29. Riley
Riley
Amessage popped up on my phone as I walked to my Shifter Politics class. My cramps had eased, but I still felt lethargic and uncomfortable. Way worse than usual.
Kasia: Hey! Are you going to the shifter fight ring this weekend?
I squinted at my phone, wondering what she was on about. Shifter fights? That didn’t sound like a school-sanctioned event. Ohhh. This must be whatever the huge alpha wolf had meant when he threatened the bullies in the canteen.
Maybe Simon would know more. I’d ask him.
Deciding to reply to Kasia’s message after class, I hurried along the path, ignoring the few sneering looks sent my way from wolves who still believed I shouldn’t be allowed on campus.
They could all go fuck themselves. Until I found out which shifter asshole had been with Lorna before she disappeared, I wasn’t going anywhere.
Unlike Tobias, who I hadn’t seen since the full moon party.
Part of me was relieved. If the lion’s sensitive nose had detected the scent of blood around me, the irritating wolf alpha might have too.
After the rope-bridge incident, I’d skipped the rest of my classes that day in favor of sleeping.
Since nobody came knocking, I figured my absence must have gone unnoticed.
Sleeping the day away helped ease my cramps but did very little to calm my rioting libido or help me unravel why being held in the lion’s arms had felt so damn amazing.
“Where were you yesterday?” Simon asked as he joined me outside the lecture theater in the main building. “I looked for you at lunch.”
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I slept all day.”
Shifters rarely got ill, so Simon’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Is that because of…you know?”
A spike of alarm sent my pulse rate rocketing. Had he figured out my secret?!
“Know?” I fiddled with my phone while avoiding his gaze.
“I mean, are hybrids more prone to human illnesses?”
Oh. “Yeah, I guess so.” I wasn’t sure, although I assumed not; I’d never been sick as a child. Which was lucky, since we’d not had health insurance.
The lecture theater was nearly full, but we found seats near the back, where I settled down for a boring class on shifter politics. Yawn.
Professor Orio’s droning voice was enough to send me into a coma after thirty minutes. It transpired that listening to the origins of the Shifter Council was as boring as watching paint dry. Who knew?
Just as the professor launched into a detailed analysis of why strong shifter-mage relations were fundamental to the continued smooth running of the Shifter Council, my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Mom.
What did she want? I declined the call, but two seconds later, she called again. After the fourth time, I realized she wasn’t giving up and something must have happened.
I spent the next fifteen minutes spiraling over what disasters could have befallen my mother since we last spoke. Knowing her, there were many possibilities.
As soon as the bell rang to signal the end of the class, I shot out of the lecture theater, not bothering to wait for Simon. The minute I’d crossed the field and reached the edge of the forest, I called her back.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Riley, darling! Are you okay?” For once she sounded alert and happy. Unexpected, but better than drunk.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I snapped, annoyed that she’d sent me into a panic for no good reason. “What do you want?”
“Oh, Riley, you sound stressed.” I heard masculine laughter in the background, along with music.
“Mom, where are you?”
“That’s why I called, darling. I’m in Silver City.” She giggled. “Hamish got me a job in a club. I start in an hour.”
“What sort of club, Mom? Silver City is dangerous.”
Silver City was full of shifters, although a few oblivious humans lived and worked there, along with a small population of witches and mages.
“It’s not dangerous, Riley. Hamish and his friends have been so kind to me. He found me a lovely apartment, and he’s got me this job. Why can’t you be happy for me?”
“Because I worry about you, Mom!”
I’d spent my whole life worrying about my mother. She was like a child with no sense of danger, leaping from one crisis to another.
“You don’t need to worry about me anymore, Riley. Hamish is taking good care of me.”
Somehow, I doubted this guy was helping my mother out of the kindness of his heart, but I stopped short of saying so.
“So what’s the job?” I asked, trying to sound upbeat.
“Oh, this and that,” she replied vaguely. “Serving drinks at private parties, that sort of thing.”
I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes in despair. There was no point telling Mom her new friend might be a shifter, and worse, a member of the shifter mafia.
“What’s the name of the club?”
A man’s voice shouted something I didn’t quite catch. “Sorry, darling, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you!” The call ended abruptly, leaving me wondering what my mother had got herself caught up in.
But what could I do? Nothing. She was thousands of miles away. It was time I took a step back and let her stand on her own two feet.
The sound of a branch cracking behind me made me jump, and I inwardly cursed my inner wolf for not alerting me to another’s presence.
“Well, well, it’s the dickless hybrid who got me into trouble with the heirs,” the wolf shifter snarled. Derek? Dickhead? While his name escaped me, I remembered how he believed it was his goddess-given right to talk shit about me when I first arrived.
“Ooh, look, it’s the dude who pissed himself.” I’ll admit it wasn’t sensible to lash out at the wolf, but the conversation with my mother had put me in a bad mood. “Fuck off, asshat.”
“You fucking little—” the prick roared before shifting into a sandy-colored wolf with a nasty case of mange. My wolf sat up and growled. It seemed she wasn’t a fan.
I tensed as the sandy wolf snarled and drooled, blocking my path back toward the main campus buildings. If I ran, my only path of escape was further into the forest, and I was no match for an adult male wolf with anger issues.
We’re going to have to shift, I told my wolf. I can’t fight this asshole otherwise.
The mangy wolf snapped at me, tearing a strip from my jacket. I had seconds, at most, before he went for my throat.
My animal pushed forward, forcing the shift. The brief pain of cracking bones and stretching tendons nearly had me vomiting all over my feet, but the minute I landed on four paws, it vanished. The other wolf jumped back in surprise; he’d not expected me to shift because hybrids rarely did.
Then he sniffed the air and howled with excitement. Fuck, his wolf recognized mine as a female. I tore off through the trees, my wolf making the most of her freedom after months spent slumbering inside me.
She was small for a wolf, but what she lacked in size, she made up for in agility, and it took very little effort to evade the much larger beast chasing me. I heard him crashing through the undergrowth behind us, yipping and howling.
We ran hard and fast, weaving through the trees, taking the least trodden paths in the hope our pursuer gave up. Trees and bushes flashed by, but it wasn’t long before my wolf grew fatigued. As the path grew steeper, she slowed, panting hard.
We can’t let him catch us!
If he did, we were dead.
My wolf found a second burst of speed and zipped down a narrower game track through a dense thicket.
The sandy wolf’s howls faded, and for a heady moment, I thought we’d lost him.
Then he burst through the trees on my left, sending my wolf flying.
She yelped at the bruising impact. An agonizing starburst of pain down my side told me something had broken, probably a rib.
She whimpered in distress, her panic threatening to overwhelm us both. I wasn’t in control, but I knew if she didn’t do something, we were likely dead.
Fight back, I screamed at her.
Listening to me for once, she lashed out with her paws and sliced into our attacker’s belly, provoking an angry squeal.
Snapping jaws lunged for our throat, but before the sandy wolf could rip us apart, a magnificent, much larger wolf grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him sideways as if he weighed nothing.
The sandy wolf yelped as the tawny one with a white chest swiped a huge paw across his haunches, tearing into muscle. I tried to stand, desperate to escape the terrifying new predator who might turn on me at any second.
But it was hopeless. My legs refused to work.
For once my wolf didn’t retreat into herself and leave me to deal with the mess. Instead, she seemed happy to remain in the driver’s seat, even though we were both in considerable pain. If anything, she seemed smug that the tawny wolf had saved us. Smug that he cared enough to come to our rescue.
An awful shriek followed by silence told me something bad had happened to the sandy wolf. I probably should have been concerned about that, given I was likely next, but my energy battery died and I passed out.