Enchanted Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I don’t mean my name. I mean, I’m an actual, shapeshifting wolf. Like, a werewolf.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “I know.”

  He knew?

  What did he mean, he knew?

  She looked at Red curiously.

  “What do you mean?”

  He stepped forward, and he reached out to her. He grabbed her shoulders and held them. Then he looked at her right in the eyes.

  Wolf felt like her entire heart might explode.

  In any other situation, this would be the stuff of dreams. This would be the type of thing that made her melt.

  This wasn’t romance, though. This wasn’t a romantic thing.

  At least, that’s what she told herself.

  She wasn’t really sure if it was true.

  “Natasha,” he whispered, and suddenly, everything disappeared except for the two of them and this moment. She stopped thinking about her friends. She stopped thinking about Beast and Jessica. She stopped worrying, and she just looked at Red.

  He was a handsome boy, and he was smart, and he was kind, and now, he was missing his grandmother.

  She could help him.

  But how did he know she was a wolf?

  “My grandmother told me.”

  “How?” How did she know? Natasha thought she had been so careful in concealing her identity. She hadn’t told Jessica for months. As far as she knew, no one else besides the headmistress, Stacy, and Belle knew her secret.

  That was the way it needed to be.

  “She’s a very...observant...person.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she sees, understands, and hears much more than she lets on.”

  “Red, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that she confided in me, Natasha. She told me what you were. Does that freak you out?”

  “No,” she whispered, and it was the truth. It shouldn’t be, she knew. She should be afraid of him. She should dislike him. She should be scared of Red.

  But she wasn’t.

  “It doesn’t freak me out, either,” he said.

  Then he kissed her.

  In the middle of the living room and in front of everyone, Red kissed Wolf, and she felt her heart soar.

  Chapter 8

  “We should leave these lovedragons alone,” Beast whispered to me.

  “Forget that,” I said. I wasn’t going anywhere without answers and in my opinion, Red was the one with the questions and Wolf was the one with the answers.

  If awkwardly watching them share their first kiss was what it took to solve the mystery of the missing baker, then so be it.

  Luckily, Wolf pulled away after about twelve seconds, so the moment didn’t last long.

  “What was that for?”

  “No matter what happens,” he said. “I want you to know how I feel.”

  “Okay,” Wolf whispered. “Let’s go find your grandmother.”

  “That’s it?” Beast asked, interjecting.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  “Oh, come on, darling. No great declaration of love? No incredible oh, I’ve loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you? Really? None of that?”

  “It’s not my style,” Wolf said, but Red didn’t seem to mind. She turned back to him. “Take us to her room,” she said, and he nodded.

  “We need to be careful,” I said. “We can’t let the boys be seen in here.”

  “That’s true,” Red agreed. “If we get caught, we’re as good as grounded until the end of eternity, and it’ll be hard to save Grandma from my room.”

  The teachers at Enchanted Academy took rule violations quite seriously. If you wandered into the wrong dorm or were caught disobeying one of the very specific rules for behavior, you’d be magically grounded to a specific place. You could go to classes, but then it would be straight back to your bedroom or to a specific detention classroom until further notice. Attempts to leave would be fruitless.

  It was like being locked in a room with invisible doors, and the worst part was that the magical barriers only applied to the student being grounded. So, if Red was grounded to his room for example, his roommates could still come and go as they pleased. Only he himself would be affected. If a student was stuck in a detention room, though, there would be a magical barrier wall erected and nobody could come in or out of the room until the correct number of hours of detention had been completed.

  Yeah, getting in trouble was so not worth it.

  “How are we going to get them out?” Wolf asked. “A better question, I think, is how did you get in?”

  Red shrugged.

  “We just kept our heads down,” he said.

  “That’s a lie,” Beast said. “We flirted our way in.”

  “What?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “It’s true,” Red said. “He flirted enough for both of us. He was sweet-talking one of the girls downstairs and she just giggled and walked away. Nobody else was around to notice the fact that we came in. Nobody even questioned it or cared.”

  “Typical,” I rolled my eyes.

  So, Beast had been flirting, huh?

  I wondered what it would be like to flirt with that guy. I wondered what it would be like to be the center of that magnificent creature’s attention. I shouldn’t wonder. I shouldn’t want him at all. I didn’t have time for a boyfriend, I reminded myself.

  I didn’t have time for love.

  “What about the windows?” I asked. “Could we go out the windows?”

  “And what?” Beast asked, frowning. “Magic our way down the outside of the building?”

  “Worth a shot,” I grumbled. “We could always use the fire escape ropes.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Red said.

  “No,” Wolf shook her head. “If we do that, it’ll set off the alarms and the teachers will come out of the woodwork. We need something else.”

  “What about a disguise?” I suggested, and to my surprise, everyone looked at me like they’d never thought about that before at all.

