Academy of Beasts II Read online

  I strained to hear his steady breathing. Was he standing there? A prick of fear struck my neck. Maybe he’d smelled me. I doubted it over the cloud of his own cologne, which was still itching my nose. Still, shifter senses were much stronger than the average person’s abilities.

  He shifted outside. I heard footsteps leading away from the wardrobe. A door opened, but it was the bathroom door. Footsteps faded. The door creaked closed. Almost. I didn’t hear it latch. Water began to run. He was taking a shower! I’d been blessed by the shifter gods!

  After thirty seconds of quiet with the water running, I opened the door to the wardrobe. The bathroom wasn’t completely shut, but the angle meant that he wouldn’t be able to see me. I quickly (and as quietly as humanly possible) walked to the door.

  “Going somewhere, love?”

  Oh no.

  And that brought us to the current moment.

  Chapter 4

  “Can I help you, princess?”

  I refused to look up. From my current view, I could see the barest edge of what might be a towel, likely tied around his waist. There wouldn’t be anything else. My eyes were trained only on his oddly manicured feet attached to perfectly muscled legs.

  “I know you’re injured,” I said. “I saw the blood in the other room.”

  “You can see it now,” he replied coolly. “I have a towel on.” He brought his hand beneath my chin and gently forced it up. Thankfully, he’d been honest. There was a towel secured around his waist and a nasty cut across his well-toned chest. I gasped. The skin was angry red and still bleeding lightly. There was a strange violet outline around the slashed skin.

  “It was magic?” I asked, dumbfounded. Part of me wanted to reach out to touch it, to see if it would feel strange or different compared to a regular cut.

  He smirked. “You were listening then.”

  I blushed violently. Being caught as a spy was much worse than being caught as a potential peeping-tom. He seemed to be enjoying my embarrassment immensely. Of course, he was! I’d hidden in his wardrobe and gotten caught.

  “Sorry.” I frowned and then glanced back at the wardrobe. “I didn’t see a mask in there.”

  “A mask?” he echoed with a furrowed brow. I drew myself up straighter.

  “Does Mr. X mean anything to you?” I asked. He crossed his arms as his smirk stayed cemented on his handsome mug.

  “You’re interrogating me.” He glanced playfully down at himself and brought one hand to his towel. “Do you really want to try this right now?” His eyes glimmered as my cheeks heated like fire. Somehow, he struck me as a secret Fifty Shades of Grey fan.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but it died as a loud rumble came from the hall. The door flew open. A head of gorgeous brown curls walked in.

  “Enriq—” Theo’s frustrated greeting was cut short when he charged into the room and stopped dead at the sight of us. His eyes went to me, Enrique, and then Enrique’s towel, which was still being held precariously. “What are you doing?”

  At first, I opened my mouth but realized Theo’s red face was aimed straight at Enrique. The lion-shifter threw up his free hand with an innocent air.

  “She was spying on me.”

  I shut my mouth as Theo’s eyes turned on me. Oops. “Technically, he’s right…” I shifted my feet. “BUT, I saw blood and I—”

  “Hid in my closet like a pervert?” Enrique suggested with a sleazy smile. He seemed so at ease half-naked among his fellow dormmates. Theo glanced at Enrique’s chest, where the wound was still bloody. I realized that Enrique was clutching a cotton ball in his hand that was secured onto the towel. Likely doused with that foul-smelling disinfectant for his magical wound.

  “You’re injured,” I said. “Of course, I followed you. You guys are obviously hiding something.”

  Theo and Enrique looked at one another. The anger in Theo’s face seemed to fade as he took a step forward.

  “Fiona, look. There are things that you can’t understand.”

  I threw up my hands. “At least let me try to understand!”

  “It’s for your safety.” His eyes flashed. “I would, but you don’t trust me.”

  Oooh. He was throwing our last conversation back in my face. I winced, suddenly feeling as if I had my own chest wound. Theo glanced back to Enrique, who was watching with mild interest.

