Their Shifter Academy 3: Undone

by May Dawson

  Maddie and I had more magic than some witches had, for that matter.

  When the tarot reader’s cards stuck together, she had to deal Maddie and me both the same cards, created by magic itself.

  The Stranger. The Stranger was in both our decks, a faceless man.

  Same card.

  Panic crawled across my skin like heat, and my stomach twisted. I pushed past everyone else into the bathroom, and I made it to the sink before I threw up.

  My body reacted before my brain did. It was only when I was splashing water over my face, flushed with embarrassment that I’d just hurled in front of the entire team, that I was able to accept what I’d realized when I remembered those cards.

  Maybe Winter was our father.

  Maybe Maddie was my half-sister.

  My stomach convulsed so hard I almost threw up again, and I grabbed the edge of the counter. No. It couldn’t be true.

  But now that I’d thought of it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made sense.

  “Go around,” Lex growled in the distance.

  The door opened out to the hall, and the guys tramped out. A few seconds later, Maddie stepped into the bathroom doorway.

  “You okay?” she asked me, a kind look written across her face.

  My hands tightened on the counter so hard that it hurt my palms. “Fine.”

  I shouldn’t tell her. Not right now. It didn’t even matter now, as long as she didn’t touch me and I didn’t touch her. We needed to focus on tomorrow’s fight. If her attention slipped, she might get hurt. Again. Worse. And it would be my fault.

  “Give him some space, Maddie,” Lex said, and I realized he and Rafe were still in her room.

  I’d protect Maddie tomorrow if anyone came near her. I’d go after Duncan first.

  Can I protect her?

  I gritted my teeth against the questioning voice in my own mind. What if my magic flared again? What if someone got hurt on my own team? What if more people on my own team were hurt?

  Lex paused in the doorway. “You all right, Ty?”

  I looked up at myself in the mirror. Tension was etched through my shoulders and the suddenly tight lines of my face. The five o’clock shadow across my jaw made my face look haggard right now.

  “I’ve got to talk to you and Rafe,” I said, before I could talk myself out of it. “I can’t go into the pit tomorrow.”

  “You took some bad hits today,” Lex said. “Maybe you need a few days off.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I do.”

  “Get out here,” Rafe said, a curt note to his voice.

  I rubbed my hand across my jaw absently as I walked out of the room. Maddie stood by her desk, uncertainty written across her face and in the way she stood with her arms folded across her chest.

  “What’s really going on?” Rafe demanded. “The look on your face…I’ve seen you get hurt worse than today and keep smiling like a smartass.”

  Lex’s lips tightened impatiently. Maybe he’d been trying to let me off the hook without having to explain myself. Apparently, Rafe was going to push.

  I hesitated. Maddie met my gaze, wide-eyed, and shook her head subtly.

  Rafe’s gaze snapped to her as if he’d caught the slight motion out of the corner of his eye. He raked his hand through his hair in exasperation, then looked to Lex. “Are you in on whatever secret the two of them are keeping?”

  Lex stared back at him, hurt flashing across his face before he schooled his expression. Rafe’s lips parted as if he was going to say something, but then he forced his gaze back to Maddie. Sternly, Rafe said, “Talk, you two.”

  Despite the pit in my stomach, I had to blurt out the truth. It was more important to protect the team tomorrow than to guard my own secrets.

  “I’ve got magic,” I said, my voice low.

  Now I had everyone’s attention.

  “Not just magic,” I said. “Out-of-control magic. We escaped the coven because I destroyed a building…”

  “That’s why your story of your escape was so heavy on dashing heroics and so light on facts.” Rafe ran both his hands through his hair, which was an all-new level of exasperation.

  “And that’s why Maddie threw the bo at Clearborn,” I said. Just saying the words out loud hurt, but I had to say them. “When Harrington hit me, my magic started acting up. Maddie covered for me.”

  “Ty…” Maddie’s voice was a murmur.

