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Felix
He could hear them from his spot in the bushes.
Tabitha and Maurice, Felix’s old teacher, had managed to track Felix. They’d come to save him. How kind of them. How thoughtful.
Then they’d gone and gotten themselves trapped by Orion.
Felix sighed.
What a waste of a day.
He’d planned on spending a nice, relaxing day with his mate. They’d planned to lounge on the beach, make love, have a picnic, and just enjoy themselves. They hadn’t planned on any of this other garbage happening.
He certainly hadn’t planned on the past coming back to haunt him yet again, but apparently Felix wasn’t going to be able to outrun his problems forever.
He had to act fast. Orion was going to town with Tabitha and Maurice, kicking them and hurting them. Maurice had tried to shift into something – apparently, he was an animal shifter, like Felix was – and he had been unable to.
If only Felix could figure out a way to do that again. Only, he couldn’t. He couldn’t shift, could he? If he threw himself into the mix, he wasn’t going to be able to shift. He couldn’t fight too well, either. That was fine, though. Maybe he could distract them long enough to give Tabitha a chance to get away.
Just before Felix launched himself out of the shrubbery and into the fight, he heard a soft, familiar sound.
Meow.
He looked down to see that Maple Syrup had appeared in the bushes with him.
“Long time, no see, cat,” he whispered, grabbing his pet. Maple Syrup wasn’t exactly a kept animal. Although Felix loved to think of this cat as his own, the reality was that Maple Syrup did what she liked, when she liked. She was always wandering off for hours, days, or even weeks at a time. She always came back to Felix, but he often wondered where it was that she went.
He stared at the cat for a moment, eyeing her.
“What about you? Are you secretly a human?”
Meow.
No, maybe not. He’d dared to hope, just for a second, that perhaps his cat would come to life just as so many other people had.
“No, I guess you aren’t.”
“The cat’s not human, but we are,” said a voice. Felix looked over sharply to see several people standing there. Some of them were naked, a few had dressed in raggedy clothes, and two had on pants.
“Woah,” Felix recognized a few of the faces as people who had once worked for Ursula. Some of them had worked in the kitchens and a few had worked as guards. All of them had irritated the witch at some point or another. All of them had turned into animals.
“Woah indeed,” one of them said. “Where’s Orion?”
“Orion’s over there,” Felix whispered, pointing. “What’s going on?”
“We’re all after him,” said one of the humans who had worked as a personal chef long ago.
“What is going on?” Felix wanted to know.
First, the spell trapping people in their animal forms had faded. Then a couple of people had been nuts with wanting to escape the island. Orion had kidnapped Felix, once again proving it was unusually easy to abduct him. That was something he’d need to work on in the future. Now everyone else was in human form, too, and they were here. There must have been ten people.
“Maple Syrup led the way,” a woman said.
“Tina?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “I used to clean and do the dusting at the castle.”
“Why were you turned into an animal?”
“We all were,” she explained.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“That was what Orion told you, I’m sure.”
It was. Once upon a time, Orion had been Felix’s tutor. After Maurice “left,” Orion took over training Felix to be a good entertainer. He guided him in reading and mathematics, too, but most of the training involved learning how to entertain people and keep them happy.
After all, that was what Ursula wanted from him the most.
“He worked for her for so many years, and now he’s trying to kill you because you were her favorite,” Tina said. “It’s not right.”
The other people agreed.
“It’s not right,” several of them murmured.
“We’re going to get him, and then we’re going to leave the island. Are you with us, Felix?”
Felix nodded. He was overwhelmed that they were willing to help him. He was used to being alone, to fighting on his own. Ursula had isolated him from so many people. The idea that others wanted to help him felt strange and wonderful at the same time.
“He’s got...two people...” Felix managed to say. He didn’t say that Tabitha was his mate. None of the people here knew he was a dragon shifter. To be honest, he wasn’t much of one anymore. He tried again to shift, but all that happened was him sneezing.
“Bless you,” Tina said. To the others with her, she jerked her head toward the space where Maurice and Orion were fighting. “Get them!”
Felix watched as Tina, along with a dozen other people, ran straight toward Orion. They were screaming and yelling, flailing their hands about, and scuffling. Everyone started yelling at once, scuffling and screaming and shouting, and Felix turned to join them.
Walking slowly, he made his way back through the brush toward the fighting. He stepped out into the small clearing where the fighting was happening, shocked to see that Orion had very quickly been overtaken and apprehended. His arms were bound behind him by something – rope, probably, or perhaps magic – and he was pouting on the ground.
“You got him,” he said.
“We got him,” Maurice said.
“Maurice,” Felix looked at his old tutor. “You’re here.”
“I am,” Maurice nodded.
“I thought that was you.”
“I was a lion for a little while,” Maurice explained.
Felix looked past him to Tabitha, who was sitting on the ground.
“She saved you,” he said quietly to Maurice.
“She saved me,” the old man agreed.
