I hurried to correct myself, not wanting to be the reason Casey looked like a kicked puppy. “He just wanted to fly, right? How do you know he might be interested in more? He didn’t ask for a date.”
“It was implied!” Harpy snapped. For some reason, Harpy looked like he wanted to gut me.
“How?” I asked, staring in disbelief at my friends and family as they all seemed to think I was the slow one in the group.
Myve was the one to answer. “He looked adorably nervous when he asked. It’s all about what’s being said between the lines, Jamie.”
I rubbed at my forehead. “Why can’t people just say the word date?”
“Is that really what got you so confused?” Nym questioned, giving me the same odd look he’s been giving me this past week.
“Egh,” I said, waving him off. “It’s too early for this. I’m going to class.”
I followed the light that always showed me where to go, the one only I could see as I made my way to the first class of the day. It led me upstairs, then down a hall I’d never ventured to before. I stopped in front of a big wooden door. The handle was a blackened metal grip that looked ancient. That was saying something in a school that seemed to have existed forever.
I turned the handle, knowing full well that I was allowed. The light had guided me after all, even if it seemed naughty in some way. The door creaked open and inside sat an elderly man,a glass bowl in front of him with a goldfish in it that shifted between all colors of the rainbow. It emitted a glow, making the whole room shine in rays of colors. The glass reflected each pass it made, like pure sunshine shone from its body.
“Um, hello?” I said, noticing that the man had yet to pay me any attention. I ventured further into the room, noticing as the door closed behind me that no other students were in the hallway. That had never happened to me before. Normally we were between twenty to fifty in a class, depending on what it was.
A raspy male voice spoke next, the tone calm. “Sit down, Jamie.”
It was an order, a clear one, so I sat in front of the man, the bowl with the fish between us.
“What color do you see?” he asked, still not looking at me.
“All of them,” I answered, looking at the fish with admiration.
“Good, now, think of the last time you were happy.”
I thought back to breakfast, then skipped past that to last night’s swim with Casey. I’d laughed more than I could remember ever doing. I’d felt free too, like I had nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.
“What color do you see now?” he asked.
The goldfish was purple, a dark pure purple. The scales glittered as it swam. It looked black sometimes, the shine was the only thing that proved it wasn’t.
“Purple and maybe black?” I said, watching how the goldfish continued to move around in a practiced glide, seamlessly following the same motion, over and over again.
This time he looked at me. “Fascinating.”
He didn’t say anything else, just stared at me with his grey eyes.It was creepy, not gonna lie.
“I’m Ulysis,” he said then, smiling. “I’m working on mating bonds and how they form. I’m not a teacher, but every student will see me during their time here, letting me pick their brains.”
“Oh,” I said, not really sure what to say in a situation like that. “Did I pass?”
He tilted his head. “Pass?”
I moved my finger in a circle. “You know, did I pass whatever test you made?”
He chuckled low. “Young man, I was merely testing if you’d met your mate already, and you have.”
Chapter Three
I’d met my mate already? That was the question I kept asking myself as I left Ulysis’ room. My light guided me back to the dining room. I figured that meant I had the rest of the day off. I hadn’t shifted in two days, so I made my way outside, stopping as I reached the bench Casey would meet Riddick at later. This was a good spot. I had to admit that. I shifted into my racoon form and made my way up the tree. It was shaded and had the perfect view of the academy.
I decided to explore the tree some more, my racoon needed to feel his claws scratching on the bark. There was just something so calming about climbing and sniffing out the best spot to take a nap. I’d always been happy with my shifted form, and it wasn’t until I came to this school that I learned not all felt that way about their forms. Our teacher, Niels, was determined to create a strong bond between every shifter and their form. It appeared as though it was his life’s mission, and I had to agree that it was a good one. If I wasn’t so at ease with my form,I’d likely have felt out of balance, like my body couldn’t rest properly.
There wasn’t a particular form that was superior to the others, but many wished to be dragons, simply because of how rare it was. In fact, it was so rare that for a time they were believed to be extinct. My uncle Jax had lived in hiding because of it, not daring to let anyone know he was a dragon. Thankfully, those times are over now. I didn’t think of myself as less than Nym just because he was a dragon and I was a racoon shifter. We even knew a queen who was a mouse shifter, and Queen Daniella was a brave and loyal ruler.
