Chapter 12
CHAPTER
That Friday, I stepped inside Lander’s brick mansion for the first time ever. As dark and cozy as it was on the outside, it was just as stuffy and chaotic on the inside—at least at the present moment.
Groups of girls danced with colorful gills or seashells growing from their bodies like ornaments, boys played mini pentaball with what I could have sworn were classmates-turned-into-balls, and an assortment of couples lounged on couches with drinks in their hands.
Deep, thumping music poured from Shifters who’d basically turned themselves into walking drums. I let the bass of it pound through my ribcage as Emelle led me into the throng.
“Rayna!” Lander seemed to materialize from thin air and gathered me in a one-armed hug, his free hand balancing a drink of clear, sloshing liquid.
“I haven’t seen you all week! How do you like your new classes?
” He lowered his voice, and I had to lean in to hear him through the noise surrounding us.
“Melle says you have a… bad new instructor.”
Indeed, Mrs. Smetlar hadn’t let our second class with her go by without highlighting, once again, how much she’d enjoy watching the Good Council exile so many of us in four years’ time.
“Let’s just say that she doesn’t like her students talking back,” I said grimly—which was true. Rodhi had learned that the hard way when she’d made him polish some eyeballs after he’d questioned her primary sources yesterday. “Or her animals,” I added as an afterthought.
I would never be able to stop shuddering when I walked in that classroom and had to sit beneath literal corpses.
Emelle started to say something, but just as I leaned forward to try to hear her better, I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked down to find a toddler gaping up at me, his thick blonde curls as wild as mine.
“Mommy,” the toddler squeaked.
“Get out of here, man,” Lander said.
The toddler popped back up into a young man with ginger hair and a sloppy grin. Winking at me, the Shifter turned on a heel and disappeared into the crowd, as if what he’d just done was a normal part of his Friday night.
“Okay,” I said, feeling faint now, “I think the Shape Shifting sector is officially the weirdest one.”
Lander laughed, the sound rich and—well, heartwarming. My memories of last year might have been foggy, but I could at least remember the way he’d once shied away from the idea of pure, undiluted joy. Now, with Emelle at his side, smiling up at him…
He looked so much more confident, more at ease in his own body, than I’d ever seen him.
At that moment, a Shifter struck up a catchy beat with his half-drum body, and Emelle tugged on Lander’s sleeve with a gasp.
“This is the same one they played the other day, remember, Land? C’mon, Rayna, come dance with us! This beat is everything.”
She was already swaying her hips, drawing Lander’s eyes to her curves. I raised my palms, shaking my head.
“I think I’m going to get a drink first, actually.” If I was actually going to loosen up, I’d have to break the no-drinking rule I’d given myself. Surely, one night couldn’t make my head any worse than it already was. “You two go on without me. I’ll catch up in a bit.”
“You sure?” Emelle stopped swaying to narrow her focus on me.
“Positive.”
“Well, then,” Lander said, passing me the drink in his hand, “you can start with this one.”
Taking the cup, I only hesitated for a second longer before I knocked it back, draining what was left in one swift gulp. The burn slid down my throat and settled like a brewing fire in my stomach.
I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my dress. “Thanks. I’ll come find you both when the ceiling starts to spin a little.”
Fun. I could have fun. I could find pleasure for just one night.
Apparently satisfied that I meant it, Emelle dragged Lander into the fray of bodies, and I exhaled a long breath as the blissful heat of the drink started to spread through me like reaching roots.
Something tweaked in my chest, but I ignored it. Where was Rodhi? Wren and Gileon had decided to stay in and play board games tonight, but Rodhi had promised he was going to show up after he took care of some personal business. Whatever that meant.
“Rayna.”
I jumped and almost dropped my empty glass to find Wilder standing right behind me, his hands stuffed in his pocket.
“Wilder!” Maybe the drink was already rooting itself into my system, because I felt the words slip out more easily than I could have possibly expected.
“I’ve been meaning to reach out to you to talk about the other day.
