“Are you cleared to return to your classes?” Jamie asked, his plate stuffed high with pancakes.
“Yeah,” I replied, peeling my first orange. “As long as I wait with shifting for three days, I should be fine.”
Myve shook her head in disgust. “I still can’t believe he hit you.”
Jamie nodded in agreement. “It looked brutal.”
I shrugged, still not knowing who the student was. I’d been too focused on Harpy to see which students stood next to me, and the dragon had been on the other end of the line, both of us clearly having needed the space to shift.
“I heard from the healer that he wants to apologize to me,” I told them, trying to act casual about it. Maybe it was weird that I wasn’t angry at the student, mostly because I understood him. Dragon shifters were cursed in a way that meant our shifted forms took over the most, often driving us to do their bidding. We were also the most possessive and protective mates known.
Before they could respond to my news about the other dragon shifter, Casey stopped by our table, giving me a sympathetic look. “How are you feeling?” he asked, then glanced at my plate of oranges, a pained look crossed his features before he schooled it and returned his gaze to my face.
Shrugging once again, I calmly replied, “I’m doing okay.”
“Damon really is sorry, you know?” Casey said, eyeing my oranges again.
“Damon is the dragon shifter?” Ryn asked, his tone sounding off.
Casey nodded, his focus now on Ryn. “Harpy and I spoke with him after the accident.”
That information somehow hurt. My fated had approached my attacker and what? Comforted him while I was out cold in the medical wing?
Ryn just nodded and focused back on his food, his expression closed off.
Jamie’s eyes were glued to Casey like he found him fascinating. Casey noticed and quickly averted his gaze, hurrying off back to Harpy, waving goodbye as he left.
The bell rang, announcing it was time for our first class. I stood, leaving my plate mostly untouched and followed the green light for my destination for the morning while everyone around me did the same.
Chapter Five
“Welcome class!” Niels greeted us with a warm smile. His short and rounded body was dressed in a brown and green robe, his chestnut hair in a messy just-woken-up style. He was my favorite teacher so far, his calm nature and presence a welcoming sight.
This class was basically therapy for us and our forms and I was weirdly into it. This was my second class with Niels and I could already feel the change in my dragon form from that one class we had last week.
“Today we’re focusing on instincts,” Niels informed us, walking up to stand in front of the board. This class was held inside a spaciousroom and there had to be around forty students in here. Although, even with the space it didn’t feel like it at all.
Niels pointed to the board where he’d written down several things with chalk.
“Firstly, I’ll go over which instincts you should never ignore from your form. The very first being danger. If your form tells you that it feels threatened or that someone poses a threat to you, you need to listen, reassess what it’s telling you. If you do this, you’ll find that it often guides you to either leave the area or situation,orit will simply guide you to keep your eye on what it deems to be a possible danger.”
All valid things, but I always listened to my dragon, my fathers having brought us up with the knowledge that we should respect our shifted forms. My wizard siblings and cousins had been taught the same about their familiars.
Niels continued to talk about instincts and how they differed from form to form, mentioning once again that dragon shifters were the ones who “suffered” the most with instincts and our forms taking over, controlling us to do their bidding. But we were also the ones mostly in balance with our other forms because of it. I had only everhad my dragon, so when a mouse shifter told our teacher that he often felt scared and anxious, I couldn’t relate. The student definitely needed to accept his form and not push it aside just because he’d wanted to be born as something else. No wonder he felt horrible all the time when he rejected his other half.
The class was then guided outside, Niels wanting us to sense what our forms were telling us when we were inside the forest. It was fascinating how the bird shifters all longed to get higher up, feeling the pull to look at the world from above. My dragon loved flying, but I felt no need to go higher, my only real need was to find my Harpy.
“Now class, go off into the forest and wander around, then write down on your paper the different feelings you pick up from your form and return to me.” Niels waved us off and sat on a bench that was strategically placed by the edge of the forest, then he took out a leatherbound book and began reading.
I figured I might as well do as he said, so I began walking further into the woods, allowing my dragon to guide me as I wrote down things I noticed in my journal.
“Nym?” Casey’s voice was tentative as he walked to my left, the only student around me as far as I could tell.
“Anything wrong?” I asked, noticing his tense posture.
“I know,” he blurted, but before I could ask him to clarify, he continued. “I know that Harpy is your fated.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that.
