Academy of Mages and Shifters 1

by Laura Wylde

  “Well, it happened deep in the southern end of Ireland, so I guess it hasn’t been made public news.”

  “Your Irish?” I hissed, now in complete shock… Although now that he’d said it, I could hear a little Irish twang in his voice as he said that to me. Not as strong as mine but it was there. “I thought I was the only one.”

  “No, I was born in Ireland.” He narrowed his eyes curiously at me. “Why would you think that you are the only person here for Ireland? Our home country is filled with magical people, isn’t it?”

  Now I felt utterly stupid for falling into the nasty trap of the girl during the registration day and had told me that no one else from my country was going to be at the academy. I was far too humiliated to tell Artemis that though, so I simply shrugged and played it off, quickly changing the subject.

  “So, you were raised by your mother then?” I asked quickly. “And she taught you all about magic?”

  “My mother and my grandmother.” Immediately a smile crept across his face. I could tell from the look on his expression that he was a family-oriented man, which I liked a lot. I had a lot of love for my own family as well, which was why I didn’t want to let them down if I could help it. “Yes, they taught me everything I know.”

  “Well, you will have to thank them for me,” I laughed. “I don’t know where I would be without their knowledge now. I was struggling with this part of things a lot before you explained it to me.”

  “I can’t imagine that. You really are the smartest person in our class.”

  I felt a strange prickle on the back of my neck and span rapidly to see the teacher looking curiously at me and Artemis as if she could see something that I couldn’t. Was she creating something romantic out of nothing? Out of us just spending time working together. This wasn’t exactly a normal school, was it? Teachers would look for sparks of romance and of course, encourage it because they wanted us to form our harems. It was a little strange really and not what I wanted to deal with right now. As nice as Artemis was, he came with a prize tool.

  “Oh look.” Artemis seemed to spot someone as well, but in the other direction. “Trevor.”

  It was one of the other dragons, not so discretely trying to peer at us and see what we were doing. The fact that it wasn’t Connor allowed me to hold my head up high and speak with confidence. “Invite him over.”

  “Are you sure?” Artemis asked curiously. “Trevor is a nice guy, he isn’t… you know…”

  I nodded because I did know. Artemis wasn’t about to vocalize any annoyance at a guy from his harem behaving badly because he probably didn’t think that he could, so I remained firmly tight-lipped as well.

  Artemis wiggled his fingers and indicated for Trevor to come over, which he did but tentatively. I smiled as brightly as I could to show that I wasn’t the bad guy here. He met my eyes and raked his fingers through his jet-black hair while looking happily back at me to put me at ease. Thank God, he wasn’t a yeller like Connor.

  “I know, I know.” He held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “I know what you are going to say.”

  I leaned back in my chair and eyed him curiously. “You do, huh? And what am I going to say?”

  “That I’m small for a dragon shifter. I get it all the time. You don’t need to worry about offending me.”

  “I would never comment on another person’s physical appearance when I have just met them.”

  “Everyone else does.” He offered me a one-shouldered shrug. “You don’t need to worry about offending me.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t. And if I was going to say anything, I would comment on how fast I bet you are.”

  This immediately uplifted him, his whole body language changed. “I am actually. Thanks for noticing. I’m the quickest one in my clan which comes in handy for all kinds of things. I have gotten us out of lots of scrapes.”

  His thick Scottish accent was adorable. Sexy in an unexpected way. I kinda liked it. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  As Trevor talked at a million miles an hour, I listened intently, laughing along with his story. He was great, just like Artemis. They were both awesome guys. The closest people I had felt any kind of connection with since joining the academy. Trevor even managed to push the dark cloud that was Connor out of my mind. For a moment, anyway.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Oh, of course. I couldn’t forget him for too long because he was here, reminding me that he wanted to make my life a living hell. “Why are you two with her?”

  “What is wrong with me?” I barked back, not wanting to take it from him again. Last night, I let him walk all over me more than I wanted to because I was surprised. He really caught me off guard. I stewed over it all night, thinking of all the things that I should have said, and now was my chance to make it right.

  “I’m talking to my harem, not you,” he snapped. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Megan.”

  The way that he said my name sent a painful shiver up and down my spine. I wasn’t sure why.

  “Look, Connor, we are just doing our work here.” Artemis shrugged. “There isn’t any reason for it to cause an issue. Megan wanted our help, and we are here giving her some help, that’s all. Nothing to cause drama over.”

  “You aren’t supposed to be helping her. You’re supposed to be working with me. This is utter bullshit.”

  “Connor!” Trevor jumped in, sounding horrified on my behalf. Bless him, both of them were awesome… but as much as I appreciated their help, I didn’t want to create any issues for them all. The falling out of a harem was a big deal, and the last problem I needed was to be dragged in the middle of that. “Don’t be that way.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I grabbed my things and jumped up from the seat. The class wasn’t anywhere near over yet, but I didn’t want to sit in the middle of it any longer. The teacher was just going to have to understand. “I don’t need any help if it’s going to be problematic. I don’t need anyone if it’s going to be like this. I don’t need this.”

