Unforgivable (Their Shifter Academy Book 4) Read online

  Unforgivable

  Their Shifter Academy 4

  May Dawson

  Contents

  Also by May Dawson

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  A Note from May

  I. An Excerpt from One Kind of Wicked

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Also by May Dawson

  Also by May Dawson

  The True and the Crown series:

  One Kind of Wicked

  Two Kinds of Damned

  Three Kinds of Lost

  Four Kinds of Cursed

  Five Kinds of Love

  Their Shifter Princess:

  Their Shifter Princess

  Their Shifter Princess 2: Pack War

  Their Shifter Princess 3: Coven’s Revenge

  Their Shifter Academy:

  Their Shifter Academy: A Prequel Novella

  Their Shifter Academy 1: Unwanted

  Their Shifter Academy 2: Unclaimed

  Their Shifter Academy 3: Undone

  Their Shifter Academy 4: Unforgivable

  Their Shifter Academy 5: Unwinnable

  The Wild Angels & Hunters Series:

  Wild Angels

  Fierce Angels

  Dirty Angels

  Chosen Angels

  Ashley Landon, Bad Medium

  Dead Girls Club

  Prologue

  Silas

  I broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath. Another wave broke over me, and I choked as river water filled my mouth.

  The river yanked me under again. I was submerged in the silence, but there was nothing peaceful about the water. The foaming water pulled me along, until suddenly a jagged rock rose in front of me.

  I raised my hands and barely managed to get my shield up in time. My magic formed a golden bubble around me so that I bounced harmlessly off the rocks.

  The river yanked me along, faster than thought. I tried to keep the shield up, but my magic sputtered and collapsed, and it was just me and water again.

  I pulled hard for the surface—nothing mattered more than my next breath of air—and my face broke the water. Choking and gasping, I managed to stay on the surface.

  Trees along the sides of the river overhung the fast-moving river water, their stark branches almost close enough to touch. I grabbed a branch, but it snapped off in my hand as the river swept me away.

  Coughing water, I swam desperately for the nearby shore. My knee slammed into a stone so hard that it took my breath away. I lunged for the rocks and caught a slippery edge. The water pulled at me like a malevolent force, trying to drag me down, and my knee ached so badly that I wasn’t sure I could move it. But at least I could catch my breath.

  My teeth chattered from the cold and the shock. When I shifted my grip on the rock, trying to get closer to shore, my exhausted muscles resisted me. If I lost my death grip on this rock and the river swept me away again, I didn’t think I’d break the surface again.

  But I couldn’t stay there, with the water tearing at my clothes and my body trembling, so I finally carefully placed my hands and shifted my weight, gritting my teeth from the agony that lanced my knee. I worked my way along the rocks, then gathered all my magic and made a desperate leap to shore.

  The fast-moving river tried to catch me, but magic lifted me with a sudden surge into the air. For a second, it felt like I was flying, energy spiking in my chest.

  Then I stumbled on the loose mud of the shore as I came down. My knee went out from under me, buckling, and I winced as pain burned down my leg.

  I had to heal myself. I couldn’t move like this.

  In the distance, a wolf bayed. I had time. I just had to focus, move fast…

  Another wolf’s cry went up, near me. My gaze snapped to find the source. There was no movement through the dark trees ahead of me, but I couldn’t see deep into the woods.

  I had to get out of here.

  I straightened, wincing as my knee almost buckled, until my spine was as straight as at school. I moved my hands in the familiar cast to create a door in the woods. Magic sparked golden at my fingertips, then fizzled out. I tried again. My magic burst into life, then faded.

  The next wolf’s howl was sharp and clear and close. He’d scented me.

  My heart rate dropped as I pushed down the panic I could’ve felt, the way I’d been taught to. You wanted to call yourself the incredible Silas Zip? You’d better earn it right now, son.

  My inner voice has always been kind of an asshole.

  I focused all my power on creating the door, and this time as I raised my hand, I drew the golden line above my head. When I tried to kneel to take the line down to the muddy shore underfoot, my knee failed me.

  I hit the ground hard and gritted my teeth as the line of sizzling magic faltered. Then I swept my hand over the dirt, drawing the line across it. The golden lines hung in the air. Almost there.

  With effort, I rose again, drawing my line up to connect with the top left corner.

  The first wolf burst out of the trees.

