Chapter 22
Rory:
Is he there yet?
Birdbrain:
CATBUTT, PICK UP YOUR PHONE WE’RE DYING HERE
Danny:
No news is good news, right? That means he must have turned up?
Ross:
Damn it will you all shut up?? Some of us are at work
Birdbrain:
OH LIKE UR NOT GLUED TO UR PHONE TOO
Ross:
Birdbrain:
Danny:
(Sighs in oldest brother)
Rory:
Ross is right, we should stay off the chat. I’m sure Leonie will keep us updated.
Rory:
Any news, Leonie?
Skye:
Maybe she’s busy
Birdbrain:
CATBUTT R U BANGING THE TIGER
does he have stripes on his
Rory:
LOLA
Danny:
LOLA
Ross:
That’s it, I’m blocking you all
Birdbrain:
stop clutching ur pearls bros
Skye:
Yeah, you know none of your sisters are virgins, right?
And I want to know about the stripes too
Dad:
Your mother and I are in this chat, kids
Skye:
oops
Leonie:
…
Birdbrain:
EVERYONE SHUT UP SHE’S TYPING
Leonie:
He’s not here. I don’t think he’s coming.
Her phone immediately started vibrating, replies flying up the screen so fast she barely had time to read them.
Birdbrain:
SCREW THAT BASTARD
i mean not literally
dont do that
Skye:
Yeah he doesn’t deserve you queen
Rory:
I’m going to kill him
Ross:
Looking at plane tickets now
Danny:
Get in line, both of you. I get first dibs.
Dad:
Boys. Leonie doesn’t need you to fight on her behalf
Mom:
I WILL BEAT THAT IDIOT LIKE A CARPET
Leonie sighed and typed a quick message.
Leonie:
Nobody rush over here. I have to get some sleep now. Talk later. Love you all.
She turned off her phone before anyone could reply. Much as she loved her family, right now she wanted to be alone.
Or rather, she didn’t.
You want this male? Her lioness yawned, lips drawing back from fangs. Do we hunt?
“No,” Leonie said out loud. “I want a mate who’ll choose me in return. One who’ll fight for me, just as I’d fight for him. If I have to chase him, he’s not worth catching.”
At least her lioness didn’t seem bothered by Shan’s failure to appear. Being rejected by your mate was supposed to be the worst thing that could happen to any shifter, yet her animal was as placid as ever.
Maybe it was a good thing Shan had been so paranoid about wearing sunglasses in her presence. She couldn’t imagine her lioness would be nearly so relaxed about all this if they’d experienced that lightning-bolt moment of recognition.
If only I could brush it off that easily.
Still, she would get over it. It wasn’t like her life was lacking anything. She had a loving family and a job she loved. She had friends, and people who looked up to her, and she got to make a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of kids. Who needed a mate anyway?
“I am a strong, independent woman,” she muttered, climbing into bed. “Hear me roar. Rawr.”
Heaving another sigh, she rolled over, pulling the blanket over her head. In the dark, private cocoon, she scrunched her eyes shut, and tried not to think about tomorrow.
Which was when something small and furry wriggled through a crack in the wall, streaked across the floor, and dove under her blanket.
Few things get you up faster than discovering you’re sharing a bed with a frantic weasel. Leonie practically levitated off the mattress, flattening herself in the furthest corner of the room.
Her brain belatedly caught up with her body. Heart hammering, she sidled back to her bed, which now looked like it was hosting a wrestling match between a dozen angry snakes.
“Tiff?” She cautiously poked at the writhing covers. “Is that you?”
Her blanket stilled. A tiny, pointed pink nose poked out from under a corner.
With an ear-splitting crash, her door slammed against the wall. Shan exploded into the room like a natural disaster, claws extended. The weasel shrieked and dove back under the blanket.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Leonie pushed impatiently past Shan, who seemed to be trying to find something to menace. “Put those away before you take someone’s eye out. It’s all right, Tiff. It’s only Shan.”
Somewhat sheepishly, Shan retracted his claws. He was shirtless and bare-handed, though his sunglasses still covered his eyes. “What happened?”
“I don’t know yet. She just shot in here.” Leonie stopped, distracted by more than just his bare torso. “Wait, what happened to you?”
Last time she’d seen him without his gloves, only his hands had been furred, but now the soft pelt stretched all the way to his elbows. His upper arms were still human, but black tiger stripes ran across his skin. The markings stretched over his shoulders and chest, curling around his flanks.
Shan hunched a little, as if trying to conceal himself. “It’s not important. I’ll go check the perimeter.”
“No, stay. We need to find out what frightened her first.” Leonie kneeled next to the bed. “Tiff, sweetie? It’s okay, you’re safe now. Can you shift back so you can tell us what happened?”
The blanket stilled. Then it humped upward.
“L-leonie?” said a small, muffled voice. “Shan?”
“That’s right, honey. We’re both here.” Leonie rearranged the blanket, pulling it back from the girl’s face and tucking it more securely around her body. “What happened?”
Whatever Tiff might have replied was lost in a sudden stampede of running feet. The whole pack burst through the shattered door, making Shan’s dramatic arrival seem positively discreet in comparison. Her room was abruptly full of panicked campers and overlapping apologies.
“Tiff, we’re so sorry—”
“It wasn’t supposed to—”
“I told these idiots this was—”
“We didn’t mean—”
“Kids!” Leonie deployed her voice like a knife, cutting through the babble. All the campers instantly fell silent. “One at a time, please. Who wants to tell me what’s going on?”
