Kane's Fate 3 Chapter 1

The morning was light and crisp, and the sun shone brightly past a thin veil of wispy clouds that skimmed across an otherwise entirely blue sky.

A light breeze fluttered around the school grounds briefly, and my heightened tiger senses picked out the scent of freshly cut grass, the light smell of flowers tied into bouquets, as well as a cocktail of about a hundred different colognes and perfumes belonging to the crowd I was sitting in.

It was graduation day at Meloria, and my eyes hungrily scoured the group of black robes huddled at the right edge of the stage as I eagerly looked for my first mate amongst the third-year graduating class.

There was one student missing from the graduation, though, and that was because I’d sunk my tiger teeth into his fleshy throat not too long ago. Carmelo Lutz had died by my hand-- or by my mouth, I guess-- for the crime of being mixed up with the evil Atroba cult. He’d been part of a heinous plan to kidnap, torture, and murder Meloria’s dean, Elaine Canmore, for information on my prophecy.

Until I’d rescued her from the cult’s clutches.

Now, Dean Canmore took to the stage with a warm, welcoming smile on her face as she stood behind the polished wooden podium.

“Welcome!” the dean called out to the attending families and students in the crowd. “And let me be the first to say, congratulations to this year’s graduating class!”

The crowd whooped and hollered as the sandy-haired dean started a chorus of rowdy applause before she began to read names out alphabetically, and each black-robed third year student walked across the stage to receive their diploma as their name was called.

“Indira Winters!” Dean Canmore called out the name of my snowy owl shifter girlfriend, and I finally got to see her as she walked with fierce pride across the stage.

The baggy black robe did nothing to accentuate the gorgeous figure I knew was hidden beneath it, but every time she took a step forward or the breeze shifted in a certain way, I could see how her hips swayed and her breasts jiggled beneath the material. Her gorgeous brunette hair fell over one shoulder and shone almost gold in the bright sunlight, and I could see how her gorgeous gray eyes sparkled as she finally reached the dean.

Indira graciously took her diploma from Dean Canmore, and I saw as my girlfriend giggled to herself when she heard our whoops and cheers come from the crowd.

“I’m so proud of her,” Charlotte chuckled from where she was sitting beside me.

The gorgeous red-head was my second girlfriend and a pusher, which meant she had the power to telekinetically move objects at will. She was dressed in a low cut baby blue dress that accentuated the swell of her cleavage, and she’d braided her long auburn hair into an intricate knot at the back of her neck.

“Me too,” Demi hummed in agreement and nudged Charlotte with her shoulder excitedly as she clapped loudly.

Demi was the most recent member of our little pack, and she looked stunning in a backless golden yellow number that hugged her curves. She’d left her corn-rowed brunette braids to hang freely down the caramel-colored skin of her back, and a ribbon the same shade of yellow as her dress was tied around her slender neck.

Demi was a fellow shifter and had been in all of my classes throughout our first semester at Meloria. Her fera, or animal counterpart, was an elegant komodo dragon, which I thought fitted her fiery personality perfectly.

“Go Indira!” Auden, my red-headed best friend with ears covered in numerous piercings, hollered loudly a few seats down, and I laughed as his girlfriend Lark tried to hush him with a wry smile.

Indira waved bashfully from the stage as she took her place among the graduating students, and Dean Canmore read the remaining names from her list.

I loved all three of my pack mates unconditionally, which apparently did nothing to stop whatever pheromones I gave off to other women. In fact, it probably only made them more potent, because despite having three marked members of my tiger pack already, I was apparently still open for new applicants.

Both Madison and Raven sat with us as we watched the Meloria graduation ceremony, and I knew perfectly well they wanted to be marked by me, too.

Madison was Demi’s best friend and another shifter. The blonde bombshell with deep blue eyes could transform into a giant corn-yellow python and had made it very clear she wanted to wrap herself around me. Raven’s look fit her name perfectly because she had dark brown, almost black, hair and sparkling blue eyes that were constantly rimmed with smoky black eyeliner, and she was also a charmer, like the rest of my biological family.

They were both intelligent and super hot, but I wanted to get to know them a little more before I decided to bring them into my pack. It wasn’t just a sexual thing with my girls, we were a family and unconditionally connected to each other, so it made sense to at least vet any newcomers.

