17. Riley
Riley
Tobias Morrone was a problem. Everywhere I turned in the week since Bernard dislocated my shoulder, the damn wolf was there. Watching me. Acting as if he cared about my safety.
People had noticed.
Just the other day, I’d turned around and there he was. Staring at me like a creeper.
“Are you stalking me?”
“What? No!” The little smirk and cute dimples said otherwise, and I huffed as he stood there, arms folded, highlighting his exceptionally honed chest and biceps. “I was interested in…those flowers over there.” He pointed to a clump of nondescript red flowers growing next to the wall on my left.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, cutie. I, um, have a passion for…botany.”
“Let me guess, you want to add them to your collection of dried flowers?” I blinked innocently as a group of feline shifters walking past snickered loudly. But Tobias just grinned.
“I’m totally secure in my sexuality,” he said. “So maybe I will.”
Shoving thoughts of the hot wolf down because I didn’t need the distraction, I hustled toward the gym for my self-defense class.
Since Instructor Bernard had yet to return—and according to campus gossip, never would—a new instructor had stepped into his shoes.
Hopefully not another asshole with an unhealthy interest in sadism.
Once again, I deliberately wore an oversized hoodie with loose sweatpants. Luckily, there wasn’t a standard gym uniform, although most students preferred to wear shorts and little else.
Not me. I had too much to hide.
The binder that hid my breasts could double as a back-support brace, and if anyone asked, I’d claim I had a weak back thanks to my human heritage. I doubted anyone would question it. Most full-blooded shifters knew absolutely nothing about hybrids—or cared enough to find out.
When I scanned the assembled students, I spotted a few avians and smaller shifters. My gaze snagged on Simon at the back, standing with two taller guys. Both of them turned to stare at me when Simon lifted a hand in cautious greeting.
Since I had no other friends, I trotted over.
“Hey, Riley. This is Connor and Andrew.”
I nodded a greeting. “Snakes?” Simon’s grimace reminded me it was impolite to ask a shifter what species they were if it wasn’t obvious. Oops.
“I’m a rattlesnake, and he’s a gecko,” Connor said.
“Quiet!” I turned to see a tall, imposing male with shiny golden hair in a sexy man bun. The scruff on his chiseled jaw did nothing to detract from his sex appeal. My wolf sat up and took notice, having decided this male was worthy of our attention, and honestly? She was right.
I surreptitiously wiped my mouth in case I’d started drooling.
The male, a lion shifter, wore nothing but a pair of athletic shorts, which meant I had free rein to admire his cut chest and delicious abs. And I wasn’t the only one.
Half the class uttered a collective sigh when a lone ray of sunshine turned his golden hair and body into a work of art so dazzling I felt immediately compelled to worship at the altar of his dick.
“My name’s Instructor Leone, and until Instructor Bernard returns to campus, I’ll be teaching you first-years. In today’s class, we’re going to pair up and practice our unarmed combat skills. Three minutes per round, with the winner of each match going into the next.”
“Can we shift, sir?” asked a lithe shifter with honey-brown skin.
The lion shifter rolled his eyes at the same time I did. “No. As I’m sure Instructor Bernard has explained previously, the point of this class is to learn how to fight without help from your beast. Anyone who shifts, accidentally or otherwise, gets disqualified. Are we clear?”
Everyone nodded.
The gym was vast, with equipment stacked at one end and mats laid out in the center.
As the wind picked up outside, I thanked the goddess that we were doing this class indoors.
The poor reptile shifters would have stood no chance against warm-blooded species if they had to fight outside.
Not with the temperatures dropping daily.
“How do you cope in winter?” I whispered to Simon as the lion shifter instructor read out names from a list.
“We struggle,” Simon admitted. “But there are enchantments we can buy from witches to keep us warm when it’s freezing.”
“…Riley Scott and Preston Clawson.”
I jumped at the mention of my name. Fuck, who was I paired with?
“Over here, hybrid scum,” a loud voice yelled, followed by a burst of laughter from a group of wolf shifters. Great. My opponent was a dickhead wolf shifter. Not a guy I’d had any interaction with previously, but from his arrogant sneer, he wasn’t a member of my fan club.
“No shit talking, Clawson,” Leone reprimanded. “I expect a clean fight.”
Hmm, at least the instructor seemed like a decent sort. Bernard would have encouraged an asshole like Clawson and probably turned a blind eye when he shifted.
“I can’t wait to wipe the floor with your pathetic ass,” Clawson crowed when I reached our spot on the mats.
“Good luck with that.” I smirked. This asshole wasn’t a fighter. It was obvious from the unbalanced way he stood. While he might be muscular and tall, like most male wolf shifters, I knew his type. He almost certainly relied on his wolf in fights.
“You have three minutes to overpower your opponent,” the instructor reminded us. My wolf swooned at the lion’s commanding alpha vibe, but I shoved her down. A distraction at the wrong moment would cost me dearly, and I wasn’t about to lose a fight against a moron like Clawson.
We stepped onto our allotted mat. Clawson grinned and cracked his knuckles while the instructor went through the rules again: no shifting and no killing.
“On my whistle, go.”