  “Good,” Connor growled. “Go. As I told you before, no one wants you here.” Wow. That hurt more than I thought it would. Definitely more than it should. But that didn’t stop him. “Artemis and Trevor, you have gone behind my back here and I’m fucking fuming about it. I don’t know how you could do this to me. After the way that she has acted, like we’re the worst people in the world, not good enough for her…”

  “I never said that…” I tried, but Connor didn’t want me to get a word in edgeways. He was on a roll and wouldn’t stop. He wasn’t even looking at me, like I was completely irrelevant to him right now. Which was probably better than when he was directing that rage in my direction. Last night was just horrendous. I didn’t want it to repeat.

  “She scored us and here you are now fawning all over her. It’s disgusting.”

  That was enough for me, I was done. I threw my hands in the air in frustration and finally left. I stomped away from the harem and the class, giving up on the day completely. I needed to climb into bed and sleep the rest of it off. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a much better day where I could get my spark back once more edgeways

  I didn’t want to enter the classroom for demonology, I wasn’t sure that I would ever want to go in again after what had happened in the library yesterday but if I didn’t just put my head down and get on with it then there was a chance that I never would. I couldn’t give up my education for Connor, no way. I had worked too hard for that.

  Come on, I told myself, trying my hardest to jut my chin out confidently. Just do it. Don’t let him win.

  I kept my eyes focused forward, pointedly refusing to look at anyone as I walked to my seat. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone sitting anywhere near me, so I was safe. The dragons were far away from me and no one else wanted to sit in those seats just in case the king of the fucking academy wanted to take a seat. Well, that was fine by me. I wanted to be by myself. I was much happier that way around, it made it easier to focus, and that was all t
hat I wanted to do now. Concentrate on what the teacher was talking about so I could take it all in properly.

  There was a thick tension in the room, that much was obvious. It could have been cut with a knife if anyone wanted to break it, but it seemed like everyone wanted to wait it out to see what was going to happen. It was probably like a freaking TV show to them, entertainment for them to pass on their time. The drama was always more fun if you weren’t in the middle of it. But I was in the middle of it without wanting to be. Lucky me. How had I managed that?

  Before anything else could happen, before the tension in the pressure cooker could explode, the teacher entered the room and began with the class, flooding me with a small sense of relief. Not much, there was still a prickle of eyes all over me but at least now I had something to focus on. It could only get better from here…

  “Right, for your next assignment,” the teacher declared with a smile. “You will be working in groups.”

  I wanted to groan aloud. This was a nightmare at the best of times, I didn’t like relying on other people when it came to my work. I much preferred to be just me. But it was going to be even worse now because I didn’t like anyone here. I wasn’t going to be able to get along with any of them, surely. This fear became even worse when the teacher began to reel off the names into groups, and it was druidesses with clans which was terrifying…

  Oh God, then it came to me. Everything inside of me tightened up in tension as my name fell out of her mouth, I had a bad feeling that this was going to be bad… really bad…. “You are with Connor, Artemis, Duncan, and Trevor.”

  This was a joke, it had to be. A really bad joke that I wanted to wake up from. Why the hell would the teacher put me with those horrific guys who I had absolutely nothing in common with? I parted my lips to argue but before I could get those words out, she moved on to the next group, not giving me a chance.

  “Now, for this project, you will be putting what you have learned into action.” That pricked my ears up in a good way. It was just a shame that I couldn’t get too excited about it because of my group. “You will be doing reconnaissance on a nightly basis, around the UK at the portals where the demons come from.”

  “To fight them?” someone gasped out in shock. “I don’t know if we are ready for that yet…”

  “Oh no, we don’t want you to engage the demons at all, if you even see any. This is just to report.”

  “But what if we get attacked? What if we see something happening? What if other people get attacked?”

  The questions seemed to fly from every angle, but the teacher wasn’t fazed. “Currently, we aren’t in a period of time where the demons are a big danger, so the chances of that are very slim. However, teachers at the academy will be on call at all times, in touch with you as much as you need us to be.”

  As far as I was concerned, those were the least of my issues. I had other things that I needed to get sorted first. Someone would want to swap with me, surely. All the druidesses in this room wanted a chance to get closer to Connor and the rest of them, so they would want to be in my position. I didn’t care who I was put with as long as it wasn’t them. I would have been happy with any other recon group.

  “So, now I would like you all to get in to your groups where I will assign you your first location…”

  As the rest of the class moved around to do what was asked of them, I hurried to her side to plead my case.

  “Is everything okay, Megan?” she asked me, thankfully sounding concerned which was a good start.

  “No, not really.” I shook my head hard. “I would like to be put in a different group, please.”

  “You would?” She looked at me, very confused. “But I think that I have found the perfect group for you. I saw how well you were working with Artemis and Trevor as well. I think your personalities will mesh well.”

  “They aren’t the issue. It’s Connor. I don’t get along with him one bit.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Is there an issue that I don’t know about?”