Though I suspected both Raven and Madison would eventually be a part of our clan at some point.

Call it an inkling.

Finally, Dean Canmore cleared her throat and spread her arms wide as the last few graduates took their seats.

“Congratulations to our new Meloria graduates!” the dean said proudly, and another chorus of loud applause sounded out across the grounds. “This year has certainly come with its trials, and I couldn’t be prouder of our graduating class. As they embark on an exciting future…”

The dean continued her speech, and my mind wandered to the actual trials we’d faced this past year at Meloria Academy.

I’d been a total nobody working at a boring accounting firm and hating my life before I finally activated, and then I’d shifted for the first time. But I came from a long family of charmers, so everyone had been totally surprised when I’d activated as a shifter.

And not just any shifter. I was a prophesied white tiger, the first in several centuries, and the bringer of light against the impending darkness.

Or something to that effect.

Then I’d competed in and won the Bellator championship against all my other first-years, and more recently, I’d saved my own dean from being kidnapped and murdered by an anarchist group who’d decided to rear their ugly heads and who were still totally at large. The cult known as the Atroba had used Carmelo Lutz, the traitor I killed saving Dean Canmore, to set a fireball off on the grounds of the Academy, and I still hadn’t figured out who it was that had helped him do it.

Oh, and to top of my list of accomplishments, the Premier of the entire magical community had taken me on secret missions all over the world to investigate the weird asteroid landings, which we still didn’t know very much about. My power as the white tiger from the prophecy activated the stones and showed their runes, but we were still no closer to translating them.

Me and buddy Auden had been working on the translations for a while, but the runes on the asteroid landings didn’t match up to any alphabet across the entire planet, in any language we could find. At least not yet, anyway.

I pulled myself out of my retrospection as the dean started to wrap her speech up.

“-- and we are extremely thankful for their assistance over the last year. With this in mind, the professors and I decided this year should mark the first annual Momenta award, given to the most proficient student in the graduating class.” Dean Canmore paused for a second to let her words sink in before a wide smile spread across her face. “It is with great pleasure, then, that I announce the very first recipient of the Momenta award… is Indira Winters!”

Demi and Charlotte gasped with excitement where they sat beside me, Auden let out another deafening whoop, and Raven and Madison cheered loudly as my gray-eyed girlfriend walked back onto the stage with a hand covering her mouth in shock.

I immediately jumped to my feet and started to clap loudly, and I let out my own thundering cheer as Indira graciously took her award and held it up a little as the crowd grew louder in celebration.

Mine.

My fera’s pride radiated through me as we all clapped and cheered for Indira, and I grinned widely as she took her seat again.

Once the graduation ceremony was finally over, I clambered eagerly out of my seat and toward the front of the crowd so I could find my girlfriend.

I sidestepped a group of naturalists and almost collided with Dean Canmore herself until I finally locked eyes with Indira. Her sparkling gray gaze bored into me, and the way her full lips parted slightly in a smile made me want to rip the graduation gown off her and take her right there on the lawn.

Instead, I whipped her up into a tight hug and lifted her off her feet, which made her squeal loudly into my shoulder.

“Kane!” she giggled as I spun her around. “You’re gonna make me dizzy!”

“I’m so freakin’ proud of you!” I told her as I set her back down and quickly kissed her. “You’re amazing.”

The rest of my pack and friends eventually caught up to us, and the girls buzzed around Indira as they wished her different words of congratulations.

“Party back at the pusher dorm?” Auden called out above the chaos.

“Dude, I’m the one with the mini fridge,” I countered with a grin. “I got it fully stocked, let’s go.”

We all headed back to the shifter dormitories and ended up hanging out in the common room area because my bedroom was definitely not big enough to hold us all, so I transferred the beers from my room to the refrigerator in the common room kitchenette and handed one out to everyone.

“Can I have a watermelon one, babe?” Charlotte sidled up to me as I held the refrigerator door open, but I already had one in my hand for her.

“I remember,” I told Charlotte with a sly grin, and I smacked her ass as she took the bottle of beer from me.

We all chatted about the graduation ceremony, and Indira let everyone inspect her new award, which was a sparkling shard of crystal engraved with her name and date at the bottom.

