The Body Swap (Werewolf High Book 3)

by Anita Oh

  Tennyson blinked again.

  "Lucy, are you okay?" asked Liam. "You don't seem like yourself."

  Wow, that was a creepily on-point remark, I thought. I made the danger signal to Tennyson from behind the laptop.

  "I feel sick. I have to go," Tennyson said, then ended the call.

  "Great going," I told him. "How about next you go see my teachers and say things to offend them so I fail the year… Oh, wait, you've already done that."

  "Maybe he needs Lucy lessons!" said Sam. He seemed way too amused.

  Tennyson sniffed haughtily, and I rolled my eyes.

  "See, that right there. Don't sniff like you're a princess. Snort like an indignant bulldog," I told him.

  But no matter how many handy pointers I gave him, he just wasn't a natural.

  Chapter 9

  Although I hadn't been able to get near Hannah, Nikolai had apparently been keeping close watch on her. I literally stumbled into him in the gardens the next morning, watching her walk to class.

  "You did this even before we knew she was evil, didn't you?" I said.

  "Shut up," he said. "I'm conducting an important reconnaissance mission."

  "No, you're not. You're being an old-fashioned creeper. I thought that was just a Tennyson Wilde thing, but are all of you like that?"

  I knew they'd had Hannah looked into before the whole body swap thing, and they'd done a bit of poking around about Hannah's father as well, though there wasn't a lot they could do without arousing the suspicion of Tennyson's mother. Still, we hadn't even found out Hannah's father's name. Everything about Hannah and her family was a massive mystery, which was weird, considering they'd all gone to school together all their lives.

  "You think I'd like a girl who tried to hurt my pack?" he asked.

  I shrugged. "I think it makes you like her more, TBH."

  He turned away from me, back to his lookout spot, then made an annoyed huffing noise. "Now I've lost her," he said, putting away his binoculars. "That's a whole morning's work down the tube."

  "Stalking girls is work for you?" I asked him. "What exactly is your job title?"

  He gave me an annoyed look, then sighed and sat down on the bench. "I just really liked her," he said. "Ever since we were small. I know not all the other girls around here are shallow and horrible, but I never really get a chance to talk to any of them because they seem to freak out and run away when I come near. Hannah's different. She never seemed to care who I was, who my family was. She just ignored me."

  "I didn't freak out and run away," I said, slightly indignant.

  "You're not a girl," he said, wrinkling up his nose. "Quite literally at the moment. Sometimes I'm not even sure you're from this planet. But, anyway, this isn't about you. It's about me and my feelings."

  I snorted.

  "The point is, I don't just like her because she's evil. I like her despite it. I'm very conflicted about it, so I've been watching her in case she's being controlled as well, or there's some other reason for all of this that makes it okay for me to keep on liking her."

  I nodded. "That's fair," I said. "I'll help, if you like. She's my friend, so if there's any way she's innocent, I'd like to keep on being her friend."

  We spent a lot of time together over the next few days, watching Hannah. Maybe she knew we were watching her, but she didn't do anything particularly interesting or out of the ordinary. She went to class, she ate, she studied. Maybe she did all her nefarious business in the dead of night, when we were sleeping. It was impossible to tell. What we needed was more information.

  "We should break into the office and read her school files," I said to Nikolai one afternoon in C&C club. Nobody had said anything about Tennyson Wilde attending a club he hadn't signed up for, because he was Tennyson Wilde and he could do as he pleased, so I figured I could stay up to date in that, at least. People definitely had something to say about Lucy O'Connor being absent, though, but they just muttered it under their breaths, so I figured it was okay to ignore it.

  We were knitting. Nikolai was surprisingly good at it, his needles clacking away. I kept getting my yarn tangled and dropping stitches, but even though it was frustrating and unproductive, it provided a great cover to discuss things away from the others.

  "Leave it to me," Nikolai said. He finished his row on the fluffy hat he was making, and set it carefully on his knitting basket. "I'll be back in a jiffy!"

