“I can’t believe they’re letting the Gathering of Clans ball go on this weekend. Even worse, my parents are forcing me to go.”
I recognized that voice.
I clenched my fists. Aria Forbes. That snake.
My jaguar roared in agreement; she didn’t like Aria any more than I did.
“What with Elise being dead and all. It just doesn’t feel right,” Aria said.
“Passed away. Don’t say dead. Be more sympathetic.” That voice sounded like Stephanie Decker, the redhead I’d seen with Aria the other day.
“Sorry. I’m not good with words right now. Or maybe never. But either way, I think they should cancel the whole affair. What’s the use of a ball anyway, especially considering only royals get to go. Which is so old-fashioned, by the way.”
“Probably to celebrate the wealth and power of the jaguar clan,” a third voice I didn’t recognize answered. A shower stall opened somewhere, and a girl hurried out, her footsteps rushing across the floor.
“Wealth and power they don’t really have,” the third voice continued. “It’s just theatrics and show, if you ask me.”
“Stupid ball.” Aria spat out the word in the same tone she’d spat out her insults directed to me. “Those jaguars are weak and pathetic.”
My jaguar sent me a mental picture of pinning Aria to the floor and growling at her. If I could still shift, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do that in a heartbeat.
We jaguars had been powerful once, but now everyone thought us weak and pathetic.
Once upon a time, jaguars had been one of the kings of the jungle, outmatched only by lions and tigers. Yet, it had been the jaguar clan that had been chosen, in the Treaty of Clans signed by all clans by the shifter leaders, to rule over all the other clans. For over a thousand years, our clan had ruled. According to the treaty, other clans could challenge our power, and it would be decided by a duel to the death, between the best fighter of their clan, and the best fighter of our clan.
A duel to the death hadn’t been done in over a hundred years. My mother was a powerful shifter, and I doubted more than a handful of shifters existed who would dare to challenge her, and even less few who would actually stand a chance.
No one would dare call the jaguar clan “weak and pathetic” when my mother was around. I cringed my teeth and willed myself to remain quiet because unlike my mother, I wasn’t a fierce warrior.
“Yet, they’re still the clan leaders,” Stephanie, being the more rational and calm of the two, said, “so we best get along with them.”
“Even if the Duchess intermingled with humans?” Aria asked.
“We live in human cities and eat human food,” Stephanie said. “And when we’re not shifted into our animal forms, we’re basically all humans anyway, right?”
“Ugh.” The third person groaned out loud. “I wish you wouldn’t say it like that. You might as well call us mutts or something.”
“It’s the truth, though, isn’t it?” Stephanie said. “Anyway, I don’t think the ball will be such a bad idea. It’ll allow us to think about something else than what happened to Elise.”
“If they can take her out, they can take anyone out,” the third voice said. “She was a leopard, for God’s sake.”
“You’re the one worried?” Aria huffed. “You’re a bear, Jenna. You’ll manage.”
I mentally checked if I knew any bear shifter named Jenna but my mind came up blank, so I probably hadn’t been introduced to her yet.
“That new girl, Indra? Isn’t she a snake like you?” the third one, Jenna, asked.
“Yeah,” Aria replied. “Too bad she’s hanging out with the likes of that half-blood.”
My blood froze in my veins. I hoped they wouldn’t catch me here. Naked, my hair half-soaped in, I’d never felt more vulnerable before in my life. Three of them, one of me. They would like those odds. Even if I could shift, a bear wasn’t something you took on every day, even if you were a jaguar.
My own inner jaguar growled at me, annoyed. She wasn’t deterred by anything, not by any bear. My jaguar had confidence enough for the both of us, but logically speaking, taking on a bear was madness.
“Half-blood or not, she’s a royal,” Stephanie said. “It’s dangerous to speak ill of them, and you all know that.”
“You know what I’ve heard?” Jenna asked. “This is top-secret, though. I’ve heard it from my father’s aunt, who is best friends with the Duchess’ niece’s third cousin. The rumor is that the…” She lowered her voice. “She can’t shift. The half-blood can’t shift.”
