Page 16 of Beastkin
Something pulled at me, an urge to go outside, to find that Beastkin and demand answers. But that was madness. The pendant would alert my parents immediately if I went anywhere near himwith intent to socialize. And if they discovered I was questioning their past actions...
I shuddered, remembering the one time I’d dared to ask about our sudden move from Oregon. My father’s rage had been terrifying, his magic crackling around him like lightning. The punishment had been severe enough that I never brought it up again.
But here, at Widdershins, I was supposed to be finding my own path. Making my own choices. If Laurent was someone from my past, someone important enough that forgetting him felt like a betrayal, didn’t I owe it to myself to find out the truth?
I returned to bed, my mind racing with possibilities. Tomorrow, I decided. Tomorrow I would go to the library and figure out how to undo memory modification spells. The pendant might know who I was near, but it couldn’t see what I was reading. And I had to find out, had to know why my chest ached when I thought of this boy that I couldn’t remember.
As I drifted back to sleep, the dream returned, more vivid this time. Two boys sitting on a fallen log, one human with fire dancing in his palm and the other with brown eyes and short tusks, smiling like it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Chapter 7
Karrick
The whistle screamed across the field like a banshee, and I barely managed to dodge Silver’s tackle before eating turf.
“Laurent! Where the hell is your head today?” Coach Flannery’s voice boomed across the practice field, his middle-aged, but still chiseled face twisted into its usual scowl. His bare werewolf feet pounded against the grass as he stalked toward me, clipboard clutched in one fuzzy hand. Coach almost never returned to his human form.
I wiped sweat from my brow, my thick fur matted against my skin. “Sorry, Coach. Won’t happen again.”
But even as the words left my mouth, I knew it was a lie. My mind kept drifting back to those orange eyes. The eyes I’d recognize anywhere, even after all these years. Phoenix. My best friend Phoenix. Except he’d looked right through me like I was nothing more than another hulking beast cluttering up his pristine academic world.
“Jesus, Karrick, what’s eating you?” Silver jogged up beside me, his dark purple skin glistening with perspiration. “You’re playing like you’ve never seen a football before.”
Jackson snorted, his sandy hair falling into his amber eyes. His ears gave an annoyed flick. “Maybe taking a year off has made him soft.”
“How about you shut the fuck up?” Silver snapped back. “He was attacked and nearly killed. He’s been through more than you’ve ever dreamt about, jackass.”
My chest tightened at Silver’s words, the familiar ache of remembering what Damien had done to me threatening to surface. I shoved it down hard. “I’m fine,” I growled, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “Just need to get back in the groove.”
Daisuke jogged over. Even in human form, the single short horn in the middle of his forehead caught the afternoon sunlight. The kirin’s usually calm demeanor seemed strained as he glanced between us. “Perhaps we should focus on the drill,” he suggested diplomatically, but I caught the concern in his dark eyes.
Coach Flannery’s whistle shrieked again. “Alright, ladies! Less gossip, more football! Run it again!”
I lined up across from Jackson, trying to force my mind back to the play. But as I crouched into position, my thoughts betrayed me again. Phoenix’s face flashed before my eyes, older now, sharper angles where there had once been soft childhood curves, but those eyes... Christ, those eyes were exactly the same. The way they used to light up when he’d show me some new spell he’d learned, or when we’d race through the forest in my shifted form. What had happened to him?
The ball snapped and I lunged forward, but my timing was off. Jackson slipped past me like I was standing still, and I hit the ground hard, tasting dirt and grass.
“LAURENT!” Coach’s roar made my ears ring. “Go do a lap! Right now!”
I pushed myself up, spitting out mud, and caught Silver shaking his head at me. The disappointment in my friend’s expression stung worse than Coach’s shouting.
As I jogged around the perimeter of the field, my lungs burned,and my muscles screamed in protest. I welcomed the pain. Anything to distract me from the emotional clusterfuck inside my head. One year away from Widdershins, one year of healing and therapy and nightmares about what Damien had done to me, and now I was back only to have my past blindside me in an entirely different way.
Phoenix fucking Emberwood. The kid who’d disappeared from my life without a word.
I pushed myself harder, my claws digging into the earth with each stride. The memory of those summers in the Pacific Northwest washed over me. I heard Phoenix’s childish laughter as I chased him through the pines, saw the look of wonder on his face the first time he’d seen me shift into my beast form, and remembered the promises we’d made to be friends forever.
“Bullshit,” I growled under my breath, startling a couple of freshmen who were setting up equipment near the sidelines. They scattered like frightened rabbits, reminding me how most people reacted to Beastkin. Everyone except Phoenix. He’d never been afraid.
Until his parents found out.
I rounded the far corner of the field, catching sight of Coach Flannery demonstrating a blocking technique to Daisuke. The kirin nodded attentively, his single horn gleaming once more. Silver was running interference against Jackson, who still had that smug look on his wolf-boy face while the rest circled around them, running the play the way it was supposed to be done. My teammates. My brothers, more or less. They’d been there for me after the attack.
Where had Phoenix been all these years?
The thought made my pace falter. It wasn’t his fault. Not really. We’d been kids. His parents had just packed up and moved. But the pain of that abandonment had festered inside me for years, and seeing him now, watching him pretend not to know me, ripped that scar clean open once more.
“Pick it up, Laurent!” Coach’s voice carried across the field. “This isn’t a Sundaystroll!”