by Tawny Stokes
Her eyes lit up at that. “Hmm, how are you at math?”
“M-math?” I sputtered.
“Yes. I hate math. I’ll pretend I never saw you tonight, if you do my math homework for the term.”
“A week,” I countered.
“Two months.”
“A month.”
She grinned. And I had a sense that Hell actually quaked in fear. “Deal.”
I watched as she made her way past me and up the stairs, that little smirk twitching on her big fat lips. A sickening, sinking feeling gripped me hard. Had I just made a deal with the Devil? Maybe that’s where all that heat and wind had come from. Her portal to the underworld.
When she was gone, I turned toward the front door, considering still going out and looking for the tiger. But the thought of exposing myself to the chilly night air in sweat-soaked clothes gave me a few unpleasant shudders. I guess it was back to bed for me. Not that I could sleep or anything. At least I could pretend, wrap up in the blankets, and get warm.
Back in my room, I tore off my hoodie, tossed it on the floor, and grabbed the blanket from my bed. Wrapped in a cotton cocoon, I shuffled to the window. Maybe I could still catch a glimpse of the tiger coming out of the woods. I wondered if I should tell someone about it. A wild animal on the loose seemed like something a person would want to know. Especially at a school for teens.
Forehead pressed to the glass, I peered into the trees, willing the tiger to appear. After ten minutes of staring blankly through the window, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. That I’d missed my opportunity. I took a step in retreat when something caught my eye, and I went back to pressing my face against the glass.
Except it wasn’t a tiger strolling out of the woods. It was a boy. A very naked boy, carrying his clothes in his hands.
And not just any naked boy. It was Cai.
I gasped, putting my hand over my mouth so I didn’t wake Anna. I didn’t think it was loud, but unbelievably, Cai must have heard me, because his head snapped up, and he looked right at me. I could only do the panic freeze thing again.
I know I should’ve ducked from the window, or at the very least dropped my gaze. The guy was completely naked for Peter’s sake. Although it was dark out, he just had to be standing in the pool of moonlight. The guy was…um…exquisitely built.
I thought for sure he was going to slap the clothes he was carrying in front of himself, but he didn’t. He held my gaze with no shame whatsoever. He stood there proud and sure with a predatory fierceness that made my body tingle. Then he smiled.
That’s when everything, the heat, the exhaustion, the humiliation hit me all at once, and I lost my balance. I hit the floor, literally. My face pressed against the hardwood, I promptly passed out.
Chapter Six
Cai
Standing in the bushes out of the moon’s glow, I quickly slid my sweatpants on and pulled my shirt over my head. I couldn’t believe Dani saw me. The fact that I had been naked wasn’t my concern; it was that she may have seen my transformation. That wouldn’t be a good thing. Not for me obviously, but not for her, either. Knowing secrets was dangerous.
What was she doing up, anyway? It was well past midnight, and everyone was usually sleeping by now. Which was why it had been a good time for another of our secret meetings. There was never a risk of running into anyone or anyone spotting me. I just had to pick that exact moment to bathe in the moonlight, at the exact moment she was gazing out her dorm room window. I guessed this was what I got for not putting on my clothes the moment I had finished my run.
Leander was never going to let me live this down. It would be fodder for his torment for the entire school year, and likely beyond. Sometimes it infuriated me that he didn’t need to run as often as I did. He could make it on going out once a month for a quick sprint. Food and girls were his vices. He was a glutton for both, as was his nature. Mine were the wind on my body as I ran and the night sky. I couldn’t get enough of either.
I should’ve listened to Leander and not gone for the run. But after that meeting, I had to blow off some steam. It wasn’t fair what Marvel was asking me to do.
We’d gone over the plan again, then Shen asked, “Do we know yet who’s going to take Daphne’s place?”
“Just from a few classes,” Gisele said, “there have been a couple of standouts skill wise.”
I knew one of those was Dani. She’d been killing it in balance class.
“It will be Maggie West,” Marvel said.