  “Take a shower. I’ll talk to you later, Enrique,” Theo said and turned on his heel. He flew out of the room. I glanced toward Enrique.

  “I’m not forgetting this,” I told him.

  He smirked. “Perhaps you can seduce the information out of me later.”

  I left him behind with his bleeding cut, silently reminding myself that I was likely to get some karma from the universe about this later. I had snuck in his room and eavesdropped. But right now, I needed to find Theo and apologize. He was the nicest of the Council boys. There were never frustrating smirks with him, at least.

  I caught up with him in the manor’s entryway. He was hovering near the clock and stopped as he heard my footsteps skidding to a stop beside him.

  “Theo.”

  He silently turned to look at me, crossing his arms. Oof. This hurt more than I thought. “What?”

  “I’m sorry for saying that I didn’t trust you.”

  He exhaled through his nose. In the soft light of the room, I could easily see the circles under his eyes had grown even darker. I bit my lip and gathered my strength.

  “I’m really sorry. I was a jerk.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “I haven’t exactly been helpful to you.” He sighed, his entire body sagging under the weight of some invisible task. “Look, Fiona. Let’s talk later, okay? I need to go.” His eyes darted to the face of the clock. It was almost two in the afternoon now.

  A meeting with Dracus?

  I pushed the thought away. There’d been enough meddling today. I nodded and skirted around him to go up the stairs. “Take care, Theo.” When we went camping during my childhood, Mom always taught me that you need to give bears distance. Never provoke anger from a bear. Was that true of a bear-shifter? I made my way back to my room.

  The stack of homework was still waiting for me on my desk. I needed to shower and work. My eyes wandered to the large tree outside. I needed to grab the empty lunchbox I’d abandoned outside too. My thoughts raced as an idea entered my mind. I’d wash the lunchbox myself and ask Moony for a special request tomorrow.

  Chapter 5

  Mooney was on board with a gusto that blew me away. At five o’clock in the morning, I knew he began preparing breakfasts and lunches in the kitchen. I made sure to get up early. Not an easy task after working until nearly midnight to finish all my homework. I returned the lunchbox and approached him with my request.

  “Theo adores snickerdoodle,” Moony said with confidence. “Let’s make him a batch of those.”

  He brewed a pot of coffee for us. While he began preparing breakfast prep, he handed me his signature recipe for the cookies. I went to work.

  “How’s your daughter?” I asked as I began folding the dough in together.

  “Cute as a button, as usual,” he said happily. “It’s hard for her since there isn’t much to do around these parts.”

  My ears instantly perked up. “You guys live on the peninsula?”

  He glanced around. “The old folks in charge don’t like the ‘help’ to talk to students because they’re oddly secretive about this location. It makes sense. But, yes, we live in the small village that’s reserved for servants. It’s behind the castle, so further from the sea. Of course, I can’t tell you the name of it.”

  I laughed. “Nobody tells me anything. That’s why I have to apologize to Theo. I yelled at him for keeping secrets.”

  “Ah,” he hummed as he began to chop vegetables for his signature quiche. “You know, the Council members are sworn to protect the school along with the people in charge. If they tell you something, it has to be approved.”

  “Approved?”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen this happen when they bring in a new member. It takes a while for things to settle down before they’ll let you into the inner-circle or whatever it is that they do. I don’t know myself. I just pick up on things from serving food.” He chuckled to himself. “There’s a lot you can see when you serve food every day.”

  “Like bread roll fights between Enrique and Theo?” I asked with a snort.

  “Oh, yeah. They didn’t get along first. Enrique was first and Theo was the most recent addition last year. He’s as young as you, I think. They’re quite friendly now.”

  My pulse quickened. It was odd to think of the boys as separate. They seemed like a perfectly functioning cohesive unit to me. I tapped my foot. Maybe I was jumping the gun on all my assumptions. Were they hiding secrets because they had no choice? Maybe I had to win their trust.

