The other two boys quit struggling and stared. Andrew breathed, “What kind of Wyr are you?”
“Uh,” said Joel. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Uh, uh, uh. I never meant any of it. Swear to God. He made me do it.” He jerked his head toward Andrew.
Liam started to feel bad that he made someone else cry, but he forced himself to toughen up. None of them had gone easy on Perrin, or, he suspected, Marika either.
“Swear you’ll stop,” Liam told him. “Leave Perrin and Marika alone. Don’t pick on anybody else, ever again.”
“I swear,” said Joel.
Letting him go, Liam wiped his hand on his shorts. As Joel raced up the stairs, Liam turned his attention to Andrew, whom he still held pinned.
He told the other boy, “You can try hitting me in the back again or hurting me some other way, but I know to watch out for you now, and anything you try is only going to make me mad. If you don’t stop hurting people, I’ll come find you. I’ll hunt you down. That’s what I’m made for, hunting things. And when I find you, I’ll pound your face into the sidewalk.”
Joel had gone red, but Andrew’s face turned chalk white. His eyes darting around the stairwell, he whispered uncertainly, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I can start now, if you want,” said Liam.
Moving too fast for the other boy to stop him, he flipped Andrew around. Bracing one hand at the back of the other boy’s head, he pushed Andrew’s face hard against the concrete wall.
Andrew cried out, “Okay, okay—I believe you! I swear, I’ll stop! I’ll stop!”
Breathing hard, Liam listened closely to what Andrew said. Like his ability to identify a person’s nature, his truthsense wasn’t very well developed yet, but he could still hear the ring of truth in the other boy’s voice.
The thing was, Liam still didn’t believe him. He thought Joel would probably keep his word, but Andrew seemed different from Brad and Joel. There was something wrong with Andrew, something really bad that ran deep. He might stop for a while until he stopped believing that he would get caught, but sooner or later Liam thought he would hurt somebody again, because he liked hurting people too much.
But Liam wasn’t old enough to fix anything like that. The only thing he could do was scare Andrew badly enough to make sure that future stayed far away.
Leaning forward to put his lips near Andrew’s ear, he tried another hiss. Heat boiled out between his lips again and singed the ends of the other boy’s hair. Crying out, Andrew cringed against the wall.
That would have to do. Satisfied, he let him go, and Andrew bolted for the stairs.
Turning to follow the other boy, Liam climbed the stairs, and as he looked up he discovered Marika hanging over the railing and staring down at him. She wore a solemn expression, and her gray eyes were huge.
He reached the top stair and sat down, stretching his legs out and looking at them. He had collected a couple of bruises on his shins where the other boys had kicked him. They would fade quickly enough, hopefully before the end of the day.
The angry energy was leaving him. He felt his dragon side straining to get bigger again, and this time he had to struggle to stay in control. After not having much of an appetite for a couple of meals, he felt hollow and empty. He wanted some meat, but he wouldn’t get a snack until after school, so he resigned himself to feeling hungry for a few hours.
Marika came to sit beside him. She tucked sleek black hair behind one pointed ear, as she said, “That was hella awesome. Excuse my French.”
His cheeks warmed. “They needed to be stopped.”
“Yeah, I know, or one of these days, they were going to hurt somebody really bad.” She studied him for a moment. “You did a good thing. And dude, you breathed fire!”
“I guess I did, didn’t I?” He gave Marika a sidelong smile. She smiled back. On impulse, he said, “Hey, would you like to be my girlfriend for a couple of days?”
A startled wash of color stained her pale cheeks. She stared at him. “Only for a couple of days?”
He had forgotten—she didn’t know who he really was, or anything about him. “Or maybe a week. It’s kind of hard to explain,” he told her. “I’m not going to be a kid for very long, so I can’t make any long-term commitments.”
She laughed. “You really are strange, you know that? What kind of Wyr breathes fire?”
There was a pebble stuck in the sole of his shoe, and he reached down to pick at it. “My kind, I guess.”
