50. Riley
Riley
Healing from a fractured rib, punctured lung, and brain injury took a lot out of a person. After crawling into bed last night, I’d fallen into a deep sleep and didn’t stir until the stupid alarm went off at seven a.m.
The potion the witch forced me to drink had at least diminished the bruising. When I examined my face in the mirror, only a few faint green smudges remained. Sadly, they clashed with my red hair, so to hide them, I pulled my hood up before heading down for some breakfast.
The usual morning chatter in the canteen rolled over my head.
A few students pointed and stared while whispering to each other, but I ignored them.
Let them gossip. It mattered little to me.
All I cared about was stuffing my face. Then I planned to go back to bed and spend a few more hours sleeping.
I chowed down on my breakfast—eggs, sausages, pancakes, and toast, washed down with a very large mug of coffee—while mulling over the events of yesterday.
Being attacked by two moronic shifters was just another Tuesday for me, but Tank’s wolf saving my ass again had taken me by surprise.
My she-wolf seemed convinced he was our mate, but I struggled to see how it could even be possible.
I mean, she also thought Tobias was our mate.
Oh, and Simba. Not to mention Tate fucking Montes.
Yes, it was becoming increasingly clear my wolf was camping on the edge of reality.
She huffed crossly before going back to sleep. Ever since I’d walked away from Tank and Tobias, she had been in a sulk. I’d offered to let her out for a run this evening, mostly so I could heal the remaining twinges in my ribs and head, but she had shown zero interest in shifting.
I stabbed my fork into a juicy sausage just as Simon slid into a chair opposite me. He glanced around before leaning in.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, making me feel awful for not letting him know via text.
“Shit, sorry. I meant to message you, but it was late when I got back, and then I fell asleep almost immediately.” I cringed while avoiding his gaze. Stars, I was a terrible friend.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said with a small smile. “I was worried, though! Especially when the Frosthaven wolf followed you.” My snake friend shuddered. “He scares the crap out of me.”
“He does?” I didn’t find Tank that scary. Not anymore. He seemed more like an overprotective teddy bear than a psycho killer.
“Everyone’s afraid of him around here. His wolf is feral.”
I shrugged, not caring what everyone else thought. If Tank scared them, good. Maybe it would encourage the dumb fucks to leave me alone.
“Anyway, have you heard the latest?” Simon bounced on his chair with a gleeful smirk.
“No?” I hoped this juicy gossip didn’t involve Tobias being caught sucking someone’s dick in a public place because if it did, I might just gut the unlucky asshole involved.
I refused to admit to being jealous, but being beaten half to death had put me in a real shitty mood.
“Um, so Chance Carson and Damien Hart, the two wolf shifters who attacked you in dodgeball yesterday, got the absolute shit kicked out of them last night.”
“Wait…what?” My hand jerked, spilling my coffee everywhere.
Thank the goddess I wore black pants. After wiping up the mess with a stack of napkins, I swallowed hard.
The karma bus had arrived for assholes one and two, and while I liked the idea that they’d had a taste of their own nasty medicine, I’d hoped to be the one shoving it down their throats.
Simon looked positively gleeful as he described their injuries. I understood why, but it left me feeling deeply uncomfortable. I’d have gone after them in a more subtle way. And not on campus, where the risk of being caught was so high.
“Who attacked them?” I tried to keep my expression neutral, not wanting to give away the identity of the wolf I suspected was involved.
“No idea. Neither of them would say, but they’re in a bad way. Whoever was behind it must have commanded them not to shift and heal.”
That meant it had to be a powerful alpha wolf, which cemented my suspicions. There were only three alpha wolves that strong on campus, two of whom had made it more than clear last night that they viewed me as theirs.
Stupid assholes.
Simon prattled on about the sorry state of the two wolves while I pushed a lump of congealed egg around my plate. Broken bones were apparently the least of their issues.
Goddess, what was Tank thinking? It had to be him. Tobias was obsessed enough to seek revenge on my behalf, but Tank was brawnier, more lethal, and his wolf lacked restraint. He also had a lot of fighting experience from what I knew of his activities in the underground shifter fight ring.
If anyone beat the living shit out of those numb nuts, it was Tank.
“Leone was pretty pissed about what happened to you in the game,” Simon was saying when I tuned back in.
