Page 55 of Faerie Gift

The rest of the school was sleeping.Perfect. I’d taken a potion when I got back to the dorm, and though my senses were a bit dulled, I felt much better than I had all week. On the tail end of my bout with the flu, thankfully.

I’d gotten enough rest. It was time for action. Barbara’s note had warning spikes stabbing at my insides.

I’d be safe as long as I kept my eyes open and stayed hidden. Sticking to the shadows was not a new concept for me. I’d been hiding my entire life, keeping the fae part of myself a secret from my pack.

With a soft exhale, I crept along the hallway toward the door I’d seen the boys trying to break into. There was no one around at the moment and I grabbed the handle. Tugged. They had it locked tight with no visible deadbolt or lock I could try and pick.

A few more tugs, even with my better than normal strength, did nothing to loosen it.

Hmm. Curious. Most of the doors in the castle were left open, and those with locks granted students access with a simple word of magic. I only knew one though, and I doubted if the magic word that opened the secret fairy corridors would work here. No, this protection seemed to be coming from the occupants inside, not installed by the school.

Why would the exchange students feel the need to lock themselves in at night? My nostrils flared as I picked up on the powerful magic. Did they expect someone to attack them?

Warning bells dinged in my head.

A creak several feet away caught my attention.Someone’s coming.

My hands shook at my sides. What should I do?

Although I’d never tried to use my second power of transformation, I didn’t have an option. Out of time, I had no chance to run without being discovered, with the barren hall devoid of places to hide.

Crap, crap. My mind raced. A bug? Could I change into a bug? Or maybe a moth. Now there was a thought. I’d seen plenty of moths in my life.

It was a risk to change without having done so before—inthiscapacity—but without any plaster fairy statues signaling a hidden passage, did I have a choice?

Using transformation couldn’t be much different from shifting into my wolf self during our pack runs. Then I let the magic take me, twisting and molding my body into its second form, a natural state.

The footsteps drew closer and I locked my teeth, pushing closer to the wall and focusing my attention on the image of a moth in my head. Something small and innocent, something to blend in with the surroundings without giving me away.

Come on,come on.

Panic would do me no good.

I was used to changing form, I reminded myself. I’d done it all my life, from the time I learned I was half wolf and could shift outside of the pull of the full moon. I could do this. I drew the magic up from the deepest parts of myself and held tight to the memory of the first time I’d changed. How I’d let myself go, trusting the process.

Slowly I felt my bones begin to shiver, my skin melt away and wings sprout where my arms used to hang at my sides. My stomach flipped once, twice, the curl of nausea nothing compared to the pain of having my eyes move to either side of my head, now coated with tiny, uniform bumps to gradually bend the light.

Yes!

No…it hurt. It hurt so badly, this body compacted in a way it shouldn’t be. This was unnatural, my subconscious screamed. An unnatural form and someplace I should have left alone. Instead I found myself held captive inside the body of another creature.

I was used to being thewolf. To giving in to the part of me I’d always possessed. But shifting into something new and utterly different? My antennae twitched. The new form felt utterly strange to me. Awkward and uncomfortable with my consciousness squeezed into a too-small box.

I completed the transformation and clung to the wall, six legs versus two, wings flapping and vision adapting. Slowly the pain faded until the oddity of the shift became a distant remembrance.

Just in time, I realized, going still and huddling against the wall with my wings pressed tightly together. The chaperone from Canada passed me with a click of shoes on stone, slender and wearing a scowl. Her short hair hung about an inch and a half above her chin and she’d brushed the black strands back from the top of her head with gel, keeping it contained. The way she stalked forward, she reminded me of a pissed-off dog on a leash, hackles raised and prepared to attack.

She glanced around the hallway. Wary. Searching. Her eyes fell on me for a moment before she moved on, pursing her lips. Shadows darkened her eyes as she turned on her heel and stalked away. If I’d been human, I might have breathed a sigh of relief.

Not yet.

Her presence wasn’t what worried me. What worried me was the holster at her hip.

Why would a full-blooded fairy need agun? My moth body trembled. Things were getting stranger and stranger, and if I didn’t figure things outquicklythen I had a sinking feeling we wouldn’t like the surprises coming our way.

The second I was relatively sure the chaperone wasn’t coming back this way, I shifted back into my normal form. Something inside of me clenched, as though expecting a punch, and I wondered at how strange my limbs felt. Did I still have flapping wings?

I shook myself, rubbing my hands through my hair and shaking out my hands and legs. Sooner or later I would need to find the time to practice, otherwise I’d put myself at risk—

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