Ethereal Shifters (The Nexus #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

“ E verything’s back to normal now. Isn’t that great?”

Normal? I smile at Annie from across the room as I lie in my bed, watching the ray of sunlight peek through the gap in the curtains. She sits up in her bed, her messy bed hair sticking everywhere, and she smiles back. Her smile doesn’t hide her sadness, the redness of her eyes from crying, or the echo of how much losing her mate has destroyed her soul. Her Nexus.

Normal. Normal. Normal. Onyx has done something to make sure I can have this, and it is everything I’ve always wanted. To be the same as everyone else and not seen as a monster, to have a chance of living with my people and not a life on the run. I’m not locked up waiting to be killed, and everyone knows what I am. Or at least the Supreme Alpha, Onyx’s father, does. Is this normal? I don’t think I’ve had a normal day in my entire life. I repeat the strange word, even though it feels weirder every time I say it.

“I’ve still not got over the fact that they’re not carting me out here to, you know, kill me.”

Annie winces. “Don’t say stuff like that. They’re not going to kill you, okay?” She throws back her quilt. “Whatever Onyx did, he made sure you’d be safe. He’s not a liar, from what I can make out, and he’s here, okay? You got this, you’re okay.” She cups her hands together. “I can’t lose you, Gwen.”

Am I okay though? “You won’t,” I tell her, but the words don’t register fully to me. It’s an empty promise, at least in my chest. It makes her feel better though, and she grins at me. “You can have the bathroom first,” I offer.

I yawn, lying back to stare at the ceiling before closing my eyes. “Are you there?” I reach for my Nexus in my mind, but all I get is a shivery feeling. Like she has frozen the space where she lurks in my mind and she is happy for me to get frostbite trying to communicate with her. I wince as I pull away from her and sigh. I’ve pissed her off somehow, but she isn’t going to tell me why. Well, fuck her. I have a chance at a new life, one where my parents aren’t training me, no one is hunting me in Starlight City at least, and I have a friend. I have mates who don’t altogether hate me.

Annie is talking through the door, chatting away about our lessons and the ones she has missed as Nibbles grumbles from her bed at the end of my bed. “Morning, Nibbles.” She doesn’t even lift her head; instead, she rolls onto her stomach and I grin, climbing out of the bed to fuss her. “I’ll get you breakfast and a walk soon.”

“Are you going to behave?” I whisper into my mind. But frostbite is still my response as she blocks me out. I almost feel a burst of pure bitchiness coming directly from her, aimed at me. Oh, she’s super pissed. Awesome. Just what I need when everything is going to shit. After pulling the curtains open, I grab my clothes for the day, and I’m surprised to find everything is exactly how I left it in my chest of drawers, including the box from my mother, which is tucked up at the back.

“Bathroom is all yours!” Annie chirps as she steps out, freshly dressed and her hair tied back. “Oh, and this is for you. I forgot to give you it last night. Alek passed it to me.” She hands me a red silk cloth, and inside is my Nex dagger. I knew it was close, and the moment I hold it, the unease of not having it with me disappears.

“Thank you.” I put it on the dresser to take my clothes with me into the bathroom.

“I can’t believe it’s the first day of winter!” Annie shouts through the door. “Have you ever been to the Falk’s night celebration in Edinburgh? We always…” She drifts off and clears her throat. She always went with Kos. “Well, it’s in a month’s time. If you haven’t been, it might be nice to go together.”

“I haven’t been, but I’d love for us to go.” But I doubt they will be letting me stray that far. I focus on the good, not the bad. It’s the only way to keep going, or at least it’s the only way I’ve known how to keep going. Winter is here, and it is my favourite season. It’s one of the things I missed when I was living in Spain, that their winters never really got cold. Not like they do here in Scotland. Here we get possible snow.

Annie’s second alarm goes off, and I know I’ve only got fifteen minutes now to get dressed, and I need to do something with my hair before going out to my lessons. Do I just go back to lessons like normal? Go back to pretending not to have an out-of-control Nexus in my soul…and not see Onyx?

Diomi. I stare at the rune and tap it. I used to tap it to piss him off, but now? It’s all I have. Six months, he said. I can’t see him or leave the academy for six months. I’m not sure how much of that was true, but I’m going to find a way to see him. I have to. He thinks I hate him, but he saved me. He put me first, when no one has ever done that for me before.

We can’t be together. That was part of the deal, and that is permanent.

No. I don’t care what deal he made, because us being apart and never together can’t be permanent. Not after this. I need to see him. I throw the academy uniform on, the familiar tight black clothes fitting me perfectly. Now that my tan has faded, the dark makes me look pale. I pull my hair into a loose braid, looking at myself one more time in the mirror. My grey eye looks darker somehow, but the other is normal, and it’s still easy to see the monster lurking in my soul. How can I hide what she is now? What if she kills here? What if I lose control?