“He came back after he’d taken you to the healer and tore strips off the two wolves.
I’ve never heard him so angry before. It took me ages to get up after he’d slammed us all to the floor with an alpha command.
” From the pallor in Simon’s cheeks, being hit with the full force of an alpha’s rage must have been unpleasant.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” I said with a sigh. “You did nothing wrong.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t much fun, but nobody dared complain. It’s why he’s the most feared teacher on campus. I doubt even the mafia heirs would go against Leone.”
It occurred to me in that moment that Tank Frosthaven wasn’t the only suspect in the Great Shifter Beatdown. If Simba had been angry enough about a student being attacked in his lesson, could he have taken matters into his own hands?
While detention was great and all, running laps for a few hours was hardly a just punishment for nearly killing another student.
I groaned under my breath. It wasn’t like I could ask him. Or Tank, for that matter.
No, I needed to stay away from all of them and focus on my mission to find Lorna.
After spending the day in bed, chatting with Felix in between snoozing, my first class the following morning was with Miss Raven.
A day in bed had rejuvenated me. The felines had been in touch, and Bree was excited to show me the costume she’d bought for me to wear to the Halloween ball.
I hadn’t dared to ask what exactly it looked like.
Knowing her, I’d be going as a slutty cheerleader or something equally gross.
I arrived at the classroom ten minutes early, alert and ready to take notes like the hard-working student I was (not), and found a seat near the back of the room.
As I sat doodling mini knives and axes on my notepad, the room filled up slowly. Most students ignored me, like always, but I heard a few whispering about the dodgeball incident. News of the fate that befell the idiots who attacked me had spread, and almost everyone assumed Tank was responsible.
That worried me, but Miss Raven’s arrival soon captured my attention, as well as everyone else’s. She sashayed in wearing a tight pencil skirt paired with a red silk blouse unbuttoned enough to show a hint of a black lace bra, accessorized with scarlet lipstick and smoky eyes.
How she got away with her licentious behavior baffled me. Half the students groaned and shuffled in their seats at her arrival, and even my half-human nose could detect all the testosterone and lust in the air.
“Welcome, students,” she purred while leaning back against her desk.
Wow, the buttons on that blouse are doing some heavy lifting.
“Today I’d like to discuss in detail how magicals interact with humans.
” Her cat eyes slid over me for a second before she returned her attention to the slavering males in the front row.
“There have been several reports lately of anti-magical sentiment online and in person. Can anyone suggest why humans might be hostile toward the magical community?”
Several hands shot into the air.
“Yes, Clarkson.”
“Because we’re powerful and humans are shit-scared of us, miss?”
“That is a factor, yes,” she agreed. “Anyone else?”
I raised my hand. “You have some insights for us, Mr. Scott?”
“Perhaps humans dislike magicals because many of them, especially shifters, treat humans with contempt?” I had some fond memories of wolf shifters hurling derogatory sexual comments at me when I walked past construction sites on the border between the human and shifter neighborhoods back home.
Human whore was a personal favorite.
Miss Raven said nothing while half the class began shouting bullshit, accusing me of betraying my shifter half and spying for the humans. I snorted at that one. As if I’d work as a human agent. Most of them hated me more than shifters, which was a feat in itself.
Was it any wonder I had trust issues? Or so Felix claimed.
When the torrent of abuse and species slurs finally died down, Miss Raven nodded thoughtfully.
“Mr. Scott makes a good point. Many magicals do look down on humans. Some use their biological advantages to coerce and control weaker humans. The history books tell us vampires often coerced humans. Sirens are also renowned for coercing humans and magicals alike.”
Someone sniggered. “I wouldn’t say no to a siren, miss.”
“No, Collins, but they might say no to you,” she retorted, causing the shifter to flush tomato red with embarrassment.
By the time the bell rang, I couldn’t help but think I might never find my place in this fucked-up world. I didn’t fit in with either group. Humans sensed my otherness without understanding why, and shifters thought I was weak.
I sighed as I packed my stuff away. Once I’d rescued Lorna from the shifter mafia, maybe I’d suggest that we and Felix move to the northern islands and make a home in a remote location, far away from humans and magicals. Perhaps then we’d all be safe from those who wanted to hurt us.