“Why?” Gisele asked.
“Because her grandfather is one of the school’s biggest benefactors, and the dean wants to make him happy. She’s controllable, so she’s our best option.”
I sighed. I didn’t necessarily like the situation, but I understood why it made sense. Besides if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t want Dani to be part of this. I knew the risk to the main performers was minimal, but I didn’t want to see her get hurt.
“So, that means we need to make sure she wins,” he said.
“Why can’t Gisele just pick her?” Leander asked.
Marvel tapped his cane. He always did that when he was feeling impatient, I noticed. “Because it’s not just up to her. There is a committee that oversees the audition and selection process.”
“We can’t raise suspicions,” Gisele added.
“Exactly.” Marvel nodded. “I suspect there are spies at the school. The Wizard has people everywhere. We can’t be sure who to trust in any situation.”
Although I always thought Professor Marvel was too paranoid, I was reminded to tell him about the presence I’d felt near the fence the other night. It was likely nothing and just my overactive senses.
“So, how are we supposed to make sure Maggie wins?”
“By making sure no one else does,” Marvel said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t get it,” Leander said.
Marvel just shook his head. “That’s why I’m entrusting this task to Cai.”
I frowned. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I will be pairing up freshmen and sophomores,” Gisele explained, “and you will be paired up with Dani Gale. She’s the only other girl skilled enough to beat Maggie on her own.”
“You will make sure she doesn’t win,” Marvel added.
I shook my head. “No way. I won’t do it.”
Marvel took a few steps toward me, his face a stoic mask. “You will. You must.”
“She’s a nice girl. I won’t hurt her.”
“Don’t be overly dramatic, Cai,” Marvel waved a hand around. “You won’t ruin her life. From what I hear, she’s talented. She’ll rebound from this.”
I shook my head, although I knew it was pointless to protest. When Marvel wanted something, he got it.
“You have a rapport with the girl. Use it to our advantage. I say it’s far better that you sabotage her from within, because the truth is—accidents can happen, and I’d hate for Miss Gale to suffer one unexpectedly.”
I glared at him and fisted my hands at my sides. I wanted to strike him for threatening Dani.
He lifted one thick eyebrow. “My boy, I’m sorry if this puts you in a precarious situation, and I would not ask it of you if it was not vital for our operation.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “We must do everything we can to ensure its success. We have one chance to obtain the slippers.” He dropped his hand and regarded everyone in the room. We all had our reasons for being here. “I have waited years for this opportunity, as have many of you, to finally exact revenge on the man who has taken so much from each of us. We will get one chance to hit him where and when he’s most vulnerable.” He whirled back to me. “Isn’t avenging your parents worth the price of what I’ve asked you to do?”
I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. He was right. The pain of their loss still filled my heart.
He cupped my head, then tapped me lightly on the cheek. “I know you’ll do what you need to do. I have faith in you, my boy.”
Once I
was dressed, minus shoes, as I hated having something on my feet, preferring to feel the ground beneath my skin, I walked the rest of the way to my dorm. Before I reached the building, though, I stopped on the stone path and turned toward the surrounding woods. Goose bumps rose all over my arms and the back of my neck. I was being watched, and not like the unexpected peek that Dani had gotten. This was an ominous, purposeful study of me and what I was doing.
I sprinted for the trees, hoping to catch whoever was there off guard with my quick unanticipated actions. But when I reached the edge of the woods, no one was lurking about. I had a good sense of direction, so I didn’t think I’d misjudged where the creeping sensations had originated from. Crouching, I placed my hand in the dirt and fallen leaves of the forest floor. Sometimes I could pick up vibrations from the ground. Of people or animals moving nearby.
Something trekked through the trees. The vibrations were heavy and deep. It wasn’t just a squirrel or porcupine rummaging around for a late-night snack. These waves had substantial weight to them. It could’ve been a cougar. Sometimes they ventured too close to the fence, chasing prey, and found a way under the wrought iron or between the bars. There was no way they could vault over it. It was too high.
