Eudora
Before I know it, my second practice date has arrived. This date is with Leon. Leon has always been playful, so I'm sure whatever he has planned will be fun. After the sun has set, Leon picks me up at my door. When I open the door his scent hits my nose and I smile. He always smells so good. I want to lean in and inhale deeper, but I resist. He is carrying a blanket and a picnic basket. He takes my hand and we walk out of the building and to the forest. He stops right at the edge of the trees and drops my hand.
"Are we going to have a picnic here?" I ask.
"Nope. I know a perfect spot. It's my secret place so you have to promise you won't tell anyone about it before I take you there."
"I promise." I tell him.
He grins at me, his cheeks dimpling. "Good." He retakes my hand and guides me into the trees. We aren't on any trail that I can tell. After 15 minutes of walking I start to hear water. Another 10 minutes later, we enter into a clearing that takes my breath away. A waterfall pours into a clear pool. The moonlight lights it up making it look like it is glowing. The place is so beautiful, it feels like magic.
"Oh wow, how did you find this place?" I ask Leon.
"My first year at Tremont, I was struggling a lot and I tried to run away. I had been lost in the woods for hours, when I stumbled upon this place. I was so tired and thirsty that the sight of water brought me to tears. I shifted and went for a swim. I swam and relaxed in the pool for hours until I felt strong enough to return to the academy.
"How did you find your way back?"
"I followed that stream to the ocean." Leon points at a small stream trickling out of the pool. "And then just walked along the beach until I made it back to campus. I come to this place anytime I need to re-center myself."
"Wow, for someone who acts like a brat half the time, I didn't expect you to have a quiet place to relax."
"Hey, I am not a brat!" Leon says in fake outrage. He spreads out the blanket and sits on it, placing the basket in the middle. I sit down on the other side.
"Yes you are! You cry whenever you don't get enough attention."
"Crying is a reasonable way to express feelings of sadness."
"Except your tears are crocodile tears. You just cry to get attention."
"They are not crocodile tears! I am genuinely sad when I don't get attention." Leon pouts and turns away from me.
"Don't be like that! How can I make it up to you?"
"You can go swimming with me."
"Isn't the water too cold?"
"The best part of this place is that the water is warm."
"Really? I wonder how"
"My best guess is that water from an underground hot spring bubbles up here."
"No way! Well, then we have to go swimming." I give him a teasing grin. "It's too bad we don't have swim suits."
"Oh no!" Leon looks genuinely sad. "I knew I was forgetting something." I love that even though being naked is normal, he still is considerate of my more modest tendencies.
"It's okay. I'll just go in my underwear."
"I thought you were shy about your body."
"I am a little more shy than most shifters, but my bra and panties cover the same parts a swimsuit would, so I'm sure it will be fine."
Leon grins, "Yeah that's right." He jumps up and strips out of his clothing. He then runs naked towards the water. "Last one there is a rotten egg!"
"No fare!" I shout at his back. I peel my shirt over my head and unzip my skirt, dropping it to the ground. I step out of it and then run. The autumn night air is chilly on my skin. Leon makes it to the water first and cannonballs right in. He resurfaces and looks at me as I leap in.
"I win! I beat you!" Leon taunts swimming in a circle around me. The way he moves through the water is so graceful. Leon dives under water and resurfaces with his cheeks full of water.
"Don't you dare!" I shout at him. I try to splash his approaching figure but it doesn't even slow him down. Once he gets within range, he releases the water from his cheeks squirting me directly in the face.
"Ewww gross!" I wipe the water from my eyes and then look at Leon.
Leon smiles and then rolls over onto his back.
I swim over to his floating form. "So what is it like to shift?" I ask.
"It feels like your whole body is being torn apart and put back together."
"Does it hurt?"
"No, it's more like being caught in a violent windstorm."
"Leon" I say seriously
"Yeah" He looks at me
"Why are you in shifting level 1 as a 3rd year?"
He sighs and then looks up at the stars. "Like you, I was a late bloomer."
"You were?"
"Yeah, I had my first shift at 19, while I was serving in the military."
"What was it like for you growing up without shifting?"
"It was not good. My pheromone assessment as a baby showed that my pheromones were particularly weak. When I didn't shift at a normal age, the kids in my school teased me about it. Girls refused to talk to me, and guys didn't want to be associated with me."
"That must have been hard."
"It was, but after I shifted for the first time it got better. And after I got my acceptance letter for Tremont, people thought a lot more highly of me. Some people were still mean to me, saying that the school must have accepted me by accident, but others suddenly wanted to be my friend because they thought I would become important."
"I didn't know there were still packs where weak shifters are ostracized. I thought after having non-shifter children became more common, nons and weaker shifters were more accepted."
