Page 22 of Wolf Unseen

Riley

My phone buzzed just as I was about to leave my room the following morning. I’d tossed and turned all night and now had the beginnings of a headache caused by lack of sleep.

Who was this T Lorna had fallen for? I needed to find him.

“What?” I snapped, conscious of the time. The window for snatching some breakfast was rapidly closing.

“I’ve made a list of students at Moonfall Academy whose names begin with T. Check your messages.”

I opened our chat thread and downloaded the text file. “Thanks, Felix,” I said, feeling guilty for snapping his head off.

“You’re welcome, cupcake. I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

The instructor glared at me when I rocked up to the self-defense for shifters class ten minutes late, frantically chewing the last bite of my breakfast roll.

Everyone turned to stare, but I ignored them and swallowed before muttering an apology.

“Since you are new to the school, Mr. Scott,” the instructor sneered, “I will let you off this time, but next time you’re late to one of my classes, there will be consequences.”

I nodded and found a place at the back of the hall. Everyone else was bare chested in shorts. Meanwhile, I’d pulled on sweatpants and a hoodie back in my room to avoid having to change in front of anyone. Now I stood out in the worst way in a rippling sea of abs and pecs.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, it’s important not to rely on your animals when defending yourself from an attacker. Can anyone tell me why?”

A lanky guy who smelled like a feline shifter put his hand in the air. “Because humans freak out when we shift.”

“Yes, correct. So being able to defend yourself if you’re attacked by a human or are in a human area is important.”

“But surely we can shift if a human attacks us, sir?” a burly wolf shifter asked.

“No, the law states we can’t attack humans in our animal form. Not unless we want to be arrested for crimes against humans.”

“Even if they attack first?” The shifter didn’t look happy about discovering he couldn’t murder humans on a whim.

“No, Maxim. So in this class, we’ll be learning self-defense strategies that don’t involve shifting.” He surveyed the group. “Everyone pair up.”

I stood back and watched as the rest of the class gravitated into pairs until I was the only person not in one. Great.

“I can sit this one out,” I offered, hoping the instructor agreed, but he shook his head.

“You can be my guinea pig.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

Twenty minutes later, after being pummeled into the mat multiple times, I was one hundred percent certain Instructor Bernard was a sadist. I could have defended myself, but that would have drawn unnecessary attention, which was not my goal.

Although, after the incident in the canteen, I was pretty certain the entire student body knew who I was.

“This is how you disarm a human attacker carrying a knife,” Bernard explained to his audience while going through the moves in slow motion with me pretending to be the knife-carrying attacker. I bit back a scream as he dislocated my shoulder while taking me down at full speed.

“And now it’s your turn, so try the move with your partner.” Then he added, “Be sure to swap roles once you’ve nailed it.”

I lay still for a second, unable to move as white-hot pain skewered my shoulder. It was in times like this that I wished I had magic. Specifically healing magic.

Sadly, while the school had a couple of witch healers on staff, they were only there to heal the most serious injuries because shifting fixed anything minor, like a broken nose or a sprain.

Only I was unable to shift on a whim, which meant I could look forward to suffering until I forced my shoulder back into place.

“Get up, Scott. If you need to shift to fix that, then shift.”