My mouth dropped open. I wanted to crawl into a little ball and disappear, inch all the way back to my mother’s womb and never be born.
My darkest secret, out there, exposed for the entire world.
“That’s just hearsay,” Stephanie said. “The Duchess’ niece’s third cousin doesn’t exactly sound like a reliable source. No offense.”
“Wasn’t your father’s aunt the one who started that whole rumor about rat shifters still spreading the plague?” Aria said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t believe a word that woman says.”
“Besides, just because no one’s seen her do it doesn’t mean that she can’t,” Stephanie added. “I mean, how stupid would the Duchess be to keep her daughter as an heir if she can’t even shift into a jaguar?”
“Hmm. You’re right,” Jenna said. “The Duchess is nothing if not smart. If she hadn’t been so good at politics, she would’ve lost her throne a long time ago.”
The door opened again, and another pair of footsteps walked in. “Is there a meeting I wasn’t invited to or something? Are we all doing our makeup before dinner today?”
I recognized the voice as Reyna Felton’s.
“Sorry. We just came from the tennis court, and we needed to freshen up,” Stephanie said. “We have to look our best for dinner.”
Aria grunted. “By ‘we’ she means herself. She still has a crush on that otter boy, and she dragged Jenna and me here. Speaking of dragging us here, are you almost done? That eyeliner is starting to look like a coloring book.”
“Excuse me that I want to look pretty rather than sweaty and gross,” Stephanie replied. “Anyway, I’m almost done. Lipstick time. Meanwhile, Reyna, we were talking about that half-blood girl. The new one.”
“You were?” Reyna paused for a second, and then I heard her sniffing the air.
Oh God. Leopard. Enhanced smell. Of all the shifters present in the room, she had the best sense of smell by far. She would be able to smell me, no doubt.
“Well, you rank pretty high on the list of stupid then, because that ‘half-blood girl’ has been here all along.”
Before I could do anything but grab a towel to wrap around myself, Reyna yanked the door to my shower stall open.
I stood there, draped in nothing but the towel, staring at the four other girls.
Three I’d met before, but Jenna, the bear shifter, was a curvy, small girl with a brown pixie cut. I recognized her from class that morning, but I hadn’t caught her name then.
“What the—?” Aria glared daggers at me. “Eavesdropping now, are we?”
My pulse quickened, and I pulled the towel tighter around myself. “Maybe you shouldn’t have barged into the bathroom and started spilling your rumors faster than a gossip magazine, then I wouldn’t have had to hear it all.”
“You should learn your place,” Aria said, her eyes changing into smaller slits, the whites slowly turning green. She hissed, and her tongue swirled out of her mouth, forked and long, the tongue of a snake. She was changing into her animal form.
Uh-oh.
“Don’t,” Reyna snapped at her friend. “You know the rules, shifting on school grounds isn’t allowed. Calm down.”
Aria kept glaring at me, but her eyes turned back to their normal color.
“I don’t want a confrontation right here in the bathroom,” Reyna said. She sounded tired rather than angry. “No one wants that.” She turned to Aria and l
ooked her straight in the eyes. “You need to back off and leave her alone.”
Aria stepped back and blinked at her, eyes filled with surprise. “What?”
“You heard me, all right. Back off and leave her alone.”
“You told us yourself that you suspect a jaguar killed your sister, Reyna,” Jenna said incredulously. “Holmes’s mother is supposed to be able to control her clan members, isn’t she? If the jaguar Duchess wasn’t so weak, then she would’ve been able to keep her clan under control, and what happened to Elise wouldn’t have happened.”
Reyna stayed quiet for a second. “But it did, and nothing we do here today will change that. This girl didn’t kill Elise; she wasn’t even here when it happened.” She crossed her arms. “We’re all angry and upset, but taking it out on someone else is not the way. Come on, let’s go.”
Aria grunted reluctantly, but she did go in the direction Reyna said, outside into the hall. Jenna followed suit.
A sigh of relief escaped me. Thank God Reyna had told her lackeys to back off, because with them shifting, no way would I have been able to take them on without being able to shift myself.
