Page 2 of Ethereal Shifters

Rhodes chokes on a laugh. “She’s right, you know. You’re not killing good people, and she doesn’t kill people for no reason. I’ve told you once, I’ll tell you it again now. I was waiting for you to tell me everything, every single bit about you, and know that I’d still tell you that you’re good.”

I’m not. “I’ve told you once before, you’re mad, but here we are.”

“Mad about you,” he smoothly agrees, and I can’t help but smile.

“I, uh, I should go,” Annie mutters. My heart pangs with the pain I hear, too. “I’ll take Nibbles with me for this morning while you go to the meeting. Come on.” She grabs her lead and ties it.

“Thank you, Annie,” I gently whisper.

Her eyes are wet when she briefly looks my way. “I’ll see you in class. Be careful, okay?”

“Annie, are you sure you’re okay?” I stand up.

She grabs the door. “Yes, it’s just being around mates is something I have to get used to. What’s a priority for me now is training and being strong.” She nods to herself and steps out, shutting the door behind her and Nibbles.

“It’ll take a while for her to recover.” Rhodes touches my arm.

“I know. I just wish I could fix it for her,” I admit. “He might have been a betraying son of a bitch, but he was her mate.”

“We can’t choose our mates. You deserve better than us fucked-up lot, too.” I frown at him.

I need to change the subject before I begin to cry. “How are you?”

“Perfectly healed and back to normal, thanks to you. My Nexus is equally as obsessed with you as I am, and we’re very happy to be escorting you to the meeting. For the record, there will be one of us with you when you’re outside this room at all times. Not because we don’t trust you, but other students might not understand what you are.”

“They see me as a monster and want me dead. Got it.” I nod. It’s pretty normal for me.

Rhodes looks mad, though. “You’re not.” He stops and sighs. “Most people are scared of anything different, and they want to get rid of you because of that alone. If they try to touch you, well, I’ll just kill them first.”

I look at him sceptically. “I feel like my murdering Nexus is rubbing off on you, and not in a good way.”

“I’ve always been this way; you’ve just not seen how I’ll defend you yet.” He winks. Maybe he isn’t just the nice one of my mates? Hmm. We head out of the door together, and he links his fingers with mine, holding onto me tightly as we go down the staircase into the entrance hall. The corridors of the old castle look the same, with the grey tones, the dark corners but the modern lighting doing nothing to help with the gothic vibes. A few students are walking to their classes, and some of them look at us, mostly at our joint hands, when tutors and students are not allowed to be in relationships in the academy, but they say nothing. Rhodes pretends they aren’t there as he leads me down the enormous staircase and we turn towards the tutor rooms. He knocks the fifth door down with Tutor Jettie’s name on the plaque, and there’s a loud shout to come in.

The small room is packed with tutors, and the immediate urge to run away floods me. I tighten my grip on Rhodes’s hand, fighting my feelings, and blow out a breath. Rhodes said they are here to help me. Not kill me. He wasn’t joking when he said every tutor was here. There must be about twenty people in this room, but my eyes first flick straight towards Finn and Alec, who are standing together on one side of the room near a bookcase, and then to the other tug in my chest. To Hollis, who is sitting in the only chair, his legs spread out in a black leather uniform and his arms crossed, with the most bored expression on his face. He doesn’t even look up at me.

I’ll never admit it, but how unbothered he is by my Nexus pisses me off a little. We have a bond, even if he hates me, and there should be a little reaction. Even a nod of his head. I thought maybe we could have that after everything, but no, he hates me, and I likely deserve it. I feel a flicker of rage from my Nexus, and I barely manage to push away her desire to find aweapon and imbed it in Hollis’s thigh to get his attention. No stabbing anyone in front of the tutors!

Instead of Hollis, I turn my eyes to Finn, and that gets a different reaction entirely from my Nexus. In fact, I can pretty much visualise her stripping our clothes off now, even with a room full of twenty people looking at me, and she doesn’t seem to care one bit. She’s very interested in him and me. Enough that my cheeks flush, and Finn smirks like he can read exactly what she is thinking with those lethal ice blue eyes of his. His brown hair is freshly shaved at the sides and falling in locks across this forehead, and somehow that makes my inside melt. His leather ranger uniform is tight, everywhere, and I run my eyes over his rippling muscles on show. Sometimes I think he can—“Good morning, Sun.” His voice fills my mind, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.

Alek nods at me, searching my face before he mouths the words “It’s okay.”

I needed that. My shoulders drop a little, and it’s just in time as Tutor Jettie and Tutor Edvard, Finnegan’s father, move to the centre of the room. Tutor Jettie looks at Rhodes. “Tutor Rhodes, if you don’t mind, the rules on student and tutor relationships are still withstanding. Holding her hand is not permitted, as is any sexual contact within the academy walls. We have not come so far as to insult our ancestors by following the needs of our mates.” She waits, but Rhodes doesn’t let go. “Our Gods are watching and, as rangers, we are to be the example to the entire Nexus race.”

“The needs of my mate are all I care about,” Rhodes plainly offers, standing straight at my side. “One of her mates will be accompanying Gwenieve everywhere from now on, and I don’t believe any of this is necessary.”

All the other tutors look pissed. Except Hollis, who doesn’t care. Finnegan and Aleksander just seem amused. “She was withone of you pretty much all the time previously, and yet she went into the city and murdered.” Tutor Edvard looks at me. “You have zero control over your Nexus. Thankfully, you’re in an academy that can teach you how to control and bond properly with your Nexus. Maybe this would never have happened if you were taught properly from a young age and your parents came forward and explained to us what had happened…”

“Or you would have killed a defenceless child,” I point out. “Don’t insult them when they saved me.” There is silence. “My parents were doing the best they could with the situation, and they died protecting me. I won’t have you stand there and blame them for this. They watched their young daughter murder a whole supermarket full of people, and they had no idea what to do…and they chose to save me. Help me. Guide me.”

“That can be debated another time, Miss Autumn,” Tutor Jettie softly offers, pulling down the bottom of her striped grey and black jacket to straighten it. “I do wish you told me the truth from the beginning. I’ve spent my life aiding rangers to grow to their full potential, and I dislike knowing you’ve pretended to be less than exceptional.”

Exceptional. Not a word I’d have used to describe me. I gulp and nod once. Tutor Edvard crosses his arms. “We’re not here to correct the past, only to find a way forward.” He nods towards the desk where a box is. Several of the tutors, ones I don’t know, step back. Tutor Edvard goes over and picks the box up before he hands it to me. Something about it makes my stomach turn, and that feeling doesn’t go when he clicks it open and reveals a bracelet. It’s pure red, almost like a crystal, bound with a black metal. “This is a tracker. It’s made from the depths of the academy stone, and it links through to every tutor here. We will know if you go too far from the academy.”

“Oh, and what do you want me to do with that?” I act dumb.

It only pisses off Tutor Jettie. “Wear it. That is our condition. We need to know where you are, and in return for you wearing this, we will train your Nexus. We will help you and teach you to be a powerful ranger. To be a normal person in this city.”

Normal. There is that word again. Taunting me. I tilt my head to the side. “And do you think you’ll be able to stop my Nexus if she decides to leave?”

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