  I washed my hands and began to grab the dough off into chunks, rolling them into pretty balls for the greased baking sheet. “Moony, do you know anything about a guy named Mr. X?”

  He scrunched up his face as he sliced through mushrooms. “Sounds like a supervillain. Somebody you learned about in a lesson?”

  I debated on whether telling him about what had occurred. On the one hand, he’d been the most honest with me. On the other hand, if he accidentally said something to the wrong person…

  “Someone I ran into while walking through the garden one night,” I said, half-lying. “He was a funny guy with a mask.”

  “Nobody I know of,” he said with a shake of his head, but he was smiling. “Maybe another student playing a little game. I’ve heard some of these shifter students host little parties on campus at night and wear funny masks.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, the idea
is that you wear an animal mask representing one of the shifters, but not your own animal. For example, I’m a wolf, so I’d wear a fox mask or something.”

  I nearly dropped one of the cookie dough balls. “You’re a shifter?!”

  He cackled. “Why do you think they call me Moony?”

  “I didn’t know,” I sputtered wildly. “Why are you working here?”

  “Shifters need work too!” He poured his perfectly diced veggies into a bowl. “My clan is a small thing off in rural Alaska. Working here, I can make enough money to move back with my family and set myself up nicely. Beast Academy hosts only the upper-class of the shifters or shifters who have proven themselves to be extremely powerful.”

  A sinking feeling came over me. Then why am I here?

  “Interesting,” I said. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.” I opened the oven and slid my tray of cookies inside. The digital clock that Moony hung above the kitchen door said that it was seven o’clock. I still needed to get dressed for school.

  “I’ll take them out for you and put them in a box,” he said and threw a towel over his shoulder. “Go give the boys some hell today.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Moony.”

  Theo came to our first class together, but we didn’t walk in with one another like usual. In fact, I was surprised that he still sat beside me. The professor walked in. I silently handed him the box underneath the desk. On the top of the box was a note that I’d written to him.

  Sorry for everything. Moony said these were your favorite.

  I tried my best to focus on the lecture. It was hard. You couldn’t exactly ignore Theo in the corner of your eye due to his towering stature. I focused on my notes and kept my face close to my notebook as the professor lectured. Thankfully, it was actually interesting today. Double thankfully, he took up our homework which I’d spent an hour finishing last night. Theo didn’t hand over an assignment, I noticed.

  Did Council get special treatment? I tapped my pen to my chin, eyeing Priscilla in the first row. I could probably ask her; school assignments were that girl’s passion. She’d be the one to know if anyone got to skip out.

  Ren wasn’t in class.

  Priscilla said as much when she caught me outside of class. I was trying to leave quickly to avoid forcing Theo into a response. I didn’t want to pressure him into anything. Thank you, Priscilla, for unknowingly saving me!

  “Isn’t that typical?” I asked her. “You mention it to me last time.”

  “Well, it was before you showed up.” She smiled at me. “I thought maybe he came to stare at you.”

  I let out a dark laugh. “Glare at me. That’s the word you’re looking for.” We walked together to the next class. “Do you want to get together to study for our exam on Friday?”

  I might’ve told her that I was giving her a million dollars with the grin that she shot me. “Yes!” She nodded and grabbed my hands. “I have so many diagrams that we can fill out together. I know you’re catching up too. Do you want to rent a study room?”

  “We have study rooms?”

  “In the library.” She was barely listening to me as she flipped open her pocket planner. “OK, perfect. Let’s do a session on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday can be review and a mock exam. I’ll make us blank versions.” My head spun but I went along with it. Maybe it would be good for me to be out of the manor for a while.

  By Tuesday, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the boys seemed to be missing in action. I only found Dracus in the dining room for breakfast. He acknowledged me and then went back to his newspaper. A cup of his signature black coffee sat on the table.

