Chapter 3 #2
The dorms lay across the large grassy field that separated the academic buildings from the residence halls and the athletic complex.
Ian and I were directed to the correct parking lot for upperclassmen housing, and we found ourselves in front of a building that was a bit more modern than those on the academic side of campus.
The ten-story dorm was made of similar redbrick, but it had the feel of an apartment complex that could’ve been on a swanky city block.
We weren’t the only ones unloading our car. Students were returning from wherever they’d gone on holiday break, and we were getting some curious looks as we began to lug our stuff to the fourth floor.
Two hours later, I was unpacked, my bed was made, and my swords had been sharpened, sheathed, and hung over the back of my desk chair. Pleased with my progress, I decided that arranging my snacks and drinks in the little kitchenette would be next.
Ian’s room connected to mine through a shared bathroom. I’d just crouched in front of my mini fridge when he burst in unannounced and flopped onto my bed.
He was wearing sweatpants and nothing else, so the silver fox tattoo that danced along his ribcage was on display. Ian was an inch taller than me and all svelte muscle, like a dancer. His fox didn’t give him a huge boost in the raw strength department, but his speed was incredible.
“Look at us,” he said, propping his chin on his hand, a swoop of his ash-blond hair falling over his forehead. “Real college kids.”
“Sort of,” I said as I shoved cans of cold brew coffee into the fridge. “This is shifter school. It’s going to be cutthroat and weird.”
He waggled his brows. “Good thing I’m cutthroat and weird.”
I pointed at him. “Speaking of that, you better keep it down if you’re going to be entertaining in your room. At least give me a heads-up so I can make sure I put my white noise machine right next to my head.”
“Excuse you, let’s not act like every single male we passed in the hallway wasn’t checking you out. It’s a smorgasbord of big, hot shifter men in this place, and you need to have a little fun on occasion too.”
“Pass.”
Sex with shifter men would never not be a way for their beast to sniff mine out for a potential bond, regardless of their power level. My beast bristled at the thought.
You and me both, sister.
He threw himself dramatically onto his back. “You’re hopeless.”
I was hopeless, but before I could invent reasons why I was not, a knock sounded at my door.
I opened it to find a slim redheaded girl with bright green eyes beaming a big, excited smile at me. “Avery?” she asked breathlessly.
I squinted at her. Fiery hair, smattering of freckles, infectious grin. Wait a minute… “Mallory?” I gasped.
She shrieked in delight. “It is you!” She launched herself at me, and I caught her in an awkward hug. “I thought that looked like you and Ian making trips to and from the parking lot! The whole dorm was abuzz, since we don’t tend to get new students in the upperclassmen residence—”
Ian popped up behind me as Mallory released me from her clutches. “Is this the Mallory from Fulton Crescent Middle School basketball?”
“Yes!” she cried, and then it was Ian’s turn to be smashed in a hug.
“Mal,” I said, pulling her further into the room and shutting the door behind her, “how have you been? I haven’t seen you since…”
“Since I disappeared from eighth grade without a word?” she asked, quirking a brow.
“Uh, yeah.”
We hadn’t been the best of friends or anything, but we’d played basketball together for two years. She’d been a fellow shifter girl and someone I genuinely enjoyed spending time around, which was rare in those rocky, awkward middle-school days.
I’d assumed she’d just moved away, which wasn’t that odd, but it had been pretty abrupt—she was there one day, gone the next.
She helped herself to my desk chair. She frowned in confusion at my swords, still in their X-shaped harness and draped across the back of the chair, but then she shook it off. She’d probably seen weirder things around here.
Ian had sprawled out on my bed again, and I shoved him so I could have room to sit down.
“Well,” Mallory began, taking a big breath, “a few months after I turned thirteen, I… shifted.” Her smile faltered as her gaze bounced between Ian and me, like she was bracing for our reaction.
“That’s amazing!” we both blurted with genuine excitement.
She blew out a breath, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Thank you. It is. My beast is a cat.”
Excellent. A cat was an ordinary shifter on the lower end of the power scale, like Ian’s fox. A useful and respectable beast entirely devoid of any desire or ability to play the dumb fucking dominance games the higher-powered shifters did.
“How did your parents take it?” Ian asked.