  I raised my arm defensively as it tore toward me. I couldn’t break my focus, not even to try to stop the teeth and claws that raced my way. As I connected the last line, a full golden rectangle shimmered in the air.

  The wolf slammed into me just as I turned to face him.

  He knocked me to the ground, and I slammed hard into the riverbank. As the two of us rolled down the incline back toward the waves, I searched the wolf’s narrow face for any sign of familiarity. Part of me hoped he was a friend.

  But there was no humanity in the wolf’s eyes, not that I could see, anyway.

  White teeth flashed before it lunged toward my throat.

  I tried to raise my magic along with my arm, but there was no warm, familiar spark of power. Instead, his teeth sunk through my skin, and I gritted my te
eth as I shoved my arm deep into his mouth. Let him choke on it.

  “Bring me home,” I gasped. In the distance, beyond the wolf’s dangerous eyes and snarling mouth, I saw the door ripple into existence.

  Not that it mattered if I couldn’t reach it.

  I drew my feet up against the wolf’s chest, ignoring the pain that lanced through my arm as his teeth tore deep through my flesh. Reaching out for the last tattered shreds of my magic—lord let me have the juice for one last spell—I focused my strengths on my legs as I kicked out at the wolf’s powerful chest.

  He flew through the air and landed on his back at the edge of the riverbank. He rolled, trying to catch himself, his paws frantically scratching through the mud as he tried to evade the rolling river.

  I didn’t hesitate. I turned and sprinted for the door.

  Another wolf streaked into the clearing just as I grabbed the doorknob. As he ran toward me, I threw the door open and stumbled through.

  The wolf slammed into the door behind me just before the magic shimmered out of existence.

  I was alone in the quiet, familiar, cold command room.

  This time when my knee buckled beneath me, I let myself go.

  I’d been running so hard, so fast, for so long. My muscles trembled, out of my control, my fingers shaking, my legs spasming.

  I reached for the robe that always hung on the back of the chair, yanking at the hem until it fell. I wasn’t sure I could get up right now. I pulled it over my damp, shivering body, trying to get enough warmth to heal a little.

  I’d used all my magic and all my strength. My body was failing. I let my eyes close as I turned onto my side, my knees curling up into my chest.

  I’d made it here. That was all that mattered. I’d have the chance to rest.

  If this had happened a month ago, I’d have Isabelle leaning over me, her dark eyes worried as she brushed her hand over my forehead. She’d always been so kind and soft-hearted, although anyone who crossed her discovered a core of steel under that tenderness. While Isabelle healed my wounds, Frederick would have fixed me a mug of coffee and whiskey. Frederick believes that those were the two food groups that anyone needed to thrive.

  I could picture their faces leaning over me so clearly that I half expected to see them when I opened my eyes again.

  The room was still, and quiet, and darker than it had been before. I’d passed out. My mouth felt thick and dry as fear drove the bleariness from my pounding head.

  Home was never unmanned, not by day or night. Something was wrong.

  Or maybe whoever was on duty had stepped out on some errand. Lord help them if Keen found the room abandoned.

  Unless things were so desperate here that even she had to relax her standards. Maybe the Rebel Magicians were triaging priorities now.

  I gripped my arm, wincing as my fingertips sank clumsily into torn ribbons of flesh. I caught a glimmer of white bone and decided not to look again. My lips moved in the silent words of my spell, hoping I could summon enough power to heal. My muscles were still trembling from the cold.

  As warm magic washed through my arm, relief flooded me.

  I sat up, letting the blanket fall away, and moved my arm tentatively. It still felt a bit stiff, but I was going to live. I ran my hand across my knee, hoping I could heal it too. My magic flared across my palm, barely.

  I needed Sebastian or even Keen. I used the edge of the nearest solid wood table to haul myself to my feet. There was no fire in the grate, but it was heaped with ash, and shreds of half-burned papers shone yellow from the dead coals.

  The maps had been peeled from the walls in haste, and the paint had ripped off the wall in spots. Someone had hastily scrubbed all the chalkboards.

  We’d either been raided, or a raid had been expected.

  I might be alone here. They might have moved to the last outpost, or to someplace else altogether.

  Or I might be alone, period. Everyone might be gone, either executed or sent to Elegiah for the slow death.