I hope you know I didn’t mean it when I said we weren’t friends. It’s just that Kitterfol Lexington is—”
“I know who Kitterfol Lexington is,” Wilder interrupted with a half-smile. “He’s sort of the most famous alumni in my sector—and the most prying, I’ve learned since then. So I get it. I wouldn’t want him rooting around in my brain any more than necessary either.”
At the slight squint of Wilder’s eyes… he was curious, I realized, curious to know why Lexington had been cornering me in the first place.
Scrambling for another topic so that my thoughts wouldn’t stray into dangerous territory, I asked, “So what are you doing in the Shifter house? I thought the Mind Manipulator parties were all the buzz.”
Although, come to think of it, maybe Steeler’s former position as the Manipulator prince had really put a damper on the whole sector—finding out their class royal had been a spy and traitor all along probably hadn’t been the greatest morale boost of all time.
And I still couldn’t comprehend how much other people remembered of him.
From the sounds of it, he’d been like a ghost waltzing along the periphery of everyone else’s memories. Nothing substantial to grasp onto.
Wilder jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the group of Shifters playing mini-pentaball.
“I met that middle guy—the one with the green ball—right before the Branding. He became a Shifter and invited me over.”
“Oh, cool. How was—”
“My first week?” Again, that half-smile seemed to weigh on his mouth. “Sorry, still getting used to the whole mind-reading thing.”
“Must be an overwhelming magic,” I said, trying not to let him catch my thoughts about his family and how disappointed they would be when—if—he came back without Wild Whispering abilities.
I took a quick sip to try to stifle the thought—only to remember that my glass was empty. Shit, my tongue already felt sloppy.
Wilder didn’t see, though. He was gazing sideways, as if he couldn’t bear to make eye contact.
“It gets easier every day. And besides, it has its uses. Like for instance…” He paused, his eyes swinging back to my face.
“I was coming over to tell you how beautiful you look tonight, but I can tell by your outer thoughts that you’re not interested in me in that way anymore. ”
I cringed. It was true, even if I hadn’t come to that conclusion myself. “I’m sorry, I just—”
“Hey.” Wilder placed a brief touch on my shoulder. “Don’t ever apologize for how you feel or don’t feel, okay? It’s the one thing we can’t control, even as Mind Manipulators.” He sucked in a breath as if to say goodbye, then did a double take. “Quinn?”
My head cranked sideways way faster than it should have. A sheet of ruby-red hair paused among two grinding couples. Then turned.
Quinn Balkersaff slowly pivoted to face us.
“Wilder. Rayna,” she said in a flat, empty voice that filled me with chills. “How adorable that you two are back together again.”
“We’re not,” Wilder said before I could, his voice speeding up…
as if Quinn’s appearance was a welcome escape from the topic we’d just broached together.
“But it’s nice to see you again, too!” He looked back and forth between us.
“How often do you two get to hang out, being in different sectors and all?”
I tried to stomp on his foot to get him to change the subject, but missed and ended up stumbling over mine. Quinn just studied him, her hair falling to the side with the catlike tilt of her head.
“I don’t see why I should even answer that out loud,” she said finally. “You can pick out anything you want from here, can’t you?” She tapped her own head.
Wilder’s face fell as he no doubt did read everything emanating from her blazing mind.
“Oh. Yeah, yeah, I can. Well…” He dragged a hand through his hair and scratched the top of his head. “I’ll see you two later.”
And without another word, he turned to stride back to his pentaball friends, his hands shoved back into his pockets.
Glaring, Quinn twirled to leave, too.
“Quinn,” I started, reaching out with a single hand.
But she was already gone. Okay, then. Maybe that should have hurt me more than it did, but at this point I was used to my ex-best friend avoiding me at all costs… and I knew if I kept pursuing her, it would just end up being harassment on my part.
Plus, the alcohol helped.
Sighing, I started spinning in a tight circle, craning my neck for Rodhi again, when a deep, deep voice said, “You want another one? Or are you just going to keep holding an empty glass?”
