Animage Academy: Year Three ~ The Shifter Academy Down Under (The Shifter School Down Under Book 3) Read online

  Animage Academy Year Three

  The Shifter School Down Under

  Qatarina & Ora Wanders

  Copyright © 2021 by Qatarina Wanders and Ora Wanders

  Wandering Words Media

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dedicated to all our Australian, African, Indian, Korean, Japanese, and European friends who helped us bring these characters to life.

  Authors’ Note

  As wanderers, we have traveled to a lot of places and met a lot of people. The people and locations in this story are indeed based on those we have met in our travels. All the characters come from different cultures, and we have drawn upon details based on extensive research as well as information learned and shared from their real-life counterparts. All this with permission, of course.

  Please know we have respect for all cultures, and if any character details come across as disrespectful, it is absolutely not intended.

  This story—even though it takes place in a fantasy setting—addresses many real-life issues like bullying, gaslighting, and bigotry. This is especially present in a teenager’s world. The goal here is to speak to these very real issues, but with a different fictional twist. Instead of the students being teased and hated on for their race, gender identity/sexual orientation, or upbringing, they are segregated by shifter species and status on the food chain.

  The cultural differences play a big part here as the students—predator and prey alike—experience all kinds of conflict before they can achieve unity.

  The elite rule classroom, but find out what really makes them elite…

  Qat & Ora

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon…

  About the Authors

  Also by Qatarina & Ora Wanders

  Acknowledgments

  1

  "Where in the bloody hell is my other shoe?" Ava screamed out to no one in particular.

  "You're starting to sound like the Australians now," Lucy, Ava's mother, said with a laugh, causing Ava to jump.

  "How long have you been standing in my doorway?" Ava grumbled at her mother without looking at her.

  "Oh, just long enough to hear you yelling in Australian slang about the fact you lost your shoe again. Third year in a row now, I believe?"

  Ava's shoulders slumped. "Omigod. You're right. Buster probably has it. He always takes it."

  "Yes," Lucy agreed. "I would guess he probably does have it. Do you want me to go find him?"

  "Yes, please." Ava allowed her voice to soften. "I really appreciate it."

  "No problem, Sweetie. Just finish getting ready. Your father will be here any minute."

  "Okay, Mom." Ava felt a small flutter in her stomach as she anticipated seeing her father again. She still hadn't gotten used to this whole having-a-father thing. After spending sixteen years without him, this would still take some getting used to. Although he had come to visit her and Lucy several times over the course of the summer.

  Ava suspected things might even be starting to get romantic between her mother and father again, but she didn't want to pry or get her hopes up. Besides, she had other things to think about, like utilizing her still fairly unreliable unicorn magic.

  Less than twenty minutes later, Ava was once again wearing both her shoes, and Buster, her pet pug, was happily chewing on a rope toy in the corner of the living room. Now both Ava and her mother stood at the front door next to Ava's suitcase as they watched Matthew Carrington, Ava's father, pull up on his motorcycle in their driveway.

  "Oh, for the love of God," Lucy grumbled. "He brought that thing?"

  "How did he even get it through International Portal Customs?" Ava wondered aloud.

  The shifter transportation system consisted of a number of portals that all linked to one network under the Atlantic Ocean. The system made international travel very easy for shifters, and it was even possible to bring things like vehicles or even disassembled houses through the portals. But it required a ton of paperwork because there was an extremely strict screening process.

  "Matthew has always had quite a few connections," Lucy explained. "Especially within the Shifter Alliance, and they don't want to lose their prize unicorn now that he's come forward again. So I would guess he can do pretty much whatever he wants."

  "Hopefully I can take advantage of that after graduation when he takes me on cool trips." Ava clapped her hands together excitedly.

  Before Lucy had a chance to answer, Ava jumped when she saw that Matthew was already dismounting his motorcycle and moseying up the driveway. So Ava threw the door open and bounded out to meet him. "Dad!" she called out as she ran toward him.

  "Ava!" He wrapped her in a hug. "How does it feel to be an adult now?" he asked into a mouthful of her purple hair that was blowing all over him in the wind.

  "I'm only a legal adult by human standards," Ava responded. "In the shifter world, you know I still have to wait until I'm twenty."

  "Well, not necessarily." Matthew stroked his short goatee that was coming in nicely. Levine does give you significantly more freedom at eighteen. Just because you can't enlist into the Shifter Combat Force or any sort of law enforcement until you're twenty doesn't mean you're not an adult."

  "Whatever," Ava grumbled, but she still smiled. "As long as I'm still in school, I don't feel like a grownup, especially with Levine watching my every move like you know she will be now."

  Matthew ruffled her hair. "Oh, come on. It won't be that bad. But yeah, she's probably not going to let you out of her sight again after last year's incident."

