Asher
With a bounce in his step, Asher walked through the downtown streets of Cadia. It was always an interesting excursion. There was a mixture of human and animal forms in all their varied appearances.
Bears were most predominant, being the most populous species, though wolves were right behind. Several territorial wars in the past between the two had not worked out in the wolves’ favor, which kept their numbers down, though lately they had begun to rebound. They bred faster and generally had more pups than the bears did cubs.
Overhead a pair of dragons circled, while higher in the sky a gryphon eyeballed them, as if waiting for the right moment to make its dive run. Asher knew it wouldn’t, not in Cadia itself. There was, generally speaking, a permanent truce in place between the different types of shifters. If you were a bear and you headed south to where the wolves guarded the border, or north to where the tigers and lions patrolled the vast plains, then you were on your own.
But in Cadia? Everyone was expected to behave.
“Asher,” said a walking colossus as he moved past him, heading the opposite direction.
“Ranger,” he replied with a nod of his head at the bear shifter. He didn’t know Rick “Ranger” Podnam very well, but they had met during a drunken night and teamed up to take on a quartet of very angry wolf shifters who thought they could get the better of the pair.
It hadn’t gone well for the canines.
Since then the pair had been friends, if not overly tight. Asher didn’t pause to talk though; he was on a mission that morning.
The building that served to house Cadia’s government and services, such as they were, loomed over him. It was a five-story building—a monstrosity compared to most of town, where few buildings were over three stories—and it was all rounded sides, a flowy design that did nothing for him.
That was where Cadia Immigration was located though. They were the department that handled permissions for all non-shifters to enter, and gave passports to all shifters who wished to leave. He shouldered his way in through the door and approached the desk. There wasn’t a line. There never was. Few shifters ever wanted to leave, and even fewer humans wanted to come in.
Both sides liked it better that way.
“Yes, what can I do for you?” the elderly woman at the counter asked before he’d even stepped up to her desk.
“I’d like to file the necessary forms for passage. One human into Cadia,” he said, sitting down in the chair.
The woman eyed him for a moment, and then reached behind her to a drawer and pulled out a stack of paper.
“Fill these out, and then give us several days to check them over.”
“Thank you,” he said, nodding as he picked up a pen and began to fill them out. He’d grilled Quinn this morning on all the standard information, so that he knew what to put down for that. He just hoped that there wasn’t some sort of wild question on there that he hadn’t asked her.
Occupation.
Shit.
All the questions, and he had never thought to ask what she did for a living. He shrugged, and wrote “Park Ranger.” She’d said she was a nature buff. Hopefully she could use that knowledge to bluff her way through if they had any questions to ask.
He had no problems lying about how they had met, putting down “internet dating.” It wasn’t the truth, but it would serve its purpose, and also gave him an easy answer for the reason why she was seeking entry into Cadia. To see him. By signing that, Asher was basically accepting responsibility for Quinn while she was in Cadia, if she was accepted.
He added his signature where required, finishing the last one with a flourish and pushed the stack of papers back across the table.
“We’ll be in touch,” the woman said and turned away from him.
Asher shrugged to himself and got up to go.
He stiffened when Loran Grik came in through the front door. He was one of the two gryphons who had tangled with him while he was trying to get Quinn out of Cadia. The gryphon recognized him immediately and snorted.
“What are you doing here, Owens?”
Asher rolled his eyes. “Whatever I want. Got a problem with that Grik?”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I do if you’re trying to smuggle another human in here,” he spat. His eyes gleamed with venom as he said that aloud.
Asher knew he only had one recourse. “What did you just accuse me of?”
“You heard me. There was a human on your back. I saw her.”
“I think you’re imagining things, Grik. Maybe it was from that blow you took when you fell from the sky. Might have knocked even more things loose up there.”
“I know what I saw. You were smuggling in a human!”
Asher stood up tall and stormed over to where Loran was standing, trying to gloat.
“Falsely accuse me one more time. I dare you,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, but pitched to be threatening only to Loran.
“You and that filthy human—”
Asher didn’t let him finish. His punch sent the other shifter flying through the air until he hit the ground, rolling and coming out of it as he charged back at Asher. With a grunt the dragon shifter moved in, using his superior size, reach, and strength advantage to open the gryphon’s face up in several places. He took blows in return, but it wasn’t a contest until someone unexpectedly hit him from behind. Asher pitched forward, right into a rising knee from Loran. He tried to roll out of the way, but the blow still left him dazed and staggering.
The two gryphons—he saw Myles Chalmer had joined them now, his other foe from their night in the air—set to work beating on him.
The doors burst open and three men ran into the room. Two of them quickly subdued the pair of troublemakers, while the third kept Asher from retaliating any further.
The Guardians had arrived, and all the involved parties knew it was a very, very bad idea to piss one off.
“Thank you,” Asher said as he recovered his wits, preparing to stand.
One of the other men rose and turned on him. “Don’t you thank me yet, Owens,” Zander Pierce, one of his instructors at Top Scale, said. “And get your ass back on the ground. You stay right there until I get ahold of Blaine. We don’t tolerate this kind of shit at the Academy, and he’s going to grind that point into you until you never forget it. Understood?”
Asher swallowed hard, but he nodded anyway.
Fuck Fuck Fuck. Why did it have to be Zander?
He had screwed up big time now, and it sounded like they might kick him out of Top Scale! After just getting admitted into it, Asher was now on the verge of washing out. He slammed a fist into the ground and glared at Loran, who was grinning at him.
Zander noticed the look. “You aren’t in a better situation half-‘n’-half, so wipe that grin from your face or I’ll do it for you,” he vowed.
Loran turned an angry glare on Zander, but the dragon Guardian just let it slide off him. The term half-‘n’-half was a derogatory reference to the half-lion half-eagle makeup of the gryphons. They were proud of their heritage, and hated being mocked for it.
The pair sat there while Zander made a phone call. He spent a few terse moments speaking before he said something with a nod and returned to where Asher and Loran were.
“Asher. Leave is canceled. Go to the Academy from here. Understood?”
He opened his mouth to protest. Going straight back wasn’t an option! Quinn was expecting him back. They were going to have a nice picnic in his backyard, and then go stargazing again that night. He couldn’t just up and leave her. She would panic.
“Is there a problem, Owens?”
He clamped his jaw shut. Protesting wasn’t an option either. What was he going to say? “Sorry sir, I have a human staying illegally with me, who I’m falling for, so I can’t go there right away?”
Yeah, that wouldn’t work.
Asher shook his head. There was no way to detour quickly on his way either. His house was one way, and the Academy almost the direct opposite. Zander would know. Fuck. He had no choice.
“I’ll be on my way there then?” he asked, making sure it was okay to get up.
Loran still looked smug over the whole thing.
“Get out of my sight,” Zander said with an angry gesture. “I have to take care of this punk. We’ll see how impressed his elders are when I tell them what he’s been up to.”
The gryphon shifter’s face went pale. The elders of his kind were not the most forgiving folk when their youngsters got into trouble. Asher flashed him a smile, knowing that he had it better.
Although he still had to face Blaine.
Gulp.