My breaths come out in big gulps, and I breathe deeply to calm myself down. When I look down at the counter, I flinch, seeing that the mahogany tiles partly turned grey under my touch. That doesn’t happen unless my Nexus comes out, rarely anyway, not unless I start losing control.

Thankfully, someone knocks on the dorm door twice, and Annie’s footsteps echo to me as she goes to open the door. “Rhodes! You look well! She’s just in the bathroom.” Nibbles is barking and in his arms when I come out of the bathroom a minute later, and there is something deeply attractive about Rhodes holding Nibbles gently in his arms and fussing her.

Rhodes is wearing a soft blue jumper and brown trousers, which make him look more tanned everywhere on his muscular body. His blond hair is bright like the sun, and his green eyes are greener than any leaf in the forest as he smiles at me like I’m not a complete mess. “Good morning, beautiful.”

“Are you talking to me or my dog?” I arch an eyebrow.

His laugh makes my skin warm. “There is only one being in this world I would ever call beautiful.” My mouth dries. Annie coughs to remind us that she’s here, and Rhodes blinks. “I have come to get Nibbles as it’s my morning to walk and feed her while you’re at class. We’ve made a timetable so Nibbles is well cared for and your lessons aren’t interrupted. But first I’ve got to take you down to a meeting with the tutors of the academy. All the tutors will be there, including me, Hollis, Alec and Finn.” He pauses. “Okay? If you need more time to rest or you’re not ready?—”

“I’m fine.” I nervously nod. “And Onyx?”

Rhodes hesitates. “He’s in the city.”

“Is that all you’re going to tell me about him?” I dig my nails into my palms.

“Gwen.” He walks past me and puts Nibbles down. He picks my boots up and pats the bed. I arch an eyebrow again but do as he says. I sit down, only for my cheeks to flush when he kneels down in front of me. He picks my one leg up, sliding my boot on. He’s caring for me. It’s such an unusual thing that I don’t know what to make of it for a few moments. He puts my other boot on and begins to tie the laces, his knuckles grazing my legs, and I shiver. “Whatever they say down there, they’re not here to harm you and they are here to help. So it’s not going to be bad, and I’ll be with you the entire time.” I still don’t get how or why they allowed me back in the first place.

“They had me at a trial. They were going to kill me, and what did Onyx do to save me from that?” I roll my eyes when he doesn’t reply. Annie makes a slight noise in the back of her throat. “Annie, seriously, my Nexus murders like it’s a fun game of sports. I shouldn’t be here.”

Annie puts her hands on her hips and glares at me. “She only murders bad people. It could be argued it’s public service.”

Rhodes chokes on a laugh. “She’s right, you know. You’re not killing good people, and she doesn’t kill people for no reason. I’ve told you once, I’ll tell you it again now. I was waiting for you to tell me everything, every single bit about you, and know that I’d still tell you that you’re good.”

I’m not. “I’ve told you once before, you’re mad, but here we are.”

“Mad about you,” he smoothly agrees, and I can’t help but smile.

“I, uh, I should go,” Annie mutters. My heart pangs with the pain I hear, too. “I’ll take Nibbles with me for this morning while you go to the meeting. Come on.” She grabs her lead and ties it.

“Thank you, Annie,” I gently whisper.

Her eyes are wet when she briefly looks my way. “I’ll see you in class. Be careful, okay?”

“Annie, are you sure you’re okay?” I stand up.

She grabs the door. “Yes, it’s just being around mates is something I have to get used to. What’s a priority for me now is training and being strong.” She nods to herself and steps out, shutting the door behind her and Nibbles.

“It’ll take a while for her to recover.” Rhodes touches my arm.

“I know. I just wish I could fix it for her,” I admit. “He might have been a betraying son of a bitch, but he was her mate.”

“We can’t choose our mates. You deserve better than us fucked-up lot, too.” I frown at him.

I need to change the subject before I begin to cry. “How are you?”

“Perfectly healed and back to normal, thanks to you. My Nexus is equally as obsessed with you as I am, and we’re very happy to be escorting you to the meeting. For the record, there will be one of us with you when you’re outside this room at all times. Not because we don’t trust you, but other students might not understand what you are.”

“They see me as a monster and want me dead. Got it.” I nod. It’s pretty normal for me.

Rhodes looks mad, though. “You’re not.” He stops and sighs. “Most people are scared of anything different, and they want to get rid of you because of that alone. If they try to touch you, well, I’ll just kill them first.”

I look at him sceptically. “I feel like my murdering Nexus is rubbing off on you, and not in a good way.”

