Shifter’s University Read online

  “Yes. I’ll be fine,” she promised. “Trust me.”

  Trust her, I did. I just didn’t trust the asshole who might be home this evening not to beat her up again. The instant the taxi rounded the corner, I stopped the driver, paid him his fare, and got out.

  I was supposed to be heading to Hadley’s tonight to pick up more crystals for the shields, but this was much more important. I walked slowly toward the corner to give Claire enough time to unlock the door.

  By the time I rounded the side street, she’d already gone inside. I stopped walking and listened for screaming or shouting.

  When there was nothing, I started walking again—toward the alley where I had hidden before. Just because things were going well so far, didn’t mean they would continue to do so.

  As if on cue, I heard glass shattering and a heavy thump, followed by a string of cursing. I rushed to the door and flung it open to find Claire backed against a wall, eyes locked on her foster father, who was advancing with a predatory sort of stealth that made me wonder if he wasn’t a shapeshifter, too.

  “Figured you would be back,” he muttered. “You no good—” His hand was raised, ready to hit her, when I jumped in front of Claire, shielding her with my body.

  The slap stung, hitting me in the neck, rather than the face of its intended target.

  Fury roiled inside of me and I took a step forward, wanting nothing more than to fry this guy. “You’ll never lay a hand on her again,” I growled, taking another step that made him back up, uncertain.

  A mean glint appeared in his eyes. “So she’s bewitched you, too, has she, boy? You wouldn’t be the first. Likely you won’t be the last, either.”

  What does he mean by that?

  Claire’s breath caught in a sob, then she bolted out the door.

  I turned my head in time to see the screen door slam and the idiot in front of me landed a sucker punch.

  Dummy, I scolded myself. You knew better than to take your eyes off him.

  Once my breath came back to my lungs, I took a deep breath, letting smoke roll out of my nostrils to give him a good idea of what he had just messed with. True, I was breaking one of Imperium’s rules, but I didn’t care.

  His eyes widened, and he started backing up. “You’re just like her…a mutant…a witch.”

  That was actually the first time I’d ever been called either of those names. Firebreather, yep. Sky lizard? Absolutely. But never mutant or witch. The thought amused me enough that I laughed, which seemed to make the man against the wall even more uneasy.

  Probably thinks I hold the power to make him just like us. That thought gave me an idea.

  “The bodies of shapeshifters hold a virus that can be spread. It’s infectious,” I lied as I took a slow step toward him. “I give you this promise; if you ever harm Claire again—or any other mutant—I will make sure you are as cursed as we are.”

  The man’s eyes looked ready to bulge out of their sockets.

  “Understood?”

  He nodded slowly, eyes never leaving me.

  “I will know if you don’t,” I said in a menacing voice. “Shapeshifters always know. We’re all connected that way.”

  He kept nodding and I left, letting the screen door slam behind me in the same way Claire had.

  The first place I went to look for her was in the alley across the street, but apparently she didn’t think the way I did. I came back out and surveyed the dark street, wondering which way she might have gone.

  “Out of all the times to wish to be a werewolf,” I grumbled. Dragons had a horrible sense of smell, only barely beating out their terrible long-distance eyesight. No, never in any fairy tale I’d ever heard had a dragon been given the quest of finding long-lost princesses. We guarded them, sure. But we weren’t ever the guys hired for a search party. Our specialty lay in the “setting stuff on fire” department.

  “Left or right, left or right,” I chanted as I jogged into the alley to shift. My best bet for spotting her was to just fly above the area and hope. Otherwise, I’d be forced to head back to Imperium and ask one of the wolves for help. “Not happening,” I muttered in the second before I launched into the sky. She couldn’t have gotten far. She wasn’t that fast. Unless she’d shifted to her fox…in which case finding her would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’d never find her.

  Please be on two legs so I can see you, I begged as I flew as low as I dared over the city. The magic from the shields sent little tingling sparks against my scales, warning me I was as low as I could go without being seen.

