Page 37 of Mortal Shift
His gaze flickered over me, eyes searching my face for I didn’t know what. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and all at once my mouth was dry.
“Please,” I whispered again. He blinked and shook his head.
“Get your ass back to the dorm. Now. Or next time I won’t stop Davorin having his fun.”
Right. Decency. What was I thinking?
“Asshole.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Up, everyone, now,” Garrett snapped as he strode into the room with a scowl. The gathered students shared confused looks, and he grabbed a dark-haired shifter in the front row—Tristan—by his scruff and dragged him up then tossed him to the floor. He turned back to glare at the rest of us with dark eyes. “Did I stutter?”
I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one to shake my head and scramble to my feet before I ended up like Tristan, who was picking himself up and probing the back of his head. Wisely, he kept his eyes averted from Garrett.
Garrett was allegedly our combat instructor, not that I’d seen any evidence of that in the lessons we’d had with him so far, unless you counted his penchant for throwing students around. More than one person had ended these lessons with a trip to the academy healers, and I’d resolved not to become one of them.
“I’ve had enough of you all sitting around doing nothing,” Garrett grunted, from which I inferred today would not be another theory lesson. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. Oh, wait, I was the only human in a room full of shifters. I felt like I should have made a better attempt at escaping last week. Cole, unfortunately, had meanwhile stuck close enough to me whilst tormenting and humiliating me in front of half the academy to make sure I didn’t get a second shot at it.
“Pair up.Notwith your fated mate, Mr. Thornton,” Garrett snapped as Lincoln made to pair up with his red-headed mate—who had managed not to have her hair shorn. Guess that rule applied to me and Cole, too, which was fine by me because I got the sense he’d jump at the opportunity to vent his frustration and ‘teach me my place’ at the same time. I flashed him a grin and took a few steps away—and almost immediately crashed into a walking wall of muscle. I twisted round and blinked up at a scowling blond hulk.
I took a quick step back, and then he flashed me a friendly smile.
“Hey. It’s Cali, right?” he said. “Wanna pair up?”
I shrugged. He seemed less like he wanted to kick the crap out of me than everyone else here, which counted as a win in my book. “Sure. Sorry, it’s…”
“Kallan,” he helped me out, thrusting his hand out between us.
“I said pair up, not flirt,” Garrett snarled, and we broke apart quickly. “Find some space, and start sparring. I want to see what you all know.”
“Um, Garrett?” I asked tentatively. “Shouldn’t we have some training, first?”
His gray eyes snapped to me. “Wouldn’t be much of a test of what you know if I showed you first, would it? Or maybe you’d like to sit this one out, Cali, same as you do for the rest of your lessons—is that it? Too weak to hold on to your place here.”
I squared my jaw. “I’m fine, Instructor,” I ground out.
“Then stop wasting my time. Get sparring.”
I sucked in a breath and turned back to Kallan in time to see something flicker across his face. Caution prickled at the back of my neck, but if my body was trying to tell me I was in danger, it waswaytoo late. I’d been in danger since I’d walked into the middle of Cole’s damned party, and it was a little pointless warning me I was stuck in the room with a hundred predators, because I’d already worked that one out for myself.
I shook out the unease, and gave my sparring partner a tentative smile.
“So, uh, what do we—”
He lunged forward before I could finish speaking, and I ducked back with a yelp, instinctively throwing my hands out in front of me and somehow deflecting the worst of the attack.
“Hey, hold on a s—”
Kallan drew back and threw a punch and I thrust my arms out again. Pain jolted through my right wrist as it made contact with his arm, sending the punch wide, and I jerked my arm back, trying to shake out the pins and needles shooting up and down its length.
Movement flashed in my periphery and he snatched my arm from the air, pivoted, and tossed me clean over his shoulder toward the solid ground.
I hissed in pain as I hit the floor face first, and rolled onto my back to see Kallan looming over me, all trace of friendliness long gone from his face, replaced with a predatory anticipation.
“What the hell?” I snapped, pushing myself to my feet and wiping blood from my face.
“What’s the matter—starting to have second thoughts?”
