Azure Dragons (Supernatural Shifter Academy #2) - G. Bailey Page 0,47

head with great effort. They all turn to look at me, and I can feel fresh tears welling up in my eyes. “She got buried saving me,” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Boots,” Silas says, moving over to me, “that wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh, it wasn’t?” I turn to stare at him incredulously. “I lost my form. If I’d been able to hold it, she’d still be alive right now.”

“You don’t know that.” But there’s doubt in his eyes.

I can feel myself getting choked up, and I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head. “This feels like a bad dream.”

“Well, what the fuck was that?” Landon asks. “They were humans, that was for sure. Some kind of extremist group?”

“It has to be,” replies Hunter. “This is what we get for publicising the conference. I guess we should have known it was going to happen.”

“But why?” I ask, running a hand through my hair. “I mean, I thought the point of all this was to find a peaceful solution.”

“I guess the humans didn’t get that message,” Shade remarks.

We all look up at the sound of a knock on the door, and Silas gets up to answer it. Standing behind it are two men dressed in the uniform of the American Academy; their eyes are dark and their expressions serious. “Is everything all right?” Silas asks.

The two men look at each other. “As a matter of fact, it’s not,” the first one says, before nodding to the other. “Count them. Make sure they’re all here.”

“Wait a minute-” begins Landon, but the men are already forcing their way inside, taking note of all of us, watching them incredulously.

The second man nods after a moment. “Yes,” he says. “They’re all here.”

“Excellent,” says the first. “We’re on first watch.”

“What the hell is going on?” Shade demands, crossing his arms. “What are you guys doing in our room?”

The second man turns to him. “The five of you are being restricted to your dorm until further notice. Effective immediately, on orders of President Hawthorne.”

Chapter 18

For a moment, all any of us can do is stare at them. Shade is the first one to speak up. “What the fuck do you mean, on orders of President Hawthorne?!”

“Yeah,” Silas adds, taking a step closer to them, “what the hell is going on? What about the rest of the Academy students? And why does it matter if we’re in our rooms or not?”

The two men look at each other, and I can see the wheels turning in their heads; I know that look—it’s a look that says they’re debating whether to tell us the truth or not. These aren’t the decision-makers, they’re the cronies, and that doesn’t bode well for us. These orders came from the top, and I suspect, if the American Academy is involved, that Hawthorne wasn’t the only one giving them out.

The first man sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Listen,” he says, “it’s really not our place to discuss this.”

“Like hell it’s not,” Landon pipes up. “If we’re being put on lockdown again, it had better be for a good reason. Is the school in danger? Is that it? Do they think another attack like the one that happened at the convention center is going to happen here?”

“There… is a possibility,” admits the second man. “This sort of thing has never happened before, not with so many shifters in one place.”

“So it was an extremist group, then,” Landon confirms, crossing his arms. “That’s just great.”

The second man nods grimly. “The humans are lashing out. Somebody in the know organized this. We can’t say more—we don’t really even know more, to be honest, other than the fact that-”

But the first man elbows him, shutting him up. “Confidential,” he hisses, and Hunter and I look at each other.

“Well, what about the other students here?” I ask, stepping forward. “The kids across the hall - Hazel, Ruby, and Xander. Can we see them? Wouldn’t it be enough to just restrict us to the school grounds?”

“That’s not possible,” the first man replies.

“Why not?”

He heaves a sigh, exchanging another glance with his partner. “There is a schoolwide lockdown in place, that’s correct,” he replies. “The witches already have plans in place to expedite travel back to the U.K. campus. That doesn’t apply to you five, however.”

I could swear I feel my heart stop in my chest. Now isn’t the time for us to be getting “special treatment” from the Academy, especially in the aftermath of what we overheard being