Lion Shifter

by Lucia Ashta

  Thank God. I was pretty sure Sadie and Wendi were ten seconds from grappling on the floor of the dining hall, and then we would’ve had to deal with the trolls’ wrath in addition to their fighting.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked, and it was hard not to picture him with a joint hanging from his lips; he was that chill—until I remembered him with his semi-automatic, then the chill picture in my head vanished like smoke.

  “Just Wendi being ‘Wendi with an I,’” Sadie said sulkily.

  Damon nodded knowingly as Ky, Boone, and Leander sidled up beside our table—along with Stacy, Tracy, and Swan shadowing each of the boys. The ginger Stacy actually had her hand on Leander’s shoulder from behind, though his eyes were pinned on me.

  “Hi, Rina,” he said, and the entire table hushed.

  “Hi, Leander,” I replied, mostly because I wanted to see Stacy fume. I could tell she was pissed, even though her face was mostly hidden behind the prince’s tall, strong frame. I made out an irritated flip of long, gorgeous red hair from behind his shoulder.

  Tracy and Swan—so similar to Stacy except the first was a blonde and the other a brunette—placed possessive hands on Ky and Boone’s shoulders. Stacy’s head popped up from around Leander. She forced a tight smile. “Well, we must be going. We need time to eat before our next class.”

  “True enough,” Boone said, but I think it was mostly because the large shifter wanted food.

  Leander inclined his head toward me. “I hope to catch ya later, Rina.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, see ya.”

  “Bye, squirt,” Ky said, and I renewed my vow to kill him later.

  “Bye, Kylan,” I said, since he preferred his nickname to his full name. His copper eyes tightened, but he tilted his head at me in a stalemate gesture I’d seen from him before. Or maybe it was a warning to stay away from his friend, though I hadn’t done anything.

  “Are you ladies going to be okay if I sit with them?” Damon asked, his penetrating gaze pinned on the grumpy Sadie.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said, and under her breath, “And if not, I’ll kick her ass.”

  “I like her,” Jas said cheerily, trying to catch Ky’s eye, but my brother was already leading the way to another table, his friends and their groupies following.

  Damon shared a meaningful look with Sadie that held volumes I didn’t understand, then gave what appeared to be a warning look at Wendi, before moving his protective self over to Ky.

  “I think I’m going to invite him to the dance,” Jas said, and none of us had to ask whom she was talking about.

  “You can’t do that right now,” Wren whispered frantically. “Don’t you see the girl draped all over him?”

  “Seeing and caring are two different things.” Jas pushed up from the table, and Wren, Dave, Adalia, and I watched her move toward Ky with enough apprehension to make up for her lack of concern.

  “I thought we didn’t need dates for this dance party thing?” Dave said.

  “I assumed the same,” I said. Though maybe it was more like I’d hoped that was the case.

  “It’d better be,” Wren said. “I think we have enough pressure on us right now without worrying about dates.”

  “For sure.” I’d better not need a date...

  We watched Jas as one watched a train wreck, our food forgotten, waiting for the inevitable. But when Jas tapped Ky on the shoulder and managed to separate him from the tentacle-fingered blonde, he gave her his full attention. And when she’d said whatever she said, he shot an alarmed look at me.

  So she’d asked him to the dance...

  Damn, that girl had a pair.

  I was in the process of mentally cataloging all the comforting things I could say to the abrasive shifter once she returned to our table when she turned and started back toward us… and her smile took up most of her face.

  I snapped an accusing glare at Ky, but he shrugged like he hadn’t known what else to do. And then he had bigger problems to deal with. Tracy tapped him on the shoulder, he swiveled to face her, and I directed my attention pointedly at my food.

  Jas was so not going to date my brother. It wasn’t going to happen. No way. That was as uncomfortable as it could get. What if they had … sex? Ew. No. Un-unh. It wasn’t going to work.