“Seriously, are you keeping it a secret?”
As he opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t know if it was a secret or not, a tall, strange girl ran up to them. She was one of the older kids. She asked, “Are you Liam Giovanni?”
He nodded.
“Mrs. Teaberry said to tell you to come into the classroom now.”
Disappointed, he glanced at Marika, who might or might not be his girlfriend. “But recess isn’t over yet.”
The strange girl lifted one shoulder. “Not my problem. Teacher wants to talk to you.”
Sighing, he stood, and Marika did too. She grinned at him. “Yes.”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. Then happiness made him grin back. “Really?”
“Yes, weirdo. Really. See you later.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder and took off.
He said to the strange girl, “I’m dating an older woman now.”
Not bothering with a verbal reply, the strange girl curled a nostril at him before she took off too.
Cheerfully, Liam made his way back to the classroom. It was funny how everything had been so strange at the beginning of the day, but he knew where he was going now, and the hallways and the classrooms seemed familiar.
When he walked into his classroom, it was empty except for Mrs. Teaberry, who was in one corner stacking plastic tubs filled with supplies on top of each other.
He asked, “You wanted to talk to me?”
Straightening, she turned to face him, and the lines on her face didn’t look friendly at all. “Yes, I did,” she said. “We have two issues we need to settle. First, you need to know that liars won’t do very well in my class. They won’t do very well at all.”
His cheerfulness faded into confusion. More than a little disturbed, he cocked his head. “Are you talking about me?”
Looking exasperated, she said, “Of course I am. Surely you haven’t forgotten that you claimed to have read my entire bookshelf in a matter of minutes.”
Clenching his hands, he said through his teeth, “But I did.”
She pointed at him. “You need to tell the truth right now and admit you were lying.”
His mouth dropped open, and he stared at her. “You want me to do what?”
“You have to change your behavior, or I promise you, you’re going to have a very tough first year, which leads me to the second issue we need to address. I heard you have a cell phone, and you were taking phone calls during morning recess. That’s against school policy, and you’ll have to give it up.” She walked toward him, holding out her hand.
His mind flashed back to earlier, when Andrew and Joel had been watching him with such satisfied smiles, while Brad had disappeared from sight. Marika had said his phone would get him into trouble, and it looked like the other boys had made sure of it.
As Mrs. Teaberry approached, he backed away. “I can’t. I’m supposed to keep my phone with me at all times.”
“Unacceptable. Give it to me right now.” She wiggled her fingers at him demandingly.
Shaking his head, he said again, “I can’t.”
Her expression turned incredulous and angry. “You’re in big trouble, young man. This is my classroom, and in here, other rules don’t apply. You do as I tell you. Hand it over.”
Nobody had ever said such a thing to him before. And anyway, he didn’t believe it. Dad’s rules applied everywhere.
His body turned very hot, then cold. This felt completely unlike what had happened with the other boys. With them, he had acted on inst
inct, a certain amount of predatory cunning and on snippets he had heard about how the sentinels handled problems, but Mrs. Teaberry was an adult and his teacher.
He was supposed to mind her, but he also couldn’t go against the safety rules. Starting to tremble, he shook his head. “No.”
Mrs. Teaberry’s eyes flashed. Lunging forward, she grabbed him by the shoulder.
Shocked, Liam tried to twist away, but her grip on him was too strong. “If you won’t give it to me,” Mrs. Teaberry said, “I’ll just have to take it.”
She rammed one hand into his pocket, searching for the phone. He struggled against her hold. “Stop—you can’t do that. I’m supposed to keep it with me.”
Her fingers dug into his shoulder like claws, and she shook him. “Everybody always thinks the rules don’t apply to them,” she snapped. “But they do. They apply to you too, mister.”
He couldn’t let her take the phone, and she was hurting him. She was scaring him too. He couldn’t call Hugh. He had turned his phone off. He couldn’t call Mom or Dad, either.
