by Cali Mann
I tried to force the words out. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugged. “Happy to help.”
“Well, I’ve got to get going.” I moved forward to dart around him, but he seemed to grow to fill all the available space.
He caught my arm and pressed my hand against the hard length of him. He groaned.
“What?” I asked, licking my lips. I hated Brenton; he’d made my life difficult at every turn. But the thrill of his fiery blood still raced through me, and a gush of wetness hit my panties.
“On your knees,” he said firmly.
My knees sagged to the floor seemingly of their own volition. “You won’t tell anyone?”
“No,” he said, unzipping his jeans.
“About the blood drinking?” A quiver of excitement ran through me.
He shook his head.
I glanced behind him to the hallway. “Won’t someone see?”
“They’ve all gone to class.” He pulled out his cock.
My mouth watered. I stared at its jutting length and ran my teeth along my lip. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want him. Not here. Not now. But I did.
Leaning forward, I took it in my mouth. He was bigger than Terrin and Adrian. I wasn’t sure he’d fit, but he did. I rolled my tongue over the head and he groaned, entwining his fingers in my hair.
I sucked it, and a thrill went through me. Despite our positions, this was power. His most sensitive part sliding in and out of my lips. Letting my teeth just touch him, I grinned at his panting breath. His pleasure was mine to extract. I swirled my tongue, and he whimpered.
His body trembled as the tension built, and he moaned. His pace sped up, and I clenched his thighs, holding him to me. I focused on the rhythm, taking him to the cliff and pulling back, and then taking him there again.
He cried out and his whole body shook with his orgasm. Tasting the bitterness of his cum, I grinned and wiped my lips.
Brenton looked down at me with an odd light to his eyes. Then his hand stroked the side of my cheek. “Thank you.”
Surging to my feet, I muttered, “Keep your promises.”
I pushed past him and down the hall. I ducked into the girls’ restroom and straightened my clothes and my hair, making sure there weren’t any bodily fluids on me. What had I done? I cared about Terrin and Adrian, and I said I’d keep my options open, but Brenton? What was I thinking?
That’s just it. I wasn’t thinking. Someone was bound to tell him that I was an earth shifter, and then he’d know. Stupid, Hailey, stupid. He’d turn me in for being a spirit shifter, and I’d be doomed.
Unless I kept sucking him off. Heat ran up my neck. Had I become the whore I’d been raised to be? Trading sexual favors for keeping secrets?
I slammed my fists against the sink.
* * *
I would have thought that taking blood would have improved my dreams as swimming did for water phase, but they were even crazier than usual. I tossed and turned, my mind full of images of blood and body parts, human and animal, mixed up together.
After school had started back, there was no more sleeping at the guys’ room. Even if half of them wouldn’t talk to me, my mood was better when they were around. This morning exhaustion hung over me like a thick cloud. Dark circles dragged under my eyes, and I went searching the suite mini-fridge for a coke. I thought I’d bought some when I went into town, but I couldn’t find them.
Monica walked through, a thick robe wrapped around her and her shower caddy in her arms.
“Did you take my soda?” I growled.
“No,” she said, not even pausing on her way by, “I don’t drink the stuff.”
“Bitch,” I muttered under my breath, slamming the fridge door closed.
Monica ignored me.
I sighed guiltily. What was wrong with me? Why was I acting so mean? Was I getting sick? I hadn’t ever really been ill. The wardens at Hastings House always said I had a bulletproof immune system. I didn’t come down with any of the illnesses the other girls did.
Running a brush through my hair, I hurried down to the dining hall, hoping Terrin was there. I needed him. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew it would make me better. The courtyard was covered in a thick blanket of snow, the flowerbeds and benches indistinguishable lumps. I could smell the bacon and eggs before I even opened the door.
My gaze darted around the room searching for Terrin. He wasn’t there.
I wanted to turn around and walk out, but I figured if I didn’t eat, I’d feel even worse. I loaded a plate and headed over to the boys’ dorm. At the plain white door, I reached in my pocket for my key and jammed it in the lock. I was shaking so much I couldn’t get the lock to turn.
