Page 14 of Radiant Shadows

It became clear that running wasn’t going to win this fight. Just like the first sim. Just like in real life. I had to put an end to them.

I soared upward and arched back down in their direction. Aiming right for them, I could see the bullets coming and dodged them just in time. I had no idea what I was going to do when I reached the copter, but I knew it was the only way to end the sim, one way or another.

As I got within yards of them, I wondered if I could create a large enough gust of wind with my wings to throw them off course. Not knowing what else to do, I flapped my wings toward them with all my strength. The wind that emanated was strong enough to knock a pedestrian off their feet but not enough to alter the helicopter’s flight in the slightest.

It kept coming, and the gunman kept shooting. One bullet grazed the upper right side of my tail, and I growled at the pain. Now I was mad.

Instinctively, as I had done with my fingers to extend my talons, I flicked my right wing out toward them. Amazingly, feathers flew from my wing and shot at the copter-like blades. One pierced the shooter in the chest, causing him to fall out of the helicopter. Several stabbed into the black metal of the copter’s outer shell and through the glass of the windshield. But the winning shot was the one feather that stuck in between the spinning blades on the top, seizing their rotation. The copter plummeted like a rock toward the lake below.

All I could do was stare in amazement as I hovered. No one told me harpy feathers could do that! They seemed so soft and gentle. What the actual fuck?

Before the scene around me finished pixelating back to the white walls and floor of the sim room, Caesar opened the door, applauding with great enthusiasm.

“Arya, that was... Wow! I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he praised as he picked up my sweatpants and brought them to me.

I took them, and he immediately turned around to let me unshift and slip them on.

“I still can’t believe I did any of it,” I exclaimed, standing back up with my pants on. “And my wings—I didn’t know harpy feathers could do that!”

Caesar turned back around to face me. “It’s a higher-level skill, one that takes many harpies years to master, mostly because harpies are mild by nature and tend more toward healing than offense. Not only were you able to shoot your feathers well before expected, but you were able to do it while in two different shifter forms!”

The excitement in his animated face made him look boyish for a moment and not the brooding professor who was several years older than me. The fact that I was responsible for this change in his usual dower demeanor made me swell with pride.

Well, I was swelling with pride for several reasons.

“I have no doubt that you’ll be the salvation of us all,” he said, leading me out of the room.

That comment should have broadened my smile, should have fattened my head to the point of exploding.

But it didn’t.

I’d done something unheard of today—existing in two shifter forms at once—and I’d beaten a more advanced level simulation than I’d ever done before. But that didn’t mean I could save the world.

Hugging my tennis shoes against me as we walked across the defense room, I prayed I wouldn’t let everyone down, Caesar most of all.

Chapter 7

Shea

Life had become quite calm the last week or so—nine days, to be exact—since I’d walked out on Julian and Caesar. Outside of the day Tobias had tricked me into meeting him in Chicago, I’d spent every day cooped up in my house, with Gram watching me like a guard dog.

It actually wasn’t so bad. It was a lot like every other school break I’d had before Arya came along. Lazy days full of binge-watching Netflix and playing video games.

Except that, thanks to the moody dragon shifter, I had a new project to fill my spare time—scouring the grimoire for a way to break his love curse. It was a nice distraction from wondering when, if ever, I was going to hear from either of my guys. Which I totally wasn’t doing. And they weren’tmine.

I’d decided I was going to take a break from looking for a resurrection spell. Not forever, but I just needed a sort of cleanse from anything to do with Julian and Caesar. Helping Tobias was the perfect way to do that, and I found I spent most of my lonely days in my room doing just that.

This afternoon, however, Gram had bingo at Saint Anne’s Church, and seeing as she refused to leave me alone for even a moment, she’d dragged me along with her. I wasn’t allowed to partake in the activity itself, but she did afford me the luxury of sitting outside on the church patio, right outside the closest window to where she was sitting.

If I had thought the excitement of bingo would take Gram’s eyes off me for even a moment, I was sorely mistaken. The one time I got up from my bench to go inside to the restroom, she was right on my tail, waiting in the hall until I’d come out. I only sighed and returned to my bench like the model granddaughter.

Presently, I looked down at the phone in my lap, tapping the screen to check the time. Ugh, there were still twenty minutes left until bingo ended, and that was only if no one got to the jackpot round, which would add another twenty minutes at least.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

I knew the voice before I looked up, which I did with disdain. “Let me guess. Come to confess your sins?”

Adam chuckled. “Nah. Just visiting a relative. You?”

---