“There seems to be a lot of that going around,” Felix murmured. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Of course, I came for you.”
It was a strange thing for a tutor to say, perhaps, but Felix and Maurice had always been close. During the time that Felix had been a student, Maurice had helped him with so many things. He’d taught him the history of shapeshifters and he’d taught him how to read better than he’d ever been able to before. Maurice was also the one who taught Felix how to fight, how to be clever, and how to be patient.
Felix would never forget that Maurice had taught him how to always wait for just the right moment to fight.
“Go to her,” Maurice said, gently nudging Felix toward Tabitha. He didn’t need to be told twice. Instead, he walked toward her and knelt in front of her. Then he reached for Tabitha’s cheek.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
“Did you fall down here?” Tabitha asked.
Felix nodded. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d tried to escape and failed.
“We heard you. Maurice and I heard you. We came over, but Orion was here.”
“He attacked you.”
“He’s so hateful,” Tabitha murmured. She and Felix both knew what it was like to hate someone. The witch who had once ruled the island had stolen things from all of them. She’d stolen their hope and their lives, and they all had to learn how to get past that.
“I need to speak with him,” Felix said. He pressed a kiss to Tabitha and turned around.
“He’s gotta go,” Tina was saying.
“We should kill him. He tried to hurt Felix.”
“Maybe Felix and Orion should battle.”
“To the death!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Felix said, making his way into the little group. “I don’t think anyone should be volunteering me to fight to the death.”
One of the men, a person named Edgar, had the decency to blush.
“I’m sorry, but we were all hurt by the witch.”
“Yes, I know,” Felix said. “So, we should all be able to decide how to deal with that. Right now, I think everyone should leave.”
“Leave the clearing?” Tina asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Leave the island,” Felix said. “There are plenty of places to go, and if I’m not wrong, I think it’s fair to say that our loved ones will be looking for us.”
“He’s right,” someone said.
“Very right!”
“To the beaches!”
The group practically dispersed immediately in a cloud of dust, leaving Maurice, Tabitha, Tina, Maple Syrup, and of course, Orion.
“Orion, what’s the deal?” Felix squatted down in front of him. “Why me?”
He was quiet for a moment, but Felix could be patient. He could wait. He could hang out here and just be. He was in no real rush to be anywhere at all, so he could give Orion a minute to figure everything out if he needed to.
“You always were her favorite. Everything about her revolved around you. She destroyed everything I am. She took my future. She broke me. You’re her child. You should have to answer for your mother’s sins.”
“She viewed me as a son,” Felix said. “She’s not my true mother, though.”
Tina and Orion both looked at him sharply. Maurice didn’t seem surprised, which was a bit strange, and of course, Tabitha already knew the truth.
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s not my real mother.”
Orion stared at Felix.
“You said that before, yet during all of the time I knew Ursula, she never mentioned that you weren’t her flesh and blood.”
“I’m not,” Felix said. “Although, I didn’t learn this until much later.”
“It’s time for us to leave,” Maurice said. “All of us.”
“The magic on the island is fading,” Tina agreed. “I can feel it. All of us can.”
“I felt myself changing from my animal form, fading back into my human body for weeks,” Orion admitted. Then he looked back at Felix. “I’m sorry, Felix.”
He shouldn’t have accepted the apology. Orion had hurt him, and he’d hurt Tabitha, yet he himself had been a victim. It wasn’t an excuse, sure, but they were all losers here. Felix nodded curtly. He didn’t feel the need to kill Orion or to fight him again. They all knew that Tabitha could kill Orion in a heartbeat if she wanted to with one of her power orbs, but Felix didn’t feel like asking his mate to do a murder for him. Not today.
“We’ll pretend it never happened.”
“I should have asked first,” he said.
Felix had known the pain of losing someone, and he’d known the pain of losing yourself. He understood exactly what it was like to believe that someone was stealing your very soul away. Sometimes it felt like that was what Ursula had done to him.
Over the years, he’d fought to figure out who he really was, who he was supposed to be, and he’d never been able to figure anything except the fact that she was hurting him.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Tina snapped. “Are you really going to let him get away with that? Orion deserves to die.”
Maurice and Tabitha looked at Felix.
“If Felix wants to show mercy, that’s his choice,” Tabitha nodded, showing that she supported Felix.
“It’s his choice, but it’s a stupid one,” Tina grumbled, shaking her head.
“I’ve made my choice,” Felix reiterated. “Let’s go.”
He was ready to leave this place and never look back. What he really wanted was to shift and fly away to someplace new. He wanted to take Tabitha with him and carry her to safety. They could go anywhere in the world, he knew. Anywhere.
They could do anything, be anything, experience anything, but he had to figure out a way to get off of the rock. That was their first goal. Felix could keep hoping that the magic trapping him would fade just as the other spells had, but what if his curse was different?
He had a feeling he was missing something important, something that would change everything, but he didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t know who he was.