  Was this yucky feeling that slithered down me like slime the reason Ky didn’t like Leander paying attention to me? Okay. I guess it made sense. Because if he was picturing Leander and me in half the compromising situations I was picturing Ky and Jas, he had a valid point. Maybe I wouldn’t think of the elf anymore. That would make me a good sister and—

  My thoughts cut off abruptly as Wren and Dave swiveled on their seats to stare behind me, and Adalia gawked from across the table.

  “What are you guys looking at?” I turned and looked straight up into the expectant—and gorgeous—face of the second prince of the elves.

  “Rina, may I have a word please?”

  My legs shot me to standing before my brain managed to catch up and suggest restraint. When Jas started ooohing loudly enough to tint my entire face pink, I stalked as far away from the table as I could. I stopped in the corner nearest the double doors, but farthest from the messenger flowers. I didn’t need any witnesses to this embarrassing conversation, even if they were of the flora kind.

  When I about-faced and stared up into his silver eyes that rolled like liquid mercury, my heart started thumping, my mouth went bone dry, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “Would you like to go to the party with me on Friday?” he asked, and I found myself following the movements of his full lips as they formed each word. “…Rina?”

  Oops, apparently I was still staring at his lips when I was supposed to be replying. I snapped my attention to the rest of his face. “Uh ... yeah, sure. But do we need dates for the party? I didn’t realize we did.”

  He smiled at my evident nervousness. “I don’t think we need them, but I’d like to go with you.”

  “Really? You would?” Gah, stop talking, Rina.

  “Yes, I would. I would have liked to spend more time with you over the summer too, but my father kept me too busy for that.” His silver eyes became stormy in an instant.

  “I’d hoped to get to know you better then too,” I said in a soft, timid voice.

  “So you’ll go to the dance with me as my date?”

  I fiddled with the pleats of my skirt. “What about Stacy?”

  He raised both eyebrows. “What about her?”

  “Well, won’t she be upset if you take me as your date?”

  He didn’t even flinch. “Maybe. But that’s her problem, not ours. I’ve never done anything to encourage her affections.”

  You also don’t appear to discourage them, I thought.

  “I’ve always been clear with her. She’s a friend, nothing more,” he continued, making me grateful I hadn’t spoken my thought aloud. “What others think of me isn’t my business. I only have to be the kind of man I can feel good about.”

  Wow, how very mature of him. I wasn’t nearly that mature. I nodded my agreement, however.

  “So we’ll chat more Friday?”

  “Yeah, definitely. Yep. For sure.”

  He smiled broadly, as if he realized I’d had to force myself to stop rambling, and took a few backward steps toward the tables. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  I nodded like my head was on a spring. “Me too. Lots.” I clamped my lips shut as heat rushed up my neck and across my cheeks. Why did I always have to say embarrassing stuff?

  He chuckled, his eyes alight with delicious, wicked mischief, and turned, striding back toward Boone, Ky, and their groupies with sure steps like he owned the world. His wings were nowhere in sight.

  I waited a minute to give my heart a chance to stop pounding, then attempted to walk with equal grace and confidence. The tip of my Converse snagged on a depression in the tile floor and I tripped, but managed to catch myself quickly. It was possible tha
t no one would have noticed.

  But I sensed someone’s attention on me like a laser beam. I really didn’t want to, because I had a good idea whose attention it was, but I looked over to Leander’s table anyway. Yep, Stacy was glaring at me like I’d killed her pet kitten. And she’d definitely seen me trip; her sneer was as malicious as it was prominent.

  I purposely avoided her and Ky, who was bound to be looking at me too, and made my way toward my table of friends with my head held high. Like Leander, I didn’t care what others thought of me—and maybe if I said it enough, I’d actually believe it.

  I took my seat and slid my plate toward me, though my stomach was too filled with butterflies to eat. Finally, I looked up. Everyone at the table was staring and waiting, even Sadie and Wendi.

  “Well?” Wren prompted.

  “Well what?” I said.

  “Don’t be coy with us,” Jas snapped. “It doesn’t suit you. Did he ask you to the dance or not?”

  I tried to play it cool, but failed with flying colors. A grin stretched my face. “He did.”

  Wren squealed a little too loudly, but I was too happy to care.