"That is true for most packs, but my pack is one of the smallest in the Aquatic Kingdom, and its elders hold onto their old beliefs."
"What happens to the nons?"
"Nothing really, the girls, of course, were treated the same as the shifters, but the boys were ignored. They had their own friend group in the school that, unfortunately, wanted nothing to do with me because, even though I couldn't shift, I was still a shifter."
"That's horrible. I would have been your friend."
He smiles and looks at me. He stops floating, letting his feet sink to the floor and he faces me. The water is just deep enough that his shoulders are above it. I, on the other hand, am a few inches shorter than Leon, so only my head is above water. "I know you would have. We actually have a lot in common, we are both late shifters, and we are both inexperienced when it comes to relationships."
"You haven't dated a lot?"
"Between being an outcast in my pack, and then the weakest shifter in my troop, I didn't have a lot of luck with girls. I've been out on a few dates with non-shifters, but none of them went very well. What about you?"
"No, I was in an all woman troop in the military and before that I didn't get out much. My father kept me at home to keep me safe. My whole existence wasn't exactly a secret, but it wasn't common knowledge."
"Your brother does seem very protective of you. I'm not surprised Madison thought you were together with the way he acts around you. Especially since you don't really look alike. You don't really look like you're from the Forest Kingdom."
I play with a strand of my silver hair. Something about Leon puts me at ease and I want to share my secrets with him. I take a deep breath and release the one that has been weighing on me for years."I know. You can't tell anyone this, but Jayden is my half brother. His father had an affair and I was the result. My mother died shortly after I was born, and Jayden's mother stepped up to raise me. All my mother left me was this locket." I pull the silver heart shaped locket away from my neck and towards him so he can see it better. The locket has weird designs etched onto it, and it doesn't open. The only reason I even know it is a locket is because of the hinges on one side of its heart shape.
Leon swims closer to me to look at the locket in my hand."Was Jayden's mom mad? Does she hate you?"
"If she was mad, I never saw it. She is amazing and has never treated me differently, just because I wasn't biologically hers. She is my mom, even if she didn't give birth to me. They kept the affair a secret and didn't widely publicize the fact that I am a female shifter to keep me safe. Alpha's who visited could sense my shifter pheromones of course, so it was impossible to keep it completely hidden, but most people kept quiet about it."
Leon lets go of my locket and looks me in the eye. "Blood isn't what makes a family."
I smile at him. "I know." I want to change the subject so I ask Leon another question. "Have you ever kissed anyone?" I pause and think then ask a second question. "You're into men and women right?"
He laughs. "Yes. Gender doesn't matter to me when it comes to attraction. I have kissed people before despite what you might think from my accidental shift earlier. It was specifically your boobs and pheromones that caused me to lose control."
"So you got a little turned on by my boobs?" I give him a sly grin. I swim over to him and brush my hand down his arm. I usually don't flirt so blatantly, but I feel comfortable around Leon and it feels like something is pulling me to him. Something about the warm water, seclusion, and Leon opening up to me has me feeling bold enough to make a move.
He groans, "Yes definitely."
The contact and hearing his groan sends a shot of heat down my spine and I feel the need to push things further. "What do you think we could do without causing you to accidentally shift?"
"I'm not sure." Leon swallows hard.
"We are partners in shifter class, it would be prudent for us to find out."
"It would be very studious of us. I think, since we are both such dedicated students, experimentation is a good idea."
I put my arms around Leon's neck, lean my body into his, then I lick my lips and kiss him softly. I pull away and we are both surprised to find he is still in his human form.
"You didn't shift!"
"I don't know how I managed it! Maybe, since you are mostly submerged in water, it's keeping most of your pheromones from me.
"That sounds plausible. Want to test it further?"
"Yes."
I lean into him again and kiss him deeper. His arms wrap around me as our tongues meet. The kiss with Leon isn't as intense of a fire as the one I shared with Aren after the bonfire, but it is more playful and fun. Leon tastes like candy. I bite his bottom lip gently and he groans, then grabs my ass and lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, and he carries me to the edge of the pool, placing me on some rocks. He kisses me down my neck, and then suddenly, he shifts into a seal.
I break into laughter. Leon flips his fin at me and then starts swimming laps around the pool. I walk back up the hill to our blanket and sit down watching Leon swim gleefully. After a few minutes he shifts back and joins me on the blanket.
"So, what did you pack for food?" I ask him.
Leon opens the basket and pulls out two large sandwiches, a large container of potato salad, an actual salad, chocolate covered strawberries, and a bottle of wine.
"Jeeze, were you expecting 4-5 people to crash our date?"