I ventured farther into the trees, lifting my nose to the air. I had a decent sense of smell even in this form but didn’t catch anything distinctive on the slight breeze that drifted through the foliage of the bushes and trees. Turning my head slightly, I got a whiff of something out of place. Lavender. As far as I knew, it didn’t grow wild in this part of Oregon. Sometimes violets could have a slight lavender smell, but this odor was not wild. It was concentrated. As if someone wore it dabbed on their wrists or on the pulse point of their throat. Or had a bag of it stuffed in a pocket.
Maggie wore lavender sometimes. But what would she be doing out here lurking about? She wasn’t one for nature. Had Dani ventured outside after spotting me naked in the bushes, curiosity or concern getting the better of her? Besides that, she didn’t seem like a girl to wear lavender. When I’d been near her, she’d possessed more of a vanilla and spice flavor. Sweet. Delectable, to be honest.
I took in another deep whiff of the air, and the intense scent brought back a particular memory from my childhood. The power of it nearly took me to my knees. I had to reach out and steady myself against the trunk of a tree.
The Oregon forest had always reminded me of my home in Russia. I had lived with my parents in the far eastern area, near the Amur River, which basically separated Russia from China. My parents worked for the Bastak Nature Reserve. It was a great cover for who and what they were. What I was. There were approximately three hundred tigers in and around the reserve, so no one batted an eye at three more prowling the forests.
When I was nine and still honing my abilities, I was out for an evening run with my parents. I still had so much to learn about our people, and they were teaching me a new lesson that night. It was a hunting lesson.
Unfortunately, we became the prey.
After we’d shifted into our tiger forms, I followed my parents into the valley where they had scented some wild boar. This would be my first hunt, and I was both excited and scared. I’d never killed anything in my animal form before. We crept through the thick copse of birch trees—it was fall; there were leaves on the ground, and the odor of rain hung in the air. I remember being acutely aware of everything. The feel of the damp ground on my paws, the sight of my father’s powerful form as he strode in front of me, the sound of my mother’s chuff as she caught the scent of the boars.
Then it was a tsunami of chaos.
The animal grunts of something not quite animal.
The cloying scent of lavender.
The deafening bang of a gunshot. Then two more.
The roars of my parents. Then the human mewling of pain and confusion.
I don’t know how I survived. All I remember was running through the trees. And the shouts of men as they chased me. But I was fast, and they no longer had the advantage of a surprise attack. I ran over that terrain, crossing two streams and climbing one large rock, until I was foaming at the mouth. I found a cave, waited until I was completely safe, then shifted back to human.
That was how Frank found me the next day. A naked little boy wandering through the nature preserve where Frank worked as a visiting conservationist from America. He’d known my parents, not well, but I suppose enough to know the truth of them, the reality of me. And he took me in. He basically smuggled me out of Russia as a tiger cub and brought me to America to raise me side by side with Ozzy and Loki. Eventually Leander became part of our pride when his mother disappeared, essentially becoming my brother.
I pushed away from the tree as the vividness of the memory subsided. It was that lavender smell that had transported me there so intensely. I continued to sniff the air, as a branch snapped behind me. I whirled around to see a large male lion stalking me. He made a pfft-pfft sound in his mouth as he took another step toward me.
“I can’t believe you snuck up on me. I must’ve been really distracted.”
He continued to come at me. To a regular person, it might have seemed like he was aggressive, but he wasn’t. He was just greeting me in that playful way of his. He rubbed his flank up alongside my leg and made another puffing sound. I patted his back.
“I didn’t think you were going for a run tonight. If I’d known, I would’ve waited for you.”
He bumped up against me again, this time a little harder, a little rougher. I knew he was trying to knock me over, so he could wrestle with me. But I wasn’t in the mood to play around. I was tired, and spooked, and just wanted to get back to the room and go to sleep.
“I’m heading to the dorm. You should probably finish your run and go back, too.”
