Shifter’s University

by K. R. Thompson

  It was always them. The gang, or people, or wherever it was Blake went to. He never said their names and whenever I asked, he would only shrug.

  “But you’re seventeen and still a ward of the state, so they said no. But now, you’ll have a safe place to be, Claire. This was meant to happen. You have to go to Imperium,” he said, squeezing my hand. “If ever there was a thing called destiny, this is it.”

  Destiny. Fate. I was meant to leave him and go to a school filled with people who could shapeshift.

  “Tell me you’ll go,” he implored. “If you are there, I won’t have to worry whether you’re okay.”

  I wanted to say no, because there was one other thing that kept me from wanting to go. The instant Magda Herensy and Logan stepped into my house, I could feel their magic. Instinct told me if I concentrated hard enough, I could tap into it and shift into what they were. I didn’t know how, or even why, but in that instant, I knew I was something more than a fox. That scared me more than anything. What was I, really?

  Blake’s eyes held questions, and I knew he was wondering what he would do if I refused the scholarship.

  “You won’t need to worry. I’ll go to Imperium University.”

  “Awesome.” The grin that lit up his face was pure joy. I found myself smiling, too, if only because I had managed to make him happy. “I’ll help you pack,” he offered, then glanced down at his watch, his smile disappearing in an instant. “Crap, they’ll be here to pick me up in ten minutes.”

  “You’re leaving already?” He’d been gone for two days and was only coming back for…what exactly?

  As if reading my mind, he added. “I needed to grab a few pairs of jeans and some of my other stuff. I’ll be back tomorrow evening, though.”

  “I’ll be gone by then. Why can’t you tell me who they are? It’s a gang, isn’t it?”

  He wouldn’t say, but I knew. There were too many signs that told me he was into something no good. Instead of answering my question, he said, “I’ll be able to see you soon. I’ve heard the students always have their weekends off. You’ll be able to come back and visit me.”

  Yeah, but will you tell me where?

  “I promise I’ll see you again, Claire,” he said firmly. “Nobody can stop us. We’re family, and nothing will ever change that.”

  Exactly ten minutes later, he was gone and I was alone. The only thing I saw of “them” were the taillights of a dark-colored car as it sped away from the curb.

  “I suppose it’s time to pack,” I murmured as I went to my room and pulled out the suitcase from under my bed. It only took a matter of minutes to put everything I owned inside.

  I stood in the empty room for a moment, expecting some feeling of nostalgia to wash over me—for some sort of good memory to come and ingrain itself into my memory for later. I sighed. Blake was the only good thing that had ever come from this foster home. There was nothing else I wanted to keep.

  I glanced at the clock. It was only early evening. I thought about going to Hadley’s and telling her that I’d decided to go to Imperium, but decided against it. Hadley had enough going on, and I didn’t want to worry her. Besides, if Blake were right, I’d be able to visit her in a few days and thank her for telling them about me.

  My brain went back to the griffin that had been in the living room, tail twitching like that of a lion, while eagle eyes watched me with such sharp cunning I’d found myself wondering which instinct the griffin depended on most.

  Then there was Logan. With the scales and the smoke, I was almost certain he had to be a dragon. But dragons were imaginary creatures, weren’t they? I shook my head. So were griffins, and I’d definitely seen one of those.

  I went to Blake’s room, hoping he’d left his old laptop behind. Luckily for me, it was still hidden under the bed. I sat down and opened it, then pushed the power button.

  “Imperium…I’ll start with that,” I muttered, typing the school name into the internet’s search engine.

  A picture of the imposing university, built of solid white marble, filled the screen. Even from the picture, I could tell it was arched like a shield, as if it had been built to protect something behind it. Giant spiraling pillars stood at the front entrance, and two concrete gargoyles sat at the bottom of the stairs.

  I flipped through the different links, searching for any clues as to what I was getting myself into, but it was basically the same information that was in the pamphlet. Nothing at all on what the school’s real purpose was. I didn’t actually expect to find anything, but still I had to try.

  Deciding to attempt a different angle, I went back to the search engine, typed “griffin,” and watched several images similar to the one I had seen in the living room pop up. “Jackpot,” I muttered as I looked at the winged, furry beast.

  “The griffin was considered a protector,” I read aloud. “Well, that’s useful information. Good to know we’ll be protected.” Since it was a mythological creature, there wasn’t much more I could find, so I went back and typed “dragon” as I thought about the guy who had been in my living room just a short time before.

  This seemed to be a more popular search and a good bit of information popped up, though I was fairly certain most of it wasn’t true.

  I scrolled through the information, noting dragons were often referred to as “protectors.” Another link told me evil dragons had usually been slain by heroes, while good ones had been known to give wise advice. “Are you good or evil, Logan?” I muttered.

  Time flew by as I continued to research every mythological creature I could think of. Werewolves, Chupacabra, the Loch Ness monster, and more filled my screen before I called it quits. By then, moonlight was streaming through the window. I looked at the clock. It was past ten.

  After brushing my teeth, I went back to my room and set the alarm clock. Sleep came for me the instant I shut my eyes.

