Page 56 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

I wasn’t sure what led me to the corner of the library.

I’d been there trying to find some peace and quiet to do the finishing touches on my paper after Phoenix House proved far too loud.

People had spring fever and bad. It was to be expected with the school year coming to an end, but I still needed to finish my work.

Slacking hadn’t been good to me and I had most of an assignment to complete.

Try as I might, I couldn’t focus. The library was empty with the exception of other students who were in a time crunch and nose down in their work. It wasn’t as if the place was filled with obnoxious people driving me to distraction. It was something else, something I couldn’t quite place.

And somehow I found myself in a tiny neglected nook. The section was unlabeled and filled with books I could smell from two stacks away. There was a definite pull as if a guiding hand was on the small of my back, urging me to get closer.

At first the books looked no different than the books in Professor Shaw’s office, many of them duplicates, until a thick leather-bound tome caught my eye.

It was almost as if it was luring me, daring me to take it from the shelf.

My gaze roamed over the unusual font and the alphabet which I couldn’t decipher.

Tugging it ever so gently from the shelf, my body tingling with anticipation.

The front cover had a wolf pressed into the leather, and I pressed my fingers to it. Maybe I needed more sleep—no, I definitely did—but it was almost as though it was speaking to me, and I trembled.

Initially, after a quick glance around the room to make sure no one was peering over my shoulder asking what I’d found, I was planning on reading it in the library itself.

But I found myself shoving it into the back of my pants, under my blazer, and trying nonchalantly as possible to get back to my table and pack up my satchel.

Walking with the book in my pants was awkward at best, but I managed it without catching the attention of anyone around me.

But as I got close to the exit, I froze.

If I didn’t check the book out, the alarm would buzz, and for some reason, I didn’t want anyone to know I’d “borrowed” the book.

But my feet didn’t get the message that I might be in trouble and they moved me toward the door.

“Have a nice day,” the student behind the desk said automatically as I exited the building.

“You too,” I called back, not slowing down. Wow! How did I do that? I wanted to think the book had magic powers, but that was silly. Silly? In a world where shifters existed? Not silly at all.

I wanted to shove the book in my satchel, but not as badly as I didn’t want to get caught. So, I went the back way to Phoenix House with my head down, avoiding any eye contact.

Once back in my room, I sat on my bed, the logic being that if Jack came in with someone, it was much easier to hide what I’d “stolen” under a pillow than it would be to stash it while at my desk.

The book was even more stunning in the natural light shining through the window, showing the cover was older than I’d assumed. It should be in a museum rather than hidden in plain sight at a university library.

And it might be a nothing book. For all I knew, it was on that shelf because the library staff had no idea where to put it. My gut said it wasn’t the case and that what I found on these pages would be life-changing, which was why it took most of an hour for me to brave opening it.

The font inside was easier to read than that on the cover, but not modern by any stretch.

The research and work of Fenir Ulf . I ran my fingers over the words but felt nothing, so I flipped through the book.

I needed more than a few stolen hours to fully digest what it contained, as it was filled with so much information about shifters—more than what I’d learned during my stay at Sombertooth.

Guilt pooled in my middle for stealing it. It was an important volume, even if it was dated and no longer in use. I’d have to sneak it back into the library without getting caught. That was the plan until I turned the page and discovered a chapter titled: Our Enemy- The Hunter .

“Fuck.” I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath, the word “enemy” echoing through my mind.

This wasn’t a chapter I skimmed but read word for word and contemplated whether it was safe to write notes.

I knew very little about hunters before this, and the more I read, the more I felt as if I was going to puke.

Hunters were literally the mortal enemy of shifters.

That I knew from the professor’s book. But apparently, their entire reason for evolving into humans was to slay shifters.

Reading and re-reading those lines had my emotions racing.

When a hunter comes into his own, at the age of maturity , I read in a whisper.

The age of maturity—my age. And just like me, it would start with dreams, dreams of the past like watching a play-by-play event, similar to modern-day virtual reality.

Of course the book spoke of witchcraft and magic of old and not of virtual reality.

“Fuck.” I had dreams like that. “It was just a coincidence,” I said out loud as if letting the walls know made it seem less terrifying. Knowing what I knew was bound to mess with my head. And now I was letting my imagination get to me as to my reason for coming to Sombertooth.

I kept on reading, the illustrations of weapons on the pages making me sick to my stomach.

Their scent will deceive, morphing into that of their enemy. They walk among us, undetected, but only one per generation . That was new information. One hunter every twenty years or so. The words on every page carried the venom and loathing hunters felt for shifters.

More than anything, I wanted to undo what I’d done and wished I’d never touched the book, much less stolen it. I’d wanted to know everything. Turned out, I didn’t. I wanted to know none of this, and yet I kept on reading.

The most dangerous hunters of all . The larger font denoted a new section, and I contemplated not continuing. I attempted to close the book but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Hunters born of evil blood are easy for shifters to destroy.

What? Shifters killed hunters? If I was… one… one… of them, why did Rawlins love and protect me all those years? Did I want to know more? Yeah, I had no choice.

S hifters don’t indiscriminately slaughter hunters, knowing that not all children born of hunter lineage are murderers, as their soul is too pure.

The author went on to say that pack enforcers waited for children of hunter lineage to show signs of being a hunter before putting a potential hunter down—preferably before the barely adult human even knew of their fate.

Surely this was centuries ago. I couldn’t imagine the shifters I knew raiding homes and killing young adults. I reminded myself that none of this might be real, just fantasy, like a fairy tale.

The most dangerous of all are the hunters born not of hunter lineage.

We can only assume they are lost descendants of our kind, that one of their shifter ancestors was killed by a hunter and the voice of that hunter stayed with them, down the generations, only revealing itself at the age of maturity.

I slammed the book shut. It was too much. I couldn’t handle it, but I also couldn’t return the book, as there was too much still unseen. Maybe I needed to ask Jack for her opinion because she had a clearer head about shit like this.

After shoving the book under my pillow, I headed outside for some air. I should’ve waited for Jack before opening it. It was too intense to dive in alone.

Racing out of Phoenix House, I wandered aimlessly, eventually ending up in the forecourt Sasha had been killed in years earlier. Who had done this to him? A hunter? My gut told me that it was. A hunter murdered him because it was in their blood; they had no choice.

Maybe it was better eons ago when shifters put hunters down before they could kill. I couldn’t imagine living with the guilt of having done that. Shit, I couldn’t sleep just to avoid dreaming about it.

The scent of iron slammed into me. Not just iron… blood. I liked it, almost too much, as if it were calling to me. Thank fuck, that sensation left as quickly as it came. Not that its brevity made it less terrifying.

And not for the first time, I wondered if all the strangeness that had been happening since Rawlins passed was leading me to discover that I was the shifter hunter of this generation.

The more I learned, the more I had to convince myself that everything happening to me was a coincidence and not that I was one of the hunters.

I had friends at the college, friends who furred out and another who wished they could. I refused to put them in danger. Maybe I needed to leave Sombertooth forever. Get far away from shifters.

Only now that I could sense shifters, was there truly a way to avoid them? This summer I needed to hide at Rawlins’s old place and forget about hunters. With any luck, that would be enough to help soothe this undercurrent of fear and anxiety running through me.