  Come on, Claire…where are you? I flew from street to street, farther and farther out to a point where I was fairly sure she couldn’t be. Then I returned and started my search in a different direction. Back and forth, from one direction to the next, until I was on the verge of going back and asking Professor McTavish for one of his star student trackers. Movement in a barely lit alley caught my attention. Even before I got there, I knew it was her. It had to be.

  The bad news? She wasn’t alone.

  When I left the house, I started running, not knowing where I was heading. I didn’t care. I needed escape—from everyone and everything.

  My foster father had used the time before Logan showed up to say enough nasty things to more than make up for the time I had been away.

  Blake wasn’t there. “Accepted to a college away from here,” I was told. “And a good thing, too. He doesn’t need to be around the likes of you. He’ll be better off forgetting you even exist.”

  It only got worse from there. His words echoed in my head as I ran. You’re nothing but trash…garbage…good for nothing…

  I hadn’t realized it, but somewhere along the way, I’d shifted to my fox and was running under the scraggly bushes that lined the sidewalk in a neighborhood I didn’t recognize at all.

  The tears I’d been holding until now erupted, and I whimpered, crouching into the shadows, completely ashamed of what I was and how stupid I’d been to have gone back there, expecting everything to be fine.

  I don’t belong anywhere. Not here…and not at Imperium. I will never belong. Ever.

  I crawled on my belly toward the back of the hedge. The branches were lower there and caught at my fur, so I came out of my hiding place and ran into the alley, shifting back to myself the instant I left the street.

  Staying as a fox would have been a much better idea. My hiding place was lit by the flickering bulb of a lone streetlight at its entrance. I could see—and smell—a dumpster that was shoved up against a wall halfway down a retaining wall, dozens of discarded boxes strewn around it. I was nearly at the back of the alley, where it came to a dead end, when I discovered I wasn’t alone.

  Two guys looked up as I came running in. Baggies of white powder were shoved out of sight into pockets. I stopped abruptly, frozen mere feet from them.

  One of them pulled something out of his back pocket and held it front of him, silver glinting in the dull light.

  A switchblade. He had a knife. “What are you doing here, little girl?” he said in a light tone of voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. “Don’t you know it isn’t safe at night?”

  “N-no…” I stuttered, backing up.

  “Now, now…you can’t be leavin’ so soon, a pretty little thing like you,” a third man I hadn’t seen came from behind me, effectively blocking my escape. I felt him touch my hair and shuddered.

  Stupid, stupid Claire. Look what you’ve gotten yourself into now. “I’m sorry. I must have made a wrong turn somewhere,” I said, trying to explain, but my excuse sounded lame, even to me.

  “Well, you picked the wrong place to be, babe. Everyone does that once in awhile.” The one with the switchblade worried me more than the one touching my hair. While his words weren’t crude, there was something sinister about him. Something that sent adrenaline pulsing through every single nerve ending in my body. He would have no problem killing me in this place.

  “Q
uit messing around and get rid of her.” The one who hadn’t spoken a word until now proved my assumption that his friend was bad news correct with that one sentence. “She’s seen too much. Do it, and throw her in there.” He jerked his chin to the dumpster against the wall. “We haven’t got all night, Sharkey.”

  Sharkey? What kind of name is Sharkey? I wondered numbly as I watched him approach, blade looking more lethal with every step. Sharkey will be the name of my killer. A shapeshifter gets murdered by a dealer named Sharkey. What are the odds?

  I closed my eyes to concentrate on shifting to my fox. Odd how I’d always managed to shift before, but was having problems now. It figured.

  It was as if that part of my magic that brought my fox to the surface was being overridden by something else—by someone else. There was another shifter nearby.

  My eyes snapped open as recognition registered, and then a blast of flames seared over our heads.

  Logan.

  My hair blew into my eyes. Whirling, I pushed it back in time to see him at the mouth of the alley, a rolling blanket of smoke swirling at his feet, as if waiting for him to summon it to consume us all.

