Page 28 of Unicorn Shifter Academy
Emerald-eyes grabbed my wrist, startling me. He turned my hand and frowned at the black blood that sizzled into my skin. “You’ve been touched by Corruption,” he lamented, then looked down at Raze. “You both have.”
I snatched my hand away. “I don’t know what that means.”
Raze stirred in my lap, then his ruby eyes blinked open. “Eli?” he croaked out.
I brushed Raze’s cheek. The impulse to comfort him was too overwhelming to ignore.
He glanced up at me, then a soft smile graced his beautiful face. “Are you harmed?”
Shaking my head, I tried to pretend everything was fine. Unsuccessfully, of course, because my vision had darkened and the tingling in my arms and legs made me want to crawl out of my skin.
“You’re both touched by Corruption,” Eli said.
“Then leave us here,” Raze immediately countered. “We can’t risk—”
“No,” Eli shot back. His eyes glowed with a gorgeous shade of green as his body began to transform. “You’re going to the Academy.”
Sparkles glimmered all around him as he burst with light, his body changing until there was that same gorgeous Unicorn standing before us.
So beautiful.
He stared at Raze, his long lashes lowering as he pawed at the dirt.
“Fine,” Raze finally said, relaxing against me. “I don’t have the energy to argue with you. Just… promise me we’ll be isolated once we’re inside. No one can come near us until it burns through… or until we’re dead.”
Dead?
“Excuse me?” Angel said, scampering up still holding the book.
“Nobody’s dying,” I assured her, even though I felt like Iwasdying.
The awkward steed that Ned had summoned trotted behind her.
A pegasus.
With bat wings.
Normally I would have laughed, but the situation was too dire for even Ned’s antics to cheer me up.
Plus, I was starting to feel downright nauseated. Pain shot through my stomach and I doubled over on a groan.
Raze struggled to his feet. “We… don’t have much time. The beasts will smell my blood.”
Eli—now in his majestic Unicorn form—knelt on all fours and waited for us to mount him.
Raze hauled himself over the Unicorn, then held a hand out to me.
I refused it. He was injured enough as it was and looked like he was about to double over.
“Hold on tight,” Raze instructed as he wrapped my arms around his middle, although I was careful to avoid his wounds as best as I could. He roped Eli’s mane around his wrists to secure us in place. “And use your legs. I don’t know if I’ll stay concious.”
I held onto him and rested my cheek against his back.
I yelped when Eli began to move and held on just as Raze instructed.
Because we were movingfast.
A neigh sounded as Ned and Angel followed us on the bat-pegasus. It launched above the forest through the hole Khimaira had made.