  I was making a striped scarf, only when I looked at it, it was definitely getting thinner as I went along, except for in a few places where it wasn’t. I supposed it would still keep my neck warm, though, so I pushed on. A few of the C&C girls eyed Nikolai's empty seat with anticipation, and I hoped he'd return before any of them got up the courage to sit in it. Their knitting was no better than mine, so it wasn't as if I could even get them to help me out.

  Nikolai was back super fast, anyway. He sat down with a pleased grin and pulled a USB stick out of his pocket to show me.

  "All her files, from her first term at Amaris to now."

  I raised my eyebrows. "You broke into the office in broad daylight?"

  He chuckled and picked up his knitting. "No. I'm Nikolai Volkov. I smiled at the office girl, and she gave me whatever I wanted."

  Annoying as it was that he could just flout security like that, it was still very convenient. I couldn't wait to go through the files and finally get some answers. I loaded the files onto Nikolai's laptop while he tried to fix my scarf, tutting at me when he held it up and saw the strange shape.

  "I'm making an artistic statement," I told him, waiting for the files to load.

  "Is that statement, 'I'm terrible at knitting'? Because, if so, you're doing a wonderful job."

  As soon as I opened the first file, I knew I was set for disappointment. Any information that might have been the slightest bit helpful had been removed. Parents' names, place of birth, anything that would help us trace her — it was just not there. There was only a record of her grades, which were average. There were no behavioral issues, nothing interesting at all.

  "Maybe it's a fake name," said Nikolai. "Though, if so, she's had it since she was five years old, which is suspicious in itself."

  He gave my scarf up as a lost cause and put it back in my basket. Then he hid the basket behind my chair, as if it was too much of an abomination to even look at.

  "She said her aunt is on the school board," I said, thinking aloud. "Maybe we can find her that way."

  "I'll ask around," Nikolai said, but he sounded dubious. "If they've gone so far as to delete school records, they're obviously covering their tracks."

  I knew he was right, but I didn't have any other ideas.

  On the way to dinner after C&C club, we ran into Tennyson in the hall. He looked unkempt, and I could tell that he wasn't happy.

  "Hey," said Nikolai. "We're heading to the dining hall. Where are you going?"

  Tennyson was going the opposite direction. He shrugged, but before he could speak, the girls from C&C club flocked around us, pushing him off to the side.

  "Hi," said one of the girls. "You don't need to worry about her. I'm sure she can find the dining hall without any help." She gave us a big, fake smile.

  Another one of them took me by the arm and turned me away from Tennyson. "If you need some company, we'll help you out."

  "I was watching you work in C&C club," another one said, trying to lead us away. "Your scarf is so beautiful. You have a real talent."

  I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't exactly shake them off and make a big deal out of talking to Tennyson. The real Tennyson Wilde would never do that; he'd just leave me standing there all alone and sad. And he was sad. I could feel it. Each step away from him that we took, his sadness grew. It was different from the feelings of the pack members. That was remote, more like an awareness than a physical sensation. But this — I could feel it as if it were my own emotions. It felt almost like a psychic link. I was sure that if I concentrated really hard, I could even read
his thoughts.

  I glanced back at him and when our eyes met, I could sense his surprise. He was clearly having the same experience.

  I turned the corner. Once he was out of sight, and the sensation abruptly ended. Okay, so that was something.

  I pulled away from the C&C girls and rushed back to the Golden House. He was waiting for me just inside the gate.

  "That's not normal, right?" I asked him. "We aren't pack-related or wolf-in-laws or anything, so why am I feeling your feels? I don't want to feel them. I don't even want to feel my own."

  I started to panic. Or maybe he started to panic. It was impossible to tell. Was this what Hannah had meant by our becoming each other? It was as if we were melting into the same person, and I didn't know if we'd ever be able to separate completely again.

  "This is not okay," I told him. "We need to sort this out."

  What if I was having private emotions that I wanted to keep private? Or private thoughts? I didn't want to become some weird sort of Lucy-Tennyson hybrid.