  Two druggies scampered as far as they could down the alley and cowered at the back wall, no longer interested in me. Their attention was locked on the one who had somehow managed to ignite all the nasty cardboard boxes without so much as singeing a single hair on anyone’s head. The third one hadn’t forgotten me at all.

  Sharkey grabbed me around the waist while I was still gaping at Logan’s sudden appearance, pressing the switchblade to my throat.

  “I don’t know who you are, but this little girl and I have unfinished business.” His menacing voice dripped with pure evil. “You’d better just take your blowtorch, or whatever it is you have hidden there, and go…or you’ll be next.”

  Logan took a step toward us, his eyes changing shape. He was furious and didn’t care who saw him. Any second, this alley was going to be holding a ticked-off dragon for all the city to see. “Let her go,” he growled, the smoke at his feet rolling toward us as if it were as angry as he was.

  I felt a sharp, quick pain as the blade cut my skin. Blood tickled down my neck, making me shiver.

  “I’ll kill her if you come any closer. Don’t try me, kid. I’m not in the mood,” Sharkey snarled.

  Logan stopped, his cheekbones more pronounced by the second as his gaze flicked to the knife at my throat. “I will kill you for that,” he said in a quiet voice that was far more dangerous than the man behind me had ever been.

  The blade dug deeper. At this rate, I was going to be dead soon. Neither of them were going to give in. Logan wouldn’t be able to save me without burning me up in the process, and this guy wasn’t going to just let me go. Something had to change. Something had to happen.

  Time to stop being a victim, I told myself, closing my eyes. Logan’s magic was coming off him in waves. I opened my mind up to it so I could tap into his power.

  Heat sizzled along my nerve endings as his magic became my own. After taking a shallow breath, I blew out softly, aiming for the hand at my throat.

  Sharkey cursed and dropped the knife, waving scorched fingers in the air. His grip on me loosened enough that I managed to escape and run straight into Logan’s arms.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered into my hair.

  “Yes. I am now,” I managed, my arms locked tight around his neck.

  He gave me a quick squeeze, lifting me briefly off the ground before setting me down and stepping to block me from the alley—hiding me from what he was about to do.

  “Logan, don’t—” I began, but didn’t get out anything else before he shot an arrow of flame upward, in a completely different direction than I had anticipated.

  Sparks flew as two power lines I hadn’t noticed overhead fell, blocking the alley…and any escape the men inside might have had. The lines twisted like snakes, popping and cracking, and the three trapped behind them yelped, plastering their backs to the wall.

  “There,” Logan said. “The damsel in distress is rescued, and the bad guys are toast. Mission accomplished. Who says dragons can’t be heroes?” He turned to me. I caught a mischievous gleam in his eye before he added solemnly. “Don’t ever run away and scare me like that again, Claire.” He took my hand and led me away from the alley. We walked until he managed to flag down a taxi.

  We hopped in, and he gave the driver Hadley’s address. He turned his attention to the cut on my neck and began rooting in his pockets, I imagined for something to dab away the blood. Coming up with nothing, he asked the driver, “Do you have a first aid kit, by any chance?”

  “Not for public use,” the man grumbled.

  “I guess she’ll just bleed all over your seat then.” Logan shrugged.

  The driver sighed. “It’s under the seat.”

  Logan fished around and came up with the kit, opening it to survey the contents. Taking out an alcohol pad, he set to cleaning the cut, then applied a band-aid. “There. All fixed. It’s not too deep, but it will probably be sore tomorrow.” His voice was light and easy, but his face told me I had worried him, which made me feel both happy—that someone cared enough about me to worry—and guilty, at the same time.

  He snapped the kit shut and put it back under the seat, thanking the driver, who mumbled something under his breath. Logan leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to visit your brother,” he said finally. “You should have let me come in with you, Claire. I could have helped.”

  “You did help,” I said quietly.

  “You lied to me.” He hadn’t moved an inch. His eyes were still closed, but I could hear the hurt in his voice.

