My name is Fiona Adelson, and I’m almost 100% certain that I’m not a shifter. Gym was my worst subject in high school, and besides the occasional yoga class, I was never much for athletics. I was an average student. I was an average girl. Just another young woman living in the suburbs and making plans to hang out with friends occasionally. I’d been looking at going to community college for computer science or marketing. There’s a bizarre birthmark on my lower back, but that’s about the strangest thing about me.
And now…
Everything was different.
When I woke up, the smoke had been replaced by sheets so white that they burned my eyes. I was in some kind of cot. I shifted beneath the sheets and a thin blanket. This hospital bed screamed clinical, but the stone walls that my eyes found told a different story. Completely medieval. This was some kind of a hospital wing.
I rubbed my face, which felt freshly clean but raw. I ran a finger across my eyelids and found puffy tender flesh. No doubt outrageously pink as my skin tended to get.
“You’ve been crying all night,” someone said. I jerked my head to the side as a figure approached. Chestnut curls paired with twinkling green eyes? I might be in trouble. A young man, probably not much older than me, in a fine-looking Oxford shirt with an emblem sewn onto the pocket. He had the shirt rolled up to reveal strong forearms, but it was his wicked grin that caught my eye.
Everything else in the room seemed to tumble away as he threw himself into the chair beside my bed. “Must be lonely here,” he said casually. As if we were already friends. He gestured with his thumb to motion towards the room around us, unintentionally flexing his powerful arm. There’d been boys who played rugby at my high school, but they were never so tall.
Shifter. Something in my body knew it, deep down in my bones.
He was right. The room was utterly empty besides us.
I might’ve been offended, but there was no malice in his face. Only a cheeriness that seemed even brighter than the linens. “Excuse me?”
“Theo,” he said and stuck out a hand towards me. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened.”
I reached out my hand to return the gesture, but my arm was caught by the monitoring system. So that was the nonstop beeping in my ear. I thought about ripping the finger contraption off my hand. Instead, I watched his smile beamed as he leaned forward to slide his hand into mine. Warm, strong. I nearly closed my eyes to delight in his positive presence.
“What did happen?” I asked him as he pulled away.
He froze.
“The nurse hasn’t told you?” he asked. The easiness melted away from him. It was like watching water burn up on the scalding pavement. I frowned. A sudden clamor sounded at the end of the long room. A stout woman in a white nurse’s uniform flew through the doors.
“Theo!” she bellowed and began wagging her finger at him. “Leave it to you to harass my pretty young charge before I’ve even had a chance to see her myself.”
He threw his hands up in mock innocence. “I didn’t know! They told me to go grab the new girl!”
New girl. I was the new girl?
“There will be no grabbing today. Look at her. You can see her after I’ve talked with her,” the nurse snapped. As she got closer, I could read her nametag. Greta. Right next to the carved white letters was a symbol of a claw print of something like it. I squinted to make the drawing out. Definitely not a cat paw print. It was bigger than that. Greta caught my eye and winked. “They sent you all the bear-shifters to wake you up, I see. It’s because we can handle anything. Isn’t that right, Theo?”
He stood up beside my bed. I marveled at his strong jaw as he flashed another grin, this time at Greta. I imagined that he disarms most people with that smile. Now, I could see his shirt pocket, gleaming in the sunlight spilling in from the windows. It was the same symbol on Greta’s nametag! Bear print. My mind reeled, remembering First Voice. A thousand images flashed through my brain. The screams, the fire, the smoke. My breath caught in my throat.
A tear fell. One that I hadn’t known I was carrying. Greta sucked in a sharp breath and moved towards me.
“There, there, darling. It’s ok. Old Greta is here to help you. Let’s talk.” She narrowed her eyes at Theo, but there was playfulness beneath her stern expression. “Privately.”
He winked at me and shuffled quickly out of the room. For a brief moment, I was disappointed to see his broad shoulders disappear beyond the swinging doors. But Greta’s hand was upon my arm checking my pulse and eyeing the machine next to me.
“Everything seems okay,” she said. “We gave you a bit of a sedative when you came in, hun. It was the only thing that we could do to keep you calm.”
“Theo said I’ve been crying,” I said and touched my eyes. She nodded solemnly.
“Understandable.” She took a quick inhale. “Do you remember everything that happened?” Her voice was a note too high.
“They came in through the back door,” I said. My voice was suddenly choked with tears. It was as if someone else was narrating inside my body. Something inside me was pushing me to remember. “They got my parents. They started to burn the house down. They were coming for me. And then—”
She pressed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. That’s when the Academy came for you, darling.”
“The Academy?” I asked. The emblem on Theo’s shirt swam back into my mind’s eye. His nice shirt rolled up to his elbows. It was a school uniform. “But Theo seems like he’s my age.”
“A college can be an academy,” she said with a deep chuckle. “If you’re going to the right one. They’ve told me that you’re a late-bloomer in shifting.”
“Me?” I repeated dumbfounded. First Voice’s skepticism came back. The doubt, the reassurance. “Maybe there’s been a mistake.”
Greta put her hands on her hips. “No mistakes with shifter noses, hun. You’ve got something in you.” She twisted her mouth. “Perhaps a fox or even a bear. I’m not seeing much lion in you besides the bedhead hair, of course. Do you feel any affinity towards the moon? No siblings, I understand?”
“No to the moon and no to the siblings.” I rubbed my temples, feeling an oncoming headache approaching. She fetched two white tablets from a bottle in her apron-like pocket. I took them gratefully and chased them down with a glass of water on the table next to me.
They thought I was a shifter. There was no way. I wanted to shake my head in front of her but didn’t want to risk it…
My parents were dead. My house was burnt to a crisp. A sharp dagger sliced through my heart. The tears started coming again, I couldn’t stop them.
“Keep crying until it all comes out,” she said with a gentle pat on my back. “The doctor will give you a prescription for some calming agents for the next few months. It won’t make it perfect, but it will make it easier.”
“What happened?”
She gently squeezed my hand. “Your parents were killed, just as you remember. They were coming for you. There are bad people out there who want to take out shifters. You were likely raised by your adoptive parents without knowing that you were one. You’ll be safe here.”
She can’t be right, but I don’t have any energy to argue.
And Beast Academy saved me from my death. I sobbed and sobbed, unable to make sense of anything.
At that moment, despite everything, I was grateful for Nurse Greta. She’d been the first one to offer me genuine condolences. The first one to look me in the eye and reflect the pain I felt without any fear. I cried in her arms like a baby. Before I fell asleep again, I heard her calling to Theo to come back tomorrow.
Beast Academy could wait a day, she assured me.