  I’d lose my damn mind if she tried to comfort me in front of Rafe and Lex. Hell, I’d lose my mind if she tried to comfort me at all.

  The thought of her touching my arm when she might be my sister made my stomach clench all over again. Thankfully, she stayed on the other side of the room.

  Rafe’s face paled. Just for a second, anguish was written across his face, and then it was gone. He nodded. “You’re a hazard in the pit tomorrow.”

  “Yep.” There was no denying it.

  “All right, we’ll say you didn’t heal right from today’s beating. You’ll go to the infirmary tomorrow, then come watch the rest of the fight. But stay out of it,” Lex added firmly.

  “That buys us a day,” Rafe said.

  “A day to figure it out,” Lex shot back. He met Rafe’s gaze in challenge.

  Rafe’s mouth tightened before he finally jerked his head in a nod. “All right. We’ll get through tomorrow’s fight, then we’ll figure something out.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I headed for the door. “Good night.”

  Maddie took a step toward me. “Ty, can you stay?”

  “No,” I said, without looking back.

  I caught a brief glimpse of her stricken face, and shame curled even deeper into my bones. But I didn’t hesitate. I jerked the door open and headed into the hall.

  Every choice I made, every move, made things worse.

  I didn’t know how to make it stop.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Maddie

  “Would you go check on him?” Rafe asked Lex.

  Lex’s lips twitched in a faint, humorless smile. “Sure thing.”

  But before he left, Lex looked to me. “Are you okay, Maddie?”

  When those hazel eyes met mine, everything else faded away. His gaze was worried, but for some reason it raised memories of all the other times he’d looked at me across a room, all the times I’d seen his eyes light up when he saw me. He always made me feel like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  “I’m okay,” I promised. I would’ve told him that no matter what. My shoulders and back ached with every move I made, and my shirt seemed to cling too tightly to my skin. But it didn’t matter.

  I was going to be fine. It was my men I worried about now.

  Lex winked at me before he ducked out the door, that quick, sexy wink that always made my heart flutter in my chest.

  Then I was alone with Rafe. When my gaze met his, my stomach dropped. His cruelly beautiful lips were pressed together tightly, and his dark eyes were stormy.

  Rafe was pissed.

  Again.

  My chin rose as I stared back into his eyes. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me what.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes briefly. I wondered how long of a breather he was going to need before he could form another sentence. When he opened them again, he managed to say, “That you were protecting Tyson? That you didn’t lose your temper, but were protecting a teammate?”

  “It didn’t matter.” I shrugged, and then regretted it. I hoped I hadn’t just winced, but I was pretty sure that pain flashed across my face, and Rafe’s lips tightened more.

  His reaction irritated me. He’d been mad at me for doing something stupid, and now he was mad at me because I hadn’t done something stupid after all.

  “You really do just have one setting, don’t you?” I demanded. “You need to get in touch with your emotions, Rafe. You all do. You’re a bunch of c
losed-off emotional disasters.”

  He frowned. “What the hell are you going on about?”

  “Times you’ve been mad at me in the last, like, forty-eight-hours,” I said, raising one hand so I could tick things off on each finger. “Because I was gone. Because I came back. Because I was stupid. Because I was smart. You need to pick a lane.”

  “I think saying you were smart is an overstatement.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course you would.”

  He stared at me, his chest rising and falling faster than I’d expected. Then he confessed, “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad you tried to do the right thing, and I…”

  “Did what you had to do,” I finished. “We can’t tell Clearborn the truth. He’s not on our side. There was no other way out.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell me,” Rafe said slowly. “You didn’t want to make it hard for me.”

  “I thought you might not mind as much if I deserved it.”

  His jaw flexed. “You could have told me. I still would do…whatever you needed. But I wouldn’t have scolded you…”

  “Your scoldings haven’t hurt me yet,” I said.

