Azure Dragons (Supernatural Shifter Academy #2) - G. Bailey
Chapter 1
My life is insane. In a good way.
A little less than a year ago, my school guidance counselor sat me down for one of our requisite meetings. I think it was meant to help get us thinking about life after graduation and figure out a game plan for our future—one of those misguided things that the administration thinks is more helpful than it really is. I remember her asking me where I saw myself after finishing school, no doubt fishing for some answer about university, picking a career, and soldiering out into everyday society without a care in the world. In the end I made up something about “seeing where things went”, because the answer “I’m probably going to end up burning out in a dead-end job, since I have no friends, no family, and no connections” somehow didn’t seem like it was going to placate her.
How could I have known that by this time the following year, I would be standing in the middle of a forest with a shapeshifter, desperately trying to master the art of transforming into a wolf in time for next week’s practical?
It’s funny how these things work out.
“Boots. Earth to Boots.” A familiar voice breaks through the reverie, and I shake myself as I cast the memories aside. Shade Ivis, the handsome, lanky, ash-blond wolf shapeshifter and U.K. Shifter Academy’s resident criminal is standing a few feet away from me, his hands cupped around his mouth in an exaggerated gesture. “Are you still with me?”
“Sorry, sorry.” I clear my throat. “I just zoned out for a second, there.”
“Really?” he teases. “I never would have guessed.” Taking a step forward, he crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re not going to impress anyone by zoning out, though, Boots.”
Boots. Even though it’s only been a few months, the name already has a homey ring to it, like an old coat or a used car. It suits me, but more than that, it makes me feel like I’m a part of a bigger group, which isn’t something I would have ever expected. I think maybe that’s what’s struck me the most about all this, in the end: the ease with which I’ve connected with the people here, in the aftermath of a lifetime on my own.
They say people change after leaving school, but usually they don’t mean it literally. In my case, though, instead of a new set of goals or a new lease on life, a few months ago I found myself with a new body—five new bodies, to be exact. What started out as a day on the run, a desperate attempt to get away from my alcoholic foster father and his escalating temper, ended in a night of being attacked by squatters in a building I had thought was abandoned. That was when everything had, as the saying goes, gone pear-shaped. Looking back on it now, I can still hardly believe it—it was the kind of thing I thought only happened in stories: the cornered orphan discovers that she has magical powers and uses them to save the day before being whisked off to a new home and new life. On the surface, it was almost too perfect.
They say that shifter magic usually first presents itself during young adulthood. The jury’s still out on where the magic comes from, exactly, with theories ranging from a genetic mutation to occult meddling hundreds of years ago. Either way, what do you get when you cross a runaway foster kid with unknown superpowers?
Me, of course. The only difference being that instead of having access to just one shifter form, like pretty much every other shifter in the world, I have access to all five: witch, dragon, wolf, siren, and vampire. It’s like something out of a comic book, except usually comic book characters don’t have as much trouble using their powers as I do. I’ve made a decent amount of progress since first coming to the Academy, but I’ve got a long way to go before I’m on par with the upperclassmen—and even longer before I’m capable of handling myself in a world that I now know is nowhere near as straightforward as I once thought it was.
“You’re not giving up, are you?” Shade asks, smirking. “And here I was thinking you never gave up, Boots.”
“You’re damn right, I never give up,” I fire back, rolling my shoulders and widening my stance. Closing my eyes, I follow the advice he gave me all those months ago and