  "Calm down," Tennyson said as I turned back to the gate to go find Hannah. "We can't do anything if we're both overcome with emotion."

  But I didn't care. I didn't want to melt, to become someone I didn't even recognize.

  "Stay there," I told him. "If we're not together, it won't be as bad."

  But this time, it kept happening even when he was out of sight. It only lasted about thirty seconds, but back in the hallway, it had stopped instantly, as soon as he was out of sight. That meant it was only going to get worse.

  I still had my access card to the Red House, so I swiped my way in and hurried up to my room. People seemed shocked to see Tennyson Wilde there, but I ignored them.

  Hannah was sitting cross-legged on the bed, studying. She looked up when I burst in and smiled faintly.

  "Reverse it," I said. "Reverse it now."

  "No," she said.

  "You're supposed to be my friend. How could you do this?"

  She shrugged, one-shouldered. "You were supposed to be my friend, and yet you obviously prefer the company of those barbarians. I thought you were nice, Lucy. I thought you were different. But you're just a nasty social climber like all the others."

  "Wow," I said. "Harsh."

  "I don't know what you want from me," said Hannah. "I've told you what I want and what will happen if I don't get it. Shouldn't you be working on that instead of standing there talking rubbish?"

  It was like trying to talk to a brick wall.

  "You could at least tell me where to start. I don't even know your father's name," I told her. "I don't understand why you're doing this."

  "Don't you?" She gave me a look that was the most uncute thing I'd ever seen her do. "Well, maybe you should think about it, Lucy. You act like you're so smart, like you know so much more than everyone else, so I'm sure you can figure it out on your own."

  I opened my mouth to say something else, though I didn't know what possible response I could have to that, but she held up a hand to stop me. Blue smoke started to curl out from her palm toward me, and it pushed me backwards. I backed out of the room without meaning to, as if I were on an escalator facing the wrong way, and once I was through the door, it slammed in my face. I was left staring at the plaque with our two names engraved in it.

  Chapter 10

  Things only got worse. The more time I spent with Tennyson, especially when we were in the same room, the stronger the bond became, and the longer it lasted when we were apart. Nikolai couldn't find out anything about Hannah's aunt, and eventually we had to admit defeat. The full moon got closer and closer, and I could feel the wolf writhing around inside me, scratching underneath my skin.

  "It was like that just before my first full moon as well," said Sam. "It's normal."

  "It's usually fine once you transform," said Althea, "but in your case, we'll just need to see what happens." She smiled weakly. "I'm sure it will all be fine."

  It didn't feel as if it would be fine. It felt as if that wolf had decided that if it couldn't get out, it would eat me up from the inside out.

  "That's not unusual," said Tennyson Wilde. "Every month it feels like that. You just need to overcome your weakness and control it."

  "Right," I said, raising my eyebrows at him in a way that seemed to convince people that I really was Tennyson Wilde.

  Fairly soon, he had his own monthly problem.

  "I'm dying," he announced. "I am in a great deal of pain, and I think I'm bleeding internally. Also, I would like to commit violence on all those around me. And I'm having an aneurysm."

  Althea rolled her eyes. "I'll deal with this," she told me.

  I was very grateful. Although it was my body, it was still Tennyson in there, and I didn't want to have such a personal conversation with him. I didn't really want him getting so well acquainted with my body, either, but I supposed that couldn't be helped. It was best to just not think about it and let Althea handle it.

  "Just overcome your weakness and deal with it," I told him as Althea led him out of the room.

  Being in a male body wasn't exactly a picnic, either. It did all sorts of random stuff without my permission, but mostly it was stuff I could pretend to ignore. Period pains weren't really something you could brush off, and it was nice that I got to miss out on it for this month.

  The morning of the full moon, though, I started to think I'd rather deal with a year's worth of period pains all at once than being a werewolf. I'd thought before that I understood why Sam was having trouble coping, but I hadn't understood jack squat. Even though I'd spent all my time at Amaris around lycanthropes, I knew nothing. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it definitely wasn't comfortable. I felt as if I was imprisoned by my own skin. I wanted to break out and run free, but it just wasn't possible.

