Wolf Spell: Shifters Bewitched #1

my desires run away with me, especially since I knew they were mostly due to whatever spell he had me under with the whole mate bond thing.
That was hardly fair.
I walked faster, focusing my eyes on the path ahead as the upper floors of the castle came into sight.
The lights were already on in the turret and several other rooms, though by the sun’s progress, it had to be very, very early in the morning.
As I stepped out of the labyrinth and into the courtyard, I was surprised to see Anya running toward me.
“Oh, Bella, thank God,” she cried. “We have to get to the library, hurry!”
“What’s going on?” I asked, allowing her to grab my hand, and jogging alongside her.
“There was a break-in last night,” she said.
“A break-in?”
“Someone tried to break into the library,” she panted. “It sounds like it was a sloppy job, since they tripped the wards. And…”
“And what?” I asked.
“There were muddy paw prints all around the window.”
I thought back to last night, to Luke and his wolf form.
He was with me all night.
At least, I thought he was. But I also knew that he was only one guardian. There had to be more out there.
“Some of the students are whispering about the guardians,” Anya said, as if reading my thoughts. “But you were with yours all night, right?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation.
“Well, I’m glad I came out here,” she panted. “The others assumed you would stay with him. Very few come back after the first night.”
I chose not to answer her. My heart already felt like it was stretching thinner with every inch I ran from him. But I still intended to refuse the bond with Luke.
“Why are we running?” I asked.
“We’re recasting the wards,” she told me as we reached the end of the courtyard and the doors to the school. “Resetting them to be more secure than before.”
“I don’t know anything about setting wards,” I told her. “I don’t think I’ll be much help.”
“No, that’s not it,” she said. “Only people who are part of the circle when the wards are set will be able to come in and out of the library from now on. Anyone who is not part of the ward-setting circle won’t be able to access the library at all.”
My heart pounded as we climbed the stairs and headed down the east hall to where the library must be.
I had been that close to missing out on my chance to study healing. I felt a begrudging gratitude to Luke for waking me up so early. Obviously, the faculty hadn’t felt it was worth waiting for me since I was only going to be someone’s mate.
Breeder.
I fought back the bitterness, not wanting to give the other students the satisfaction.
“Here,” she said, stopping at a massive pair of chestnut doors.
I followed her into a space so airy, so bright, so enormous it seemed impossible that it could be part of the imposing stone castle that housed it.
The scale of it reminded me of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, and how small I had felt the first time I stepped inside, clinging to my mother’s hand, Jon holding her other one, his face tilted upward in awe so that I knew what my own expression must look like.
But this room was round and more peaceful than imposing. The ceiling soared in elegant arches, with a glass dome in the center and bright ring of high windows around the circular library, allowing the pale light of dawn to pour inside. Antique rugs even more beautiful than the ones in the halls of our living quarters swallowed up the sound of our footsteps on the snowy white marble floors.
But the most amazing part was the giant oak tree that grew right in the center of the big room, the base of its enormous trunk so wide that I guessed it would take a half-dozen students to encircle it hand to hand. The massive boughs reached up toward the ceiling, branching smaller and smaller as they rose. Bright green leaves that showed no sign of autumn drank in the morning sunlight that bathed the room.
All around the tree, an orchard of bookshelves spoked out from the center of the library in neat rows. But there were statues too, and display tables covered over in glass, and even a few smaller, potted fig trees, and a fountain.
The walls that weren’t covered in books were adorned with paintings of stern looking women and framed scrolls.
“My God,” I whispered.
There were enough volumes in here that I could lose myself, forever if I wanted. And somewhere in this room, was the key to my brother’s happiness. I was sure of it.
“Come on,” she whispered, half-dragging me further inside.
“Ah, Miss Hawthorne, you’re back,” Headmistress Hart said in a way that made it sound like she was more than a little surprised. “We’re glad to see you.”
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes.
“Where should we go, Headmistress?” Anya asked politely.
“Go with the other first-years, over by Divination,” she replied.
I realized then that while my eyes had been drawn upward to the ceiling and the tree, I had missed the fact that groups of students surrounded the perimeter of the space.
Anya and I jogged over to the place the headmistress had pointed to. Two other women were already standing there. They moved over slightly to give us more space, and I recognized one from yesterday.
“Nina, Lark, this is Bella,” Anya said, pointing to the young Black woman with the puffy ponytail who did the notebook trick during my Price of Magic lecture, and another girl I hadn’t met before, a white girl with mousy brown hair and purple cats-eye glasses.
“Nice to meet you,” I murmured.
From where we stood, I could see the broken glass from one of the high windows and the muddy footprints on the pristine marble floor. Whoever had broken in had been lucky not to break their neck in the process. There were books on the floor