  “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll never lie to you again.”

  “Don’t joke.”

  “I’m not,” I insisted. “I promise I’ll never lie to you again. You have my word.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me for a long moment. “I believe you.”

  The taxi turned into Hadley’s driveway, and Logan dug out the fare. I might not have gotten to visit Blake, but at least I’d be able to see my best friend.

  Hadley’s door swung open before we knocked, revealing the young witch with an apron over her jeans and a wooden spoon in her hand.

  “I think we’ve gone back to the fifties,” Logan whispered in my ear right before I was tackled by Hadley and gathered in a big hug.

  “I heard that, Logan Fairmont. You’re lucky I’m excited to see Claire, or you’d pay for that,” my friend said happily, then she spotted the blood on my shirt and the bandage on my neck. She took a step back. “Claire, what happened?”

  “A run-in on the wrong side of town,” I explained. “I’m fine, Hads. Honestly.”

  She gave me a long, doubting look, but shook her head. “Come on in and I’ll give you one of my shirts. No need in going back to Imperium like that. The headmistress might want to know what kind of run-in you had.” She looked at Logan. “And I’ve got the crystals for her, too. We’ve been working on them all day. If they don’t help strengthen the shields, I don’t know what will.”

  “You need to tell the coven to up their prices to keep you in aprons at this rate,” I said, gesturing to a big, strange-looking stain on her apron front.

  “Oh, this? Nah, that’s not from spells. I’m cooking! And you guys are just in time to try out my newest recipe. It’s kinda like pizza, but with a different kind of sauce.”

  The moon was high above by the time we left Hadley’s house, our stomachs full of strange food, and Logan’s pockets full of the crystals for the shields.

  As we stood on the curb, a taxi came down the street, but Logan stopped me when I started to flag it down.

  “Hold on. I remember seeing something I wanted to check out before we go back.” He nodded toward the mountain above Imperium. “Besides, we have time yet. She hasn’t lit the star, so we’ll be all right.”

  Without any more exp
lanation, he took my hand and led me down the sidewalk a couple of blocks to a small park tucked behind a hedge of trees. I’d seen the entrance several times before, but never had the opportunity to explore it.

  Curiosity piqued, I followed him through the open wrought iron gate to a softly lit path ending at a small pond.

  Why had I never come here before? For that matter, why hadn’t Hadley told me about this place?

  “It’s a wonder they don’t lock the gate at night,” Logan said in a quiet voice, as if he didn’t want to break the still magic of this place.

  “Protected by karma,” I read aloud from a sign nearby that was illuminated by a small spotlight. “Leave only footprints and take only memories.” There was a name beneath it. Bronwyn Bradwurst.

  “Whoever the caretaker is…this Bronwyn…she is a trusting fool.” Logan scoffed. “It’s a wonder a bunch of rowdy kids haven’t been in here, torn the place up, and stuck graffiti everywhere.”

  I sat down on a bench near the pond, and he joined me after a moment. “She’s the leader of the coven. I have a funny feeling that anyone who comes in and disobeys that warning will have ‘karma’ to deal with shortly thereafter. I met her once when I was at Hadley’s house. Whatever Bronwyn Bradwurst says, goes.”

  “Wait a minute, I do remember Hadley mentioning her a couple of times. She’s ‘the headmistress’ of the coven.” Logan laughed. “That’s good to know, I guess. I’m glad I’ve only ever had dealings with Hadley.” He stretched out his legs, then gazed out over the quiet pond. The stars twinkled like sparkling diamonds on the surface, making the spot where we sat seem even more magical. My attention wasn’t on the pond, though—it was on him.

  He noticed and reached out to smooth back my hair, his thumb brushing my cheek

  I captured his hand in mine and closed the distance between us. Without hesitation, I kissed him. He tensed for the barest of seconds before kissing me back, his free hand coming around me to pull me closer.

  Heat sizzled along every inch of my skin as the world melted away. This felt more magical than shifting—more amazing than anything I’d ever experienced before.