Terrin opened the door and grinned at me. “Hey.”
Leaning against him, I buried my face in his soft shirt. His arms came around me and I sighed. This was where I belonged. Where I was safe.
“Shit, Hailey,” he said. “You’re freezing.” He grabbed a sweatshirt from a pile and pulled it over my head.
“It’s okay.” Fuck. If he freaked out every time I seemed cold, it was going to be a long phase. What if he figured out I wasn’t a wolf? What would he do? Terrin had killed murderers for years before he came to Thornbriar Academy. Would he see me as just another evil spirit shifter?
But Terrin cared about me. He’d do anything for me. Could he love me anyway? I didn’t know. I’d already asked so much from him. I didn’t know if I could ask this too. I wouldn’t be safe. What if I was caught, and the Council charged him for aiding a spirit shifter? Then I’d have ruined his life too.
He carried my plate over to the coffee table, and I trailed behind him. I had to keep it from him. Whatever it took. No one could know I was a spirit shifter.
5
Sciro
I’d been combing the library archives for two weeks. There was nothing about a shifter who had more than one mate. All I had was Professor Ward’s story about his lost love. I glanced over to where the old man was sorting some volumes on a desk near the wall. He had been mated to a spirit shifter named Trisha. She’d had two mates and when one had died, she’d gone mad. More than crazy. She’d destroyed three villages and a whole colony of seals.
I ran my tongue over a fang. Was it possible that Hailey was a spirit shifter? Was that what was going to happen to my pack brothers?
How did one even know? I frowned, staring at the page I had open. A woman in loose robes kissing the forehead of an infant. The same way we knew when they were babies. The Oracle.
When shifter children were born, they were presented to the Oracle for blessing. If she kissed them, the child was safe, and the family raised it. I rubbed my chest. If she pronounced them spirit shifter, they were taken from their parents on the spot and killed.
But there were lost children like me. My parents had abandoned me and I’d been taken in by the foster care system. I’d been adopted by a human family in Atlanta, and I hadn’t known what I was until puberty. I’d never been presented to the Oracle. What if I’d been a spirit shifter? Set loose upon the world? How much worse would that have been? I ran my tongue over my fangs.
Hailey had been missing too. Had her parents taken her to the Oracle at birth? Without a last name or any record, we had no way of knowing. She could be an earth shifter as they’d assumed, and no one would be able to tell until she shifted. Unless we took her to the Oracle now.
Would that be worse for my friends? If we discovered she was a spirit shifter now, and she was sentenced to die, would Terrin and Adrian survive? Mates rarely lived long after their mates died. I scowled. I had too many questions and not enough facts.
6
Hailey
“Give me the slide,” I said, holding out my hand. Brenton looked at me as if I might give him cooties, or burn him, or something. I sighed. “I thought we were over this.”
Brenton raised an eyebrow, but there was less venom in his expression than I’d seen before. He pushed the slide across the
desk to me with the tips of his fingertips.
I reached out and lay my hand over his.
He flinched, but he didn’t immediately yank it away. Instead, his fiery blue eyes caught my gaze, and he paused, searching my face.
“What’s your problem?” I hissed under my breath.
“Let go, Rosie,” he muttered, but his thumb stroked the side of my hand. “We’ve got work to do.”
A guilty shiver ran through me at his touch, and I shook myself mentally. There was nothing there. We’d had a bit of fun and that was all. This time, I was the one who yanked my hand away.
He turned back toward his notes, but his big frame took up more of the desk, and I could feel the heat radiating off of him.
I tucked myself into my corner and stared at my notes. What was I doing? Terrin was across the classroom and I was what, flirting with Brenton? Is that even what this was? I wasn’t sure. Biting my lip, I tapped my pencil on the paper. I was a free agent. Terrin and I had already decided that, but why did this feel illicit?
