Page 4 of Baseball and Shifters

Ugh, I hate storms, that must be what woke me up.

Stretching my limbs out, I let out a dissatisfied groan. I really hate waking up before the sun. Regardless, I’m up now and mybladder certainly isn’t letting me go back to sleep. I walk across the room to where my robe hangs from a hook behind my door and I slip out of my bedroom door.

I’m not as fully covered as I would be if I were leaving my wing, but it’s so early that won’t matter. You’d think with as rich as he is I’d have a bathroom attached to my room and maybe I would if he wasn’t determined to keep me as far away from people as possible. Before I turned ten, back before my first shift when my father still tolerated me, I had a room in the ‘family wing’. But the moment he caught his first glimpse of my fox, he immediately had me secluded away to the guest wing. We may live in an expensive home, but this wing definitely shows the age of the house. Sometimes I wonder if that’s part of the reason he chose to move me here. Well, that and it's as far from him as possible while still being confined to the same house.

Father rarely sends anyone over here, but nevertheless I silently creep down the hall and breathe a sigh of relief as I close the bathroom door behind me. I don’t usually leave my room without being fully covered but standing here with the scalding hot water pelting down on me, I admit I was so distracted by the remnants of the dream I was snapped out of, I didn’t bother to care if I had gloves on or not. Closing my eyes, I try to remember the details.

I’m in my fox form, running through an unfamiliar wooded area. My red fur helps me blend into the underbrush and I keep my four matching tails tucked low, but not so low that the white tips drag the ground while I weave through the unfamiliar trees. The feeling of eyes on me has me wanting to find a den and burrow in. I hear a snap of branches behind me and tilt my head to listen closer. Soft footfalls surround me and I can feel someone closing in. Someones? The realization that I’m not even kind of alone sets me on edge and I take off again. Darting through theunderbrush,I can hear my unseen followers allaround me. A glimpse of black fur around one corner sends me scurrying in the opposite direction. I make my way up and over a log and as I hop from myperch,I can swear I see stripes of orange in my peripherals. My lungs burn and my legs aretiring,but I can’t stop running. I fake a quick left and then dartright,trying to mislead whoever is stalking me with my scenttrail,but it doesn’t work. I skid to a stop directly in front of a gigantic white wolf. When he lays eyes on me, he throws back his head and howls at the moon. A magnificent roar sounds from the sky that seems to surroundus,but before I can find itssource,I’m awake.

Shaking my head to dispel the remnants of the dream, I rush through my shower and dry off, wrapping my robe tightly around me before cracking the door open and dashing to my room to get dressed, praying I make it back before anyone notices I’m awake.

Of course, that was a pipe dream. I swear if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all because when I get to my now open door, I see my father standing just inside my door and I freeze. My gloves are dangling from his hand, and the look on his face promises retribution. His piercing amber eyes rake over my body, looking for anything else to take issue with before snapping back to my face. I tense under his penetrating gaze.

“Care to explainthis?” He raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow on an otherwise blank face while gesturing with my gloves to my fairly exposed state.

He’s being too calm. Something’s not right.

“I… I’m sorry, Father. It was early. I didn’t think-”

“No. You never do,” he sneers. “I have had more than enough of your disrespect in my household. I’m sending you to Eldergrove Academy. Maybe they’ll have better luck with you.”

I’m shocked. I can’t believe he would let me leave, and for an academy at that.

“When?” I gasp.

By the sparkle in his eye, I would guess he mistook my inhalation as shock that he would do such a thing. And honestly, he’d be right. Iamshocked. But not in the way he expects me to be. I can’t believe he’s letting me go. I’ll be out from under his suffocating rule. I thought he’d keep me locked up for the rest of my life just to keep me from becoming awhore, as he likes to call me.

“Tomorrow,” he says, jolting me from my runaway thoughts.

“I was coming to tell you the good news when I foundthese, and you were gone. Seems the arrival of your acceptance to the academy was right on time. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep yourself covered at all times while you’re away. Trust me when I say you donotwant to accidentally discover any of yourmates. You will not like the consequences,” he sneers.

The threat is clear in his voice.

Swallowing roughly, I dip my head. “Of course, Father.”

Ever since I was old enough to understand what a mate is, I’ve known I was meant to havefour. And ever since Father saw me in shifted form for the first time, I knew that was the worst thing fate could do to me.

Tiger shifters don’t share mates. It was one thing when I turned out not to be a tiger shifter like my father, but a kitsune shifter like my mother, but the four distinct tails sealed my fate. I didn’t have one mate like my mother, butfour. Father could never accept that. And he took every opportunity to remind me.

No one can prepare you for the first time your father, a man who’s supposed to love you unconditionally, calls you a whore. My only sin is having more than one fated mate. It confused me when I learned what the word meant.Whore. I didn’t understand how I could be a whore when I’ve never even touched a boy before. Thanks to my father’s ranting and raving, I swore off mates long ago.

I was ten years old when Father first made me cover every inch of skin on my body before being allowed to leave my room.

All because fate.

Kitsunes form instant bonds upon skin-to-skin contact. And I have four mates.

As soon as Father discovered my truths, he ensured I would never feel the skin of another again. He’d gotten rid of not only Ms. Coleman after learning of her transgressions, but most of the staff I knew as a child were gone now. I still have no idea what happened to them or where they went.

“Good. Get packed. And don’t forgetthese,” he sneers as he throws my gloves at me before pushing past me.

“And Rachel,” he turns back to me with a twisted grin. “Don’t think leaving this house means you’re free. I’m a powerful man, darling. My reach far exceeds the confines of this home.”

Of course, it does. I’m not completely naïve. I know he’s one of the shifter representatives for The Eternal Covenant, the governing body for all supernaturals in North America. The Eternal Covenant is made up of three representatives from the four main supernatural species; witches, vampires, gargoyles, and shifters. The three members for each species are voted on every five years and make up a triad, who then choose one of them to be the leader. The only shifter politician more important than my father is the Shifter Tribunal Leader, Mr. Demetrius Ashford.

I know there’s nothing Father can’t get away with because even in my seclusion, I’ve heard more than one whispered conversation about the terrible conditions the staff face. When he was elected for the first time almost nine years ago, I was barely old enough to do my own research and for a moment after the election I had hopes that the all seeing eye of the media may be able to sweep in and expose his real truth to the world. Unfortunately, they never did.

When it became clear that there was no knight in a noble white news van coming to report on the secrets held within these walls, I got brave enough to take matters into my own hands. But that also failed. Oh yes, father ranted about how some ‘mystery source’ was trying to stir up drama, but he had also ranted about his solution to the problem. Pay off those who are willing to comply with his demands and let his team of ‘fixers’ deal with anyone who wouldn’t comply. It’s one of many reasons I don’t want to find my mates. There’s no telling what he might do to them if I ever do.

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