  “What kind of a disguise?”

  “Anything,” I said. “A hat. Sunglasses. Trenchcoat.”

  “Are you just listing items from old cartoons?” Beast asked.

  “So, what if I am?” I glared at him.

  Stupid Beast, making me want him. He was bad for me, and I knew it, but there was still a little part of me that dared to hope. It wasn’t that I thought I could save him.

  Well, maybe that was exactly what it was.

  Either way, that wasn’t how healthy relationships were made.

  “A disguise isn’t a bad idea,” Wolf said. “Hold on.”

  She went into her bedroom and emerged a few seconds later with an assortment of robes, hats, and bags.

  “Try these on,” she said.

  “No way,” Beast raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, way.”

  “Look,” Beast said. “I’m here to supervise this little rescue mission, but I’m not wearing a robe, a hat, and a,” he wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Bag. Try again.”

  “Whatever,” Wolf said. She tossed a robe to Red, and he happily slipped it on, along with a wide-brimmed hat. If nobody looked at him too closely, he kind of resembled an aging witch. People would probably think he was an auntie or a grandmother. Nobody, as far as I thought, would think he was anything other than old and magical.

  Nobody.

  “Very good,” I said.

  “Here,” Wolf adjusted the brim of his hat. Then she kind of just looked at him for a minute. I wondered what was going through her head. She looked at him like she was crazy about him, but confused, and I wondered if she was. I’d never kissed a guy before, so I wasn’t really sure what it felt like or what to expect if that ever happened to me.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Then again, with the staring.

  “Come on, already,” Beast said. “Let’s go. There will b
e plenty of time for romance later.”

  “We’re not being romantic,” Wolf lied.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Beast told her. Then he opened the door to the suite and walked out. I looked over at Red and Wolf. If they were surprised at Beast’s determination to leave, they didn’t say anything.

  “He’s going to get in trouble,” I said.

  “Let him,” Red shrugged.

  “It’s his choice,” Wolf agreed, but I didn’t like the idea that he was going to be punished. Not for trying to help our little group.

  I hurried out of the dorm room and over to where he was striding down the hall and toward the stairs. The hallways on the 8th floor were all balcony-style in design. If you looked over the edge, you could see all the way to the lobby. I peered over and saw that there were some people on a few different floors, but everyone seemed to be busy with their own activities. A few people were milling about, but for the most part, the balconies seemed pretty clear.

  I hurried to catch up with Beast, who was already at the stairs.

  “What do you want?” He asked. He didn’t look up at me, and for some reason, that stung.

  “I’m just keeping up with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have the same goal.”

  “And what’s that, exactly?”

  “Uh, saving Red’s grandma?”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t know anything about helping people, Jessica.”

  That bristled. Who did he think he was, anyway? And what was with his crazy mood swings? It was so not fair that he was acting like this.

  “Excuse me?” I said. I hurried, finding myself next to him. I matched his pace as he scurried down the stairs to the 7th floor, and then the 6th, and then the 5th. “What are you even talking about? You don’t know anything about me, Beast.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” he said.

  I grabbed his arm and he stopped, spinning around.

  “What?” He hissed at me.

  “What’s your problem?” I growled right back.

  You could take the kid out of the system, but I knew who I was in my heart. I would always be someone who was running. I would always be someone who was fighting. When I was in foster care, it was dog-eat-dog, and I totally understood that the smallest dog wasn’t always the weakest. Sometimes it was the tiny ones you had to watch out for.

  Beast underestimated me at every turn, but I wasn’t going to let him underestimate me now.

  “My problem is you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “I haven’t even done anything to you.”

  “You ignore me at every chance.”

  “And you’re mean!”

  “You haven’t even given me a chance to get to know you.”

  “You don’t even like me!”

  I was aware of the fact that we were getting louder and louder, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. He was getting under my skin in a way nobody ever had before. I wanted to slap him or fight him. I wanted to get him to admit that he’d been kind of a jerk and that he wasn’t as great as he thought he was.

  I wanted to find out why he’d tricked me and why he’d been mean to me.

  But mostly, I wanted to find out why anytime I was around him, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  “Like you?” He said. And then his eyes narrowed. Suddenly, the air around us shifted, and it seemed like everything was getting darker. Suddenly, as far as I could tell, we were the only two people in the entire universe.

  And I didn’t seem to mind at all.

  “You hate me,” I whispered.

  “And what would give you an idea like that?” He asked.

  “You’re...you’re a bully.”

  “Am I?”

  “Everyone knows it.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said. “So, everyone gets to decide your opinion of me?”

  He walked forward, but I stepped back. We were still on the stairs, but my back was against the wall now, and he was in my face. He was so close that I could smell him. He was so close that I felt faint. He smelled good and I had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him. I balled my hands into fists.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not that shallow.”

