39. Riley
Riley
The only thing I knew about the shifter peace treaty was it was boring. So boring I’d rather run laps of the athletics field than read a book on the topic.
“Want to come to the library with me?” Simon asked hopefully as we packed up our things.
I dropped my notebook in surprise. “There’s a library?”
“You’re joking.” My friend rolled his eyes before staring at me with his mouth open. “You’re not joking?”
“Um, no,” I admitted sheepishly. He shook his head, appalled.
I’d done the bare minimum since arriving here, and my grades reflected that. It was a miracle the school hadn’t rescinded my fake scholarship.
As long as they ignored my low academic achievement until the winter solstice break, I’d be fine. If I hadn’t left Moonfall Academy by then, I would have bigger problems to deal with, such as my glamour spell losing its potency.
Tamara warned me it might begin slipping after four months, although she said six months was the normal time-span for such a spell.
Not knowing what else to do with myself because it was late afternoon and I had no fucking leads to check out, I trailed after Simon. Instead of exiting the main building, as I usually did, we turned right and headed up to the first floor.
A set of dark wood doors covered in carvings of moons, flowers, and vines stood open at the end of the long corridor. I gasped in surprise when I walked into the cavernous space.
Light filtered down through colored glass roof windows, creating a whimsical atmosphere.
The central area contained tables and chairs surrounded by tall bookcases.
There were two additional floors connected by staircases at each end of the room, and in front of the library’s entrance sat a desk where a gray-haired librarian sorted through piles of books, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses resting on her hook nose.
“Be quiet and no eating or fucking in the stacks,” she barked at me with a venomous scowl.
“Um, okay?” Not quite the welcome I expected, although maybe I should have anticipated some hostility given everyone else looked down on me. The human librarians I’d met over the years had all been mega-bitches with Napoleon complexes.
“Do students have sex in the stacks?” I whispered to Simon as we bagged an empty table by the history section.
“Yeah. Tobias Morrone got caught getting a blow job at the start of the semester.” I bit my tongue so hard I nearly choked on a chunk of flesh. “But most people come here to study,” Simon continued. “Apart from you, it seems.”
He pulled out a notebook and then headed off to search for the books he needed. Since I wasn’t in the mood for reading bullshit textbooks, I opened my notes app to review what I’d discovered about Lorna’s disappearance.
Which was sweet fuck-all.
Tate and Tank were my prime suspects, and until Felix’s software program cleaned up the camera image enough that we could identify the guy she’d been with at the rest stop, I couldn’t rule either of them out.
While I was busy yawning, Kasia messaged me in the group chat to say I owed them an apology for leaving the fight night so abruptly. Ugh. Now I felt bad.
Me: I’m sorry, something came up.
Kasia: A dick?
Bree: Several dicks?
Raquel: We need photos. For research. *wink emoji*
Me: No dicks!
That was a lie. I’d definitely felt Tobias’s dick when we kissed.
Me: Will explain when I see you.
I’d decided that, to move my investigation forward, I needed to come clean to the felines. They’d taken me under their wing, and I hated lying to them. I wasn’t a liar by nature, so hiding my true gender around them felt all kinds of wrong.
Especially when these females were so kind and generous.
Kasia: Meet us for coffee at the Witch’s Brew in Trinity Falls on Saturday.
I hadn’t been back to Trinity Falls since visiting the bakery where Lorna had lived and worked. The coffee and baked goods at The Buxom Bagels had been to die for, but I looked forward to sampling the coffee at the Witch’s Brew this time around.
Me: 11 am?
Bree: *heart emoji*
That gave me five days to psych myself up for the big reveal.
The week dragged. By the time Saturday arrived, I was more than ready to get off campus.
I threw on a jacket over a shirt and jeans to head for my coffee shop date with the pussy squad.
The bus left for town in thirty minutes, and I didn’t want to be late.
After checking my reflection in the mirror one last time, I shoved the pendant Tamara had given me into my pocket.
It only worked when looped around my neck, so I planned to broach the topic of my gender first and then do a big reveal. Hopefully none of my cat friends had a heart attack or scratched my eyes out for being a liar.
A big part of me worried I was making a terrible mistake. Felix agreed with that assessment. He thought telling the felines was a stupid idea. But then, he wasn’t a fan of feline shifters after one cheated on him.
I picked up my phone and trotted down to the parking lot to wait for the bus. A few other students stood around gossiping, but they all ignored me. Yeah, I was still the most unpopular student at Moonfall Academy.
Chad, a second-year wolf shifter, showed up a few minutes after me with his bear shifter friend. He’d shit-talked me before, and true to form, it took less than five seconds before he started spewing more bullshit at me.
“What do you call a wolf with no wolf?” he asked his ugly friend.
The bear shifter scratched his hairy belly and grunted. “Dunno?”
“A hybrid bitch!” the wolf cackled loudly while I rolled my eyes.