The smell of blood hit my nose, and my fangs ached. My hand rose and covered my mouth. Shit. Had I bitten my own lip? My gaze darted around.
Brenton was gripping his hand, redness peeking through his fingers. He looked at me and frowned as if I had done something wrong. Turning his back to me, he raised his uninjured hand. “Professor, I’ve cut my hand. Hailey is going to take me to the nurse.”
“Go on,” Professor Alexander said without even looking up from his desk. His knuckles rubbed his forehead as he contemplated a book laid open before him.
My stomach clenched as if I hadn’t eaten in days, and I could barely restrain myself from pouncing on Brenton. Cool it, you idiot.
Nodding, Brenton grabbed my arm and dragged me into the hall. You’d think I was the injured one. He held his hurt hand away from me as we moved down the corridor. I tried to hold myself together.
He pushed his shoulder into a side door and it slid open. Glancing inside, he said, “This’ll do.” Then he pulled me within.
I’d never noticed this room before. It seemed to be storage, piled high with cardboard boxes. Shadowed forms of furniture lay about, covered in a thick coat of dust. The far windows let in a dim, misty light. I frowned as I looked around. “Where are we?”
“An unused professor’s office. Professor Marley has been on sabbatical for the last year.”
He shoved a set of boxes off a piece of furniture and pulled up the dust cloth. A chair and a desk were revealed, a deep mahogany color. He lay his arm on the desk, exposing his wound and my gaze locked on it, saliva filling my mouth.
“Here,” Brenton muttered. “Drink.”
Wrapping my arms around myself, I tried to hold back but hunger roared through me. My feet moved forward of their own accord. I reached out and grasped his wrist, and he flinched, but he didn’t stop me. Holding his gaze, I brought his wound to my mouth and bit into the flesh. An involuntary moan escaped me as the blood slid down my throat. The room faded away around me.
Brenton stumbled into the chair. His breath came in harsh pants and he groaned.
Warmth spread through my body and curled in my gut. My nails cut into his skin.
“Hailey,” he said, his voice pained.
I blinked, trying to come back to myself. Focusing on Brenton, I frowned at his pale skin and my fangs retracted. His wound still leaked blood. “Are you ill?”
“Seal it,” he said.
“How?” I asked, trying to think how I’d done it before.
He licked his lips. “Just hold the edges together and run your tongue over it.”
I should have been disgusted, but I just nodded and did as he asked.
The bleeding stopped, and he took a deep breath.
“I took too much,” I said, embarrassment making my cheeks hot.
Brenton smiled. “A little, but my strength will come back.”
“I’m so sorry!” I looked around the dusty office. “Can I get you anything? A cookie?” Isn’t that what they offered people who gave blood? To bring their blood sugar up?
He raised an eyebrow. “You have one?”
I frowned, worrying my lip with my teeth. “No.”
With a laugh, he gestured to the two backpacks near the door, my green and gray one, and his brown leather. How had he had time, or forethought, to grab those? How had I not even noticed on our trek down here?
“In the side pocket, I have a candy bar.”
“Okay,” I said, hurrying over and fetching it for him. After unwrapping it quickly, I handed it to him. I hopped up on the desk next to him.
Brenton took a bite and chewed it slowly, letting the sugar hit his system.
His dark hair was mussed, and I wanted to reach out and straighten it, but I held my hand. “Why do you keep helping me?”
“Why do you keep needing help?” he asked. “I thought you had a boyfriend.”
I shrugged. “Terrin’s not my boyfriend.”
“Could have fooled me.” Bitterness laced his voice.
Why did Terrin and I bother him? I tilted my head and gazed at him. Brenton didn’t make any sense. He acted like he hated me, but I couldn’t forget that he’d brought the supplies that had helped the guys save me from the caves. He fed me his blood, and despite the boner tenting his pants, I doubted it was for the blowjob. “I date who I want.”
“Wow. That earth shifter’s a loser.” He adjusted his arm on the desk, wiggling his fingers.