  My dreams were made of nightmares and secrets as one creature after another took its place in my head. Somewhere in the mix, my foster father’s face showed up, his mouth contorted in an evil leer. I heard a slight pop, and then Logan’s face appeared. In the end, an enormous green dragon chased everything evil away.

  “I can’t believe she missed it,” I exclaimed, watching the taxi move away from the curb with no Claire inside. A few minutes later, the man I wanted to strangle strode out of the house, a big smirk on his face.

  If I was a betting sort of person, I would have put money down that he’d had something to do with it. I balled my hands into fists, wishing my dragon would recede back into its depths and not incinerate the asshole as he got into his truck and drove away.

  My temper had been in rare form all night. First, I’d watched as the guy’s son came home. He left a few minutes later, and everything went quiet. Then, the star lit up entirely too early. Never had the headmistress illuminated it before night fell, but she did this time.

  I ignored it.

  Night came and everything went still for the longest while, with only a single light at the back of the house on. When that went off, I figured Claire had gone to bed. I had just settled in, back against a brick wall at the back of the alley, when Asshole came home. It had taken every ounce of self-control to stay where I was. When he’d left for work this morning, he looked entirely too pleased with himself.

  I hadn’t rested well, and now I was more than miffed, watching the back of the taxi disappear over the horizon. I waited for her to come out of the house. The minutes ticked by, and I waited until I was sure her father wouldn't come back before I strode toward the house and knocked a little too loudly.

  Footsteps pounded toward the door, then paused. I glared at the peephole, expecting her to be looking through it, but the door flung open and there she was, still in her dark blue pajamas, hair mussed and eyes wide.

  “I missed the taxi,” she exclaimed, noting the obvious.

  I tapped my foot impatiently and crossed my arms.

  “The alarm! My alarm clock never went o
ff!” She rushed toward the back of the house in a flurry of flannel and wild hair.

  My irritation totally evaporated as I watched her disappear. If she hadn’t wanted to come to the school, she wouldn’t have worried about oversleeping.

  “Son of a…”

  Curious, I followed the sound of her voice and found her standing at the edge of a bed, the cord of an alarm clock in her hand. “He must have come in here last night and unplugged it. Why?” She plugged the cord in, then quickly pulled it out. An audible pop! echoed in the nearly empty room. She frowned. “That was the sound I heard last night. I thought I was dreaming. He really came in here and unplugged it so it wouldn’t go off.”

  “How did he know you were leaving?” I eyed the suitcase by the far wall. If he’d seen that, he’d have known something was up.

  Claire ran her fingers through her hair, attempting to untangle it. “I left the pamphlet on the coffee table by accident. He must have seen it and figured it out.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose you drove here to check on me and you have a vehicle we could use, do you?”

  “Nope, I don’t drive. I flew,” I replied.

  It took a second for that to register. Her eyes grew wide.

  I grinned. “I’ll get you to Imperium if you want to go.”

  “And how are you going to do that? Let me ride on your back?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  She just blinked at me for a second. “Well…okay. I’ll have to get dressed. Go out and give me a few minutes. I’ll be ready soon.”

  It was only about one minute before she met me near the door in jeans and a light pink t-shirt. She pulled on her sneakers, then, suitcase in hand, she gave me a huge grin and her blue eyes sparkled. “Let’s go.”

  She paused only long enough to lock the door as she went out, but never stopped to give the house behind us a second glance as she followed me to the alley.

  Once there, though, her courage faltered. “How exactly is this going to work?”

  “You’re going to get on my back and hang on. I’ll hold your suitcase,” I said, taking it from her.

  “Have you ever done this before?” she asked, looking uncertain.

  “No,” I admitted. “But it shouldn’t be that hard.”

  “Shouldn’t,” she repeated. “Are you sure about this?”

  “As sure as I’ve been of anything in my entire life.”

  I walked around to the back of the dumpster, taking care not to step on the garbage, and sat her suitcase down so I could shift.

  To her credit, she didn’t take a single step back when faced with the rather large green dragon who took up every inch of free space behind the dumpster, wings spanning the alley, though I tucked them down in hopes of trying to appear smaller. I lowered myself as close to the ground as I could, hooked one of my claws around the handle on her suitcase, then flicked my tail, hoping to give her a signal that I was as ready as I was going to get.

  She bit her lip as she came forward, eyes locked on my body, obviously wondering how to get on. I shifted the leg that wasn’t holding the suitcase out to give her something to step on, and waited as she climbed up.

  The instant she sat down, I heard her let out the breath she’d been holding. When I stood, the momentum startled her enough that she wrapped her arms around my neck in a tight hug.

  “I suppose now isn’t the best time to tell you that I’m not fond of heights,” she said.

  I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible, I promised silently as I launched into the air.

  Once we were above the clouds, I wanted her to relax. She was so close to me that I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined her eyes were closed. I wanted them open, so she could see the beauty around her.

  The feeling of someone riding on my back was new, but I found I didn’t mind it at all. It wasn’t every day a hot girl was snuggled against my neck. As if she’d read my mind, she clutched me tighter, reminding me she wasn’t enjoying this flight like I was.