  “Isn’t that a human newspaper?” I asked him, recognizing the name of it. It was based in New York City if I wasn’t mistaken.

  “A prince must keep track of news everywhere,” he announced proudly before immediately turning back to the newspaper. The shifters certainly weren’t ones for computers, I realized. In fact, I hadn’t seen one since being here. All of our assignments had been by hand.

  It was a shock when I saw a shiny laptop beside Priscilla in our study session that evening. I brought us two dinners that Moony had been sweet enough to pack.

  “You have a computer?” I asked, my jaw dropping.

  She shrugged. “Of course! I adore these things. You can study much more efficiently. Not many of the other students like them. But I bought one for myself and a printer for my dorm.” With that, she took out a stack of papers. I realize these were her perfectly typed notes, now structured into immaculate study guides.

  “You’re incredible.”

  Her cheeks went pink. “Thanks, Fiona!” She pushed her glasses up and smiled at the table. “Sometimes, I get frustrated. No matter how hard I seem to prepare, I can never seem to beat Dracus or Ren in my studies.”

  “Who cares?” I asked. “You’re incredible. And—” My breath caught as I leaned forward. The brick walls of the study room would be a perfect place to chat. “Have you noticed that sometimes the Council boys don’t turn in homework?”

  She pressed her lips together and then sighed. “Of course, I’ve noticed. I brought it up with the Dean.”

  “Dean?” I didn’t even realize we had a Dean!

  “Yes, Dean Demetrius. He doesn’t show his face often except for special occasions like the opening ceremony at the start of school, which you missed. You’ll see him at the closing ceremony though. He’s quite handsome.”

  Handsome? What a surprise. I leaned on my hand. “How lame. They get a free pass just because they’re on Council?”

  She hid her grin behind her hand. “You’re on Council too!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hardly.”

  “Besides, the homework isn’t as important,” she said, shifting back. “It’s the exams that matter. All the Council boys show up for those. Dracus and Ren often score at the very top. Since Dracus doesn’t share as many subjects with us, though, his ranking is often separate. Ren is my real competition.” She shook her head. “My theory is that he studies on his own because it’s more efficient.”

  “Ren is better alone in every facet of life,” I said and spread out my notebooks. “He seriously creeps me out.”

  A funny, distant look came over her eyes. “He is pretty, though…”

  “A pretty psycho is still a psycho.” I glanced at the first page in her study guide. “Did the professor even teach all this?”

  Delighted by my interest, she forgot about the Council boys. “I supplement with the information from the books!” She launched into a full lecture on the material from the front page. I found myself absolutely blow away by her knowledge.

  My brain worked hard to keep up with the material spewing from her mouth. Soon, I forgot about the Council boys entirely.

  Chapter 6

  “Where is he?”

  Priscilla and I were in the study room on our second study session. My brain was pulsing, a constant pain pounding away. It was the middle of the week, and I was ready for the weekend. When Angela walked in, a drop-dead gorgeous wolf-shifter from my general science class, she didn’t offer any greetings.

  “Who?” I asked, my brow furrowing. Priscilla herself was at the blackboard in the room, the chalk hovering in her hand. I’ve never spoken a word to Angela before, but I’ve seen her leaving the manor before. I believe she’s a frequent visitor for Enrique.

  Ah. Everything clicks into place.

  Angela folded her arms and looked at me coldly. “Enrique. He hasn’t come to school all week. I tried to go to the manor. Dracus sent me away.”

  I stared. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen him, not even at breakfast.” I wanted to ask her, “Why the hell are you bothering me with this?” Instead, I cleared my throat and calmly said, “I have very little interaction with Enrique.”

  She sniffed as a sour face came over her, marring her elegant beauty. “Everyone’s scared to say anything to you about shoving your way into the Council, but you don’t fool me.”

  I stared at her again. My head hurt badly, trying to understand the equations from Shifter Mechanics, which Priscilla was trying to teach me.