Page 67 of Sweet Nightmare

As if to prove my point, Jean-Luc flies over to the nearest pecan tree and rips a branch straight off of it. Then he starts pelting us with the green nuts while Jean-Jacques laughs uproariously. Because apparently, even in an emergency, the two of them have the emotional maturity of overtired toddlers.

“What the fuck?” Ember snarls as one of the pecans bounces off her shoulder.

Seconds later, another one hits Izzy right in the face, and she pulls out yet another knife from what is obviously an inexhaustible supply.

But before she can take aim, Mozart—in her full, gorgeous, black dragon form—sends a stream of fire straight at the obnoxious fae.

It singes his translucent, bloodred wings, and he yells, “What the fuck, dragon? I was just having some fun!”

He starts to throw the entire branch at Mozart, but Izzy’s knife whirs the air at that exact moment and slices a hole straight through his right wing.

Jean-Luc screams as he drops the branch and goes into a spiral that ends with him slamming into the ground. Another quick blast of fire from Mozart and Jean-Jacques is landing right beside his friend.

Jean-Luc comes up, furious, but one raised eyebrow from Jude—who looks imposing as fuck with the tattoos creeping up his face—and they both decide to head in the other direction. But not before flipping us all off.

I open my mouth to call after them and the scariest roar I’ve ever heard in my life comes out of it. Out of me.

My mom, aunts, and uncles have no trouble talking in their manticore forms, so why do I?

Another attempt, another roar—even as everything, and everyone, around me returns to normal.

The tattoos have slid back down Jude’s neck to his chest.

Mozart and Luis have both shifted back into their human forms.

Simon’s out of the fountain and back in human form, and Remy is chilling against a tree. Ember looks relieved while Izzy looks a little disappointed. Eva never changed, either, so all four of them look fine to me.

And on the other side of the fence, I can hear the Jean-Jerks cursing and complaining as they walk back toward the dorms.

Apparently, whatever the lightning did to cause that weird power surge has worn off, and everyone has gone back to normal. Even my out-of-control tail is gone.

I close my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief. I really need to read up on how to control that thing before I shift again, because that was wild. And not in a good way.

“Everyone solid?” Remy calls as he gets closer.

“Solid’s relative, but yeah. We’re fine,” Mozart tells him.

And, somehow, despite the monsters and the lightning and the power surge, we are.

Except, when I open my eyes again, nothing looks the way it’s supposed to.

I can see the individual petals on a flower all the way across the quad. And the spots on the leaves at the very top of the trees. Plus, I can smell the flowers and the trees and about so many other things as well—including Izzy and Mozart and everyone else standing around with me.

I can hear Jude breathing and Izzy tapping her foot against the cracked sidewalk, but I can also hear the soft fall of Remy’s footsteps on the grass and the brush of Simon’s eyelashes against his cheeks.

Even the air I breathe feels funny, tastes funny—briny and fresh and green and a million other things I can’t quite identify.

It’s like my senses are all on hyper-alert—which I’ve heard is a shifter thing. That, alone, isn’t alarming. But the fact that the tail and the claws have disappeared while this has stayed behind definitely is.

I must look as weirded out as I feel because suddenly Jude is much closer to me, brows furrowed and mismatched eyes cataloging my face. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asks after several seconds.

“I don’t know,” I answer, except—once again—it comes out as a growl. Unlike the roars of earlier, it’s at least understandable, but it’s definitely not my regular voice.

Jude’s eyes widen as the others crowd around me, looking concerned.

“Everything okay?” Mozart asks, moving closer. Somehow, she looks even more concerned than Jude.

“Pretty sure it’s not,” I answer in what—again—is very definitely not my normal voice.

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