Page 19 of Shifting Tides

“Avian houses the flying shifters: dragons, phoenixes, and harpies,” Mrs. Sharp continued, pointing to the group on the top right.

Again, I knew what a dragon was, and my only knowledge of phoenixes came from Harry Potter, but I was sure phoenix shifters were much cooler than that. The harpy had to be the weird creature with wings for arms and talons for feet. I wasn’t sure why that made me cringe, but it did.

“Currently, mermaids are the only species classified under oceanid, simply because they have just recently come out of the water, so to speak, and we don’t have enough knowledge of what other species may reside in the depths.”

Mrs. Sharp pointed to the lone mermaid figure on the bottom left of the image, and her summation had my mind whirring with all kinds of fantastical ideas of marine creatures with tentacles and electric spikes. I clearly watched way too many movies, but when you aren’t allowed to have a social life, what else are you supposed to do?

“And as for weres, the three major types are hounds, maos, and ursas.”

I was happily surprised that I remembered those from Caesar’s explanation last night.See, I’ve totally got this.

So, the boy who had turned into a giant dog not five minutes ago in the yard was a hound. As I had gathered from the teacher’s reaction outside, students weren’t allowed to just shift whenever they wanted. I was super grateful for that because if I thought I had to see even one more person transform into a monster today, I was going to freak the hell out.

“Now, who can tell me which is the only species that is forced to shift under a full moon?” Mrs. Sharp asked the class.

The boy in front of me raised his hand. “Trick question,” he said with a smug chuckle. “There are three: hounds, maos, and ursas.”

“Correct. And what is special about their creation that is different from all other shifters?”

“Weres become weres because they’re either bitten or scratched by another were, while all other shifters are born as what they are,” the boy answered.

“Very good. Can someone else tell me what makes mermaids different from other species in terms of birth?”

The class was silent in response. I looked around the room at the other students, and a few rows behind me, one girl was raising her hand.

“Come on, guys, we just went over this last week.” Mrs. Sharp gave them all a moment to remember before letting out a sigh. “All right, take it away, Adina.”

“Mermaids are the only shifters that are born in their shifter form,” Adina answered with pride. “We are the one true shifter species.”

Wait a minute. What? Mermaids are born mermaids?

My heart thudded against my ribcage, and I reeled under the implications of what that fact meant. There really was no way Mom hadn’t known.

Mrs. Sharp sighed again. “Thank you, Adina, but in the future, please keep your opinions to yourself.”

The rest of the lecture was on the puberty trigger, the hormonal stage of development that caused most of the shifter species—excluding weres and mermaids—to have the ability to shift. This usually happened anywhere between twelve and sixteen and was when most students were invited to the school.

When the lecture was over, I felt infinitely better about being here, like I could at least comprehend most of what was goingon. I now knew which category each of the symbols referred to—the blue swirl was mermaid, of course, the red slash for weres, the wing for avians, and the talon-looking symbol for archaic.

As I walked to my next class, I was able to tell roughly what type of shifter each student was by which symbol they wore on their shirt.

Next on my schedule was Shifter History. When I found it, I was a little shell-shocked to see that Caesar was sitting behind the desk at the front of the room. I knew that he was the school director, but not that he also taught classes. He didn’t look up as I entered, and I was somewhat relieved not to gain his attention.

The room was structured like a lecture hall with theater-style seats of red upholstery. I assumed that these seats were not assigned and sat in a seat at the front of the class. I opened my tablet on my lap, excited to take more notes.

A shadow fell over me as I was getting situated, and I looked up from my screen to see the three girls from the dining hall standing in front of me, all of them giving me dirty looks.

It was only then that I recognized that the arrogant mermaid who’d been making all the comments in Shifter Bio—the one named Adina—was the greenish-blonde one.

“What?” I asked, holding my head high as I stared right back at them.

The arrogant strawberry blonde leaderhmphed at me, then turned her head in a demeaning gesture and led her trio up the stairs to sit at the back of the class.

My blood seethed in my veins, and I noticed that my hands were shaking on either side of my table.

What the hell was their problem? I had half a mind to stalk after and demand to know what stick they had up their asses about me.

It wasn’t like I had never been dissed by other girls before. Under any other circumstances, such a thing wouldn’t have fazed me. I was used to this kind of crap as the frequent new kid. But I was already vulnerable, like cracked glass, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take before I cracked—either into an explosion of rage or a shattering of misery.

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