I looked up… and up and up… to find a man of nothing but sculpted abs, golden skin, and wavy blonde hair smiling down at me, holding out a new glass of that wonderful liquid with a bulging arm.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him. And gulped that one, too.
The man moved closer. “Do you want to dance?”
I found myself face-to-face with his eight-pack. I had no doubt the man was a Shifter and didn’t actually look like this without all his magic jacking him up, but after that shipwreck of a conversation with Wilder and Quinn… “Sure,” I said again.
Because the ceiling was starting to spin.
An hour later, our teeth were clacking together.
I hadn’t been able to find Emelle or Lander again, but I’d finally managed to let loose with the blonde Shape Shifter.
Now, his hands gripped either side of my waist, tugging me toward his body that didn’t feel like a body at all. There was pressure in all the right spots, feeding the fire that had traveled to that spot between my legs, but my mouth—
I tried to break from the kissing, the sucking and squelching sounds of his lips around my tongue.
We’d stumbled into this vacant room a while ago, but now the spinning had paused long enough for me to realize how cold and wet his mouth was.
How clammy his hands were as they gripped me like vises.
How his armpit areas had bloomed with dark sweat.
“Slow down,” I panted, coming up for air.
The Shifter just tugged me toward him again, mashing his mouth so hard against mine it felt like my lips would bruise. I yanked back.
“Okay, stop.”
“What’s wrong?” He was murmuring the words into my neck now, sucking on patches of my skin in a downward trail.
“I just…” I tried to lean back even more, realizing I was straddling him on a random bed—with both our clothes still on, thank the God of the Cosmos. “I need a break for a second.” Or maybe for more than a second.
Finally, the Shifter removed his mouth long enough to look at me.
“Are you fucking kidding?” His golden face crinkled into something ugly. “You’re not getting cold feet on me, are you?”
That put the fire out between my legs. I scrambled off his lap and slipped onto the floor, not even bothering to turn to face him.
“So what if I am? I’m allowed to change my mind.”
I made to go, but a bubbling movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see the Shifter shrink back into his regular self—a slug-shaped boy with a neck that seemed to melt from his head to his rounded shoulders—and pop up onto his own feet.
“Oh, no, no, no.” He actually laughed, though the sound did nothing to warm the room. “You came to my house, sweetheart. You pressed your ass against my dick when we were dancing out there.”
I backed up a step, too stunned to so much as scowl. I remembered dancing, remembered having fun, but that didn’t mean…
“I just need a couple of pumps,” the Shifter said, “and then—”
“Not interested anymore,” I spat, and rushed for the door, my hand jerking at the doorknob…
His flabby arm lengthened itself into something long and noodle-like, his hand shooting past me to palm the door shut.
For a splinter of time, I blinked and thought I saw him: the silhouette of Coen Steeler gathering in the corner of the room. Raw, warm power seemed to ripple off him as he stepped forward, murder etched all over his face.
I didn’t wait long enough to blink again. I just whipped my crescent knife from the sheath beneath my rumpled dress, raised it high above my head, and brought the blade back down.
Right through the Shifter’s hand still pressed against the door.
He howled in agony, and his hand snapped back toward him—or, most of it did.
The three fingers I’d sliced off at the tips thudded to the carpet in puddles of their own blood.
When I turned back to that corner, breathing heavily, the silhouette of Coen Steeler was gone. As was that electric, murderous power that had emanated from it.
“You bitch!” the sluggish boy wailed, cradling his dripping hand. “You ruined me! You hurt me! I’m going to tell the Good Council!”
For a second, my blood froze in my veins at the thought. The last thing I needed was more of the Good Council in my life.
Then I remembered that Dyonisia had given me this knife sheath. Surely, she wouldn’t punish me for using it…even if I hadn’t cut into quite the right target.
“You’re a big Shifter,” I said, my voice shaking. “You can grow it back.”
Without waiting for a response, I opened the door and whisked away.