“I’ve always been this way; you’ve just not seen how I’ll defend you yet.” He winks. Maybe he isn’t just the nice one of my mates? Hmm. We head out of the door together, and he links his fingers with mine, holding onto me tightly as we go down the staircase into the entrance hall. The corridors of the old castle look the same, with the grey tones, the dark corners but the modern lighting doing nothing to help with the gothic vibes. A few students are walking to their classes, and some of them look at us, mostly at our joint hands, when tutors and students are not allowed to be in relationships in the academy, but they say nothing. Rhodes pretends they aren’t there as he leads me down the enormous staircase and we turn towards the tutor rooms. He knocks the fifth door down with Tutor Jettie’s name on the plaque, and there’s a loud shout to come in.

The small room is packed with tutors, and the immediate urge to run away floods me. I tighten my grip on Rhodes’s hand, fighting my feelings, and blow out a breath. Rhodes said they are here to help me. Not kill me. He wasn’t joking when he said every tutor was here. There must be about twenty people in this room, but my eyes first flick straight towards Finn and Alec, who are standing together on one side of the room near a bookcase, and then to the other tug in my chest. To Hollis, who is sitting in the only chair, his legs spread out in a black leather uniform and his arms crossed, with the most bored expression on his face. He doesn’t even look up at me.

I’ll never admit it, but how unbothered he is by my Nexus pisses me off a little. We have a bond, even if he hates me, and there should be a little reaction. Even a nod of his head. I thought maybe we could have that after everything, but no, he hates me, and I likely deserve it. I feel a flicker of rage from my Nexus, and I barely manage to push away her desire to find a weapon and imbed it in Hollis’s thigh to get his attention. No stabbing anyone in front of the tutors!

Instead of Hollis, I turn my eyes to Finn, and that gets a different reaction entirely from my Nexus. In fact, I can pretty much visualise her stripping our clothes off now, even with a room full of twenty people looking at me, and she doesn’t seem to care one bit. She’s very interested in him and me. Enough that my cheeks flush, and Finn smirks like he can read exactly what she is thinking with those lethal ice blue eyes of his. His brown hair is freshly shaved at the sides and falling in locks across this forehead, and somehow that makes my inside melt. His leather ranger uniform is tight, everywhere, and I run my eyes over his rippling muscles on show. Sometimes I think he can—“Good morning, Sun.” His voice fills my mind, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.

Alek nods at me, searching my face before he mouths the words “It’s okay.”

I needed that. My shoulders drop a little, and it’s just in time as Tutor Jettie and Tutor Edvard, Finnegan’s father, move to the centre of the room. Tutor Jettie looks at Rhodes. “Tutor Rhodes, if you don’t mind, the rules on student and tutor relationships are still withstanding. Holding her hand is not permitted, as is any sexual contact within the academy walls. We have not come so far as to insult our ancestors by following the needs of our mates.” She waits, but Rhodes doesn’t let go. “Our Gods are watching and, as rangers, we are to be the example to the entire Nexus race.”

“The needs of my mate are all I care about,” Rhodes plainly offers, standing straight at my side. “One of her mates will be accompanying Gwenieve everywhere from now on, and I don’t believe any of this is necessary.”

All the other tutors look pissed. Except Hollis, who doesn’t care. Finnegan and Aleksander just seem amused. “She was with one of you pretty much all the time previously, and yet she went into the city and murdered.” Tutor Edvard looks at me. “You have zero control over your Nexus. Thankfully, you’re in an academy that can teach you how to control and bond properly with your Nexus. Maybe this would never have happened if you were taught properly from a young age and your parents came forward and explained to us what had happened…”

“Or you would have killed a defenceless child,” I point out. “Don’t insult them when they saved me.” There is silence. “My parents were doing the best they could with the situation, and they died protecting me. I won’t have you stand there and blame them for this. They watched their young daughter murder a whole supermarket full of people, and they had no idea what to do…and they chose to save me. Help me. Guide me.”

“That can be debated another time, Miss Autumn,” Tutor Jettie softly offers, pulling down the bottom of her striped grey and black jacket to straighten it. “I do wish you told me the truth from the beginning. I’ve spent my life aiding rangers to grow to their full potential, and I dislike knowing you’ve pretended to be less than exceptional.”

Exceptional . Not a word I’d have used to describe me. I gulp and nod once. Tutor Edvard crosses his arms. “We’re not here to correct the past, only to find a way forward.” He nods towards the desk where a box is. Several of the tutors, ones I don’t know, step back. Tutor Edvard goes over and picks the box up before he hands it to me. Something about it makes my stomach turn, and that feeling doesn’t go when he clicks it open and reveals a bracelet. It’s pure red, almost like a crystal, bound with a black metal. “This is a tracker. It’s made from the depths of the academy stone, and it links through to every tutor here. We will know if you go too far from the academy.”