“So, Indira…” Auden held in a burp from the last guzzle of beer he’d sipped and grinned at my girlfriend. “What are your plans now?”

Indira and I locked eyes, and I sensed Charlotte and Demi glance over at us at Auden’s sudden question.

Talk about an elephant in the room.

The white tiger in my mind bristled at the very concept of having one of my pack members not be immediately around, but my human side was forced to reason with it, because I couldn’t be the one to hold Indira back. She was a graduate now, and probably had a whole roster of job prospects lined up.

“Well…” Indira started slowly and placed her beer bottle down on the counter in the kitchenette.

“It’s okay, Indira, you don’t have to say,” Demi said quickly with a shy smile.

“Yeah, we’ve got the whole summer together anyway, right?” Charlotte piped up.

“Yeah, we don’t have to discuss plans if you don’t want to,” I added.

“No, it’s okay, I’m happy to,” Indira replied as she walked around the counter to press herself against me and wrap an arm around the small of my back. “I’m sure you’re all curious.”

I kept my arm tightly around her shoulders and did my best to ignore the white tiger instinct in me that told me to wrap her up and not let her leave.

“I actually had quite a few pretty interesting job offers,” Indira continued with a slight smile, and I focused on the warmth of her against me instead of the concept of her leaving us. “Being part of the Discipulus meant I got an automatic offer from the Concurem, which actually sounded a lot more interesting than I thought it would…”

“Yeah but… government work.” Auden wrinkled his nose.

“Right.” Indira nodded with a chuckle. “That’s what I thought, too. I always said that’s not what I wanted anyway, although the paycheck was pretty tempting…”

“But…?” Raven prompted curiously and pushed a strand of dark hair behind one ear.

“But…” Indira sighed theatrically. “I decided I wasn’t quite done with Meloria.”

“What d’you mean?” I asked and looked down at my gray-eyed girlfriend, and she smirked up at me coyly.

“You’re looking at the new professor for the first-year shifters,” Indira announced as she lifted her chin proudly, and the room instantly erupted into even more celebration.

“Holy crap, Indira, that’s amazing!” Auden laughed loudly.

“Oh my god, Professor Winters!” Charlotte giggled with an excited clap of her hands. “Are you gonna wear glasses?”

“Would you like me to?” Indira immediately fired back, and a flush crept up Charlotte’s slim neck.

“Don’t threaten her with a good time,” Demi snickered as she pulled Indira away from my side to give her a hug. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Kane, what do you think?” Indira asked as she peeked up at me shyly, and I couldn’t stop the wide grin that spread across my face.

“I think you’re incredible,” I said honestly. “And I think you’ll absolutely nail it.”

“Someone’s gotta stick around to keep you out of trouble, anyway.” Indira grinned toothily at me, and I chuckled as I wrapped my arm back around her possessively.

“I just attract it.” I shrugged. “That’s how you girls ended up here.”

“Hey!” Demi pouted, but she couldn’t stop the grin that made her lips twitch.

“Speak for yourself,” Charlotte giggled and nudged me with her toes from where she was curled up on the couch.

I mean, to be fair to their playful teasing, they did kinda have a point.

I’d gone from being able to blend completely into the background to being the constant center of attention, but then again, I had an entire prophecy created about me from three centuries ago detailing how I was the savior of the magical world.

My status as the resident world-saver was probably just the thing that made the dean of Imperium Academy detest me so much. Liam McNally had made his feelings crystal clear when Dean Canmore publicly congratulated me at the formal a few weeks ago, and he’d also made some choice remarks about my tentative friendship with one of his former Imperium students, Dax Mullen.

It had been the first time I’d met Dean McNally, but my tiger instincts immediately told me he was trouble.

“Well, poor Lark is the only one who’s gotta try and keep me out of trouble.” Auden’s tipsy laugh was loud and brash, and his petite girlfriend blushed as he wrapped her up in a tight embrace.

“Well, I’ve got to go on a month’s worth of hikes with my girlfriends back home in Washington over the summer,” Lark giggled. “So I’m gonna have to rely on Kane to look after you.”

“I’m done for then,” Auden snickered, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“I’m going home, too,” Madison said as she wiggled excitedly. “My brother got me tickets to Coachella.”

