Chapter 10

It had been days since I last saw Xander. To be honest, I had desperately been avoiding him.

Sometimes at night, I would wake up completely drenched in sweat, and I would have this inexplicable desire to open the adjourning door to Xander’s chamber and ravage him. These sudden urges were frightening enough to force me into staying inside my room with both doors bolted and a chair permanently wedged under the handle.

I didn’t feel like myself at all.

I almost didn’t dare open the door to get the food Leo brought me every morning. I only did it when I was highly famished.

“Xander should be the one locking himself up when I go crazy. This is stupid; I could just unlock everything and hunt him down…” I told myself frustratingly.

I did feel slightly better whenever Xander left for work in the morning, and I found myself alone on the floor. I felt like I could breathe again and found some remnants of my previous self, but as soon as he was near again, that strange feeling returned and made me pace the floors of my room.

Calling Xander by his preferred name still felt foreign in my mind. It was like I was doing something wrong. But I quickly got over it since I had other matters to tend to, mainly because I needed to keep a low profile and survive long enough to be freed from this life of servitude.

I needed to keep my identity and powers a secret—calling him Xander seemed trivial compared to the rest.

When King Cardinal’s reign ended, the Usurper King Osprey ordered a witch hunt for what he referred to as the Unnaturals. Anything not human was now an Unnatural, and they were hunted down and killed.

King Osprey hated us so much that he ordered the execution of many magic wielders and shifters the first instant he stepped on the throne. His idea of balance was that no one or thing should be superior to him. It was a kill-on-sight order if they found you to wield magic or shapeshift. Simple as that.

When the kingdom fell, magic wielders such as I went into hiding, and eventually, I was found and sold, passing off as a human.

Magic wielders lived off their magic, so hiding my magic almost made me go mad. I was purposefully splitting myself in two, renouncing who I was, and my first year of suppressing that power made me extremely ill.

Remembering this made my heart sink.

The years that followed were not kinder to me. I was born into nobility, and my brain wasn’t wired to comply as easily as others. Not being able to protect myself by using magic and letting the beatings I took pass was incredibly hard.

Holding the Lupinotuum Encyclopaedia in my hands, I thought about the wolf shifters and what they had also suffered at the hands of King Osprey.

I had never met one, even in my previous life. I had only heard about them from what my history teacher told me. They were part of the balance that the Faiths created. The Faiths were supernatural beings capable of exerting forces beyond measures to maintain balance in the world. The Faiths balanced the humans and the shifters. The sun and the moon. And Faiths were the closest thing we had to Gods.

Magic wielders were an in-between. They were created hundreds of years ago, but no one knew how they came into the world. They simply appeared one day, being neither human nor shifter.

I sighed, looking at the cover of the encyclopedia. Why would my magic want me to look at this? And how was this book still intact? Osprey had ordered every book on magic or shifters to be destroyed.

After I retrieved the book from the library on my first day, I returned to my room and placed it on the table, eyeing it with frightened curiosity. I couldn’t bring myself to open it and read its content—it felt wrong.

The worn patches of brown leather which held the book together looked old. I almost didn’t want to touch it, fearing it would break if I didn’t handle it gently.

But after days of looking at it, I decided I had procrastinated enough and that it was time I started examining the writings within, even if I was terrified about what I might find.

I flipped through the first few pages. Nothing was eye-catching, just more confusing big words that writers used in the old days to make stuff sound more scientific and interesting.

“Lycanthropes and werewolves are considered shifters. Although contrary to their shifting counterparts, Lycans cannot transform their bodies into full wolf form. Their transformation is much more excruciating and complex. Their bones break and are reshaped inside their bodies to make them bigger, faster, and stronger. They have a wolf-like appearance but with a humanoid form, meaning they can walk on two legs or crouch and run on all fours, whereas wolf shifters can fully take a wolf’s form and blend with nature.” This surprised me; I didn’t know there were two types of shifters. I thought that there was only one.

Curious.

