My blissful plan was crashing by my second class. Without Priscilla next to me, I was feeling woozy. It might’ve been a side-effect from the medicine I’d taken. Shifter History was normally fascinating, but even Professor Sahni was too dazzling today when she marched in with a briefcase. I’m losing it! She swung her cape around her, crushed velvet in a mauve color, and prepared for her lecture while the students around me chatted.
Someone tapped the desk surface next to me.
“Mind if I join you?” Jasper asked. He sat down without waiting for an answer. I swallowed. My mouth was too dry, and my protein shake was gone, but I’d filled the bottle back up with water.
“I forget you’re in this class.” I took a sip of my water. It did nothing for my thirst.
“I don’t always go,” he said with an easy smile. Theo and Ren were missing today, I noticed. I glanced at Jasper. In the daylight streaming in from the windows, his hair was actually sparkling. He got out his pencil case from his bag and opened it.
“How do you get your hair so shiny?” I blurted out. He stopped, hovering there with a pen in his hand.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked with a raised brow. I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear from the face of the Earth. I coughed in my hand.
“Just wondered if you use a different shampoo than me,” I explained lamely. He touched his hair. A waft of his scent came over to me. I’d never smelt Jasper this strongly before; he smelled of cinnamon. I bit my lip and gripped my pen tightly in my hand. If I had shifter strength, it might’ve snapped in between my fingers.
“I use whatever they provide us,” he said with a shrug. “But thanks.”
“Mhm,” I grunted out, staring forward. The cinnamon scent had crawled inside my head and refused to budge. It smelled enchanting like fresh cookies from the oven. I’d change the subject. Professor Sahni was still preparing for class, shuffling papers, and getting ready for her lectures. “How’s the leg?”
“Healed.” He cracked his fingers in a swift motion. I watched him rolled up his sleeves past his forearms. If Jasper had a brother, it might’ve been Enrique despite their shifting differences. They had the same lean strength, although Enrique had more muscle. Both of them reminded me of something, though. Some strange trait I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something dangerous. I glared at my notebook, wishing that the smell of cinnamon and the presence of muscular forearms would stop haunting me. This was absolutely unfair!
“Ren said that he knows you’re plotting his murder,” he said softly, looking at me from the corner of his eyes. The playful smile on his lips sent every hair on my body standing straight up.
“Plotting his murder?” I managed to squeak out.
“He said you were eyeing his neck for an attack.”
I leaned forward and buried my face into my hands. Gods. He thought I was glaring at his body instead of ogling it. Maybe the first one was better. I nodded.
“And what if I am?” I managed between my hands. “Surprised he’s talking this much.”
He chuckled. I wondered if he thought anything of what Ren had told him. Could he know that I wasn’t thinking murderous thoughts but much more dangerous ones? I would die before letting Ren know that I was physically attracted to him, and the power that would give him. I shuddered.
“He’s talking a lot more lately,” Jasper said. “Good job.”
Before I could reply, Professor Sahni took a grand step forward on her stage and settled behind her podium. “Today, class, I’d like to discuss the complicated history of shifters mixing among other groups.”
A silence fell over the room. Heat crawled up my neck. There was only one non-shifter among them, as far as I knew. Me. But Professor Sahni didn’t seem malicious. In fact, she began her lecture with a giant statement on the beauty of living peacefully among one another.
“Tolerance is important, as I know you’re learning from Professor Greenwhich in Interspecies Relations. I say all this because we still must turn a critical eye on the atrocities that were committed by shifters and humans against one another in our early history together.”
Was it my imagination, or could I suddenly feel extra pairs of eyes on my back? I sank into my seat and felt my palms go clammy. Nothing was going my way today.
Jasper’s arm brushed against mine as he took notes. He was left-handed.
Fantastic.
“How do you feel about humans?” I asked Priscilla at lunch. The courtyard was relatively empty today. On Wednesdays, some extracurricular clubs held special lunches for each other. I hadn’t joined a club yet. Maybe next semester, if I survived until then.
Priscilla wiped her hands on her tea towel, a staple for her lunches. “Humans can be great. Or bad. Just like shifters. Shifters came from humans, so we’re a bit indebted to them if you think about it. Why?”
“We had a lecture about the darker side of interspecies relations today in shifter history,” I said and unwrapped a pair of chopsticks. Moony had been kind enough to make sushi since I told him I’d been craving it. That guy could make anything! “I felt like everyone was glaring at me.”
“It’s your period,” she said. “Your adrenaline is heightened.”
“Yes, but…there was Angela.”
She chewed her bite of food carefully and swallowed. “That’s true, but Angela wasn’t targeting you out of prejudice. She wanted to hurt you to hurt Enrique.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m human at the moment,” I said with a frown. “What happens if I don’t ever turn into a shifter while I’m here?”
“You’re here for a reason,” she reminded me. “They don’t just shove humans in Beast Academy. They couldn’t handle it.”
“Who? The humans? Or the shifters?”
She pressed her lips together awkwardly. “Both? I’m not sure.”
“Yet, I’m on the Core Council,” I muttered and massaged my temples. My sushi sat in front of me, uneaten. There were butterflies in my stomach. They seemed to have a permanent place there lately. “Maybe that’s what pisses people off.”
“Who cares if someone is pissed off?” she asked. I shot her a look.
“Doesn’t it frustrate you when the Council boys get top marks despite missing class?” I caught a twinge of sourness in her face. “See! I knew it.”
“Sometimes it makes me mad, but there’s not much I can do. Besides, I got to know you.” She smiled with a teasing edge. “After hearing about how much trouble they all are, I’d never want to be in the Council.”
Okay. Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I need to march back to the manor and grab some tea before my next class. I took a bite of a salmon roll, and my hunger came back. She watched with a giggle as I wolfed down my lunch.
“With that appetite, you’ve got to be a shifter.” Her playful laughter cut short as her eyes traveled beyond my shoulders. “Oh, shit.” Hearing a curse word from Priscilla was never a good sign. I turned and saw someone approaching us quickly.
It was a guy named Samuel from my Shifter History class.
And he didn’t look happy.