Chapter 6 Avery #2
“The Great Betrayal,” she said in a hushed whisper, like she was divulging a dark secret.
“The village only had a few weeks to recover because there was a lunar eclipse at the next Full Moon. The First Guardians and others in the settlement fought them off at the gates, protecting the village with the knowledge they’d gained from the first attack.
But the White Tiger was approached at her post by the wraith leader, said to be an all-powerful Apex wraith the likes of which hasn’t been seen since.
He seduced the tiger with promises of extra power and the gift of fertility, since it’s believed she was barren. ”
Such bullshit. Wraiths were mindless soul-sucking killing machines. Seduction wasn’t in their skill set.
“She let the wraith through the warded gates,” Phoebe continued, “and of course it didn’t reward her—it killed her.
The wraith leader then unleashed his horde and massacred half the village before the other Guardians were able to kill them.
Then they disappeared, ashamed of the tiger’s betrayal and mourning the pain of the loss of their bond. ”
Professor Oglethorpe nodded sagely. “That is indeed the legend our ancestors have passed down through the generations. Modern shifter historians have debated the veracity of the story for many years, but we can all agree that whatever happened, it had a seismic effect on our people.”
“The Curse,” a girl whispered reverently from the front row.
“Indeed. Our ancestors believed that in retribution for the White Tiger’s betrayal of her people, the Moon cursed shifting females.
Texts from this age posit that it was the Moon’s divine will that females weren’t fit to meld with a beast soul, especially powerful ones.
” She paused, a placid look on her face.
“After these events, fewer females were born with the ability to shift. And for those that were, many experienced struggles with infertility, as the tiger was believed to. This has become known as the Curse.”
“Do you believe the Curse is real?” the same girl asked. “And that the disappearance of shifting females was the Moon’s will?”
The professor gave another diplomatic shrug of her shoulders.
“I don’t know. What matters is that our ancestors did, and their beliefs may have caused them to selectively breed the female shifting gene out of existence.
Whether this was also divine providence is anyone’s guess.
It has only been in the past two hundred years or so that female beasts have begun to revive within our ranks, and the vast majority are minor or ordinary in power. ”
Phoebe cleared her throat. “Yes, because the White Tiger was supposedly a very powerful Prime. She was tasked with guarding the gates, just like her mates, and but as a female, she was more vulnerable to the wraith’s lies.
The Moon deity, in its great and infinite wisdom, has decided that Prime beast souls are best gifted to our males, while our latent shifters, both male and female, are called to glorify our kind by excelling at our secondary affinities and carrying on the shifter lines. ”
Was that the lie the regressive types were touting nowadays? What a bunch of horseshit.
The Professor nodded sagely. “Perhaps, Miss Atkins. There have been records of females with a Prime beast popping up over the past five hundred years or so, but they are very few and far between. There are some matriarchal wolf packs in the northwest lead by female Alphas, but I don’t believe we have record of any female Primes in our region currently. ”
A guy in the front row scoffed. “Female Primes are an affront to the natural order, which is why they barely exist.”
Spoken like a shifter of lesser power with a small dick.
Murmurs of agreement sounded, including two feminine ones behind me. To their credit, Wyatt and Heath remained silent as the dead.
“At any rate,” the Professor went on, raising her voice, “in magical academia, we do not teach that the disappearance of shifting females is or is not the Moon’s divine will, nor do we take a position on the existence of a curse.
We study our ancestors’ belief in those things and how they affect us today. ”
A hand went up on the front row. “Like with quad bonding?”
Another serene smile. “Indeed. It is still a widely accepted theory today, adopted by our ancestors after the death of the White Tiger, that the latent shifter is a more ideal choice for a bond than a shifter with a beast soul. Who can tell me why that is?” Her gaze jumped over my other shoulder, to where Callista sat on Wyatt’s other side. “Yes, Miss Jackson?”
“Well, we can pretend all we want that the Curse isn’t real,” she began, sounding smug, “but females who can shift are more likely to be infertile. I don’t know the statistics, but—”
“It’s mostly anecdotal at this point,” the professor interjected mildly, “but we think its somewhere around one in three shifting females experience some form of infertility.”