“Sorry,” Stephanie whispered at me and then followed the both of them, leaving only Reyna and me.
“Thank you. I think,” I said. I was still wary of just standing there in my towel, soap clinging to my half-washed hair, but at least I wasn’t in the presence of three shifters ready to attack me anymore.
“They’re just looking for someone to blame,” Reyna said matter-of-factly. “I’m sorry that’s been you. They’ll calm down soon enough.” She paused and looked at me. “I don’t want animosity between us. Maybe our houses don’t always get along, but I’ve seen you around at the clan Gatherings, and you look like a decent person to me.”
“I saw you and your sister once or twice, too.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for what happened to her. I…I heard she was writing a dissertation about jaguars and how our clan is too weak to lead the other clans. Did you know about that?”
Reyna scratched her chin. “Elise was convinced the jaguar clan wasn’t powerful enough anymore to be competent leaders. She thought the position should go to the leopard clan next. I’ve never read her dissertation about it, but she told me she was working on something. It was just one girl’s opinion, though. I don’t think the clans would even look at it at the Gathering of Clans. She seemed convinced they would, but…” Reyna shrugged. “I’m not so sure.”
“And what do you think?” I tried to keep my chin up, my posture regal—which was kind of hard considering I was almost naked. “Do you think she was right? Do you think the jaguar clan is weak?”
Reyna focused right at me, unblinking. “I think that, if they killed her, they certainly are. If you’re weak enough that you must kill a teenage girl to defend your clan’s position, then you don’t deserve the throne.”
For a moment, she remained quiet, her gaze burning into mine.
“But until I have a proof a jaguar killed her, proof beyond a doubt and far beyond hearsay, then I’m not ready to believe anything yet.”
Before I could say anything else, she pivoted on her heel and left, slamming the bathroom door closed behind her.
I slumped against the wall in relief. My jaguar sighed contently, too, and lay down on the floor, ready to take a nap.
I’d been more terrified in those seconds Reyna looked me in the eyes, although she hadn’t even threatened me, than I’d been of all Aria’s threats. If Reyna shifted into a leopard, she could tear me apart in seconds.
Maybe we did need the leopard clan as the head of our kingdom, after my mother. Reyna would be a far worthier duchess than I would ever be, far stronger, far more competent.
The shower stall door at the end of the room creaked open, and a petite, redheaded girl with streaks of brown in her hair walked out.
“You shouldn’t listen to them,” she said as she walked from the stall door to one of the washbasins and started fixing her make up. “I’m Roxanne Donovan. Fox shifter.”
“Marisol Holmes. Jaguar shifter. Nice to meet you?” The last sentence came out as a question.
“Yes, nice to meet you.” She smiled at me. “They’ve always been full of themselves, those girls. Don’t let them fool you. The reason why they’re all so eager to declare the jaguar clan’s weakness is because they’re afraid. Afraid of the clan’s true power. Afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me?” I stared at her as if she’d grown three heads. “You’re joking. Why would they be afraid of me?”
“Because you’re the biggest, baddest thing in the animal kingdom. And you’re a half-blood, so they don’t know what comes into play with that. If it makes you stronger or weaker. People have these rumors and gossip mills, and they’re eager to believe it makes you weaker, but they don’t know for sure. And uncertainty creates fear.”
Her entire breakdown of the situation was pretty impressive. “It sounds like a lot of elitist pureblood crap to me.”
“Elitist pureblood crap.” Roxanne laughed, a bubbly sound that instantly made me feel happier than I had all day. “I like the sound of that. Anyway, those girls are the biggest hypocrites I know. Reyna acts like she’s all torn up about what happened to her sister, and the others play along too, but I’m willing to bet they’re secretly relieved.”
“Why?”
“Because Elise had seen the light.” Roxanne turned around and leaned on the washbasin as she faced me. “She had this master plan to write a paper about the weaknesses of the jaguar clan, but the more she dug into it, the more she realized that it was like opening a can of worms. That, although the jaguar clan’s current position is weak, too many other clans would strive for the throne. Obviously, being a leopard, Elise wanted the kingdom to fall to the leopard clan. But the cheetahs, the lions, the tigers, they’re all equally strong, if not stronger.” Roxanne shrugged. “She decided against it. Her sister was the one who was pushing her to go through with the whole thing anyway.”