The minute the instructor blew the whistle, Clawson launched his considerable bulk at me. He probably assumed I’d freeze in panic, which I might have if I’d had no previous training. The sight of a massive male shifter intent on hurting me would have been intimidating for a regular hybrid.
But I wasn’t an ordinary hybrid. Cal had spent a lot of time and effort teaching me how to defend myself. So instead of collapsing in a terrified heap, I stepped sideways and let the idiot’s momentum carry him forward. Then I kicked his legs out from under him.
Two hundred and fifty pounds of enraged wolf shifter hit the mat hard enough to break his nose. Blood spattered everywhere, but rather than admiring my handiwork, I quickly put him in a sleeper hold.
It was lights out in seconds.
I spent the next two minutes and forty-one seconds chilling while Clawson snoozed. Each time he stirred, I sent him back to the land of dreams.
When the whistle blew, the instructor stared at me and a confused Clawson for a few long moments before saying, “Nice work, Scott. You’re through to the next round.”
Simon gaped as I sauntered back over to him and his friends.
“That was impressive.”
I rolled my shoulders and then shrugged nonchalantly. “I got lucky.”
My next two fights went off without a hitch, although my opponents were not as stupid as Clawson.
The first, a cougar shifter, knew a few moves, but still went down with little effort.
The second, a wily coyote shifter, was more agile.
But he still underestimated me, and once I got him in a chokehold, it was game over.
By the fourth round, five wolf shifters, a bear shifter, a panther, and a tiger were all that remained on the mats. The other students stood against the wall, half of them nursing minor injuries.
The four shifters I’d beaten all watched me with murder on their minds, but I ignored them.
A bulky bear rolled his shoulders when I joined him on the mat.
“You got lucky in the other three fights. Good luck taking me down.” I gave him my best dead-eye stare while surreptitiously scanning his thickly muscled body. When he shifted on the spot as everyone waited for the whistle, I noticed he avoided placing too much weight on his left foot.
He must have sustained an injury in the previous three fights that hadn’t healed yet, so when the whistle blew, I danced around him, dodging his blows. One punch from a dude this powerful would hurt, and I wasn’t about to risk being knocked out.
The longer I evaded his punches, the more frustrated the bear shifter got. His face turned mottled red with rage while his eyes glowed, a sign his bear wanted to come out and play.
“Fucking hybrid cunt,” he growled. Not loud enough for the instructor to hear; not that Leone was watching. He was too busy dealing with a cougar shifter who’d broken his leg on another mat.
“Sorry, Barney, I’m not into hairy butts,” I taunted, dodging the bear’s jab. The idiot frowned in confusion.
“Barney?”
“That super-dumb cartoon bear,” I explained as I lashed out with my foot, targeting the bear shifter’s injured ankle. He howled in pain and tumbled sideways, hitting the mat so hard my teeth rattled.
I jumped astride him and tried to get him in a chokehold, but the asshole was angry enough to fight through the pain and roll us, putting me under him.
Luckily, it was a scenario I’d worked through many times, and this bear was no longer cool headed enough to think straight.
He left his nuts wide open, so I thrust my knee up hard enough to hurt.
The pain propelled him forward, which made it easy to throw him over my head.
He lay on his stomach, groaning, before I put him in a sleeper hold just as the whistle blew.
“Good work, Scott,” the lion shifter said, his eyes glowing as he stared at me. Then he shook his head at the bear shifter, who lay whimpering and clutching his genitals.
I tried to summon some pity for the big bastard but failed miserably. He’d lost any sympathy I might have had when he called me a hybrid cunt. Go figure.
“Larsen, get the fuck off the mat.” Alpha dominance rolled off the lion shifter, and all the shifters in the room lowered their heads in submission. Damn, this Leone dude was powerful.
My wolf whined and clawed at my chest, desperate for a taste of lion.
Shut up! I can’t afford to be distracted! She whined once more and then settled.
Once the bear shifter had dragged his ass away, I waited for my next opponent to rock up. None of my opponents had been especially challenging so far, but when I clocked the tiger shifter, I realized that was about to change.
The tiger dude was no pampered pussycat. He grinned as he stepped onto the mat. Standing well over six feet, the tiger towered over me. Cropped hair, scarred knuckles, and sinewy, hard-packed muscle that hadn’t come from the gym told me the cat was an experienced fighter.
I lacked the brute strength to knock a guy like this out, so I would have to fight smarter, not harder. The tiger didn’t appear to have any injuries, but arrogance was still a weakness, and he sure had plenty of that.
“Give up now, pretty boy,” he whispered, leaning in while licking his lips and smirking. “I’ll take it easy on you if you bend over for me later.” Gross. Nothing about the asshole appealed to me or my wolf. She huffed in disgust.
The lion shifter must have overheard the tiger shifter’s unwelcome offer because he stormed over.
“Any more sexual harassment bullshit, and you’ll be facing me on the mat. Are we fucking clear?” The lion’s eyes glowed once again as he faced the tiger.
It took a couple of seconds, but the tiger submitted to instructor Leone’s dominance.
I tutted loudly once the lion turned to talk to another student.
“Bad kitty.”
Then the whistle blew, and an enraged tiger leaped into the air.