  He snorted. “They don’t seem to have made much of an impression yet, either.” But his heart wasn’t in it.

  “And I’m fine. We’re both fine,” I reminded him.

  His lips pulled at the corners, as if he were fighting some emotion.

  “Don’t lie to me to protect me,” he warned me.

  I gave him a skeptical look, raising my eyebrows. “You’re back to sounding mad at me.”

  “I’m not,” he said, his voice heated. Then he paused, as if he’d heard himself, and frowned. “Christ. You’re right. This really is my default setting.”

  “I told you.”

  He studied me so intently that I almost squirmed…on the inside. On the outside, I mimicked his posture, crossing my arms and standing straight, giving him a long once-over.

  “When I lectured you earlier, I was thinking that I’d come to appreciate what a spitfire you are, and then you disappointed me,” he said finally. “I feel like an idiot for saying that now. The truth is, I admire you.”

  Warmth glowed in my chest at his words. I couldn’t believe he’d just used a word like admire. That was so…unreserved.

  “There’s always a but,” I reminded him.

  “No,” he said, his lips quirking up at the corners. “There’s no but. I’m sorry for calling you a brat.”

  I could barely hide my smile at his affectionate apology, but I had to push. “Which time?”

  “Pick one,” he said.

  “Just one?”

  “Just one.” His smile widened.

  When Rafe looked at me the way he was now, open and unguarded for once, my whole body responded.

  He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but then he just moved to the door. “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  It had been a strange, unsettling day. I didn’t know what to make of it.

  Especially when I spent the night without Tyson in my bed. He was back in his room that night, as Jensen, Penn, Silas, Chase and I curled up in the big bed.

  It shouldn’t have been lonely with the five of us there, but it was.

  We needed Ty.

  Chapter Sixty

  Chase

  We were headed out to the pits when I ducked down to bump my shoulder into Maddie’s. “Watch yourself out there, Northsea.”

  “You watch yourself, Freeman,” she said, her voice teasing.

  Despite the pit in my stomach at the thought she was in danger today, I had to smile when she tried to bump my shoulder back. She was petite—at least compared to us. “That was quite the attack you just launched on my elbow, shortie.”

  “Oh, I’m saving attack mode for tonight. I still have to pay you and Jensen back for teaming up on me in our wrestling match.” Her lips parted in a smile.

  She caught my elbow, before tucking her hand over my arm as if I was walking her into prom and not into yet another academy-sanctioned fist fight. My chest hitched at the easy way she touched me.

  She may have just been talking about a wrestling re-match the other day, but my heart still beat a little faster at the promise.

  When I first got here, I felt protective of her because she looked too small to hold her own.

  Now I knew better. Now I felt protective of her because she was mine. No matter how much I tried to tell myself we were friends, there was no denying the way my world lit up the second she walked in.

  Maybe we were just friends.

  But I wanted more. I was head-over-fucking-heels for the girl who walked close to me right now, her long blond braid swaying over her shoulder, her posture perfect in her royal blue P.T. shirt and her cargo pants. If she still hurt from yesterday—and I was sure she did—it didn’t show. She was so tough and yet managed to be so sweet at the same time.

  But no matter how sweet she was, I was afraid to tell her how much I cared for her. It was too easy for me to imagine pity flickering across her face. Our relationship afterward would never be comfortable again, like it was now.

  Penn turned and walked backward, sticking his hands in his pockets as he cast a critical gaze over Maddie and me. “You guys look awfully cute together when we’re trying to be badasses over here.”

  “Sorry.” Maddie didn’t sound sorry at all as she flashed him a smile, but she squeezed my arm and then pulled away. “We’re just awfully cute together. It can’t be helped.”

  Penn just shook his head, a faint smile touching his lips as if he couldn’t resist smiling himself when Maddie did. He didn’t seem jealous, at least. The other guys seemed to take it in stride now that Maddie was going to pull more than one of us into her orbit, as if she were the sun we all revolved around.