“You Cali girl,” Demi teased her best friend.

“Don’t worry, babe, my summer’s gonna be pretty chill,” Auden assured Lark with a swift kiss on the tip of her nose. “I wanna research those asteroid runes some more.”

“I’m right there with you, buddy,” I told my red-headed best friend. “I just wanna know why they only present themselves when I touch them.”

“I still think it’s because you’re prophesied, but the first step is translating the runes.” Indira nodded. “I’ll be here to help.”

“Me too.” Charlotte grinned from where she was still curled up on the couch like a cat. “The more eyes the better, right?”

I was about to agree with my auburn-haired pusher girlfriend when there was a gentle knock on the dorm room door.

Dean Canmore entered the room when Indira briefly left my side to open the door, and we all greeted the head of Meloria.

“I’m not interrupting a party, am I?” the sandy-haired dean asked knowingly as she sat on one of the plush leather armchairs that littered the shifter dorm communal area.

“Nope, hust hanging out,” I said with a smile.

“Well, I’m not here to throw a dampener on any kind of party regardless,” Dean Canmore chuckled. “I just thought you’d like to know about an update I received from the Regimen.”

“Have the Atroba talked?” I asked eagerly.

“No such luck, I’m afraid.” The sandy-haired leader of Meloria sighed and shook her head. “I spoke to a Regimen detective, and he said they’ve gotten nowhere fast with the Atroba members they arrested, who keep repeating the same mantra we heard them saying.”

“Creepy…” I muttered.

The Latin mantra had been loosely translated by the Regimen as “we will bring the darkness,” and that definitely didn’t bode well considering I was meant to be the bringer of the light.

“No matter what questions they’re asked, they either stay entirely silent or just repeat the mantra,” Dean Canmore went on. “I know it’s not particularly an update in itself, but I thought you’d like to know.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have killed Carmelo.” I pursed my lips. “He’d have definitely talked, the guy was a total wuss.”

“He would have seen his plans come to fruition, and I wouldn’t be standing here with you now if you hadn’t,” the dean shot back. “You did the right thing, Kane.”

“If you say so.” I shrugged.

“I found out it was an associate of Carmelo’s that assisted him with the fireball, too,” the dean added. “A friend of his from Imperium. He snuck them onto the campus after curfew.”

“Is that why the fireball didn’t end up doing much?” Indira asked as she cocked her head curiously. “If it had been a student casting it, maybe that’s why it didn’t have the desired effect.”

“So that’s why the fireball was so small,” I mused with a smirk. “Sounds like he was trying to compensate for something.”

“Who was it?” Charlotte asked from where she was sitting on the couch.

“His name was Thomas Rivers,” Dean Canmore told us. “Does anyone know him?”

“I do,” a deep voice from just outside the main door suddenly said, and Dax Mullen slipped into the shifter dorm with a grim expression on his face. “Sorry, the door was still kinda open. I was just coming to see if Raven was around.”

“Probably a good thing you’re here actually, Mr. Mullen.” The dean smiled at the ex-Imperium student. “What do you know about Thomas Rivers?”

“He’s an asshole,” Dax said bluntly as he helped himself to a beer and shoved a hand up into his dark hair, and I watched the spider web tattoo on his throat ripple as he took a long gulp of beer. “He’s one of the guys who pushed me to do the manipulation charm and then bullied me for weeks after when I refused.”

“Yeah, figured he was that kinda stand-up guy,” I huffed. “I saw him at the formal. He definitely thought he was God’s gift or something.”

“Yeah, he’s absolutely that type,” Dax agreed with a tight, humorless smile. “But he’s a naturalist, not a charmer. He wouldn’t have been able to conjure the fireball.”

“Unless he’d utilized his natural fire ability and then attempted to cast a charm with it.” Dean Canmore sighed. “It’s a mess at Imperium, they’ll allow all kinds of cross-contamination when it comes to their students.”

“Cross-contamination is a good way of putting it,” Dax replied and finished his beer before he helped himself to another. “Imperium teaches you about power, at any cost, instead of skill and technique. He probably just screwed up the charm.”