  10

  “It’s not even supposed to be a ‘dance’ with dates,” I was complaining once the nerves really got to me. Leander was supposed to meet me in fifteen minutes. “Sir Lancelot called it the Paranormal Party of Pleasantries. That implies no dates.”

  “Are you seriously griping that you’re going to the party with Leo as your date?” Wren asked from where she was casually draped across her bed. She wore a simple yet pretty dress in a dusky rose that suited her willowy body and complexion perfectly.

  I was fretting over my own dress in front of the standing mirror, though since the dresses had magically appeared in our closets before Wren and I arrived at our rooms after our final class of the day—Beginning Creature History 201 with Professor Whittle, the most boring werewolf teacher ever—I understood that my dress suited me as well as Wren’s suited her. Still, it was a date with an elfin prince—a very off-limits elfin prince.

  “Come on,” Wren said. “You look beautiful in that dress, and I love that you’re still wearing your sneaks. Leo is going to love the look.”

  “Yeah, well, he isn’t going to have a choice, now is he? I don’t even get to choose between outfits.”

  “Thank goodness,” Sadie groaned from the other room. “If not I’d have to hear you whine even more. It’s a dress. Who cares?”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “You get to wear jeans and a t-shirt. I wish I could.”

  “You can if you want to.”

  “Hmph.” I abruptly realized I was being a stereotypical whiny teen and sank onto Wren’s bed. “I’m sorry. I’m just really nervous. You get to go with Dave. That sounds so … comfortable.”

  She smiled. “It is. I’m actually looking forward to the evening. It’ll be a nice change from all the classes and hard work, not to mention all the stress of the … situation.”

  It was an unspoken agreement. Neither one of us talked much about the Voice, the Shifter Alliance, or any of the other supernatural groups out to get us in general, and me in particular. Any discussion of the dangers we had so little control over left us both unsettled and depressed.

  “Aren’t you looking forward to spending the evening with Leo?” she asked.

  “I would be. That elf is hot.” Wendi’s voice drifted through the open door from the common room, where it was a miracle that Sadie hadn’t killed her yet as she lounged on the couch, regularly offering her opinions. I was actually glad the two of them would be at the party too; I didn’t think it wise to leave them alone and unsupervised.

  Wren and I ignored Wendi. We’d had plenty of practice at it during the couple of hours we’d been hanging out in our dorm room, which the staff witch Nancy had magically expanded to include two additional rooms, with locking doors and a single bed within each. Apparently she was familiar with the temperaments of my two bodyguards. Our room looked no different from the outside than it had before—magic was seriously awesome.

  I leaned closer to Wren in hopes of having a private conversation. “Of course I’m looking forward to it. You know I like him, it’s just … he’s so intimidating. He’s super sure of himself, and I told you what happened over the summer. We’re not even allowed to be together. His father would probably flip if he found out Leander had asked me to the dance. Not to mention Ky. He’s been trying to corner me to talk all week.”

  “I don’t think Ky can say much about you going with Leander. He’s going with Jas.”

  “Ugh. Don’t remind me.” I flopped back on the bed and draped a forearm over my face.

  Wren chuckled. “You’re so dramatic sometimes.”

  I laughed. “I know, and I hate it.” I sat up and patted her on the leg. “You know just what to say to snap me out of myself. Thanks, girl.”

  “You got it.” She grinned and stood from the bed, admiring herself in the mirror.

  “You look beautiful,” I said.

  “Thank you. So do you.”

  I smiled my thanks. “Ready?”

  She nodded, and we exited the room we shared into the common room.

  Wendi rocketed to standing from the couch right away. “Hold up. This is how you’re going?”

  “Uh, yeah...” I said.

  “Neither one of you is wearing a speck of makeup. And your hair! It’s so … normal. You both have this gorgeous, long hair. You could do all sorts of fun things with it. You could twist it or braid it up—”

  Wren and I evaded her outstretched hands as she reached for our heads.

  “Thanks,” Wren said, “but we like ourselves just as we are.”

  I blinked at her. I hadn’t told her what Leander said.