The lion snorted at me, then started into the woods.
“Hey, Lee.” He stopped and turned his furry head. “Make sure you get dressed before you go back to the dorm. There are prying eyes around tonight. I’m not a 100 percent positive, but I think someone was watching me earlier.”
The lion hummed in response, then trotted into the trees. I waited until he had vanished into the night, then made my way back to the dorm, unsure of exactly what it meant if someone had been watching. I probably should let Marvel or one of the others know in the morning. Maybe we weren’t as safe as we thought we were. And if we weren’t, did that mean we had to change all our plans?
Chapter Seven
Dani
It was dark, and the moss on the forest floor tickled my bare feet. I spun around, wondering why the heck I was out in the woods at night. Naked. I glanced down at myself and panicked. Where were my clothes?
I spun around, searching the ground and the trees for any piece of my clothing I could cover my body with. What if someone saw me? What if Cai saw me? Was that why I was out here, as punishment for seeing him naked? Was karma messing with me again?
I crept quietly and carefully through the woods, trying to make sense of the situation. Was I sleepwalking? I didn’t remember going to bed nude or walking out of the dorm. But it happened to people. I’d heard of it happening especially when people were under severe amounts of stress. I definitely fit the bill in that regard.
I kept walking, hoping I would reach the path soon, so I could find my way back to the dorms. A rustling sound erupted beside me. I stopped and stared at the offending bush, waiting for something to pop out of it and scare the bejeezus out of me.
Instead of a rabid chipmunk or demented badger, a tiger walked from the foliage. I froze, completely stunned. I had not planned for anything remotely as strange as this. It’s not like I had anywhere to carry pepper spray.
The majestic creature just stared at me. My hands itched to touch its fur—I imagined it would be so soft, its body warm under my hand. But I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. I was struck immobile.
Then the great animal opened its jaws and said, “Dani.”
I frowned. “What did you just
say?”
“Dani! Hey, wake up.”
The voice penetrated my mind fog. I felt a foot or hand or something nudge me in the side. Groaning, I rolled over onto my back and blinked open my eyes. I was in my dorm room and not naked among the woods surrounded by darkness, talking to a mystical tiger.
Anna’s face loomed over me. Worry made her eyes crinkle around the edges. “What are you doing on the floor?”
“Huh?” I looked around and saw that I was curled up in my blanket on the floor near the window. No wonder my back and butt ached as if I’d done a hundred walkovers in a row.
“Do you not sleep well away from home?”
I sat up, rubbing my eyes.
“If it helps, I have a stuffy you can sleep with.” She went over to her bed, lifted the mattress, and pulled out a pink stuffed bear with a black bow tie. She handed it to me. “I hid him in case anyone came into our room. My mom packed him in my suitcase, for emergencies, she said.”
I smiled, kind of digging her mom, but shook my head. “No, I’m okay.” I got to my feet and stretched out my back and sides. There were a few audible pops, which was normal. A day didn’t go by that I wasn’t popping this joint or that. “I’m not really sure how I ended up here, to be honest.”
“Are you a sleepwalker?” Anna asked. “I read somewhere that sleepwalking can be brought on by stress.”
Then it all came back to me in one giant, embarrassing rush.
I had seen Cai naked outside in the woods.
My face instantly flushed. And I knew, since I was normally so pale, that my cheeks were probably flaming red.
Anna’s eyebrows went up. “Are you okay? Are you sick? You look like you have a fever. Are you going to vom?” She came at me with the wastebasket.
I put my hand up to ward her off. “I’m good. I just need a shower.” I grabbed my blanket and tossed it onto my bed. “What time is it anyway?”
“Seven.”
I grabbed my mesh shower bag and my robe, slid on flip-flops, and headed down to the communal showers. There was a bit of a line to get into the washroom, but I was used to it. I’d been to several dance camps, and this was par for the course. It’s what happened when you put fifty dancers and gymnasts together who were all sweaty. There was a lot of showering going on.
