Academy of Mages and Shifters 1

by Laura Wylde

  “Oh, for sure, because right now I’m not convinced that we can do anything at all.”

  I turned towards the door, wondering if Artemis would be okay if I left him behind while I searched for Connor, or if he needed me more with him… but luckily, that wasn’t a choice that I was forced to make because the door swung open and the man returned. The thunderstruck expression on his face came back too, but that was okay. We could work through that together, couldn’t we? I already felt a little uplifted just knowing that we were all together.

  “Are you alright, Connor?” I asked him quickly. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Just walking.” He stomped right over to his bed and sat down. “I just needed to walk, that’s all.”

  “Did it help at all? Because I know this sucks, but I really think that we need to…”

  “Sort this out,” he jumped in. “I know and I agree with you. We do need a plan.”

  I wanted to bring up Megan, to see how he would react, but I was too freaked out to make that happen. I didn’t want to send him running back out again to God knows where, meaning anything could happen, so I would wait.

  “We have everything that the teacher gave us. Let’s work with that and see what we can do.”

  There wasn’t much room for us to spread everything out, so we immediately got to work moving the beds out of the way for floor space. Then I got all the maps in place and the instruments that the teacher had given us so we could take a look. My heart pounded hard against my rib cage as I thought about getting out there and going near it again, but I suppose the thought of it attacking others wasn’t pleasant either.

  “Okay, so we need to work out how to use this tracking device, to see if we can locate it.”

  I picked it up and rolled it around in my fingers, trying to bring it to life, but nothing happened. I didn’t have whatever it needed to get it going. I probably should have asked the teacher when the chance was there, but I didn’t.

  “I think it needs magic.” Artemis took it from me. “I can do it for now, but we need…”

  He darted his eyes towards Connor, knowing that he couldn’t say ‘Megan’ without causing an uproar, but even getting that close caused him to tut in irritation. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for the next few nights.

  “Okay, I will see what I can figure out right now,” Artemis declared in a hurry. “Anything else can come later. I will just try and see how to get it working because… well, yes, you know…” he began rambling. “I’ll just…”

  “Okay.” I nodded slowly. “Well, while you are doing that, we will try and figure all of this other stuff out.” I made a sweeping gesture, trying not to show how overwhelmed I felt. “Somehow… I’m sure together we can sort it.”

  As he did his part, I studied the maps carefully with Trevor while Connor threw himself into the reading. I wasn’t sure how much he was taking in, but he wasn’t doing any more yelling, so that would be enough. The status quo was good at the moment and that was how I needed it to stay. If I was going to succeed in my first mission as leader, then calm was going to be my main priority, keeping everyone’s head intact so we could do our best.

  It was hard not to wonder if the teacher had made a mistake by putting us in charge of something so important, but since she was so determined that we needed to clean up the mess that we had made, I wasn’t about to fight it.

  “What are we doing?” Connor exploded after hours of studying and working. I thought that everything was going pretty well, but now I had absolutely no idea. “What the hell are we doing here, huh? This isn’t working.”

  “But… why?” I demanded… although my tone sounded more shaky than firm.

  “Because we’re fighting a battle that we can’t win.” He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “We can’t keep doing this without the magical side of things, can we? And while Artemis knows what he’s doing, he doesn’t have the power of a druidess. We need to have the whole group of us together for this to work.”

  “You mean Megan?” Now that shocked me. I didn’t think Connor would be the one to bring her up.

  “Well, I don’t see that we have any choice, do we?” He shrugged helplessly. “The teacher isn’t going to let us work with anyone else. And I don’t know if we should anyway, because she is powerful.”

  “Yes, she is good at what she does. I do think that she’s the best druidess at the academy.”

  “We should go and find her,” Connor jumped in, sounding regretful. “Get her to help us. We have done all that we can by ourselves. We’re going to have to suck it up and get her on our side.”

  “She wants to work with us anyway,” I agreed. “I think that she wanted to sort it out before we slept.”

  “I know, but it is what it is.” Connor shrugged. “We can make things right now.”

  “Do you…” Oh God, was I really going to ask this? “Do you think that you can make it right?”

  Immediately his face tightened, and I stiffened up, preparing myself for more shouting. Surprisingly, it didn’t come. “Look, I know that things have been a bit shitty, but we can push that to one side because this mission is more important. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that Megan is okay working with us.”

  “Even if it means having to apologize?” I offered. “Because it’s very possible that she will need that.”

  His eyes hit the floor hard. “Even if it means I need to say sorry, yes. Whatever it takes.”

  I gave him a grateful smile, glad to have him on my side when it came to that. I was sure that all of us were going to end up feeling a whole lot better if Connor and Megan could get along. Especially right now as it looked like this next journey, we were going to take would be much further than Inverness. So far it looked like the demon was somewhere in England which was a little nerve-wracking. It would take us really far away from the academy and away from the teachers as well, so we were really going to be on our own. We couldn’t fail.

  “Come on then.” I rose to my feet. “Let’s go to Megan’s room. Where is she? Do we know where her room is?”