“What do you call a wolf with no brain?” I said in a loud voice as I swiped through Tobias’s feed on ShifterTok. “Chad!”
Two feline shifters made the mistake of laughing at my feeble joke, which prompted a nasty growl from Chad the Chump.
Thankfully, the bus rumbled into view, and Chad had the good sense not to start trouble. I waited until he’d boarded the bus ahead of me and then followed, grabbing a seat near the front. The burly bus driver didn’t seem the type to take shit from students, which helped me relax.
We left the campus behind as I admired Tobias’s shirtless thirst traps on ShifterTok.
Holy stars, the wolf had abs to die for.
In the video he’d uploaded this morning, he stood outside, sweaty and smiling at the camera before dripping water down his chest. The camera zoomed in on a water droplet as it slid down his abs and out of frame.
If only I was that water droplet.
Unfortunately, two million of his followers had expressed much the same sentiment. I silently seethed as I read a few of the comments on the video.
Wolfho69: I wanna lick your abs *fire emoji*
Sluttywolfmama: choke me baby *water drops emoji*
Hotwolfiedreamgirl: OMG I’m in heat *fire emoji* lmwao
Furbitch4wolves: I be wet too!!!! *tongue out emoji*
My wolf growled inside me, angry that all these thirsty bitches were panting for our mate.
I choked on my saliva.
Mate? She sniffed derisively, hinting I was stupid. That wolf isn’t our mate. We can’t have a mate.
It was official: my dumbass wolf was officially insane, and I needed to book a wolf therapist immediately. Did the school have a therapist on staff? I’d ask Simon.
Snake shifters probably had regular therapy to cure their phobia of shoes and purses. Poor Simon recently admitted he had PTSD from hearing how one of his relatives had ended up as a designer purse.
I could relate. Vegan burgers had that effect on me. I mean, eww. What kind of psychopath would willingly eat a fucking bean burger?!
The bus pulled up outside a pale stone building with two lions guarding the front entrance.
“The last bus leaves at five p.m.,” the driver announced as he opened the door to let everyone off. I shot down the steps to avoid Chad and his friend and hurried across the paved and tree-lined square for my date with the kitty cats.
The Witch’s Brew Coffee Shop was located down a narrow side street, between a spell ingredients emporium and a small fashion boutique. I guessed from the name that the coffee shop was owned by witches, but since this was a magical town, who knew?
It could just be a cute name some entrepreneurial bear shifter had chosen.
When I entered the coffee shop, the enticing aromas of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods assailed me. I almost groaned. Goddess, save me. The campus coffee was decent enough, but seeing a gingerbread latte listed on the chalkboard menu above the counter made my heart sing.
The feline shifters sat huddled in a booth near the back of the coffee shop, chatting loudly.
Bree waved me over.
“Riley!”
I quickly ordered a gingerbread latte with extra cream and then dropped onto the bench seat next to Raquel. The moment four pairs of feline eyes locked on me, my anxiety returned. I’d come here to plead forgiveness for my dishonesty. It could go one of two ways.
Once my coffee arrived, I took a large gulp while praying nobody lynched me.
Kasia frowned, sensing my discomfort.
“Did something bad happen to you after we lost you at the fight ring?”
“The wolf dude went nuts,” Haley whispered in a low voice. “Like, feral.”
Her comment temporarily distracted me from my big reveal. “Which wolf?”
“The Frosthaven alpha.” My wolf woke up and huffed loudly. Ah shit. Haley meant the wolf who’d saved us in the forest. Holy fuck, he must have recognized us or something, and now he wanted to eat me because I’d run away.
Fixing a disinterested expression on my face while swallowing bile, I nodded. “What happened?”
“He hulked out and then his wolf went on a rampage. And then the scary crocodile shifter used a mage stun gun to knock him out.” Haley grabbed her soda and guzzled it down.
“Wait, what? I thought those things were illegal?” And also inhumane.
The females exchanged glances and shrugged as if to say, and? Hmm. I supposed illegal and mafia went hand in hand.
Had Lorna witnessed something illegal and paid the price? I hoped not, but the more I realized how rampant shifter mafia activity was around here, the more concerned I became.
“Never mind that,” Kasia said once a pretty deer shifter with huge brown eyes had finished clearing the table next to ours. “Where did you go?”
“I got waylaid by a wolf shifter,” I began.
Bree snorted.
“Waylaid as in laid?”
An unwelcome blush colored my cheeks. I shook my head while trying not to think about Tobias’s mouth on mine. Damn, the wolf knew how to kiss. Probably because he’d had a lot of practice. Ugh.
“That’s not important,” I told her. “But there is something important I need to tell you.”
The felines all sat up straighter, silent for once.
“I’m not exactly what you think I am. I’m—” But before I could finish that sentence, the street door opened and a tall alpha wolf strode in with a slinky female clinging to his arm.
He half turned and locked eyes with me, triggering an instant reaction from my snoozing wolf.
Mine!