  "Ahem," Lucy interrupted their interaction. "Heyyyy, Beautiful." Matthew's voice suddenly dropped a few octaves as he looked at his wife through hooded eyelids and then wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her against him.

  As Lucy lifted her face to kiss Matthew on the cheek, Ava averted her eyes to be polite. It was weird for her to think that her parents were still technically married after all these years but just now getting to know each other again.

  "Are you going to come back here after you drop Ava at the port?" Lucy murmured quietly but loud enough for Ava to overhear her.

  If Matthew responded out loud, Ava didn't hear it, but she definitely saw him wink at his wife as he grabbed Ava's suitcase and hoisted it effortlessly onto one shoulder. "Let's go, Kiddo. I want to make sure we have time to stop and grab breakfast before I drop you off with the menagerie."

  "Menagerie?" Ava tilted her head to the side, very cat-like.

  "Yeah." Matthew bobbed his head up and down as he started strapp
ing up the suitcase to the back of the motorcycle. "That's what we used to call it. Because we're all a bunch of animals."

  "Ah. Got it." Ava nodded, even though she didn't really get it. After hugging her mother tightly and promising her she'd stay out of trouble this year, which they all knew was a lie, Ava loaded onto her father's motorcycle, wrapping her arms around his waist and fastening her helmet tightly under her chin before they headed off to the portal that would take her back to Animage Academy for her third year of school.

  "So what are you thinking you're going to do with yourself now that all the poachers have been apprehended and you don't have to hide anymore?" Ava asked her father in his ear as they idled in the Miami traffic. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods quite yet." Matthew shrugged his shoulders. "But now that all these other mythical shifters are coming forward, it's at least nice to know it's less dangerous out there, especially for you. You were always my top concern."

  "Do you really think there are still humans out there who want to hunt us down even after the massacre of the other poachers?" Ava found that hard to believe.

  "I'm not necessarily saying it's humans." Matthew looked at his daughter in his rearview mirror. "But our kind is still extremely rare, and the dust from our horns is still very valuable. Honestly, I've always considered poachers the least of my problems because I know they aren't working of their own accord."

  Ava perked up as he said that. "What do you mean? You think they're working for shifters?"

  "Perhaps shifters...or some other kind of supernatural species. Who knows?" Matthew readjusted his hands on the handlebars. "But how do you think a bunch of big burly old bearded men with shotguns came to find out about the value of unicorn dust anyway?"

  Ava tightened her grip.

  "Whoever they were working for was almost certainly not human, which means whoever it was is probably still out there."

  Ava didn't much like the sound of that. It made her nervous. All summer she'd been thinking they made it out of the woods, literally. The poachers were all dead or incarcerated. Dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of dyad shifters had come forward, and she had been entertaining fantasies that life could go back to normal for her and that she and her father and mother could go back to being a real family—something she'd yet to experience.

  But now it was seeming like that wouldn't be the case.

  "Well, anyway," Matthew tried to change the subject, "You don't have to worry your pretty little head about it. I'm no rookie to this kind of thing, and you will be nice and safe under Levine's care. As long as you don't go running away from the safety of her magic again."

  Before Ava could argue, the motorcycle picked up speed as Matthew saw an opening in traffic and decided to take advantage of it, leaving Ava's words drowning in the wind.

  "Ava!"

  A dark blonde head of hair came running straight for Ava's belly button.

  "Priya!" She crouched down to embrace her now-twelve-year-old little friend.

  "Paul said if you weren't here in the next thirty seconds, we were going to have to leave without you." the girl exclaimed. "But I'm pretty sure he said that like four times in the last ten minutes." She let out a little laugh.

  "Oh, really now?" Ava looked up, made eye contact with Paul and raised an eyebrow. "Is this true?"

  Paul, their chaperone through the portal to Animage, ran a hand through his hair and laughed awkwardly. "Well, what can I say? We don't run on unicorn time around here." Then he shot an uncomfortable glance back and forth between Ava and her father.

  Matthew, who hadn't bothered to dismount from his motorcycle, threw his head back with a laugh. "We just don't understand the need to be trapped in the constructs of human time. Now, help my daughter with her bags, will you, Wiley?"

  Shooting Matthew a good-natured glare, Paul stepped forward and dismantled Ava's bag from the back of the motorcycle.

  "Did you just call him Wiley?" Priya questioned. "His name is Paul."

  Matthew let out another guttural laugh. Ava was getting used to hearing that sound. "Back in school, we all used to call him Wiley because he's a coyote. After the Looney Tunes character, you know? And he was always getting himself into the most absurd situations."

  "Wait, you used to go to the academy together?" Ava was shocked. "How did I not know that? Hold up, Paul, how old are you?"

  "My oldest sister actually went to the academy with your dad," Paul explained, shifting his weight to accommodate for the size of Ava's suitcase. "And my mother taught there. She was one of your dad's instructors."