“Oh, and what do you want me to do with that?” I act dumb.

It only pisses off Tutor Jettie. “Wear it. That is our condition. We need to know where you are, and in return for you wearing this, we will train your Nexus. We will help you and teach you to be a powerful ranger. To be a normal person in this city.”

Normal . There is that word again. Taunting me. I tilt my head to the side. “And do you think you’ll be able to stop my Nexus if she decides to leave?”

“Gwen,” Rhodes softly warns. “Trust me and put it on.”

I search his eyes. This is Rhodes…and he wouldn’t hurt me. It’s just a tracker, and I’m sure my Nexus could break it if she wanted to. “Fine, I’ll wear it.”

The moment I click the bracelet on, it feels strange but not painful. “Good.” The tension in the room seems to fade. “Gwen, you will have personal lessons with Tutor Hank. He has a way of connecting to our Nexus that’s unusual. We’ve brought him in specifically out of retirement to guide you and help you connect directly in a dreamlike state to your Nexus.” She points at the old man sitting in a chair by Finnegan.

Dream chats with my Nexus? While she is pissed at me? “I don’t think that’s an excellent idea.”

“Well, lucky for you, you’re not a tutor then, Gwenieve,” Tutor Jettie replies.

Tutor Hank stands, using a walking stick to aid him, and he hobbles over to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Autumn. We’ll begin our lessons every evening, straight after your last class. You can meet me outside this room. I prefer to choose a new place for our lessons each time. You have nothing to fear from this old man. I want to help.” After that, he just walks out of the room, and several of the tutors leave with him.

I clear my throat. “So, am I free to leave the academy, then? I’d like to go?—”

“No,” Tutor Jettie states. “No one is leaving the academy for the next six months. We are completely locked down, and all technology has been taken away. We feel it’s better and safer for everybody, and it is a direct order from our alpha.” It’s true then. Six months. “You’re free to go now. Your first lesson is with Tutor Hollis. I’m sure you know him well enough that you don’t need an escort.”

Hollis laughs low. “She knows I hate her, and I know this is all pointless. Leopards don’t change their spots.” He stands up and walks past me. “But the one good thing about all this is no more pretending to be some untrained, useless girl. I can throw you in the deep end now and know you won’t cry.” I glare at him as he storms past me. Rhodes looks furious.

Finnegan and Alek come over, and Alek touches my arm. “What did he say, then?”

“He told me how much of a jackass he is,” I mutter. “I’m just going to go back to my room and get my Nex dagger before class. I’m sure I’ll be needing it.”

Alek and Finnegan say goodbye before I leave with Rhodes. He is silent until we are halfway up the stairs. “That’s not the brother I know.” He stops me halfway up. “We all fucked up, and he is apparently continuing to do so. I can’t stop him, but I want you to know it’s not real.” He groans. “But it doesn’t matter right now. Only that you’re safe.”

“I can defend myself, you know, if anyone tried to attack me,” I offer. “Even the Vian aren’t really a threat to me.” Except their king and their prince.

“I know you can. That’s not the point.” He touches my cheek, and I suck in a breath. “You shouldn’t have to fight alone. You’re mine.”

I search his eyes. “You’re mine too.” A student pushes past us on the stairs, and I remember where we are and step back. Rhodes takes my hand and walks me back to my room. I touch his chest at the door. “I need a moment alone in the bathroom, and you can wait here.”

He leans into me, his face inches from mine. “What if I just don’t like being apart from you?”

I shake my head, opening the door and sliding into my room, hearing his laugh as I shut the door. I should have kissed him…right? Maybe. I don’t know. I go into the bathroom, and as soon as I shut the door, I black out. It feels so swift, like blackness swimming over my vision. When I open my eyes, I’m standing in the middle of the bathroom, and there’s a cut on my palm that makes me wince, and my finger tip is smothered in my blood.

When I look up, my eyes widen, and my heart feels like it stops. There’s a message written on the mirror in my blood.

“Severi is mine. Do not hurt or refuse him. Find Onyx before he ends up dead.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hiss. “You can talk to me and not do this shit! What do you mean before Onyx ends up dead? And Severi? Really? He is a psychopath , and you can’t just tell me to not hurt him!” I find wipes under the sink and clean my hand first before attacking the glass. No one else can see this. “Talk to me for fuck’s sake! Not creepy like this message. I knew watching Harry Potter’s second movie would rub off on you. They used cat blood, though!”

She still blocks me out, and I realise that it’s because she wants to get her own way and that way involves my enemy, who she must think we are going to see again soon.