“Oh, they were thrilled,” she gushed. “My mom thinks my great-grandmother had some kind of feline beast and just didn’t tell anyone. Honestly, I’ve been lucky. There hasn’t been too much crap about me being a shifting female—a lot of people seem to think it’s high time there were more of us.”
We’d just see about that, but it made sense that none of the big boys felt threatened by females with lesser-powered beasts, who were becoming more common in every generation.
“So, anyway,” she went on, “when I got my beast, my parents sent me off to a private school exclusively for female shifters. A lot of latent girls went there to learn their secondary affinities, but it was also one of the few places I was able to be around other shifting girls in a place where that was celebrated.”
“I’m really happy for you,” I said, and I meant it. I’d been lucky enough to get my beast during the summer between seventh and eighth grade, so the whole family had taken a two-month-long trip to the wilderness. I was able to get to know my new other half away from prying eyes.
“Thank you.” She fidgeted absently with the hem of her Proteus College sweatshirt, and I noticed a tattooed band around her left ring finger.
I blinked wide eyes at her. “Mal, are you bonded?”
Those of us who could shift into a beast didn’t wear rings or bracelets or anything that could be broken with the change in shape, so ring tattoos were in vogue.
Piercings usually survived, because the holes remained in either form.
I wore three titanium studs in each of my earlobes but nothing else.
She glanced down at her finger, and her grin grew impossibly wider. “Yes! I’m in a pair bond with my mate, Allen. He’s a junior, like me, and he’s a wolf.”
Ian’s blond brows bounced upward. “An Alpha?”
She waved a hand. “Oh, no, no. Respectably ordinary. You’ll discover that, like, one in three of our shifting student body are ordinary wolves. They are everywhere and breed like… wolves.”
We knew a few wolf shifters back home, and they all looked at my dad, Rand, like he’d hung the Moon herself. Wolves were common, but Prime Alphas were not.
“Also,” Mallory said, leaning forward and affecting a conspiratorial whisper, “he’s my Fated.”
I stared at her with a slack jaw.
“Woah,” Ian said. “Seriously?”
“Yes! It took me a while to get up the courage, but the first time I shifted in front of his wolf, we felt it. I don’t know how to describe it, but our beasts just knew. We made the bond official last semester during the Full Moon bonding ceremony. The school has one every semester.”
Fateds were rare, especially among heterosexual pairings, since they seemed to only occur when both or all parties had a beast. Shifting females were still uncommon, so most bonds were chosen by more normal means, like mutual attraction, social compatibility, or when the beast sniffed out something it liked.
Or whatever. I didn’t date shifters, so what did I know?
One’s Fated was supposedly the perfect match chosen by the Moon herself, two beast souls harmonizing in a divine song. Mallory and Allen were a rare and blessed couple, according to legend, and the thought almost made me gushy inside.
“That’s amazing,” I told her. “It’s really good to see you, and it sounds like you’ve been doing awesome since we last hung out.”
She sighed happily. “I have. I’m working on my healing affinity, training as a medic. It’s been great. But enough about me—what brings you two here, like, in the middle of the year? Are you starting as upperclassmen? What’s going on?”
Ian propped his chin in his hand and deployed an innocent, charming smile. “We both tried regular community college and just felt like we weren’t… reaching our full potential. Right, Aves?”
Good one. “Right.”
She beamed. “Well, it’s amazing they let you transfer in so late! It’s a little, you know, different here than human school, what with the dominance challenges and matings and hierarchy—” She laughed awkwardly. “—but it’ll be great. You’ll see. Probably!”
Well, that was reassuring.
She hopped to her feet and slinked to the door with feline grace. “Allen and I will come by tomorrow and grab you guys for breakfast in the dining hall. Sound good?”
“Yep,” I said brightly. We could definitely use a guide, and I wasn’t going to look a gift cat in the mouth. “See you then.”
“Later!”
The door shut with a loud click behind her. Ian chuckled and rolled off my bed, landing on light feet. “Sounds like this place is a pressure cooker full of hotheaded hormonal shifters. It’s gonna be fun.”
“Ugh.” I went to my desk and shrugged the harness holding my blades over my sweatshirt.
It was getting dark outside, and while we were far enough into the lunar cycle that wraiths were unable to break out of their realm, it was better safe than sorry.
“Let’s go get sushi off campus before we’re stuck here. ”
He laughed. “I’ll get my sword.”