Feeling invaded and trapped, he felt his fingers change and his teeth lengthen into fangs. He rounded on Mrs. Teaberry with a snarl.
She recoiled from him. Almost immediately, she straightened until she stood very erect. Her tight mouth bit out words. “Don’t you dare bite me, you little animal.”
Trembling more violently than ever, he swiped at his face as he looked at her hands. She clenched his phone in one fist.
Breathing hard, he angled out his jaw and said, “Give it back.”
Astonishment took over her expression. She shook the phone at him. “I said you can’t have it in school.”
Growling, he walked toward her. She retreated until her back came up against a wall. Dimly, he was aware that his face was still not right. He had too many teeth, and they felt sharp against his tongue. When he held out one hand, palm up, he saw that it was tipped with long, sharp talons.
Cautiously, her eyes wide, Mrs. Teaberry set the phone in his palm.
As he turned it on, he thought about calling Hugh, because he wanted to see a friendly face as soon as possible. Then he thought about calling Mom, because he needed her to love on him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
But really, he had screwed up in so many ways that day, the only thing to do was to take it straight to the top.
He pressed rapid-dial number two.
Dad answered before the first ring had ended. “What’s going on, Liam?”
Taking a deep breath, he said, “Can you come pick me up? I think I’m about to get expelled.”
Chapter Five
* * *
Dragos changed into his dragon form, since flying directly to the school was much faster than driving on the winding country roads. Pia rode on his back, muttering worriedly. She asked, Did he tell you what happened?
No, Dragos said, which was the strict truth.
He didn’t mention what Hugh had already told him about Liam’s two confrontations at recess. While Dragos planned on telling Pia everything, he still hadn’t figured out what to say about those incidents.
He was proud as hell of how his son had handled the bullies, and he was both surprised and intrigued at Liam’s newly emerged talent for breathing fire in his human form, but Dragos wasn’t sure that Pia would feel the same way. Sometimes family dynamics were an interesting puzzle.
He also planned on having Andrew and his family investigated. As Hugh pointed out, the boy might need counseling or even special schooling.
Dragos kept his cloaking spell tight around them until after he had landed and shapeshifted back into his human form. Taking Pia’s hand, they strode quickly into the school building and to the administrative offices.
The school secretary escorted them into the principal’s office. Inside, the principal, Doreen Chambers, waited with an older woman, and with Liam.
Dragos took in everything about the older woman at a glance. She was of mixed race, part human and part Dark Fae, and she wore a tight-lipped, self-righteous expression. He turned his attention to his son, who sat with such quiet dignity that it took Dragos a moment to realize Liam was trembling. He clutched his phone tightly in both hands and didn’t look at either the principal or the older woman.
A silent snarl built at the back of Dragos’s throat. As Pia rushed to Liam, Dragos rounded on the other two women. He said in a quiet, rigidly controlled voice, “Explain this.”
As the older woman had caught sight of him and Pia, her expression had changed. Clearly she recognized them. Instead of looking self-righteous, she started to look worried.
She should.
Doreen Chambers walked around her desk, hand outstretched to Dragos. She said, “Lord and Lady Cuelebre, this is Liam’s teacher, Elora Teaberry. I owe all of you a profound apology. You see, we have a policy that children aren’t allowed to have cell phones at school. . . . And with everything involved with the start of the school year, I simply forgot to tell Elora that we would make an exception in Liam’s case.”
Dragos ignored the principal’s outstretched hand. Instead, he focused on Liam’s teacher. Not only had her expression changed, but she was starting to smell nervous too.
On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to pique his interest, because people smelled nervous around him all the time. However, when he combined her nervousness with Liam’s upset, he didn’t like the picture that was starting to emerge.