  “She is in the Portentous building,” Artemis jumped in, much to my shock. “What? She said it once.”

  I spotted a deep blush flooding his cheeks which could only mean one thing. That he liked her, really liked her. He was attracted to her in a very deep way, which was… well, it was nice for me to see Artemis into someone. Normally, he didn’t connect with anyone… only Connor hated her, so that could be an issue…

  Unless Connor liked her too! Oh my God, I hadn’t ever considered that, but maybe that was why he was being so crazy around her. Usually, Connor was smooth around the ladies, but then they usually threw themselves at him so perhaps he didn’t know how to act around a woman who wasn’t at his feet, begging for his attention.

  Hmmm, that was going to be something for me to keep an eye on. I would have to see how their interactions went tonight… unless we were much too busy fighting the demon of course. That was a possibility.

  The journey to the Portentous building was a quiet and tense one. I wasn’t sure that any of us knew what to say. I was mostly worried about what Megan’s mood would be when we arrived. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she shot us down and told us that it was our mess to sort out. After the way that she had been treated by Connor, why wouldn’t she? I would probably have felt the same way in her building.

  “Oh hey!” the first person to greet us – well, by us I meant Connor – was Zena. Her eyes lit up when she spotted him and she immediately became a sexual vixen, not understanding that he wasn’t interested in her. At first, I didn’t know why. She seemed right up his street, but now I had a feeling that Megan had his attention more. “Connor…”

  “Hey.” He stopped and stuffed his hands awkwardly into his pocket. “Do you live in this building?”

  “Oh, I sure do.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “But unfortunately for you, I’m just about to head to class. If
you want to come and visit me, I can tell you what room I’m in for later on…”

  “No, it isn’t that.” Connor didn’t even seem to notice when Zena’s face fell. “I’m actually looking for someone else who lives in this building. Her name is Megan O’Malley. Do you know her?”

  Zena rested her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Are you joking me? You come here to my building to ask me about my boring roommate? This is a fucking laugh, right? You are trying to wind me up.”

  “She’s your roommate?” Connor missed all the cues in her voice. “What room are you in?”

  “You really think I want to see you humping my roommate? No fucking way. I can’t handle that, Connor…”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “No, it isn’t like that. We’re supposed to be working on a project together.”

  “Oh.” Zena took a step back and gave Connor a weird stare. “So, it’s academy work?” Connor nodded and thankfully she seemed to see that it was serious. “Okay, well I am in room sixteen. Come and visit me whenever.”

  With that, she stalked off, glancing back to check on Connor a couple of times as she went, but we really didn’t have time for that. I grabbed the other guys and pulled them inside the building, towards room sixteen. Zena, in a complete lack of concern for security, had left the door open allowing us to slide easily inside.

  There we found Megan asleep on a pile of books, books about demons. She was clearly trying to fill her brain with all of the information that she could before she had passed out. I didn’t want to wake her because she looked so damn peaceful there… but what else did we do? Well, Connor was taking a seat, so it looked like we were waiting.

  Chapter 7

  Megan

  Discomfort flooded me. I didn’t feel right at all. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the issue, but there was a strange sensation creeping all over my body, causing goosebumps to pop everywhere. The ache in my head didn’t help…

  “Urgh, nargh,” I grumbled as I tried to shift my head, but there was only hardness underneath. Where the hell had I fallen asleep? Clearly somewhere I wasn’t supposed to, but I couldn’t recall anything. “God sake…”

  I lifted my head, winching under the strain of the pain, and blinked a few times. It was bright, so white I could hardly get any proper vision back, but I patiently waited it out until everything came back to me.

  “Argh!” A scream burst free from my chest as I spotted a shadowy figure standing above me. Immediately, I assumed it was the demon, that it had followed me to the academy and now I was screwed. It didn’t matter how many people were around to potentially help me, the terror shredded from my body and erupted. “Oh my God.”

  “Megan, Megan, don’t worry. It’s only me,” a soft voice replied. “It’s Artemis. I’m here with the other guys.”

  “Ar… Artemis?” I asked as my whole body scooted away in terror. “What… what’s going on?”

  “We came here to check in on you and you were sleeping. We didn’t want to disturb you, so we waited.” He clutched his hands to his chest. “Zena didn’t lock the door, so we wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  “She never locks the door.” I rubbed my eyes hard, trying to get rid of the sleep. “It’s a nightmare.”

  Much as I didn’t like being her roommate since we didn’t have a damn thing in common, nor did we have a single thing to say to one another, her bad habits were bearable. I kept thinking that if I moved, I could end up with worse.

  “Okay, well that isn’t really acceptable.” I hadn’t even realized that Connor was in the room as well until his growling voice broke through my ears. “You need to be more careful these days. You are in real danger here. We don’t know where the demon is and what it wants. You can’t it come after to you when you’re alone.”

  Instinctively, I parted my lips to tell him that I could look after myself thank you very much, I just about managed to stop myself. We had just stopped arguing and I didn’t want to spark it up again. It wasn’t like I could handle myself alone against this demon anyway or we wouldn’t have found ourselves in the mess we were in.