“Hmm. Weird how she made it seem like it was all Elise, then. She even said she didn’t read it.”
“She’s good at lying,” Roxanne said. “Anyway, I want you to know that not everyone thinks the way they do. I, for one, couldn’t care less who rules and who doesn’t, and who is a pureblood and who is a half-blood.”
“That makes two of us. I wish more people thought this way, though.”
“Don’t let their bullying get you down.” Roxanne applied some dark eye shadow to her eyelids, standing on her toes to get a better view in the mirror. “Anyway, you should put some clothes on, jaguar girl.”
“Oh, right.” I disappeared back into the stall and quickly changed back into my clothes. “So, do you know anything more about her?” I asked while I changed. “Elise.” Roxanne was the first person I’d talked to who didn’t seem on the Elise-had-no-enemies-whatsoever bandwagon. I didn’t want to push my luck, but right now, she was my best lead.
“Not much. I didn’t like her much. Too elitist. Too ‘all about the royals.’ Sure, she’s royal, but don’t push it in other people’s faces every second. You know what I mean? Anyway, I don’t want to talk bad about the recently departed; brings bad luck. I’m much more interested in finding out why you’re here.”
“Me?” I pulled my sweater back over my head, struggling with the arms. The stall was too cramped for me to move properly. “I’m not all that interesting. I have to disappoint you.”
“You’re a Holmes. Wyatt has been talking about you nonstop since you showed up. He’s quite the fan.”
I opened the shower stall door and walked back out. “You know Wyatt?”
“Word travels fast around here.” Roxanne added some eyeliner on her already darkly shadowed eyes. “And Wyatt is my bestie. We’re both outsiders. Most people think Wyatt is too nerdy; they think I’m too clever. Let them think what they want.”
I couldn’t have agreed more with her statement. “And why is Wyatt a fan of me?” A blush
crept up my cheeks at the thought of it. Indra had mentioned something of the sort earlier, too, but considering I actually had a fan was kind of weird. My great grandfather had thousands of fans, but me? I didn’t even have any real friends.
“Well, not you you,” Roxanne said as she pouted her lips and applied some dark red lipstick. “Holmes. The family name. The legacy. Wyatt devours mystery novels a dime a dozen, and your great-great-something grandfather happens to be world’s most famous detective.”
“So, he’s not trying to be my friend,” I said as I started drying my hair. “He’s a creepy stalker fan.”
Roxanne turned to me. “You’ve got humor, Holmes. I like that. Anyway, I’m done here. See you at dinner.” She waved at me and then half-skipped out of the bathroom.
As far as foxes went, Roxanne might be a little weird, but she had seemed honest in her answers.
If Elise had been trying to back out of discussing the paper during the Gathering of Clans, then fervent supporters of her worldview would have been disappointed. Maybe even disappointed in her to the point of wanting to kill her.
If they were completely convinced she’d changed her mind, convinced she’d betrayed them, then that might be enough to push someone over the edge.
But who would be capable of doing that?
Who would be smart enough to get a jaguar claw, dip it into poison, and then stab Elise Felton to death? Who had access to all these materials?
As I stared at the bathroom door through which the horrible triplets had walked earlier, something clicked in my mind.
Aria Forbes was a snake shifter. And snakes relied predominantly on one thing for their kill.
Their poison.
Chapter Eighteen
“Venom, technically,” I told Indra as we were having dinner in the cafeteria downstairs. We’d picked a secluded corner and were whispering. The lunchroom was extremely crowded and loud, so chances of anyone overhearing our conversation were extremely slim. Some of the kids gave me angry glares as I’d passed them by, and one, who by the smell of it, was a skunk, even whispered, “Filthy half-blood” to me. I was glad Indra and I had found a secluded corner so we could be on our own.
A Study In Shifters Page 13
