9. Riley
Riley
After several days of being treated like a leper, I’d made zero progress on identifying anyone linked to my sister’s disappearance. News of my hybrid status had traveled like wildfire. Each time I walked into a classroom, the whispers began.
Does he even have an animal?
Is he a charity case?
He looks too pathetic to be a shifter.
What a fucking joke. Moonfall is supposed to be an exclusive academy!
Frankly, it was petty and annoying. Did these idiots not understand that they were no better than me? Sure, they didn’t have a human parent who’d done the bare minimum to keep them alive, but I was still a shifter!
The lesser magicals like wood sprites, dryads, and trolls ranted online about their poor treatment at the hands of the mages and witches, but full-blooded shifters were no better with their elitist attitudes.
I had an hour before my self-defense class, so rather than napping in my room, I was busy stuffing my face in the canteen. Or at least that was the plan until I walked in and saw how crowded it was.
Naturally, everyone stopped talking and stared at me the moment I crossed the threshold, but I pasted a bland expression on my face and pretended I hadn’t noticed.
A few shifters moved out of my way as I headed toward the hot food counter. Did they think they’d catch a nasty disease if they inadvertently touched me?
Idiots.
At least my glamour was holding up. Nobody had pointed at me and accused me of being female yet.
Thank the goddess for small mercies.
When I reached the front of the line, I chose a hot beef roll with extra-spicy mustard. A girl could never have too much spice. The hotter the better as far as I was concerned.
Since I had no friends here, I made my way to an empty table at the far end of the room and sat with my back to the wall so I could watch the other students. It took a while, but eventually everyone stopped staring at me and returned to their conversations.
As Felix had said, wolf shifters were in the majority at the academy, and I’d spotted at least three distinct groups hanging out together between classes. Feline shifters were the next largest group, mostly encompassing lions, cougars, leopards, tigers, and other big cats.
Avian shifters were in the minority. They kept to themselves and had separate flight classes.
Less common shifters made up the rest of the student body and included snake shifters, fox shifters, and even a mule shifter.
It made me realize how limiting growing up with humans had been. Like Felix had said, I was clueless about many things other shifters learned from a young age, such as shifting etiquette and navigating the behavioral habits of other species.
Tuning out the nasty comments from a nearby table of wolves, I bit into my hot beef roll and moaned with delight.
The mustard made my taste buds tingle in all the right ways.
Holy shit, the food here was freaking amazing.
Going back to my regular diet of instant noodles and tinned franken-meat would be pure torture.
Just as I scarfed down the last bite, the atmosphere in the cavernous room shifted from relaxed to tense. When I glanced up, three familiar wolves headed my way.
“Move, freak,” the biggest one snarled, baring his stained teeth. Lovely. My tormentor from the other day had decided he wanted a rerun. And with an audience this time.
I half wondered whether the hot shifter with the dimples would come to my rescue again, but from the way my wolf snoozed, it didn’t appear likely. Oh well. I could handle these three idiots on my own.
“I haven’t finished my lunch,” I pointed out, gesturing at the crisp apple I had lined up to eat next. Although I intended to do so on the way to my next class, I wasn’t about to cave into this moron’s demands.
“I said move, you little weirdo,” the wolf snapped, leaning over me to use his height and bulk to intimidate.
“And I said no.” Two avian shifters sitting to my left exchanged nervous glances and abruptly stood to get out of the way before things became violent.
Ignoring them, I leaned back and stretched lazily while noting that asshole one was in danger of falling forward if someone swept his legs from under him.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Cal had drummed that lesson into me many times over the years. He’d taught me to take advantage of my smaller size, which made me faster and more agile.
Not one person stepped in to offer me assistance, which sucked. It was just as well that I didn’t need any help.
“You shouldn’t be here, hybrid scum,” asshole one’s equally awful friend sneered. “Runts like you should be put down at birth.”
The hatred in his words shocked me into silence. But then he smirked and added that he fully intended to make me regret surviving.
I saw red.
The apple I’d picked up while the assholes were spouting their nonsense made a useful projectile.
The first wolf yelped in surprise when I threw it at his head with considerable force.
Then, while he was busy moaning, I squirted the remains of my mustard packet into his eyes.
The screams that followed were positively heartwarming.
Once the other two recovered from their shock, they both shoved their sobbing friend out of the way and lunged for me.
I dove sideways and swept the first’s legs from under him. As predicted, he went down like a pile of bricks, hitting his head on the sturdy table as he fell.
The third growled in fury, not having expected me to take out his two companions so easily. He tried to grab me, but I used a chair to smash his arm out of the way. Then I punched him in the balls.
An agonized scream told me I’d scored a direct hit. Hopefully that destroyed his chances of fathering any cubs in the future. A girl could dream.
The first shifter turned on me, his red eyes still streaming from the mustard. As I scrambled away, he shifted into a large brown wolf, almost as ugly as he was. Fuck. My chances of fighting off an enraged wolf were not great. Not unless my she-wolf joined the party.
I checked, but she sniffed and ignored me.
The mangy brown wolf drooled as I sprang to my feet and grabbed a fork from an adjacent table. Everyone sitting nearby had legged it, which I didn’t blame them for. None of them had any incentive to help me. It wasn’t as if we were friends.
“Are you hoping to get kicked out of school?” I asked the slavering wolf, not keen on becoming a wolf’s chew toy.
The wolf snarled, but just as he was about to lunge for my throat, a commanding voice yelled,
“Stand down!”
The wolf froze, along with his two companions.
I winced when the new wolf’s alpha dominance hit me in the chest hard enough to wake up my wolf before the effect faded.
Then my mouth gaped open in surprise as every single shifter left in the canteen sank to their knees and pressed their noses to the floor in submission to the dominant wolf shifter striding across the room.
This guy was huge, built like a semi-truck with bulging muscles, close-cropped dark hair, and olive skin.
He exuded raw brutality. The sort of handsome male seen in the human-made superhero movies Felix enjoyed watching.
Mostly because those characters typically wore tight spandex shorts and he was a pervert.
I shivered under the gaze of such a powerful alpha wolf, and I prayed he wasn’t one of the shifter mafia heirs.