  “Yeah, well… I’ll see what I can do,” I bit back instead. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on all of these books.”

  I stared down hopelessly at them, wishing I could have focused more. I couldn’t get to sleep as quickly as I wanted to because I still felt all strange and cold, as if the demon was still in the room with me. So, I decided to spend time wisely and do my reading… but it seemed that neither of those things had really worked out for me.

  “We’re just glad that you had a rest,” Duncan joined in, clearly sensing that it was bordering on a row. “We need that because we have a lot going on. We have to get back out there to fight the demon before it can get worse.”

  An instant chill raced through my body, making me shudder violently. Artemis spotted this and gave me a sympathetic smile. This was embarrassing, but at least it wasn’t Connor who spotted my weakness.

  “Yes, of course.” I gulped and nodded. “We do. Do we know where the hell we are going?”

  Duncan smiled before continuing, glad that we were on the same page and focused on the mission at hand. “Well, we have been using the tracker with Artemis’s magic, but it isn’t as powerful as yours. So, while we’re pretty sure the demon is in England, we need you to get it more narrowed down than that.”

  “Yes, of course. England is a big place. We can’t just look through it all. Erm… do you mind if I just have a moment to get freshened up?” I glanced around at them all, waiting for a response, but I didn’t get anything there. “I just need a quick shower and to get changed. So, would privacy be okay or is that too much to ask?”

  “We don’t want to leave you,” Trevor said quietly. “We’re worried about you.”

  “You don’t need to be worried about me.” I shook my head firmly. “Look, Zena could come back at any moment as well. It isn’t like I have this room to myself, so don’t you think it’s better if I come to you after?” I didn’t want to get down on my damn knees and plead, but I was getting dangerously close to having to. I needed a moment to myself after that awful night of sleep to get my head intact. “The demon is in England anyway.”

  “We are in the Hydra building.” I couldn’t believe it, Connor was the one to finally agree with me. “Room one. Meet us there and please don’t be too long because we have a lot to get on with and we all need to be together.”

  As I looked at him, I felt a tentative alliance forming between us. I didn’t trust him, and I wasn’t sure if he trusted me either, but we were going to work together to make this work out for us. We had our very obvious differences, but we were going to see passed that so we could achieve our goal of making our wrong right once more. We had to do it anyway, there was no getting out of it, so working together would ensure we worked to fix this quickly.

  “Okay,” I declared cautiously, my eyes flickering over them all. “I will be there as soon as I can be.”

  As they left, Artemis paused to give me what appeared to be a longing stare. I wanted to say something to him, anything to beg him to stay and continue talking with me, but he didn’t come alone. All of them were a team, a harem. They were all as one so if I wanted him, that would mean I wanted them all. That was a bit much. So, I stepped back and let them leave, knowing that it was the right thing to do. For now, anyway.

  Once they were all gone, my stiff shoulders slumped, and I relaxed a bit. Those men did something to me and it was a little hard to get my head around. No one had ever affected me in such an intense manner before and it was too much for me. Hate, love, like, dislike, I didn’t know which one to settle on in total.

  I shook my head and headed towards the bathroom to finally wash all of these confusing emotions off of me. Unfortunately, the academy didn’t have the greatest bathroom equipment in the world, so I couldn’t get the jets of water as powerful and hot as I would have liked, but it was enough. It would have to be.

  We do
n’t want anyone to get hurt, I reminded myself as my eyes slid closed. So, however, we feel about one another, we have to put that aside to save other innocent people who didn’t create this mess…

  As I considered this, Connor’s brown eyes popped into my mind, with a warmth attached to them that I hadn’t seen before. Not in real life anyway. Then Duncan’s gray gaze pierced through me, followed by Trevor’s sky blue eyes that matched his beautiful dragon scales, and Artemis, whose stare looked like the ocean. My heart raced a little faster, pounding against my rib cage, confusing me even further. I guess I hadn’t ever had the attention of four guys like this before and it was too damn much. I liked it more than I wanted to, so much it scared me.

  Once out of the shower, I picked my outfit far more carefully than I would have done normally, as well as the items I tossed into a backpack just in case this took longer than we thought it might. I tried to tell myself that this was because I needed to be careful in any weather conditions, but a part of me wanted to look amazing for them. I wanted them to look at me like someone who could be worthy. I knew that was utterly pathetic because why would they even look in my direction when they could have had anyone that they wanted? But still… I couldn’t change my desire to stand out, just for once in my life. I couldn’t resist wanting to be really seen.

  “Okay,” I whispered to my anxious looking reflection in the mirror. “It’s time to go.”

  My red hair hung around my shoulders, still dripping a bit from the water, but I didn’t want to waste time drying it. Plus, it always looked a lot better if I allowed it to dry naturally. I half considered tying it back off my face but stopped myself at the very last minute. I didn’t have time to worry about anything like that. I had been lucky enough to get through all of this without Zena coming back into the dorm room. I didn’t want to push it any further. I couldn’t stand her attitude right now. I had a feeling that she might know the dragons had been in here.