Page 138 of Mortal Shift
Thaden closed the gap separating them between one blink and the next, looming over the shifter with his head bent close to his ear. Harvey and Eva stared, seemingly frozen in shock, or maybe just smart enough to stay out of this.
“Because if you don’t,pup, I’m going to suddenly regain my memory of the attack, and I’m going to very distinctly rememberyouattacking me. And it’d be such a shame for the council to cut your head off, and waste all that lovely blood of yours.”
He straightened and Kallan staggered back, clutching at his neck and staring daggers at Thaden. If looks could kill, he’d be six feet under. Just as well he was already technically dead. Or undead. Whatever.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Thaden snapped, and Kallan gave him one last dark look before scurrying away, Harvey and Eva hurrying in his wake.
“There,” Thaden said, looking a little too pleased with himself. He glanced over at Jax and Ling, and then back to me. “That should be your mate’s good name cleared by the end of the day.”
“And why do you care?” Jax asked, running a suspicious eye over him. Shit.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Thaden replied, and Jax’s suspicious look only darkened. Double shit. It wasn’t like Thaden could tell him the truth, and he needed a lifeline.
“Jax’s right,” I said quickly. “You had nothing to gain. Why are you helping me?”
I placed a slight emphasis on the last word, and hoped he was the only one who caught it—and that he saw what I was getting at. He smiled, sending icy tendrils around my heart.
“Oh, don’t get too sentimental, sweetness. I’m just not done with you yet.”
Ling gave me a sideways glance as he turned and left.
“Have you noticed people keep saying that to you?”
Chapter Forty-Six
There was no way this was going to end well.
It was the last full moon hunt before our exams and the end of the year, and somehow I hadn’t managed to give Ryker an excuse to kick me off. Worse, the strongest and most powerful shifters in the academy here, and they all had one major advantage over me—they could actually shift.
I shivered as the wind picked up and blew across my skin, but not from the cold. Around me, the gathered shifters were discarding their clothes, some already in their wolf forms, and others limbering up as they prepared to shift. There was an aura of menace and anticipation that raised the fine hairs on the back of my neck, and I saw more than one of the students turn dark and speculative looks my way. I didn’t have many—or any, most likely—friends here, and I didn’t think I’d be making any new ones tonight. They were waiting for me to fail, and it wasn’t going to be a long wait.
Yeah, there was no way this was going to end well.
Ryker swept his scowling gaze over the gathered pack.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Stop wasting my time and shift.”
There was no alpha command in his voice, but that didn’t stop the students shifting into their wolf forms, and in a matter of seconds, I was the last woman standing—and not in a good way.
I felt the pack’s yellow eyes rove over me. Shit, what had I been thinking? Not going to end well? That was the understatement of the fucking century. Total freaking humiliation, that’s how this was going to end. Because seriously, how was I going to keep up with a literal pack of wolves?
I could see the wolves thinking the same thing as they watched me, some with hard stares, others with their mouths peeled back in what could only be the lupine equivalent of a sneer. I felt the tips of my ears turning pink, and it was only because my legs didn’t remember how to move that I wasn’t racing back to my dorm, where I should have been in the first place, instead of out here about to suffer the ridiculous humiliation of having to jog behind a pack of apex predators until I fell so far behind that I lost sight of them, which was probably going to happen within the first minute—and then it’d be round the whole academy before dawn. I could practically hear the mocking of the other students now, as if they needed any more excuses to laugh at me.
“Ready, Miss Ellis?” Ryker asked.
“No, she’s not,” a voice said from the darkness. “Because she doesn’t hunt without her mate.”
A shiver ran the length of my spine and I turned on the spot.
“Cole!” Suddenly, my legs remembered how to run, and they carried me straight to him. I crashed into his chest and his arms wrapped around me, holding me close. He lowered his head to the top of mine and inhaled deeply.
“I’m here,” he murmured into my hair.
I pulled back just enough to search his face with anxious eyes.
“You’re okay?” I asked softly, and he dipped his chin just a fraction.
“I am. Because of you. Without any witnesses, the council had to release me after I recanted my confession. They’re still investigating, but they’re going to have to work a lot harder if they want to pin this on me.”
