The Last Phoenix- Book 1 of the Legends of Henge Series

Chapter 14

Arielle Clements

I looked up from my book, expecting to see some of the boys making faces through the window again, only to be pleasantly surprised to see Professor Aurum leading a student to our dorms.

I pounded down the hall to Bailey's room, the other girl who was on our small team. "I think someone is finally arriving," I told her. We'd been the only two on time for school for our team. Everyone else had had one reason or another to be late.

"Finally," Bailey groaned. I didn't know that much about her but I'd figured out a few things. She was impatient for one and she loved sarcasm. Take her shirt for example. It literally said "I speak fluent sarcasm."

"Looks like our sad party of two is being transformed into a sad party of three," Bailey commented as we watched the girl being led by the strange Kitsune walk up to our porch. My fingers glided over my bracelet out of habit.

"Hey cheer up," Bailey nudged me. "We have someone to harass." I raised an eyebrow at her, not sure why we'd do that. Bailey only laughed at my expression. She had dark curls that fell past her shoulder, quite like mine. Only mine were tighter curls. Her skin was pale, a stark contrast to my dark chocolatey skin.

Her eyes were big and brown giving someone the false assumption that she was a kind hearted innocent girl, when really she probably had no heart, cussed like a sailor, and made sex jokes for a living. But despite all of that, Bailey was someone I'd enjoyed being around in the last few days.

I wasn't as sarcastic as her, but I wasn't nice either. I'm biracial, mom was black and dad was white. My heritage gave me a stunning look that had guys falling at my feet declaring their "love" for me. I made it my mission to knock out their teeth.

I hated guys for the simple fact of them only liking me for my unique looks. They never wanted to actually know me so screw them.

I was shaken from my thoughts when I heard the door open. Professor Aurum led a girl around our age, with strawberry blonde hair and freckled skin, into the main sitting area. Her eyes were pale blue and she had a positive demeanor around her. No doubt Bailey would make it her mission to break any optimism in her.

Behind her was an older Native American woman, who looked almost nothing like the girl beside the fox.

"Ah, Harper, these are your current teammates, Arielle Clements and Bailey Parker," the fox spoke. Harper looked up in surprise and I recognized experience in her eyes. She may be new to this world but she wasn't new to shapeshifting.

"I thought teams were 8 to 15 people," she pointed out.

"Actually, your team is not complete yet," Professor Aurum started to explain. "Everyone assigned to this team has in some way come to be late for registration except for these two. You are the only three as of yet."

"Oh," Harper seemed disappointed. I felt a little offended. She didn't even know Bailey or I so why should she be complaining. Maybe she's just nervous, a little voice in my head whispered.

You'd do nicely to be polite, another voice spoke and I noticed that Professor Aurum was staring directly at me. Kitsune have mindspeak.

We'd been standing there awkwardly for a while, not speaking and generally avoiding conversation before Bailey sighed in boredom, as though she couldn't stand the silence. "This is boring," she announced. "Come on Harper, we'll show you the rooms." Bailey picked up the timid girl's bag and led us down the hallway to the girl's side of the dorms.

"So eventually, if the rest of our team decides to show up, we'll have two people per room. But until that point, we'll just have our own rooms," Bailey explained.