Demonic Vampires (Supernatural Shifter Academy #3) - G. Bailey Page 0,1
stereo, but I’ve learned by now that quiet doesn’t automatically mean safe.
It’s only been two days -- or has it been three? -- since we fought our way out of the Boston Shifter Academy and made a break for it, but it already feels like we’ve been running for a lifetime. This isn’t even our city; the U.K. Shifter Academy brought us here for a field trip, an academic experience that couldn’t have gone more wrong if it had been planned that way.
Ostensibly, it was a conference to address the escalating tensions between shifters and humans, but if one thing has become clear to me since finding out I was a shifter, it’s that nothing between humans and our kind is simple. Now, a terrorist attack, a few lies, and a brief spell under house arrest later, here we are, glancing over our shoulders to make sure Academy representatives aren’t hot on our heels whenever we leave the rundown motel where we’ve been staying for the past two nights, courtesy of our new friends, Ruby and Xander.
Tonight is my and Landon’s turn to venture out and get supplies, and as stir-crazy as I’ve been going cooped up inside with the others, the only thing worse is the uncertainty of venturing outside. As runaway shifters privy to information about the human-run Academy’s plans, we have targets on our backs, and we know it well.
I’m so lost in thought that I’ve let my attention slip away from the present. Only the feeling of Landon’s hand darting out and closing around my wrist is enough to make me look at him. His olive skin has taken on an ethereal glow under the moonlight, his eyes glistening. The warmth of his skin on mine isn’t lost on me, even as he holds me back to keep me from moving forward. “What’s wrong?” I ask him, eyes wide.
“I thought I heard something,” Landon replies, glancing over his shoulder.
I pause, concentrating. “I don’t hear anything.”
He presses his lips together. “Maybe it was just a rat or something.” Slowly, we start forward again, Landon’s hand not leaving my wrist… and I would be lying if I said I wanted it to. But that’s an issue for another time, it seems; moments later, the siren shifter stops dead in his tracks and exclaims, “Nope, not a rat!” I turn to watch as he drops the bag of groceries to the ground, his skin rippling with practiced ease as aqua-green scales begin to cover his body, glimmering with an almost inhuman beauty in the light of the full moon. It all happens so fast that I’m barely even aware of it, the world feeling like it’s moving in slow motion as Landon whirls around and yells, “Leave!” His voice has taken on an inhuman, commanding tone, the tone of a siren giving an order, and I follow his gaze to see a figure at the mouth of the alleyway, blocking the exit.
My heart jumps to my throat. “What if it’s a-” I begin.
Landon shakes his head. “It’s not.”
As if on cue, the figure at the end of the alleyway reaches into its coat and withdraws a gun, lining up a shot as casually as if we were on a battlefield and not the middle of a city street. “Boots!” Landon yells, pushing me out of the way seconds before a bullet ricochets off the brick wall behind me. Adrenaline takes hold of me then, and I scramble for that cool blob of energy at the pit of my stomach that I’ve come to recognise as the source of my shifter magic. In spite of the fact that, as a hybrid, a bastard experiment performed by the humans in an attempt to learn the secrets of shapeshifting, I have access to all five shifter forms -- wolf, witch, siren, vampire, and dragon -- I’m still stumbling to learn to use my powers. This obviously isn’t helped by the fact that I’m no longer taking formal lessons, and although I’ve come a long way since starting at the Academy, it’s still a struggle to focus when I’m under stress.
The human -- at least, I think it’s a human -- at the end of the alleyway begins to advance on us, firing another shot that glances off the tough scales on Landon’s shoulder. He lets out a hiss and barks out another command using his siren song. “Get away from us!”
The figure pauses for a moment, bristling, and I can see them