“I got the number of an Imperium girl during the formal,” I told the group, and I tried to hide the smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth at Dean Canmore’s eyebrow-raised expression. “Maybe she knows more about this Thomas guy and how he helped Carmelo?”

The Imperium guys had shot me death glares when I’d asked the girl in the red dress for a dance, and by the time the night was over, I’d gotten both her name and her phone number.

Now, I quickly typed out a message to Jo asking if she knew anything about Thomas Rivers and hit send.

The Imperium girl replied almost instantly, and I couldn’t stop the full blown smirk on my face as I read it out to the group.

But I left out the part about how she hadn’t stopped thinking about me.

“Jo says Thomas is the most atypical type of student at Imperium: delusions of grandeur, acts like he knows everything, egotistical, and rich as hell, too, apparently,” I murmured as I watched the three dots dance on the screen that indicated that Jo was still typing. “Oh, and he’s been sick since just after the formal.”

“Sick with what?” the dean immediately asked, and I repeated the question via text message to the Imperium girl.

“She says no one knows, but there’s a rumour he couldn’t control his fire power. He was literally burning up, not as an actual illness, but his naturalist ability was going haywire.”

“His magic?” Dax asked with a frown. “Not being able to control a charm I’d understand, since that’s not his first. But he’s pretty damn good with his fire as a naturalist, so I don’t know why he wouldn’t be able to control it.”

“Sounds like he’s just being melodramatic,” I snorted. “This guy sounds like a fucking drama queen.”

“No,” Canmore suddenly said, and we all looked round at her in surprise. “Sorry, I mean, I’m sure you’re correct about the melodrama, but I don’t think this is one of those instances.”

“What do you mean?” Demi asked the dean as she twirled a braid around one finger.

“I’ve had to send three students home sick already today, just before the graduation ceremony. Except they’re not… sick, as it were, not literally.” Dean Camore sighed and rubbed her temples. “Their abilities started to become uncontrollable. One charmer who couldn’t stop producing bubbles from their fingertips, a shifter had permanent hooves, and a naturalist made the ground tremble with every step they took. I figured it was best to send them home so as to not cause panic during graduation.”

“You did the right thing,” I assured the dean, who looked more stressed out the more she spoke.

“It’s probably just some sort of magical bug, and the infirmary nurses are already casting charms to investigate it,” Canmore assured us with a strained smile. “I was just erring on the side of caution.”

“Would you like a drink, Dean Canmore?” Madison asked gently, and the dean raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t aware alcohol was allowed in school dormitories, actually.” The sandy-haired seer locked eyes with Dax, who swallowed thickly and started to surreptitiously slide his beer bottle along the counter and out of sight. “A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss, though. If you could, Mr. Mullen.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dax muttered quickly, and I fought off the chuckle in my throat as the dark-haired charmer hurriedly rummaged in the cabinets for tea bags.

“Besides, I have far more pressing things to discuss with you all,” Canmore sighed, and she pulled an old and worn leather-bound journal from her bag and placed it on the coffee table between us.

It was the journal Canmore had traveled back to her family home to find, filled with accurate seer visions from her ancestors, and it was exactly the book the Atroba had kidnapped her for.

“Your family journal?” I asked excitedly, and Canmore nodded. “Have you found what you’d been looking for?”

“I believe so.” The dean grinned. “See for yourself.”

She carefully opened the ancient book and laid the pages out, and we all peered over each other’s shoulders to read the words written in old dried ink.

One will become, the clock has struck. The time of the white tiger.

He is the light of hope amongst the darkness.

Only when a threat to the peace is imminent will he appear, and the white tiger shall be the one to banish the darkness that threatens our world.

The writing was almost word-for-word the same with what the Divinity had spoken to me when I’d opened my book during my first couple days at Meloria, except this prophecy was hand-written and ancient, which made it about a hundred times cooler.

“My ancestor continues a little about how the white tiger defeated the darkness before, but did not eliminate it completely,” Canmore explained. “That would be your job, Mr Turner.”

“How can he banish darkness altogether?” Dax asked the dean as he handed her a steaming cup of tea. “It’s sort of everywhere, isn’t it?”

“Is it dark magic, or darkness in general?” Indira asked with a furrowed brow.

“I’m not sure, I’m afraid,” the dean sighed again as she took a tentative sip of the tea Dax had made her. “This is maybe the only mention of the white tiger in the entire journal.”

