Page 62 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

CHANNON

I couldn’t get the situation with Rawling out of my head.

Bardoul thought I was being weird and overthinking things.

In his mind, Rawling was our friend and that was enough.

He assumed keeping Rawling possibly being human was a privacy issue and not a medical one.

I wanted it to be. Gods, how I did, but something just didn’t sit right with me.

Letting the issue go would be the easy way to deal with it all. And if it had been possible for me to do that, I would have. Every fiber of my being wanted to. But I just couldn’t ignore it, and it was starting to get in the way of my schoolwork.

I tried to discuss it with Bardoul, but every time I did, he shut me down. He was loyal and I loved that. But sometimes you could be loyal to a fault, and it was starting to become that way for Bardoul.

Or maybe my friend was just not wanting to add to his long list of worries. He tried to downplay his maybe not passing his exams, but it was a very real possibility that this semester was going to be his last at Sombertooth, and that sucked.

If I were rich or had the right connections like Atticus did, I’d have solved it for Bardoul by paying for his tuition and board.

If anyone deserved an amazing education it was him.

But I had no money to spare, and I had absolutely no connections, so the best I could offer him was help studying and to listen when he needed to vent.

I reached the dining hall and went to scan my card and grab a quick lunch.

I had the finishing touches of a paper to get done by morning and my stupid focus had been on Bardoul scenting Rawling as human that day instead of the work that needed doing.

Had his beast done a runner, taking his status from a latent who couldn’t connect with his animal to one that was technically no longer a shifter? I didn’t have the answer.

If I didn’t move past pondering how that happened, I was going to fail my paper, giving me a D in the class. Sure, it was technically passing, but it wasn’t enough to have it count as a prerequisite, and I needed it to.

Bardoul was working the lunch shift, and I didn’t see any of my normal meal buddies anywhere.

So after I got my food, I sat at an empty table.

I didn’t mind eating without anyone around.

It gave me an excuse to people watch. But today, I could really have used someone to talk to, someone to distract me.

My mind kept slipping back to Rawling and the what-if—what if his beast was dying and that’s what Bardoul scented.

It was terrifying to think that way. My beast was such an integral part of who I was, I’d be naked and lost without him.

And yet, it was a possibility that was exactly what was happening to my friend.

Bardoul didn’t think so, and that was a big part of why he wasn’t interested in talking about it.

He was sure I was wearing a tinfoil hat because my grandfather was a healer and I’d heard too many stories of oddities growing up.

And fair enough, my grandfather was one to overshare the various cases he’d been called in on.

Unlike human doctors, there were no laws protecting privacy in the shifter world, and my grandfather did love to gossip.

He justified it as sharing with his family, the way anyone would come home and regale everyone about what happened at work.

But also, I was just a kid the first time I heard about a shifter baby being born with one paw.

No kid needed that knowledge. It was nightmare fodder.

I more picked at than ate my food and was about to give up on eating altogether when Jack came in. Leaving with a tray full of food as she was walking toward me would look like I was avoiding her. Instead, I stayed put.

“Is it that bad?” She indicated my plate of uneaten food.

“Naw. I just stink at eating alone.”

“Sorry I’m late. I had to talk to my professor.” She went on and on about a question regarding her final paper, and it was the distraction I needed. I managed to get half my lunch down, and my mind was on her and not Rawling. That was until she brought him up.

“I thought Rawling would be here by now.” She looked at the door as if willing him to walk through.

“He’s probably napping. He’s not been feeling well.

” The way she spoke, as if she didn’t quite believe it, made me curious.

Either that or I was reading too much into what she said because I too had been worried about him.

In either case, my reprieve from having Rawling being front and center in my head was over.

I changed the subject, sort of. “Gotta head back soon to talk to my grandfather.”

“That’s nice you’re so close to him.”

I was fiddling with my cutlery, and without thinking, I said, “I’m going to mention… you know… ask about…” I gulped. Fuck, I’d almost said Rawling. “You know, Mika. My grandfather knows lots of stuff.” I wiped my brow. Lots of stuff was what little kids said. Gramps was a wise man.

We finished our lunch, Jack went back to class, and I wandered back to my room.

It was my light day, class-wise, and I didn’t have anywhere to be for another hour, which was good because halfway through listening to Jack talk about her worry over Rawling’s health, I’d made the decision to call my grandfather and ask for his advice.

He was semi-retired and would be around to take my phone call.

We chatted together every week during this time.

It wasn’t like when I was a tiny kid and he was all work all the time.

Gramps’s retirement had been the best thing that ever happened to eight-year-old me—and current me, for that matter.

It gave us a bond that would never break until one of us left this plane to be with the goddess.

I was barely in the door when I took out my phone. He picked up on the first ring.

“I was just thinking about you,” he answered the way he always did. And just like every other time, it made me smile. My grandfather wasn’t one to spout bullshit. If he said he’d been thinking about me, he had.

“I’m glad you’re around. I’m worried about a friend of mine, and I wanted to run it by you.” I sat on my bed. “Do you have time for a chat?”

“For you, always. Tell me about this friend of yours.”

I told him what Bardoul had scented that day when Rawling burned his hand. “Do you think his beast is dying?” I asked. “Is he dying?”

I had expected my grandfather to ask a thousand questions or possibly let me know that it was no big deal and not to worry. He did neither of those things. Instead, his voice became firm and his tone scared me.

“Channon, I need you to lock your bathroom door and your bedroom door.” He spoke with such authority that my beast wouldn’t have allowed me to question him even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. I was too freaked out by his tone to even consider it.

“Locked,” I assured him. The door couldn’t stay that way for long. It wasn’t like I lived alone or that the people in the adjoining room didn’t need to pee once in a while, but for now, it was secured.

“Now I want you to grab your backpack and fill it with any items you can’t bear to be without. Forget everything else.” There was fear just below the surface as he gave me my directions, and try as I could, I was unable to remember a time when I’d sensed fear from my grandfather.

“Okay.”

“I will come and get you.” He then went on to explain the logistics, including the very strict instructions not to let anyone know I was leaving—not my house mother, not my friends, no one.

By the time I reassured him up and down, my heart was pounding in my chest and my beast was begging to be set free.

“Is it contagious? Will my beast die too?” My voice quaked, the fear of an entire house—shit, the entire campus, losing their animals suddenly all too real.

“No one is losing their beast. It’s worse than that. So much worse. Now get packing. There is no time to waste. One backpack. Nothing more. You don’t want to alert anyone.”

Had it been anyone else in this entire world giving me such over-the-top, make-no-sense instructions, I’d have questioned them at every turn and probably not even considered following them.

But this was my grandfather. He’d seen things no one else would believe.

If he was telling me I had to leave under these conditions, I did.

I grabbed my backpack, took all of my school items out of it, and began to pack—only the irreplaceable items, just as my grandfather instructed. I’d know the reason soon enough. I could only hope I was ready for them.