“Right, and also, the presence of a beast soul in a central bond can disrupt the magical connection with the quad, or trio, or whatever. Our most powerful males need a settled soul and a large magical well that doesn’t compete with a beast for their quad to properly share power with one other.
Especially our Guardians, who need to be as strong as possible to protect us all. Right, Wyatt?”
Wyatt gave a half-hearted grunt in response.
“Yes, very good, Miss Jackson,” the professor replied indulgently.
She must be pleased as punch to be doing her part to power up her own bonded mates.
“Again, we have a lot of theory and very little hard data, as there have not been many centrally bonded females with the reported ability to shift, but it is believed a bond with a beast soul is less stable and can disrupt the ability of the group to share power. But of course, we can only make educated guesses when it comes to interpreting the Moon’s will. ”
I’d roll my eyes, but this pervasive bias in our culture was the reason I’d been let into the school in the first place, so I would award it a single kudo.
Professor Oglethorpe clapped her hands, her smile brightening even further.
“That said, however, I do believe it is wonderful that more and more shifting females are born with every generation. Love is love, and bonding is a personal choice for all involved. Not everyone needs to prioritize power or stability in a potential match. There’s plenty of room for everyone, and discrimination has no place in my classroom. ”
How diplomatic.
Hands started shooting up, but students stopped waiting to be called on before they started offering their opinions.
“Yeah, someday we’ll have equality!”
“Fuck that. We’ll go extinct if more chicks start shifting.”
“Oh, whatever, the Curse isn’t fucking real.”
“The wraiths will kill us all, and the Moon will curse us all again for this woke bullshit.”
The professor waved her arms in the air.
“All right, all right! We’re not here to debate theology or politics.
For purposes of this class, we only need to agree that our ancestors believed that the story of the First Guardians happened a certain way, which influenced their actions, and that has affected our kind for many generations.
It is a foundational aspect of our culture.
Your personal beliefs are between you and the Moon. ”
Wyatt’s throaty chuckle sent tingles along the back of my neck. “Good thing your dad isn’t teaching this class, man.”
Heath let out a humorless laugh. “We get so many lectures at home, we could get an entire degree in this shit.”
I’d heard enough chatter in the short time since I’d left my dorm this morning to surmise that another reason Heath and Aiden were so revered around here was because they had two fathers on the Southeastern Council, which was one of the four governing bodies for our kind in the U.S.
Color me the opposite of surprised that one of the Blackwell dads had staunch beliefs surrounding female shifters, and I’d bet my swords they weren’t the progressive type.
Thankfully, the professor steered the discussion into much more boring territory, regaling us with tales of the diaspora of those early shifters across Europe, Africa, and Asia, each culture bringing with it the knowledge of how to effectively counter wraith attacks, which would only follow them across the world.
When we were finally dismissed, I hopped to my feet, eager to go investigate the lunch spread in the dining hall before Ian and I would need to get warmed up for what was probably going to be an eventful afternoon.
“Hold up there, new girl.”
I glanced behind me to find Wyatt still lazing in his seat, his broad shoulders hardly fitting in it. He was checking me out the same way he had at breakfast. Callista noticed, and she did not look pleased.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Avery Baxter.”
He mulled that over. Heath looked on silently, feigning disinterest while Phoebe lingered in the aisle to stare longingly at him.
“Where’d you come from, Avery Baxter?” Wyatt asked.
I arched a brow. “Why do you care, Wyatt Gale?”
He chuckled. “I see my reputation precedes me. I’m just curious, is all. I don’t think we’ve ever had an upperclassman show up in the middle of the school year. This place rarely takes transfers, and usually only those starting sophomore year. What’s special about you?”
“A few things, actually. Is this interrogation over?”
He grinned. “Sure. See you around.”
I hustled out of there, leaving Wyatt to enjoy Callista’s whining and Heath to continue pretending Phoebe wasn’t trying to eat him alive with her eyes.