Elora Teaberry’s chin came up. “Mr. and Mrs. Cuelebre,” she said stiffly. “Had I been told that your son would be in my class, things might have gone very differently. As it was, I insisted he give me his cell phone, and he growled and snapped at me. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is not acceptable or safe behavior—”
Tuning her out, Dragos turned to Pia and Liam. Whispering soft words of comfort, Pia squatted by Liam’s chair. His head lowered, Liam turned in his chair to lean toward her. Pia slipped an arm around him, cupped his shoulder and squeezed.
With an indrawn hiss and a grimace, Liam pulled away from her hug, and everything in the room changed drastically.
Frowning, Pia asked him sharply, “What’s the matter, sweetheart—are you hurt anywhere?”
Liam muttered, “Not really. It’s okay.”
Pia’s eyes flashed to Dragos. Shifting so that she crouched in front of Liam and blocked him from the rest of the room, she went silent. Liam looked at her, nodded then shook his head. They had gone telepathic. She eased the neckline of his shirt to one side to reveal bruises in the shape of fingermarks on one slim shoulder.
“Oh my God,” said the principal, blanching.
Dragos’s silent snarl turned audible. Pia whirled to face Elora Teaberry, her expression blazing with incredulous rage. “You put your hands on him. You shook him?”
The teacher’s nervousness turned to outright fear, and her gaze darted around the room. “Everything I did was in self-defense. Your son snarled at me—he acted like he would bite me. He had partially shapeshifted, and he had claws and teeth—”
Liam said in a clear, strong voice, “You’re a liar. You’re lying.”
Sliding out of his chair, he stood beside Pia’s crouching figure and put his arm around her. To Dragos’s eyes, it looked like a protective stance. Liam was guarding his mother.
Reining in his own rage so that he could at least appear calm, Dragos asked Liam, “What really happened?”
Liam said, “Well, first she said, you couldn’t have read all those books, you’re a liar. And I said, I did too read them, but she never asked me about learning methodology or first-grade literacy, or anything about what was really in the books. Then she said, it’s against the rules to have a cell phone, so you give it to me right now, young man, and I said no, I can’t do that, it’s against the rules. So she grabbed me, and I tried to fight her off, and she shook me, and that’s when I got toothy, and she said, Don’t you dare bite me, you little animal.” He was breathing hard, and his eyes flas
hed with dark violet fire. “And she got my phone out of my pocket, so I said, give it back. And she gave it back. That’s when I called you.”
When he finished, a stark silence fell as everyone stared at Elora Teaberry, who stood with her back pressed against the wall. “That’s not what happened,” she said faintly. “He growled first. He snapped at me. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him!”
Dragos could hear the lie in her voice. It was so apparent he felt sure the other two women could hear it too.
The principal’s expression was appalled, while Pia looked more murderous than Dragos had ever seen her, and he knew fully well that he had the teacher’s death stamped in the lines of his own face.
“This is so far beyond anything appropriate or acceptable, I have no words,” breathed the principal.
“Well, you’d better come up with a few,” Pia snarled as she surged to her feet. “And ‘I’m so desperately sorry’ and ‘We’re going to press charges’ better be some of the first words out of your mouth.”
It was so charming how Pia’s thinking went straight to the justice system, while he thought of things like vivisection and dismemberment.
Dragos’s gaze dropped to Liam. Now that he had told his story, the boy looked completely calm, even analytical, as he regarded Elora Teaberry. He had stopped shaking, and all signs of his previous upset had vanished.
What was going on in that brilliant, unpredictable, dangerous young mind of his?
Dragos decided to find out. He asked telepathically, What do you think should happen to Mrs. Teaberry?
Liam’s gaze lifted to his. Other kids warned me she would be mean. I want to know if she’s hurt anybody else.
Dragos lifted his eyebrows. That’s an excellent point, he said. I think we should find out, and if she has, we need to contact those children’s parents.
Liam nodded. He had slipped his arm around Pia’s waist, and he leaned against her again. His expression was serious. We need to make sure those kids are okay.
Liam had been hurt, and he’d been upset and frightened enough that he had partially shapeshifted, but his first thought afterward had been for other children.