Wolf Spell: Shifters Bewitched #1

bacon, sausage, and mountains of fruit and yogurt.
If this was part of the free-for-me package at the school, I was even more devastated than before about having to leave after three days.
We all pointed to what we wanted and turned around to head to a table.
That was when I realized the whole room had gone quiet.
Everyone was staring at me.
“Come on,” Cori said, taking my elbow and dragging me to a table in the corner. “Don’t let it get to you.”
We passed a couple of tables of women who eyed me sympathetically.
Kendall was sitting with a group of women by the big window.
“Breeder,” someone whispered. This time, I had no trouble hearing it.
The others snickered.
“Sorry about that,” Anya said.
“It’s the least of my worries,” I told her honestly.
By this time tomorrow, I would be bonded to a lord protector.

10


Bella
In my first class, I sat beside Anya in the back row of the sunny lecture hall.
Cori was in a different lecture this morning.
After a quick breakfast, Anya and I had made it to the classroom a few minutes early, and even had our pick of seats, which was a relief after all the stares in the dining hall.
There was no bell, but once everyone else filed in and found a seat, Professor Sora began speaking at length about a section of the library called Forfeiture.
She was a tiny old white lady, who reminded me of the little old woman who owned Tweetie Bird in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.
She spoke softly and pushed her misbehaving glasses up her nose after each sentence, as if she were chatting about the weather with her bridge club, rather than sharing magical knowledge.
Of course the other students had the advantage of actually having been to the library itself, and it seemed like a continuation of yesterday’s lesson, so it was a little hard for me to follow.
But from the beginning of the lecture, it sounded to me like the Forfeiture section must involve magical punishments.
Most of the class was studiously taking notes, except for the black girl with the puffy ponytail who sat right in front of me. She had her notebook open, but hadn’t bothered to jot down a single term.
I decided it was better to be safe, so I wrote as much as I could, even though it all looked like gibberish to me. After almost three hours, my hand was starting to cramp, and even the professor was starting to slow down a bit.
“Is there any object worth the loss of a witch’s control?” Professor Sora asked in her soft voice.
It was obviously a rhetorical question, but I found myself wanting to scream, My brother. My brother’s happiness would be worth it.
“Of course there isn’t,” she said, nodding to herself. “But when we perform magic without discipline, that is exactly what we do. We give up control.”
She peered out at us over her glasses before pushing them up the bridge of her nose again.
“How does discipline help us?” she asked. “Anyone?”
Everyone raised their hands but me.
“Anya,” she said, pointing to my companion.
“So that we don’t lose control,” Anya said.
“Quite true,” Professor Sora said. “Can anyone else be more specific? Nuria?”
“So that we can choose the price we pay for our magic,” a white girl with a long black braid answered.
“Yes, but more than that,” Professor Sora said. “Justine?”
“It’s so that we can choose our price and pay it in advance,” said a girl with short red hair. “So that we have total control over our magic.”
“Very good, dear,” Professor Sora said. “Very good. I think that’s a good stopping place for today.”
As the other students began to gather their things, the girl in front of me said something under her breath and touched her empty notebook. I watched in wonder as the pages filled with rows of perfectly ordered notes.
“Cool,” I breathed, before I had time to think about how lame it sounded.
“Such a showoff, Nina,” Anya added.
“Work smarter, Corbin,” Nina remarked with a sly wink as she headed out the door.
Everyone filed out, but Anya and I hung back until they were gone.
“What does that mean, to pay a price?” I asked.
“Magic doesn’t come freely,” Anya said carefully. “At least it doesn’t come freely to humans. Every piece of magic has its price, which must be paid by the witch who weaves it.”
“A price like money?” I asked, knowing instinctively that was wrong.
Anya shook her head. “One of the women in our program gets hungry if she does magic without planning it out ahead of time and meditating.”
“I guess it’s tiring,” I ventured.
“No,” Anya said. “It’s more like the magic takes her nourishment so that when she’s done, she has to eat like crazy just to get back to normal.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“Some people pass out and sleep for days,” Anya went on. “For others, it’s an emotional thing - crying or laughing. But it’s never in the witch’s control.”
I thought back to the times I had inadvertently used my powers. I didn’t remember feeling hungry or emotional. I tried to picture meeting Eve after the chase in the cemetery, but the image in my mind was dark and gray.
“Oh,” I said, realizing.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think I know what mine is,” I told her excitedly. “Both times I used my magic I couldn’t see colors for a while afterward.”
Anya nodded slowly, looking almost disappointed for no reason I could imagine. “Yes, that makes sense. Did you use a lot of magic?”
“I was amazed at what I did,” I admitted. “But I’m getting the sense that it wasn’t all that impressive.”
“You ‘ll want to be really careful then,” she told me. “If you use a lot of magic and it impacts your vision, that could be dangerous.”
My mouth dropped open.
She was right. I had been thinking that a few minutes, or even hours, of black and white vision was a small price to pay. But what if I lost my vision altogether? Was that even possible?
“Come on,” she said.