  I stumbled when I tried to lope toward the doorway, but then my knee locked and held. I half-staggered to the door. I needed the warmth of a fire, rest, food, to recharge my magic and to recover from the blood I’d lost.

  Priority one was to keep moving and to stay free so I could help my friends. I had no time for the fear that dogged my shuffling steps.

  As I limped down the hall, I looked through another ransacked room to the window. The moon hung between wispy strings of clouds, shining and distant and uncaring. It was the same moon that shone with unseeing eyes over my friends in Elegiah, and the same moon that the wolves streaked underneath Earthside. The differences between our split-off worlds had begun as small alterations from one world, but it was the same great universe that spun around us all.

  I had no choice in joining the rebels. But I liked to think that I would have joined them anyway, that I still would’ve recognized that we were all connected, across each separate world. We had to heal the rips and save each other.

  For right now, though, I had to save myself first.

  I walked into Keen’s office without permission. Her office had been stripped; there were no books on the shelves and her desk was clean for once.

  Her knitting needles were abandoned, stuck into a ball of forest-green yarn; connected to them by a string was the start of a pair of green gloves. I’d brought the gloves she’d knit for me in my bag to the academy. Keen sent rebels to their deaths sometimes, in their missions, and she seemed to take our blood and our pain in stride. But she did knit for us.

  I knew Keen’s ways. I moved unsteadily around her office, searching for false bottoms and hidden spaces. If I found them empty, then it would mean the rebels had cleared the place themselves, in a hurry, but taking anything important with them.

  If she’d hidden any books or papers, it was more likely they’d burned all they could in the midst of a siege, knowing they would all face death or prison.

  I ran my fingertips across the baseboard and found a seam, barely perceptible even at a fingertip’s touch. I didn’t have magic to spare on finesse; I dug my knife out of a cargo pocket and jammed the tip into the wood, working it back and forth until the baseboard popped out.

  Working my hand inside, I wished desperately to find nothing…

  My fingers brushed against the leather cover of a book.

  “Fuck,” I muttered to no one. My voice was eerie in the quiet of this building that had always been full of life and plans.

  “Meow?”

  I jerked back in alarm, rising to my feet at the sound behind me. My knee buckled again, and I lurched, catching the wall with my hand.

  Keen’s cat, Echo, watched me with glowing eyes from the doorway.

  “You escaped, huh?” I asked Echo. “Useless creature. You’re not exactly the company I hoped for.”

  The black cat watched me with green eyes, then abruptly plopped down, spread-legged, and set to cleaning her belly determinedly. Clearly, I was not the company she’d hoped for either.

  “Where’d they take your mistress?” I asked the cat conversationally. I pulled the book out of the wall, then searched for anything else that might be concealed. My fingertips brushed something cool and solid.

  I drew out the glass bottle of blue liquid. I knew what it was even before I saw the label around the neck: Restore. We rarely used—or needed—potions like the Hindrance that the witches had thrown at me in the woods, or this one, but I needed it right now.

  “I take back all the rude things I ever said about you,” I muttered, thinking of Keen, as I uncapped the bottle.

  The cat looked up at me, cocking her head to one side, and meowed.

  “Not you, Echo.” I took just a sip, then corked it again.

  The pain faded from my knee, and energy rushed through my body with a jolt. I licked my lips at the sensation. Restore could be addictive, and I fought the temptation to take another sip just in case I wasn’t quite one-hundred-percent yet.

/>   I carried it in one hand and the book in the other, flipping through the pages as I headed through the hall. I needed dry clothes.

  I reached the stairs before the loneliness of the hall felt oppressive. When I looked all the way back down the hall at Keen’s office, the cat was staring at me.

  “Are you coming, Echo?” I demanded. “We’re the last of the Rebels. I guess we’re stuck with each other.”

  If cats could roll their eyes, Echo would have. But she sauntered down the hall to me anyway.

  I went up the stairs with Echo following at a leisurely pace, but never losing sight of me. The long hallway was dark, and for a second the ghosts of other rebels rose around me. We’d jostled and played pranks on each other. We’d been young, no matter how serious we were about our mission.

  I went into the room I’d shared with Frederick. I kept my gaze away from the photographs that hung on the wall and focused on the wardrobe. When I left, I’d abandoned the clothes that didn’t fit Earthside. I dressed quickly in a pair of trousers and a gray flannel shirt before I slipped on clean wool socks and laced up my boots.