“Hey, girls,” he replied.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked.
“We were invited to come,” Frances said. Her eyes darted to Ainsley who was chatting with Antoine and another werewolf I didn’t know.
“Oh, cool,” I said, my fight leaving me.
“There’s an empty foosball table,” Rathik said. “You want to play?”
“Sure,” I agreed, turning to smile at him.
“You two want to play?” Rathik asked Loralie and Frances.
“Only if we can play against you two,” Loralie said as she stood.
“I think we can take them,” Rathik said with a smile as he looked at me.
My smile brightened. “We totally can.”
Frances stood. “Bring it.”
We walked to the table, teasingly talking crap to each other the whole way and then I stood beside Rathik on our side of the table and my pulse skyrocketed. We were so close that our arms kept touching accidentally as we spun the foosball handles.
“You two are going down,” Frances said and spun one of her handles.
I rolled my eyes. “We all know I’m the best when it comes to hand eye coordination.”
“Enough talk. Let’s play,” Loralie barked and dropped the mini soccer ball into the slot that rolled it onto the foosball table and started the game.
I spun my handle, sending the figures on it in a fast spin that hit the ball and sent it across the table and towards the goal.
Loralie spun her handle, barely managing to hit the ball back in the opposite way to deflect my near goal.
Before I realized it, an hour had passed and Rathik and I had fallen into a partnership that required very few words and mostly movement and reaction. I hit the ball into the goal for the tenth time and threw my hands into the air.
“Woo! We win!” I yelled.
Rathik turned and held his hands up so I could smack mine against his. “Nice!” he cheered.
Frances groaned. “We were so close!”
“Not close enough,” I teased.
“Are you thirsty?” Rathik asked.
I nodded.
“I’ll get us some drinks and meet you back at the couches,” he said and headed towards the vending machines.
I walked between the grumbling Loralie and Frances. “Thank you.”
They bumped their shoulders into mine and we sat down together, but with me on the outside so Rathik could sit beside me.
“That was fun,” Frances said. “I haven’t played that game in a while.”
Loralie nodded. “We need to get one for the mansions so we can play when we aren’t at school.”
I nodded my agreement.
Rathik sat down and handed me a bottle of water.
I took it and chugged it.
Just as I started to relax on the couch beside him, a deep howl that made even creatures run in terror sounded outside.
I leapt up, but Rathik grabbed my arm, stopping me.
“It’s the chupacabra,” I told him. “I have to go see what’s wrong.”
“Don’t just run out into danger,” he scolded me.
Loralie turned into mist and disappeared from the room.
With Rathik a step in front of us, Frances and I moved to the exit and peeked out.
The chupacabra who had been guarding me stood over a body with a growing pool of blood.
I inhaled and gasped.
Human.
“How did a human get this far onto the grounds?” Frances asked, her hand wrapped around my upper arm and squeezing almost painfully tight.
“Alpha coming,” the chupacabra told me. “Stay inside.”
Loralie reformed behind us. “There were three other humans, but the guards caught all of them before they could make it onto the campus. This one was the only one who got this far.”
“How?” I asked. “How did it get so far?”
“Stealth technology,” the chupacabra said. “Get inside, now.”
Rathik pushed us back and closed the door.
“No one is leaving until we’re given the clear,” he said to the rest of the room.
“What happened?” Ainsley asked, she and the other students coming up towards us.
“Humans got on campus,” Loralie said. “They’ve all been killed, but we have to wait until we’re given permission to go to our rooms.”
“Humans?” Ainsley asked, her face changing into mostly avian.
Antoine set his hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Ainsley. I won’t let a human get near you.”
Rathik swallowed hard and took several steps away from the door, his eyes wide.
Had I not known the signs, I wouldn’t have understood what was going on, but Frances had had the same problem when we were toddlers.
I reached out towards him, but suddenly his lower body turned into his serpent’s tail and his eyes turned completely snakelike. I stumbled back from him. “Rathik?”
Loralie looked from me to Rathik and her eyes widened. “Hey, Rathik. It’s alright. We’re safe. The chupacabra got the human. There aren’t anymore.”
“Why didn’t the chupacabra smell it?” He asked, his S’s elongated now that his tongue was forked.
He was almost completely snake now, and I continued backing away from him, heading for the bathroom.
“We know as much as you do,” Loralie said. Her eyes darted to me and then back to him. “You need to calm down, okay? You’re scaring people.”
He looked towards the spot I had been and then searched the room until he found me. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak to me, I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door closed, locking it quickly.
Slumped against the closed door, I slid to the ground, wrapped my arms around my legs, and tried to calm the hiccuping breaths now coming.
Snake. Snake. Snake.
Rathik was a snake.
Snake.
Snake.
Snake.
Twelve
LORALIE
Rathik was freaking out. Tsukiko had locked herself in the bathroom and was probably hyperventilating. The other students were scared, but so far seemed stable, aside from Ainsley, but Antoine seemed to have her under control.
Frances met my eyes and then she walked over to the bathroom and knelt by the door, whispering through it.
“Rathik, can you change back to your other appearance?” I asked softly.
He slithered back and forth, pacing in front of the door. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
“She knows that,” I whispered. “We know that, too. It will help her if you could change back, though.”
“Defensive,” he whispered. “This is my defensive form.”
“We’re safe,” I reminded him. “The guard protected us like he was supposed to.”
“Should have smelled it. Why didn’t I smell it? Was it because I wasn’t in this form? Am I hindering myself by being in that form?” He asked the questions too fast for me to answer, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t asking me anyway.
The door opened, and I had my scythe in hand while several of the students had magic primed or claws extended.
Tanjiro, Tsukiko’s father and the alpha of all shifters, stepped inside with a deep scowl on his face. He wore a suit and looked, for all intents and purposes, human. “Where is she?” he asked me. He looked at Rathik and then at Frances squatted by the bathroom and figured it out for himself before I could answer.