Chapter 30 – My Hockey Alpha

“Rogue attack in the woods,” I said, setting her down on the couch. “She was unconscious when I found her, but I don’t know how much she remembers.”

“Move out of the way,” Edward said hastily as he ran around his desk and crouched in front of her. He placed his hands on her head as I stood nearby and watched him work.

Edward was a werewolf, just like me. Only the dean knew this; I didn’t even tell Nina. He was my father’s age, mature and elegant, with a particular expertise in the practice of mind control. With just one look, he could make anyone forget things, change the narrative of stories, and heal emotional trauma. He pretended to be a hypnotherapist in the human world, leaving everyone who used his services blind to the fact that he would employ werewolf abilities to hypnotize them.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long Edward had been working at this school, but it was a lot longer than I had been here. In fact, the history of werewolves working at and attending this school ran deep. Since the school was located right near a prime location for portals, it was relatively easy for any evolved shifter to enter the human realm. That didn’t explain the influx of less evolved shifters on campus, though, because as far as I was aware, they weren’t capable of creating or using portals.

Not on their own, at least.

Was someone helping these rogues pass through? And if so, who was helping them?

Lisa’s eyes started to open.

“Wh… Where am I…?” she mumbled.

Edward ignored her question and immediately began to work his magic. I watched closely as he started whispering incantations that made her pupils start to swirl, indicating that she was now susceptible to his hypnosis.

Seeing hypnosis always fascinated me, so I watched intently while Edward worked. Soon, he had Lisa lulled into his spell, and quickly convinced her mind to erase all memories of the attack. He put her to sleep with his abilities when he was done and stood.

“Take her to her room,” he said. “She’ll wake up in the morning and remember nothing about the attack, thinking that she just got too drunk and stumbled home. Did anyone else see the rogue?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I contacted my father’s beta. We’ll clean up the body before anyone notices.”

“Good,” Edward said, then stepped out of the way so I could pick up Lisa and teleport her back to her dorm. With an appreciative nod at Edward, I teleported Lisa and I to her dorm, where I laid her sleeping body down on her bed.

Now that Lisa was alive and oblivious to what really happened, I teleported back to the spot in the forest where I killed the rogue. Lewis was already there, looking down at the rogue with his hands on his hips.

“How did a rogue get out here?” he asked, to which I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I replied as I helped him hoist the corpse onto his shoulders. “Someone must be helping them get here. I don’t know why, but I think it might have something to do with Nina. I think someone wants her gone.”

“By the way,” Lewis said as he opened a portal, “I’ve been looking into her like you asked. She was adopted when she was two, but that’s all I’ve found so far. I’ll keep looking.”

I furrowed my brow as I watched Lewis step into the portal to the werewolf realm, where he would likely dispose of the rogue’s body.

Nina was adopted?

I wanted to talk to her, but my body was exhausted from all of the teleportation and I knew I wouldn’t be able to teleport again tonight; I’d have to figure out a way to get everyone to leave the party too, just in case more rogues showed up.

I would have to find her in the morning and explain everything.

Nina

I knew sleeping with Enzo again would have been a mistake. He didn’t even care about me enough to stay for the entire duration. Clearly he got what he wanted and realized that I wasn’t worth his time, so he bailed. When I got dressed and left the cabin, I didn’t see him anywhere at the party; he must have run off.

I jumped down the stairs and started to walk back toward the party so I could find Jessica and Lori and tell them that I was going home, but stopped when I overheard two of Lisa’s friends talking.

“Have you seen Lisa?” one said.

“Yeah,” the other replied. “She walked into the woods a little while ago. I just saw Enzo go that way, too.”

“Ooh!” the first girl said excitedly. “Do you think they’re getting back together?”

The second girl giggled. “Obviously. Have you seen the way he’s been looking at her lately? Clearly he regrets messing around with that weirdo Nina and realizes that he’ll never do any better than Lisa.”

I didn’t want to stick around to hear any more as tears started to well up in my eyes. I just wanted to go home.

I ran down the trail that led back to campus. I kept running until I could no longer see or hear the people at the cabins. The waning moon was just a crescent in the sky, no longer illuminating the forest like it did the other night, so I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight so I could see.

Eventually, I heard footsteps behind me and whipped my flashlight around to see Luke approaching.

“I figured you’d follow me,” I said annoyedly, turning back in the direction I was going and continuing to walk.

“I couldn’t let you walk through the woods alone,” he replied. “There could be-“

“Werewolves, I know,” I interrupted.

Luke was silent for a moment before speaking again. “Not just werewolves. Other shifters, too.”

I paused and pondered what he said; admittedly, it made me a bit curious. We walked in silence for a bit.

“What other sorts of shifters are there, anyway?” I asked eventually, just wanting to not think about Enzo and Lisa together.

“Oh, all kinds,” Luke responded. “There are low-tier shifters, which are less evolved; like rogues. Those are the most common.”

“What do you mean by ‘less evolved’?”

“They’re like the original werewolves. They’re like regular humans, but at night they shift and go feral. When they wake up in the morning — if they wake up — they won’t remember anything. Most don’t even know that they’re cursed.”

Luke paused for a bit as we stepped over tree roots and started to climb a small hill, then continued. “The next tier are those who can willingly shift into animals, but just regular animals. They still have a conscience while in their nonhuman form, but no powers. Believe it or not, many cats, birds, and rodents in the human world are actually shifters in their animal forms.”

I thought back to my childhood cat, Mimsy. Was she a shifter? She was very clever, and would sometimes disappear for days on end. My parents always said she was just exploring, but now I wondered if she was off somewhere in her human form doing human things.

“What’s after that?” I asked.

“Shifters like Enzo,” Luke replied. “People who can shift into much larger, more powerful versions of animals. It’s not just that they have the ability to shift, but rather that there are two beings inside of them: their own human conscience, and their animal conscience.”

“Like split personalities?”

“Sort of,” Luke replied. “But both can be conscious at the same time, and talk to each other telepathically. Usually, when a shifter of this caliber comes of age, their animal appears to them, and they share a soul. Their animal — like Enzo’s wolf — can give them some or all of its power.”

“So it’s a spirit animal.”

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