Leon looks sheepish, "Is it too much? I told one of the cooks that I was planning on taking a girl on a moonlit picnic and asked if there was any extra food I could bring. She got really excited about the idea and packed all of this food for us."
"That was really sweet of her." I smile at the thought of the cook joyfully preparing this food.
"Well, we shouldn't let this food go to waste. Dig in!"
After we have both eaten ourselves sick, we decide it's time to pack up and head home. Instead of walking through the dark woods again, we opt to walk down the beach. Leon and I are chatting about the secret pool, when we spot two figures sitting together on the beach.
"Is that Aren?" Leon asks.
I look harder at the figures and Aren's form is undeniable.
My stomach plummets, and all of the joy I felt from my date with Leon disappears when I realize that I recognize the girl he is with. It's Olivia. They may not be spending nights together, but I can't pretend any longer that they aren't seeing each other. I have no right to be upset about seeing Aren with Olivia. He has every right to see other women.
I am in a dark mood all the way back to Leon's dorm, but I try to hide it so he doesn't think I didn't enjoy the time we spent together. When we enter the suite, Gia and the rest of his suitemates wait for us to give them a run down of our date.
"So how did it go?" Gia asks as soon as we walk into the common room.
"It went well." I smile at her and raise my and Leon's connected hands, emphasizing to the group that we are holding hands.
Where did you take her?" Koda asks, directing his question at Leon.
"That is a secret."
"Oh come on!"
"We had a picnic." I say.
"What feedback do you give the date?" Gia asks.
"I am going to give it five stars. Everything about it was perfect." I smile at Leon who smiles back.
"I thought a date would only be 5 starts if you ended up getting lucky." Ryland drawls from the couch.
"Who's to say he didn't?" I ask Ryland.
"Judging by the fact that he can't keep his human form around you, and you don't seem like the type of girl who would fool around with a seal, I think it's pretty safe to say your date was platonic." Kaden states.
"Think what you like, but I won't kiss and tell." I smirk at them.
"You have to tell me though." Gia cuts in.
I wink at her and mouth the word, later.
We all decide to hang out and watch a movie together. I try to claim a spot in an armchair but Ryland tugs me down onto the couch next to him and puts his arm around me. I think about pulling away, but his warm scent is relaxing, so I give in and lean into him. He smiles and then smirks at the other guys who don't look very happy with the seating arrangement. Half way through the movie, Aren gets home.
"So how was your date?" Leon asks.
"I wasn't on a date." Aren retorts a little too defensively.
"Sure you weren't, Ora and I saw you on the beach looking cozy with some girl." Leon teases.
"We were just talking." Aren looks annoyed.
"Can't you see Aren doesn't want to talk about it." Jay says, defending Aren. Though, he ruins it by saying, "Let's go talk about your date in our room."
They both leave, escaping to their bedroom and closing the door behind them.
"Do you really think Aren was on a date?" Gia asks.
"I don't see any other reason why he would be alone with a girl on the beach." Ryland says.
"Ryland, guys and girls can be just friends with each other." Gia argues. "Hanging out doesn't mean they were on a date."
"Sure, hanging out isn't necessarily a date, but sitting alone on a beach watching the stars, that is a date." Ryland retorts.
"I think it's time for bed." I say standing suddenly.
"But we haven't finished the movie yet." Leon whines.
"You can finish it without me." I pretend to yawn. "I am suddenly really tired."
"I'll go with you." Gia stands and walks over to me. "I am also really tired."
Back at our room Gia is impatient to get the details about the date from me.
"So did anything happen?" She asks as soon as we are alone.
"Lots of things happened. We went swimming, had a picnic, and we talked about his life back at his pack."
"That's not what I meant and you know it. Now spill."
"Fine, you got me." I throw my hands up, but grin at Gia. "We made out."
"Nice! Was there tongue? Was there any… touching?"
"Yes tongue and yes touching."
"I'm impressed Seal Boy was able to pull it off."
"Me too. His pheromone control and strength is improving."
"So was it good?"
"Yes, it was very fun."
"Good." She says and then turns serious. "We need to talk about your reaction to seeing Aren with another girl.
I sigh. "He was with Olivia."
"Again! I thought Charlotte told you they weren't a thing."
"All Charlotte said was that Olivia hasn't had any guys over and hasn't spent the night away."
"Still if Charlotte doesn't think they are together, then I am going to trust her." Gia smiles at me. "Charlotte knows more than she's letting on and I have a magical ability to sense relationships. You can trust me when I tell you, Aren does not have any romantic feelings for Olivia."
"Thanks, that does make me feel better."
"Just because he's not interested in her romantically doesn't mean they aren't banging though."
"Jee, thanks." I say in a deadpan.
"I'm just saying." Gia says. I throw a pillow at her, which shuts her up.