  It was over soon, though, and I took extra pains to be sure I landed as smoothly as possible when we reached the base of the mountain where Imperium University sat. Claire was still attached to my neck, so I lowered my head to the ground to announce we’d arrived.

  She slid off. Her eyes were closed when I looked, proving my earlier guess correct. I shifted back and came to stand in front of her. “Hey. We’re here.” A strand of dark hair had blown across her face. Without thinking, I pushed it back with my finger.

  She opened her eyes, let out a breath, then smiled. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Anytime.”

  Several students walked past us, eyeing us as they went by. Their whispers reached my ears as they gossiped about “the new girl” who just rode in on the dragon. I rolled my eyes. Rumors would be running rampant soon.

  I had landed us in the middle of the courtyard. As a result, we had completely bypassed the headmistress’s office in the main house and would have a bit of walking to do.

  “Want to learn a bit about Shifter’s University?” I asked with a smile as I led her around campus.

  “Shifter’s University?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Yes, that’s what we call it when we don’t have to worry about being near humans. Imperium University is kinda stodgy-sounding, so it has a nickname.” I smiled, then pointed to the smaller houses at the back. “There are four different classes of shapeshifters. Air, water, earth, and flame. There is a house dedicated to each type.” I pointed out the emblem above the door of the Air House, a round circle with horizontal marks flowing from one side to the other. Water had a droplet in the center of its circle and Earth had a tree.

  “Let me guess, that one is Flame.” She pointed to the fiery bit that leapt up from the bottom of the emblem at the next house.

  “Yep, that’s right. The headmistress will assign you to a house after you go and see her. Even though the houses are named differently, there are all sorts of shifters in them, and each student has their own animal spirit. The goal in the beginning was to have each shifter stay with its own kind, but the founders discovered that the students learned much more if they had to learn to adapt with not only humans, but also different shifters as well,” I explained. “Plus, since we are in the mountain region, there are more woodland, or earth, shifters in Imperium than there are of the others. Trying to crowd them all into a single house would be madness.”

  I pointed out a pack of werewolves on the right, near the edge of the woods. “They are practicing pack mentality. Since they are wolves, it comes fairly natural to them,” I said as she watched them leap one way and then the next.

  We passed Benny, a centaur, on his way to class. Claire’s mouth dropped open.

  “Hello.” Benny gave her a friendly smile.

  Claire didn’t answer, just gaped.

  He swished his tail at her as he walked in front of us on the way to the main house, and I rolled my eyes. It was obvious he assumed Claire thought he was pretty hot. “Show off. All it looks like is you’re swatting flies,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “What’s that?” Claire asked, finally finding her voice.

  “The main house,” I said, avoiding the subject of the prancing centaur. I pointed to the university that stretched in a semi-circle, effectively blocking the shifter houses from view. “The main house is for the human students, but it is where shifters have all the normal classes so we learn to be around humans and blend in. Most of the shifter classes are in the summer to give the students time to learn how to control their magic before tossing them in with regular students. You’ll also notice a lack of technology around here. Cell phones, laptops, internet, anything that requires a signal, gets squashed by the magic in the shields. Imperium has a landline to call out, but otherwise, we’re pretty much cut off from the outside world.”

  “That makes sense,” she said as I led her to a side door that would take us straight to the headmistress’s office.

  When we
reached the large, ornate wooden entrance, I knocked.

  “Come in,” the headmistress replied.

  If ever looks could kill, I would have most certainly been dead. The expression on the headmistress’s face was pure fury when she looked at me, but then she glanced at Claire and gave her a small smile that did nothing to hide her anger. “I’m glad to see you decided to join us, Claire.” Her gaze darted back to me. “You are excused. I will deal with you later.”

  I nodded and left, closing the door quietly behind me.

  Outside, something worse than the headmistress waited for me.

  The last person I wanted to see, Victor DeVenoss, lounged against one of the school’s supporting pillars, arms stuffed casually in his pockets. He looked up, fixing me with his icy blue stare.

  Immediately, I felt my dragon rise to the surface, wanting nothing more than to blast him with fire. Out of all the students at Shifter’s U, Victor was the worst. He was a snake. Literally.

  Water serpent, I corrected myself, then gave a mental shake. Get ahold of yourself. He isn’t worth it.

  Still, I knew he was there for a reason. Victor always had a reason, and it was never a good one.

  “Cute girl,” he said, nodding in the direction of the headmistress’s office.

  “You stay away from her. The last thing she needs is you.” Even to my own ears, I sounded like I was getting ready to snap.

  Chill out. Calm down. I took a deep breath, though I still found myself wanting to shoot it back out at him as flame.

  “She might,” he replied easily. “She might enjoy being with me instead of with a dragon who has anger issues. You can’t date someone banished, you know. The headmistress sent me out to find you when you didn’t return last night. I saw you in the alley, all moon-eyed, staring at her house. I can’t say I blame you, really. She’s hot. Makes me wonder what she is…and what she’ll taste like.” His tongue flicked out. He laughed when he saw the disgust on my face. “You may as well get used to the thought. I always get what I want, Logan. I’ll have her, one way or the other. With you here or gone, it doesn’t matter.”