“What about after?” Raven piped up suddenly, and we all looked around at the dark-haired beauty.

“After?” Canmore asked, and Raven nodded enthusiastically now that she had everyone’s attention.

“What does the journal say after the white tiger?” Raven explained her question a little further.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Canmore smiled wryly at the dark-haired charmer, and Raven’s dimples appeared as she grinned back.

The dean gently lifted the next page, and we all peered down at the book as we read the calligraphy style writing.

“It will come again, like ink in water, but the darkness will not be the same.” I read aloud, and then frowned. “Well, what the hell does that mean?”

“Something that’s happened before and is now happening again, dude.” Auden suddenly gasped. “The asteroids?”

“Gotta part of it, for sure,” I agreed with my friend.

“And what about this… Sickness?” Indira asked. “Though I appreciate it’s not really a sickness, more a… malfunction, I guess.”

“I’ll talk to the charmer nurses in the morning,” Dean Canmore assured us. “We have a lot more understanding than we did centuries ago.”

The dean gathered her ancestor’s journal up, finished her mug of tea, and headed toward the door.

“I don’t want to take up any more of your celebrations,” the sandy-haired woman told us with a warm smile. “Congratulations again, Indira. If any of you need me, you know where to find me.”

We thanked the dean as she made her exit, and the prophecy played round and round in my head as we all continued to hang out drinking beer in the dorm common room.

Too many questions and nowhere near enough answers.

It felt like every time we found even the slightest potential of an answer, we were plagued by about ten more questions, like the head of a hydra.

It might have been my insistent overthinking, or the several bottles of beer, but I totally spaced and forgot to take the sleep potion Dax had made for me by the time I’d crashed out asleep in my bed, and I regretted it as soon as unconsciousness took me.

I knew my enemy would be waiting for me.

I’d escaped my dreamscape for several nights now thanks to Dax’s potion, and the man I saw in my dreams would probably be furious I’d skipped out on him.

But I refused to be his prey this time. Now, it was my turn to hunt him down.

My faceless army rippled around me as I morphed into my white tiger fera with a snarling growl, and I sniffed at the air and listened intently for any disturbance of darkness.

I could sense him far off to the west, and my tiger self continued to growl as we dove forward and began the hunt.

I soon realized we were running through the same rotten, abandoned factory where the Atroba had kept Dean Canmore, though the more I surged forward, the longer the hallway seemed to get. No matter how fast I ran, the corridor went on and on.

With an annoyed snarl, I skidded to a halt and dug my tiger claws into the crumbling concrete, and I heard a laugh ripple through the air around me.

“Finally,” the disembodied voice sneered, and I whipped around to see the once faceless man grinning at me with heavy contempt in his eyes.

I let out an instinctive, bone-shuddering roar that rolled through my chest and past my rows of razor-sharp teeth, but the man simply snickered.

“You can’t kill me here, boy,” the stranger said, and his voice was oily and layered with disgust.

But the practice would be good enough for now, I thought venomously, and the stranger huffed out a laugh.

“Be my guest, please,” the man said, and I snarled again before I lunged straight for him.

The man started to fold and bend his hands in the same way I’d seen my family of charmer’s cast their own spells, but I suddenly felt a searing heat activate deep within my chest the closer I got to where he was casting his spell, and the stranger was suddenly launched bodily away from my reach.

He flew into a metal barricade and landed in a crumpled heap against the wall, and the wind had been completely knocked out of him as he struggled for breath.

I calmly walked over to where he was huddled on the ground and shifted back into my human form, purely so he could hear me laughing at him.

“Victory deflection,” I chided him with a tut. “You should’ve known.”

“B-But…” the stranger coughed wetly.

“I beat you once,” I reminded him. “In this very factory, actually. You could only escape thanks to magic. Now that’s all you can do, because you sure as hell can’t touch me.”

“It c-can’t be--” the stranger spluttered breathlessly.

“God, I wish I could be a fly on the wall when you wake up, buddy. Gonna have a hell of a headache.”

Then I pushed my claws out through my human fingers, flexed the razor sharp talons for a second, and brought my claws down across the soft flesh of his face and throat in one fluid movement.