My body tensed. He shouldn’t talk about Terrin like that. “He’s not.”
His smoldering blue eyes met mine. “Then why the fuck hasn’t he claimed you?”
“It’s not like that.” Terrin cared about me enough to let me be free.
“If you were mine,” he said, his eyes sweeping me from head to toe.
My skin burned under his heated gaze and my breath caught in my throat.
“I’d never let you go.”
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to look away. “Good thing I’m not yours then. I like my freedom.”
His hand slid up my calf muscle and trailed over my thigh. He cupped my sex through my jeans, and I gasped.
“Look at me,” he commanded. His thumb pressing the seam against my tender skin.
My eyes met his, and he smirked.
“How do—”
His fingers flicked open the button and yanked my zipper down.
My breath sped up. “I thought you couldn’t, wouldn’t—”
Questing fingers invaded my folds and stroked my sensitive nub. He circled it, the pressure building with each swirl of his fingers. He moved faster, and my mouth opened, whimpers escaping. He slowed, then sped up, then slowed again.
“More,” I cried out.
He pushed me to the edge. Fire played in his dark blue eyes as he dragged me back again.
“No, I need—”
“What do you need, Hailey?” He scraped a fingernail across my clit and I bucked under him. The pain and pleasure mixing in inescapable torture.
“You,” I gasped.
He grinned and stroked me hard and fast. I came, my whole body shaking with the intensity of it.
When I caught my breath again, I reached for him, wanting to give back some of what he’d given me, and he backed away. I frowned. “What’s the matter?”
His mouth twisted. “I don’t share.”
“Why not?” I asked, but he was already grabbing his backpack and heading for the door.
“When you’re ready for that, Rosie,” he said with a shrug. “Let me know.”
I stared after him as the door closed with a whoosh of dust.
7
Hailey
I refastened my jeans and straightened my hair. With a grimace, I grabbed my bag and looked out into the hall. It was empty, but I didn’t know if it was because classes hadn’t let out yet or because we’d been in there so long that class change had come and gone. I crept out and started toward the courtyard and the girls’ dorms beyond.
Classes let out at that exact moment and the corridor filled with students.
“Hailey!” Terrin called from up ahead.
Shit. He couldn’t see me like this. I turned and fled in the other direction. Sure, I was warm for once, full of another guy’s blood and orgasmic afterglow. I didn’t want to commit myself totally to Terrin, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hurt his feelings. What do you think you’re doing now? A traitorous mental voice asked, and I squashed it.
The hallway circled around and met the stairs. I stared at them. Up was the library and down were the pools. I took three steps up and then shook my head, heading down into the basement. Terrin and I had come here a few times over break. The caverns had been quiet without the usual water shifters, and Adrian had gone home so there’d been no chance of running into him.
They were still and silent today. Students were still in their classes. I peeled off my shoes and socks, and sat down at the edge of the pool, dipping my toes in. The heated water ran over my skin and I sighed.
Even though I wasn’t in water shifter phase anymore, I missed Adrian and my nightly swims. Hell, I missed talking to him. He’d been a friend before he’d been a lover, and I still cared about him.
Looking around, I confirmed no one was here and tore off my clothes and dived in. The water enveloped me, soothing and cradling me as it had when I’d first come here. I swam back and forth across the pool. Why had I changed into a mercreature that night, but hadn’t been able to change into a crow or a wolf for that matter? Were my powers growing at different rates? Would it take time to gain all the forms? I knew so little about spirit shifters and there was no one I could ask.
Footsteps echoed through the cavern and I broke the surface to see who it was.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were here,” Adrian said, pausing with his shirt half-unbuttoned. “I’ll come back later.”
“No,” I said, swimming to the edge and pulling myself out. “I can leave.”
He stared at me.
Heat rose in my cheeks as I was suddenly very aware that I was naked on the stone floor. It shouldn’t matter. Adrian and I had been naked together plenty of times. This was stupid. Why was he avoiding me like this? I stood and crossed over to him.
