Gurney City - Book Two

First Training with Augustus

Can’t he just slow the heck down? I was nearly lost a few times, but thanks to his loud squeaky shoes, I’m able to track him down.

“What’s your guardian animal, newbie?” Augustus asks without glancing back at me.

“It’s a Xuih – something. By the way, I have a name!” I glare at him from the back.

“A Xuihcoatl,” he mumbles, ignoring my last remark. “Damn.”

Why is it that everyone can pronounce it properly except for me?

Is it a bad thing to have a Xuihcoatl as my guardian animal?

I shake my head to myself. No, I promise myself that I accept my guardian no matter what.

We reach a training room.

Augustus opens the door and enters the training room first.

What ever happened to ladies’ first?

I notice that the training room has nothing but weapons in it. The dull white walls are covering every piece of the room except for a see-through glass that shows the hallway where a few people passes by.

“Listen, newbie. You’re going to have to learn to shift on your own. You’ll watch how I’ll do it once, and I’ll leave you in this room to work on it. I’ll be picking you up in an hour time,” Augustus says, standing in the middle of the training room.

I feel my mouth is hanging open. What does he think I am?

Before I can protest, his dragon tattoo glows brightly and his eyes is much darker. I can’t help but get lost in his eyes, although he’s not concentrating on me.

I hear a crack a moment later. Augustus’s face contorts in pain, but it doesn’t stop him from shifting. It is as if he’s used to his bones breaking. His pale skin has blue square-ish scales appearing and fingers shrinking. Augustus hunch is back before falling on all four.

I can see that his blue scales are replacing his white clothes. His face is pulled until he has a snout and high cheek bones. I can barely see his tail. His dark eyes remain on me, studying me.

He is so much bigger than me, but maybe almost as huge as my guardian animal.

Augustus makes some sort of groan and stretches his leathery dark blue wings.

Realization hit me. Augustus is a water dragon.

“Wow,” I whisper when I stare at how different Augutus’s dragon is to Lina’s cat.

I almost touch his scales when he groans again, this time softer than before. Without any sounds of bone crunching, Augustus shifts back to human form easily.

“Right,” Augustus says, barely noticing how admired I am. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t get into trouble, especially with predatory shifters. They’re such cocky beings.”

I think of it. Leo is not cocky. He’s one of the nicest people I’ve met. Including Mary.

“Why are they - ?”

Augustus left the training room before I can finish asking my question. I sigh as I try to remember how he shifted. I sit in the middle of the training room as I calm my thoughts down.

“Melanie, I’ll take the right rogue and you the left,” Nate instructed in a whisper, pointing at the two rogues not far from us.

I nodded in understanding. I took out my bow and locked my arrow, aiming for the left rogue.

This was Nate’s and my life as a werewolf hunter. Living in an apartment in Little Creek as sixteen-year-old teenagers.

Hopefully, we didn’t need to leave Little Creek anytime soon.

“Now,” Nate shouted as we jump out of our hiding spot behind a big bush. We attacked the rogues with full power and without mercy. Before we know it, the werewolf Nate attacked was dead, but mine was still alive.

“Crap,” I cursed when I’m out of arrows. I took out my gun and tried to aim it for the heart as the rogue dizzily got to its feet.

“Melanie!” Nate yelled when he noticed that the rogue was coming closer to me.

My hands started to shake as I attempted to hold my gun firmer. The rogues snarled at me and ran towards me.

Nate charged towards the rogue and pushed it to our car, which was a Porsche at that time. Nate groaned at the impact.

“Shoot, Mel!” Nate yelled at me when the rogue kicked Nate out of his way.

Instead of shooting the rogue, my aim was slightly off and hit the running engine of the Porsche.

Then, I can’t hear anything. I can only see Nate’s pale face as he turned to look at me in slow motion. The rogue tried to run, but the fire from the explosion caught up with it. I knew that it was dead.

I, on the other hand, was not able to move when I was thrown with my back on the hard ground and a buzzing sound in my ears.

It took me about five minutes before I can move my body again. I sat up to see Nate’s body, not far from mine, with his face against the ground.

“Nate,” I tried to yell as I limped my way towards him. I can’t hear myself because of the loud buzzing.

My concentration halts when I hear someone knocking on the training room door. I look at the clock to see that it had only been fifteen minutes since Augustus left me alone in the room.

“Come in,” I say.

In comes Lina with a huge grin on her face. “I’m too excited!” she says sheepishly. “So what’s you guardian animal?”

She stares at my tattoo with amazement.

“Is it a snake? Or something related to it? Maybe a lizard!” Lina babbles.

I laugh and stand up. “It’s called a Xuihcoatl.” I’m surprised myself that I remembered that.

Lina gives me a dumbfounded look. “A what?”

“A Xuihcoatl. Can you help me with something, Li?”

“What?”

“Can you teach me how to shift? Augustus dumped me in here, thinking that I am a fast learner after he demonstrated only once,” I complain.

Lina pats my back. “At least he shows you his guardian animal. No one, I mean no one and Thomas, has ever seen his dragon except for Bibiana.”

“Really?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yup!” Lina stares at me. “Sure, I’ll teach you how to shift. It’s really easy for me, but I’m not sure whether rare guardian animals are supposed to be much difficult…”

I shrug. “I guess we’ll soon find out.”

Author's Note

Longer update, just like most of you asked. What do you think?

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-M.