  "That's right," Matthew interjected. "And your sister was hot, hot, hot.” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “I spent four years chasing that tail until a certain little tabby-cat shifter caught my attention at the end of my senior year." He winked at Ava and nudged her with his elbow. "But Paul was always hanging around the school—that sniveling little snot-nosed kid."

  "Hey now! I was mature for my years," Paul defended himself.

  "Yeah, Wiley, just keep telling yourself that." Matthew leaned forward and punched Paul playfully on the shoulder and then pulled Ava toward him in another hug. "Gotta go, Sweetie. Be sure to write me." He revved his engine.

  "And don't do anything I wouldn't do," he called over the sound as he drove away.

  "Bye, Dad." Ava waved dramatically, even though he couldn't see or hear her anymore. Then she turned to Paul, "So basically he just gave me permission to get into all kinds of trouble, didn't he?"

  "Yep, pretty much."

  2

  Tarun clenched his teeth and scratched the back of his head. It was all-consuming. The daunting, transparent alcoves, the stained glass reflecting colors all over the millions of tomes lining the bookshelves around him. Not to mention that musty old smell and the dust particles flying everywhere. All from these ancient piles of leather and paper, full of research, drama, the good, the bad, everything. It was all there, alongside the gleaming well-oiled tables and chairs, full of overzealous and nerdy students.

  He let out a groan. The library was supposed to be for nerds. He had only stepped foot inside a handful of times. It was supposed to be a place for those who couldn't make friends, right? Where the unpopular shifters went to hide.

  Well, except for the wolves. Moving in packs, the wolves were pretty much always in the library if they weren't in class or outside practicing their rugged combat moves. Those wolves—brains and brawn. They huddled around the square tables, arguing about highly inconsequential things like the exact year Animage Academy was built. Hisses and high-pitched whispers fell atop each other, one wolf trying to outdo the other in their beautiful yet useless act of debate.

  As Tarun observed the pack of wolf shifters, he couldn't possibly imagine a worse punishment for himself at that moment than being stuck there watching them. This was no way to spend his free lunch period, but he had to remind himself his punishment was self-inflicted. He'd agreed with a smile to join Ava when she'd invited him. Ava, his beautiful girlfriend, who he would do anything for, now had her nose buried in a book next to him, not paying him any attention whatsoever.

  He couldn't even read the Morphing Strategy text he'd pulled from a shelf as he stared absently at the pages, as he'd been doing for the past thirty minutes. Still stuck on page one, line three, he just scanned the words, his vision blurring at the edges.

  It didn't help that the wolves kept distracting him, especially the guy two chairs to his right, repeatedly pushing his glasses up his flat nose, making slight snorting noises as he breathed, and talking to the others in a full-blown stage whisper. How was the library attendant, Mr. Jerome, completely deaf to all this racket?

  When the boy spewed fresh saliva on Tarun's cheek, Tarun’s resolve to remain calm disappeared in a flash. Clenching his fists and shaking slightly, Tarun gripped his chair and scraped it back forcefully. So forcefully, it fell backward with a loud thunk. At that, everyone stopped talking and glared at him. Lovely. Now apparently he was the noi
sy one?

  "Mr. Gulati? Read a book or leave the library. You're disturbing people." Mr. Jerome, who refused to say a thing to the wolves, was now reprimanding him for knocking over his chair? He was done with this crap. Whatever. It was time to get out of there for sure. He didn't bother to answer Mr. Jerome or say a word to the boy with the flying spittle who now just stared at him awkwardly. He just grabbed his backpack and threw it over his shoulder.

  "Baby, are you leaving?" Ava peeked at him over her book with her big turquoise doe-like eyes.

  "Yeah, sorry. I need some fresh air," he said to her through tight lips. Without even leaning down to kiss her, he turned on his heels and stomped out.

  As he approached the library exit, he caught a glimpse of one of the framed pictures lining the brown and gold walls. An image of several honor students from years past. He stopped as one boy in particular caught his eye: his own father in his younger years, a proud slant to his smile, his stark white hair cut short in shocking contrast to his brown skin, looking very much like Tarun himself did now.

  At that one glance, guilt and fury ripped through Tarun simultaneously. He forced his eyes closed, but then the rolling images came... A night of rebellion gone wrong... The sound of metal smashing on impact, glass breaking, cries of pain, blood everywhere, flesh ripping as Tarun tore his own father to pieces.

  His stomach churned as his eyes remained squeezed tightly shut. He was worse than a monster. He was a murderer. As the guilt washed over him, he wished he could take it all back. Back to the same night when his mother had told him she had cancer, wishing he could make that disappear as well. He couldn't even explain what had come over him. It was as if someone else was in control. Certainly, if he'd known the outcome of that night, he would have simply remained brooding in his room.