  Sadie moved toward us when Wren and I reached the door. “I’ll do my best not to crowd you,” she said to me. “But my job is to never let you out of my sight.”

  “Thanks, Sadie,” I said. But while I was thankful for her commitment to protect me—and maybe Wendi’s as well; I hadn’t decided yet—I really wasn’t grateful for the fresh reminder that I wasn’t safe. Even inside the heart of Thunder Mountain, probably concealed within a million advanced spells, surrounded by magical creatures of all sorts, I was still vulnerable.

  If the shifters Rage and Fury wanted to get to me, it seemed like it might only be a matter of time before they found their opportunity. They’d managed it last term, when the Menagerie had already been supposedly impregnable.

  “I’ve seen that look before,” Sadie said. “I know how you feel. But don’t let worries about the future, about things that might never come to pass, ruin your present. There’s no place safer in the entire world right now. Remember, it isn’t just me watching your back.”

  “Obviously, because I’m here too,” Wendi said.

  Sadie, in a bright pink Powerpuff Girls t-shirt, gripped my shoulders. “There are Enforcers, trolls, and all sorts of creatures patrolling the grounds too. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and the school has more magical defenses than I can count.”

  “That’s because you can barely count to a hundred,” Wendi snapped.

  Sadie’s eyelid twitched but she steadfastly ignored the other Enforcer. “Have fun and don’t worry about anything else. Don’t let Rage and Fury ruin things for you even when they’re not an immediate threat.”

  I nodded, wanting her to convince me, even though I was pretty sure the mountain lion shifter brothers were an immediate threat so long as they were alive.

  Sadie slapped me on the back hard enough to rattle my insides. “Now, off you go. Remember, have fun … but not too much fun, if you know what I mean. That elf might be sexy, but that doesn’t mean you have to have sex with him on the first date.”

  I groaned. “Come on, Sadie, really? Do you have to go there?”

  “No more than you do.”

  I flung my hands in the air. “I’m not going to ha
ve sex with him. I’m not even supposed to be going on a date with him. His dad would probably kill us if he found out. Leander and I are too different, the wrong species and all that.”

  “You’re not as different as you think. That’s probably why the king was so worried. I see the look in Leo’s eyes when he takes you in. The king doesn’t miss much; I’m sure he saw it too.”

  Wren was looking between Sadie and me with intrigue, but I was finished with this conversation. I was so over how complicated my life had gotten.

  I slunk through the door, wishing the night over already.

  I’m not sure what Ky said to Leander to get him to agree, but Ky, Jas, Leander, and I were going on a double date. Quadruple date really if you added in that Wren and Dave, and Adalia and Boone, were tagging along too. When you added in Ky’s and my bodyguards, we were a party all on our own.

  I arched my brows in question at Adalia, but she only shrugged. I wasn’t sure who’d asked whom to the dance, but I liked the match. Adalia and Boone were agreeable and pleasant, and a logical pairing to complete our group. Maybe that’s all it was between them, two friends hanging out.

  Jas, however, was surlier than usual. She wasn’t happy to have a gaggle of creatures tagging along as a buffer between her and Ky. I, on the other hand, didn’t mind giving up my privacy with Leander if it foiled any come-ons she might have planned to direct at my brother. Seeing the two of them standing in close proximity was enough to weird me out. When Jas snaked her arm through his, I had to look away.

  But the moment we stepped into the dining hall, I forgot all about the company I kept and the shifters plotting to attack my brother and me. The dining hall had transformed into an extraordinary space—magical to the extreme.

  Absent were the rows of utilitarian tables and buffet islands. Thousands of tiny twinkling lights illuminated the open dance floor, and a mystical-feeling fog drifted across the room, converting the large space into something cozy while affording some privacy to the students assembled, but not enough to hide indiscretions.

  Silver vines culminating in pink, coral, violet, and buttercream flowers hung from the ceiling, stopping several feet above the tallest head; stars sparkled overhead, as if we were standing outside. A shooting star raced across the high, vaulted ceiling, and I couldn’t help but gasp. I wasn’t the only one.