  I didn’t want to make this more of a problem than it already was. I just wanted to be in a different group. “No, not an issue as such. I would just prefer to work with people I feel comfortable with.”

  “And who would that be?” She didn’t say it in a bitchy way, but she did catch me because there wasn’t really anyone that I would feel comfortable with. “I don’t think you need to change. I’m happy with my decision.”

  “No, look please,” I begged. “I will work with any other group. I don’t want to work with them.”

  “Megan, I don’t think this is something that anyone else has an issue with. It’s only you, and we don’t want to have a problem here, do we?” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Let’s give it a try.”

  She turned away from me, refusing to hear anything else from me, which left me upset and utterly frustrated. It seemed like she wasn’t going to give me a choice, I was going to have to try it at least once. I might not have liked it, but if I could get through one night then tell her again that it wasn’t going to work maybe she would listen.

  Urgh, but one night with Connor giving me and anyone who talked to me shit didn’t feel pleasant. I would have preferred another cold silent night with Zena in our room than this. This was going to be hell.

  I looked behind myself and found the dragons all looking at me. It seemed as if they knew exactly what I had been speaking to the teacher about which was awkward and uncomfortable. Especially now that I had to go and sit with them to see what our assignment for the night was going to be. That was just marvelous.

  I put my head down and walked over to the table. I made sure that I sat in any other seat rather than the one next to Connor. Not that it mattered because none of them were talking to me. Clearly, Connor had gotten to them with his berating, even Artemis which was a shame. This was about to be my hardest assignment yet.

  “You guys have Inverness,” the teacher declared as she handed Connor a piece of paper. As he took it from her, she smiled at him like he was an angel. She was just another person to fall for his charms. “Here is the address for you and the details of what you are looking out for. Any questions, let me know.”

  God, I had let her know and she had blown me off, so I wouldn’t be going back to her.

  “Okay,” Connor commanded, taking over before anyone else even had a chance to speak. Typical fucking Connor, thinking that he knew so much better than everyone else. “I think that we should meet in the courtyard tonight at midnight, just by the fairy statue. Is that okay with everyone? We can go from there.”

  I nodded as if this was going to be something I would actually do, but really, I wanted to find a way to make it to Inverness alone. I wanted to do all of this by myself, but I wasn’t sure how!

  Chapter 4

  Artemis

  I checked my watch for what felt like the millionth time, my heart racing with worry. It was only a couple of minutes past midnight, but Connor had been getting worked up ever since demonology class, so these two minutes felt like an eternity. Even thirty seconds would be too late, so Megan was really pushing it today.

  “She will be here,” Damon counteracted, trying his hardest to calm Connor down. Usually, he was pretty good at that but something about Megan put him in a completely different frame of mind. “Just wait a little longer.”

  “But we have already seen all the other groups go out.” Connors hands flung in the air in frustration. “We are the last damn ones. I think that we should just go without her. If she can’t respect the rules…”

  “But we need her for her druidess magic, don’t we?” Trevor offered. “I know that we aren’t supposed to do anything when it comes to the demons, but I would feel better knowing that we could have someone attack…”

  “We have Artemis.” Connor shrugged. “He knows all the magic. He was helping Megan with it.”

  Everyone turned to look at me, basically putting the choice on my shoulders. Instantly, I was uncomfor
table. I didn’t want to be the center of everyone’s focus, I didn’t want to be the one making the choice. Especially this one because there wasn’t any way to keep everyone happy. But if I had to, then I would.

  “I think that we should wait. The teacher wants us to all work together, so we have to make an effort.”

  “You are just saying that because you have a weird thing for her,” Connor snapped. “It’s clear.”

  “No, it isn’t that at all.” I didn’t have to let anyone know that I had found Megan beautiful and captivating ever since I first laid eyes on her. That didn’t need to be made public information because it didn’t affect my decision right here. I wanted Megan with us because it was the right thing to do. “I just think that teamwork is important.”

  “As a harem, we work as a team all the time!” Connor yelled now, not caring about waking anyone up. “We can also work with other druidesses, ones who want to work with us and don’t ask the fucking teacher to switch because she can’t bear us. Don’t forget, there are plenty of women who want to get closer to us.”

  “Yes, and we haven’t been able to agree on any of them,” I reminded him. “So, there isn’t any point in leading anyone on, is there? We might as well just work with who we have been assigned. We can’t change it now.”

  Connor tutted and rolled his eyes. I could tell that he had much more arguing up his sleeve, but he didn’t want to get into it right now, which was probably for the best. When a physical shifter fight kicked off, it often got incredibly messy with buildings destroyed and other people hurt. That was the last thing I wanted.

  “I’m here, I’m here.” All of a sudden, I spotted Megan racing towards us, her hair flowing all over the place as the wind whipped through her. She was breathless, clearly, she had been running. “Sorry, I was trying to find a way to Inverness because I don’t have a car and I don’t know if you have any room in yours. You probably don’t, and public transport is very limited at this time of night, especially for such a long distance.”