to me.
Another missing piece of me falls into place.
Chapter Three
Art class reminds me of one thing, I can’t draw. I’m good with colors—great with shading, but I can’t draw to save my life, or anyone else’s. Looking around, my eyes fall on the sketch beside mine.
Hez still can, though.
The one he’s currently working on is a sketch of what looks like a fox—perhaps even a kitsune, one of my favorite creatures. Fascinated, I watch the way the pencil dances around on the page. A master at work, creating something so beautiful it moves you. While watching him put on the finishing touches, I try to think of a way to ask him for it. A glance at his face shows him chewing on his bottom lip, his amber eyes full of concentration, holding that faraway look he always gets when he draws.
The others at the table fared no better than me, but Hez has talent. True talent.
Drawn back to the image on the cream-colored paper, I gasp in surprise when my brain registers the eyes of the unfinished sketch. There aren’t many defining facial features yet, mostly a mass of hair floating around those two eyes, but those I know more than anyone else’s. They’re mine. The oddly shaped starburst around the pupils, the small scar above my left eye that crosses my eyebrow. Even the way my lashes tend to stick straight out instead of curve. The me—that isn’t me—looks all magical and mysterious, and my real eyes are drawn to his face as the pencil stops moving.
Is this how he sees me?
When our gazes meet, he blushes and turns the page on his sketchpad. Another image of me, on a lawn chair with the moon in the background. My eyes are closed, and there’s a look of bliss on my face. He was spying on me, that’s the only way he saw me in the backyard. This time he shuts the book entirely.
Feeling eyes on me, I look around, coming back to reality from the cloud of wonder I’m on. All four of them are looking at me now. The pressure of all four of their gazes is real, which makes me focus on Hez.
“You creeper,” I tease, feeling put on the spot and a little conflicted about him spying on me. Smiling wanly, I tilt my head to the side to stare at him. I won’t ask the things I want to ask, not yet.
Just like he isn’t asking the things he wants to yet, none of them are.
“It’s nice to have you home,” Phoenix says breaking the small stand off. Smirking, he turns back to his stick figure drawing. Oz chuckles and throws a wadded up sketch sheet at Barrett. This, of course, starts a paper battle.
Thankfully, there are only eight students in the class, and the teacher, who’s the laid back sort, laughs and lets us continue. When the bell rings, I find myself reluctant to leave this temporary sanctuary. Reality will set in when the school day ends; the humor that’s masking the turbulence, I can see in each of their eyes, will fade and I’ll have to face those banked emotions.
Phoenix snatches my schedule and grabs my hand, dragging me from the classroom out into the hallway packed full of students, who all stop to stare at us.
“Oh, look Calculus. I have that class too,” he says, slinging his arm over my shoulders. “I’m pretty sure we all do,” he whispers in my ear. Admitting that my suspicion about them having the same classes as me is right.
They never did do anything halfway.
Laughing, I let him push me along, deciding to let it slide that they all mysteriously got the same classes as me in the second month of school no less. Instead of getting super serious, I decide to enjoy this moment with them as it is. You never know how long simple moments like this will last.
Phoenix is still a shit stirrer, as he shows while we walk. He’s giving me steady commentary on the students and teachers as we pass them. Those opinions are colorful and at times completely outrageous. It’s his nat
ure to be that colorful person you meet once in a lifetime.
He’s also incredibly accurate at figuring people out, most of his observations are dead on.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, the humor leaving him as his arm on my shoulder tenses. Frowning, I look over at him. Has reality crashed in on my head already?
“What?” Instead of answering me he pulls me tighter against him.
I smell trouble coming and groan under my breath. I already know this trouble has boobs.
“Play along—eh, Nora? I have some baggage to get rid of.” I sigh. Nodding my head in agreement even though my common sense is telling me to run… far away.
Of course, he’s got stalker girls too. I know, before I look up, it’s going to be another Bitch-Face girl who hates me on sight. And it is. Tall, blonde and pretty enough to have her own featured page in a magazine.
If you overlook the evil glare, she’s giving me.
“Girlfriend?” I whisper.
Once again ignored, he nuzzles his face into my hair, and I shiver. Oh hell. That’s a reaction I can’t hide. I feel him smile against the suddenly super sensitive skin behind my ear. I freeze like a dork because I have no idea how to deal with something like that.
I’m sixteen. Hormones are something that I’m used to having go nutso on me, but for the Hazards? That’s something I don’t expect.
What the hell is going on?
Warm breath teases my ear as he whispers, “Na. We hooked up at a party last summer and ever since then she has been… persistent,” he says, annoyance bleeding into his tone.
“You know, it’s your own fault. Should’ve kept it in your pants,” I fiercely whisper back just as she steps close enough to hear me potentially. Fun, fun.
Two out of four, and this one looks meaner than the other one. Great.