I moved the book closer and continued. “The first recorded Lycan was born of shifter parents. They noticed the malformation when the boy shifted for the first time, around ten years of age. The boy had wolf facial features and grew fur on his body as any shifter would, but some speculated that a mutation within caused the boy to keep a human-like physique.

Albeit Lycans are more agile and ferocious than shifters, it is surprising that they keep their consciousness while in their Lycan form, whereas shifters have what they call a ‘wolf conscience’ that takes over in their wolf state. It takes a mentally strong shifter to somewhat control the wolf. Still, they eventually revert to their animalistic instincts, and once they shift back to humans, they often don’t remember what their wolf did. One similarity the Lycans share with wolf shifters is silver. Besides slightly burning them, silver renders their ability to shift ineffective, so if one is in direct contact with the metal, they cannot transform into a wolf or Lycan form.”

I placed my thumb and index finger over the bridge of my nose and exhaled dramatically. My magic showed me this book for a reason, but I couldn’t put the puzzle together.

Was Xander a shifter? But that would be impossible since it was a gene that one parent would have to give to their son.

Duke Kestrel was amongst the highest decorated peerage under the Usurper’s command and was one of the first lords to change sides, thus earning him one of the highest titles. He also shared the same beliefs about the Unnaturals as the king did. So, I found it highly unlikely that Duke Kestrel would be a shifter or that he would wed a shifter—Lady Lucia didn’t strike me as something supernatural.

The shifter gene is unlike those who wield magic; it can’t skip a generation or two. One of Xander’s parents had to be a shifter, and that was just plain poppycock.

I closed the book annoyingly and stared at it. It was getting me nowhere. Plus, I didn’t care what Xander was; I just wanted to know what was wrong with me!

I was so infuriated that I struck the table with my hands, causing a sudden display of blue sparks to shoot out from my palms. The sparks began to swirl, gradually increasing in speed, as I panicked and tried to regain control. However, to my dismay, the blue energy seemed to have a will of its own and threw the book I had been reading onto the ground. The book flipped open, and its pages began to rapidly turn until they finally came to a stop, and the crackling blue light dissipated. I stood frozen, staring at the encyclopedia that had triggered the strange reaction. I knew I had to calm myself down to avoid any more involuntary outbursts of power. As I slowly regained my composure, I noticed that the book had opened to a page titled “Mate Bond.” I picked it up and held it in my left arm while I used my other hand to lightly trace the words on the page.

“As the Faiths demand balance in all magical things, Lycanthropes and shifters must find their fated mates to procreate. The males and females Lycan and shifter can use their sense of smell and instinct to detect their mate. It is more complicated when the fated mate is human, as they do not know of their mate unless they meet. At this time, both species will feel an indescribable magnetism to their other half.

Some reported tingling sensations or the feeling of fire deep within their skin upon touching their mate. Most females, shifters and humans alike will go in and out of heat—a state which prepares the females to mate, as the male pheromones activate the breeding process, and it is completed with the mate bond—”

I threw away the book and grabbed the side of the table to stay upright. This was too much for me. I couldn’t be in heat, could I?

No. That was impossible! Xander wasn’t a shifter. He couldn’t be.

I started breathing heavily and noticed that my breaths were becoming ragged and short. I was hyperventilating and feared that I might lose consciousness if I kept it up. As if on cue, black dots started swimming in my vision.

I tried to steady myself by leaning on the nearby table, but it toppled over, sending me crashing to the floor. The glass oil lamp on the table fell and shattered, sending shards of glass flying in all directions. Some of the sharp pieces cut into my forearms, adding to the pain and uncertainty I was already feeling.

In the midst of my confusion, I thought I heard banging on my door, but it was probably just the pounding of blood rushing to my head. I tried to get up, but my legs felt weak and unsteady. I fell back on the floor, this time on my side, with a loud thud.

Just before I lost consciousness, I saw that someone had busted open my chamber door, and a figure was frantically calling my name. The voice seemed distant and muffled as if coming from underwater. I couldn’t make out who it was, but I felt a sense of relief wrap around me, telling me that everything would be all right.