The campers exchanged nervous glances. Beth opened her mouth, but Tiff beat her to it.
“Spencer and I snuck out of camp to try to summon the ghost. And it worked.” Tiff did not sound nearly as thrilled about this as might have been expected. She drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “It appeared right behind us. It told us to run.”
“It wasn’t the ghost,” Finley said.
“It was!” Tiff insisted. “I heard it! A weird, spooky voice, right in my ear!”
Rufus pushed his way past his friends. He was in griffin form, feathers poofed out and fur bristling. Clambering onto the bed, he bumped his beaked head against Tiff’s, letting out a worried chirp.
“It wasn’t a ghost,” Finley repeated. “It was Rufus, Tiff.”
“Rufus?” Tiff looked down at the griffin. “But—you don’t talk. Not out loud, anyway.”
“He does sometimes,” Finley said, echoed by a confirming squawk from Rufus. “It’s just hard for him to get the words out, so he doesn’t do it often. Rufus says he’s really sorry. He didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, he kinda did,” Archie said. “Just not that bad.”
“He was supposed to pretend to be the ghost,” Estelle explained. “That way, you’d be able to truthfully tell Shan that you’d really seen it.”
Ignatius glowered at the other campers. “These idiots reckoned Rufus had the best chance of being able to get around Shan’s ability.
So they announced that he definitely shouldn’t follow you, and under no circumstances was he to do anything that might make you think there was actually a ghost. Be glad you didn’t have to listen to them trying to plot. It was physically painful.”
Tiff sniffed, wiping her nose on the blanket. “So Spencer was right? You guys were setting us up?”
“I’m afraid so,” Finley said. “We’re truly sorry. We shouldn’t have tried to trick you.”
“We just didn’t have time to come up with a better plan,” Archie said, also shamefaced. “Not with Shan planning to leave first thing in the morning.”
Leonie’s heart missed a beat. “Shan, is that true?”
Shan fidgeted, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose. “My presence here no longer seemed useful.”
“Whoa.” Archie did a double take, staring open-mouthed at Shan’s hands. “You have claws?”
Shan hid his hands behind his back as all the kids’ heads swiveled in his direction. “In any event, I was not abandoning the investigation. Since it seemed unlikely we could learn anything more from the campers, I thought I would be of more use out in the forest, guarding the camp from a distance.”
Had he planned to leave without even telling her? She couldn’t ask in front of the kids…not that she really needed to ask, anyway. From the way Shan was staring at the floor, jaw clenched, she already knew the answer.
Not now, she told herself fiercely, ignoring the burning knot of pain in her chest. She couldn’t fall apart in front of the campers.
Still, there was no longer any need to maintain one pretense, at least. Rufus had clearly told his friends about Shan’s ability. There was no point in trying to maintain the fiction that he’d been investigating their fictitious ghost sightings.
“Kids, pretending to have seen a ghost yourselves was one thing.” She massaged her forehead, abruptly tired.
“Getting the unicorns involved in faking more hauntings wasn’t great, but at least none of the other campers took it too seriously.
But you crossed a line with this stunt. You truly frightened Tiff, and you plotted to deceive your fellow packmates. I’m disappointed in you.”
Beth looked on the verge of tears. “We’re really sorry, ma’am. We honestly didn’t mean to scare Tiff and Spencer.”
“Yeah, we thought you’d be excited, Tiff,” Estelle said. “And Spencer wouldn’t believe in ghosts if one appeared right in front of him. So we figured he’d be fine, too.”
Rufus let out a sad little peep, wings drooping.
Tiff was looking rather happier now that her packmates had confessed. “It’s okay, guys. I get why you did it, and I’m not mad. I wouldn’t normally have screamed and run away like that. I guess I was just kind of on edge, what with the owls and everything.”
“Owls?” Shan said sharply.
“Yeah, there were loads of them.” Tiff sat up straighter, some of her usual cheer returning. “Spencer said they probably just wanted my sandwich, but I don’t think that can be right. They just sitting there, staring at us. It was really spooky!”
“That’s why Rufus told you to run,” Finley said.
He gave the griffin a rather skeptical glance, but continued, “He was hiding nearby while you did your, um, ritual. He saw the owls weren’t acting normally and decided it would be best if you all got out of there.
So he tried to warn you. Only you can’t hear his telepathy, and Spencer’s got a kind of mental block, so Rufus couldn’t reach him, either.
He didn’t have any choice but to try to speak out loud. ”
“And then you screamed and shifted, and so did Spencer,” Estelle said. “Except he whipped around rather than booking it. Rufus didn’t even have time to blink.”
“It’s not fair,” Archie muttered. “I want to get zapped by the death rays.”
“You met Spencer’s eyes in his basilisk form?” Shan kneeled next to the bed, leaning in to examine Rufus more closely. “Are you hurt?”
“No, he’s fine,” Finley answered for his friend. “Rufus says it happened so fast, he wasn’t even aware of it. One moment he was behind Spencer and Tiff, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, and they were nowhere to be seen.”
“Poor Rufus.” Tiff stroked the griffin’s feathered head. “You must have been really scared too, waking up to find we’d gone. Good thing you came straight back to camp, rather than wasting time looking for us.”
Leonie’s mouth went dry.
“Kids,” she said. “Where’s Spencer?”