  “I think you are,” he said.

  Now his face was so close to mine that our lips were almost touching. I’d never kissed a boy, and I realized this was the closest I’d ever gotten. If I moved at all, our lips would meet, and I so wasn’t ready for something like that.

  “I’m not,” I whispered.

  “You’ve judged me,” he said. “And you don’t even know me.”

  Then he just stared at me. He planted his hands on the wall beside my head, boxing me in. I was effectively trapped between his arms, but somehow, I didn’t feel scared. I just felt like I wanted...well, him.

  I wanted him.

  I wanted Beast to notice me and, well, now he was noticing me.

  Not much I could do about that.

  For a second, I wondered if he was going to kiss me. Maybe this would be my big moment. Maybe here, on the day we were trying to find Red’s grandmother, I would find something else.

  Myself.

  I looked at him and licked my lips. His eyes darted to my mouth but then they were right back on my own eyes. He raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?”

  Instantly, he stepped back. Red and Wolf were standing there, staring at us. Red looked a little crazy, but definitely like someone’s aunt. I’d say the disguise was quite effective.

  “Nothing,” Beast said.

  Then he started walking down the stairs again.

  “Nothing at all.”

  Chapter 9

  Wolf looked at the little house in the forest. It wasn’t really what she expected, but then again, who expected to find a candy-colored little house in the forest? It was a single story home that probably only had one room. The exterior of the home was painted bright colors. It reminded her of a packet of gum or a handful of lollipops. The home was striped horizontally with blue, red, green stripes. There were pink and purple stripes, too. Somehow, the colors didn’t clash at all. If anything, they just made the space look even more fantastic and wonderful.

  “This is where your grandmother lives?” She asked her friend. Wolf wondered what it must be like to live in a place like this. It was the kind of place she’d write about in the stories she wrote secretly when no one was around.

  “Yeah,” Red nodded. He looked at the house and smiled. He was proud of it, she realized. He was proud of his grandmother and everything she did. When he looked at the house, he didn’t just see a little building. He saw her. He saw the life Grandmother had built there. He saw the memories they had made in that house.

  Wolf was a little jealous, she realized. Her own family had never been close. She’d never known what it must feel like to be totally and completely loved in that way. Not in the way Red loved his granny. No, their love was something truly incredible, and it was something no one could ever take away from them.

  “It’s cute,” Jessica pointed out, staring up at the house. It wasn’t very big, but it was the kind of place you’d never forget. Once you came across a house like this, well, there was no turning back. It was magical through-and-through. No doubt about it.

  “She built it herself, about a million years ago,” Red said. “She’s worked here since the school started.”

  “And this is where she works her magic, huh?” Wolf looked at the tiny house. It looked like something from a wonderful children’s book. It was a tiny little house with a bright red door and a window on either side. She guessed that it was probably a single room, maybe two, and that it would smell like cookies and candy when they went inside.

  Red approached the door and pulled a charm from his pocket.

  “What’s that?”
Jessica asked.

  “It’ll let me inside,” he said.

  He dangled it by the doorknob and then turned it. Sure enough, the door swung open and they all went inside. The interior of the house was quite cute, and it was exactly as Wolf imagined it would be. There was a single bed, a little rocking chair, and a big kitchen full of any number of baking supplies. There was more flour than she’d ever seen in her life.

  And it all smelled like hot cocoa.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Red said. “Well, this is where I was supposed to meet her, and she wasn’t here.”

  “Do you come here often?”

  “Every day.”

  “Does she have any enemies?” Jessica asked.

  “No.”

  “Nobody who disliked her?” Beast threw in.

  “No.”

  “Man of few words, huh?” Wolf said.

  “I guess.”

  Red looked distraught. He looked worried, and for good reason. Grandmothers didn’t just disappear. Not in your daily life, and certainly not at Enchanted Academy.

  “Well, what does she usually do in the mornings?”

  “We usually meet up for cocoa and breakfast before she goes to the dorms. Then she spends her days there with the kids.”

  “Why didn’t you report her missing this morning?” Beast asked. “You still went to class.”

  Red looked embarrassed.

  “I thought maybe I’d just missed her or she’d been busy or something,” he said. “But when I checked here again after class and she wasn’t here, and she wasn’t in the dorms, then I knew something was wrong.”

  He looked to Wolf and raised an eyebrow.

  “Can you help me?”

  She took a deep breath.

  This was the kind of thing she’d been born for, she knew. She wasn’t particularly smart or brave or clever, but she had a nose.

  Now she could use it.

  “Everybody turn around,” she said. They looked confused, but they listened. Wolf didn’t want to shift while they were looking. She’d tear her clothes and then she’d have nothing to wear. She’d much rather take everything off, shift, do her thing, and then shift back and get dressed.

  Yep.

  That was her super-complicated and decidedly boring plan.