  "Stop doing that," Tennyson told me. "You're only making it worse."

  "I don't even know what I'm doing."

  I stepped in front of the mirror so I could see. I watched as the sensation came over me again and I pushed at it, trying to break free. My eyes glowed. My teeth grew sharp and my nails turned into claws. Various other things happened, but then it got to a point that was like a brick wall, and no matter how much I threw myself against it, I couldn't break through and completely transform.

  "You must really hate witches so much," I said vaguely, checking out my pointy ears.

  "Not really," said Tennyson. "My governess was kind to me, and I understand the reasoning behind what she did."

  Which was all well and good when he was tucked up all cozy in my body. I didn't know how he could forgive someone who had betrayed him so badly, whom he'd trusted and who had cared for him. It made me look at him in a slightly different way, to know that he wasn't completely made of icicles.

  "How do you deal with this?" I asked him. "Doesn't it drive you nuts?"

  "I can still run with the pack," he said. "It helps a little to get out and act like a wolf. It's enough to get me through."

  But the tone of his voice made me think that it wasn't enough at all, that it was slowly killing him.

  As the day dragged on, I really thought I would hurt someone. The others all seemed so calm, it just made me more irritable. We took the day off from classes, and everyone seemed to think that hanging out and supporting me would be helpful, but I just wanted to be alone. I understood why I couldn't be, why they wanted to keep an eye on me, but that didn't make it any more annoying. At least with all the distraction, my bond with Tennyson didn't seem as strong.

  Tennyson had told me once that the full moon gave lycanthropes more control, that they drew their power from the moon, but it felt as though I was filled to the brim with that power and it was overflowing. I had no control; there was nothing I could do that would relieve me of the painful sensations that only grew as night approached.

  I thought Tennyson would stay behind in the house while we went out into the forest, so I was surprised when he made his way out to the forest with us.

  "I
s this completely safe?" I asked him. "You realize you're a vulnerable human now, right? Your body won't just heal if some werewolves decide to munch on you."

  "None of you would harm me," he said, not looking at me as he fell into step beside me. "If you had more command of your skills, you would realize that this body now carries the scent of pack."

  "That's so weird," I said. "That even though your body is completely human, your scent is still wolfy."

  He shook his head. "No, that's not what I mean," he said. "It's because of your link with Sam, perhaps, but more and more, our instincts count you as one of us."

  That gave me a lot to think about, but before I could make any sense of it, we were caught in a beam of moonlight and my body seemed held in suspension by it for a moment. I hung in a place between space and time, then I was struck down by a wracking pain unlike anything I had ever felt.

  "Don't fight it," said Tennyson Wilde, speaking with my voice close by my ear.

  His words brought me back to myself, and I realized I was writhing on the forest floor. I could feel that I was half-transformed; my teeth and claws were sharp, and so were my senses. But it wasn't enough for the wolf inside me. The wolf needed to run, to hunt, to join with the night.

  "Go," Tennyson Wilde said, his presence a strange comfort. "Let your wolf run free with your pack."

  So I did. I let go and joined with the night.

  Chapter 11

  I woke with a banging headache and hardly any memory of the night before. There were flashes — running with the others, moonlight and joy and a sense of belonging, but it was all fragments.

  I sat up and rubbed the back of my neck. Even with my eyes still closed, the morning light felt too bright. I wished I could bury my head under my pillow and sleep until I felt better, but the thought of it made me realize that I wasn't in bed. I didn't have a pillow. Cautiously, I creaked my eyes open.

  It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at, and when I did, I scrambled backwards in shock until I hit the wall. There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on the walls. I crouched in the corner of a room I hadn't seen before, what seemed like one of the outer buildings used to store garden equipment and whatnot. I was naked, which I tried to ignore. The only other thing that caught my attention was the body in the middle of the room. I couldn't tell who it was, although the clothing told me it was a guy. He was sprawled face down and covered in blood. I couldn't tell if he was breathing.