  And even though we were walking into trouble just then, even though we had to watch Maddie’s back, I felt happier in that moment than any reasonable man would be.

  When I was with Maddie and my friends, my team, the rest of my worries faded away. It felt like we were invincible together. We might lose a fight, now and then. But in the end, as long as we had each other, as long as we watched out for each other, we’d come out on top.

  When we got to the pits, our cadre were called up to go over the rules. Clearborn called Rafe from our patrol, and Lex knit his arms over his chest, staring into the distance for a second. Then he turned to us, giving us one final pep talk. He reminded us to stay close to each other and especially to Maddie.

  Penn glanced at Duncan over in his patrol, fury sparking in his eyes. Duncan stared back at him, then turned away.

  If I were Duncan, I’d avoid more than eye contact with Penn.

  Rafe and the other two cadre for our three united patrols came back and gave us a general overview of the setup for today’s fight.

  Each side had a bunker and flag to defend, and obstacles constructed throughout the trees where people could hide. We were basically playing a grand game of capture-the-flag, only with noise and confusion and violence; a shifter academy special.

  “Northsea, Zip, McCauley, you’ll hold the bunker the whole time.” Lex said. There’d be an instructor posted there all the time. It was the safest place to keep Maddie.

  We all took our places in the sandpit bunker, waiting for the whistle. The woods were quiet around us, except for the rustling of the wind in the trees.

  I wished I was staying with Maddie. Her lips pursed as if she hated being stuck in the bunker, but she winked at me.

  Then the whistle blew. For a few minutes, silence reigned; I hung back with the rest of our team to protect the bunker while the other two patrols forged ahead silently, trying to slip through the other side’s defenses.

  Then Duncan’s patrol crashed into ours, running out of the woods abruptly, and the fight started.

  Penn decked a kid from that patrol, and as the other guy stumbled back, he used the pause to look at me. “You see Duncan?”

/>   “Single-minded, huh, Penn?” I ducked the bo staff that the guy across from me swung at my head. “Sure could use a weapon here.”

  But we’d left our team’s three bo staffs with Maddie, Silas and Jensen. They were the ones most likely to need them.

  I ducked another jab with the bo staff, then caught the end of it. I yanked it away from the kid who had it, and turned it on him, knocking his legs out from underneath him. He rolled up and to his feet, backing away frantically.

  The flags were supposed to stay in our bunkers, but I glimpsed a hint of orange fabric in his back pocket.

  He turned and ran through the woods, back toward his own lines.

  “Penn, with me!” I called, starting to go after him. The sooner we ended this fight, the sooner we knew Maddie was safe.

  I tossed Penn the bo so he could finish off his fight ASAP, and he caught it out of the air, before whirling to knock out the guy’s legs.

  I looked around for Rafe. I’d lost him in the trees. We had to stay together.

  “With you!” Penn called.

  As we ran through the trees, Penn behind me, I heard a grunt as Penn got knocked down by someone. I was right on the heels of the kid in front of me, so close to the flag I could almost take him down, but I cursed, then reversed direction. We had to stick together.

  I caught the sandbag bunker out of the corner of my vision, almost perfectly camouflaged with sticks to blend into the woods.

  At the same time, I saw Duncan step out of the bunker. He slammed his bo into the side of my head, and red hot pain exploded through the side of my head as I stumbled to one side. I caught my balance, despite the agony that flooded my face. A sudden sense of rage washed over me, overpowering the pain.

  He could’ve blinded me with that bo. As it was, the pain was so blindly intense he might’ve broken my cheekbone. And he’d planned to hurt Maddie like this. Nah, it wasn’t Penn who was going to tear him apart.

  He came after me with the bo again, but people always underestimated how fast I was just because I was so big. When he jabbed, I whirled into his grip, grunting as I caught the bo in my side. I grabbed it and wrenched it away from him. Fury gave me even more strength.