Chapter 91 91- Never Let Him See You Lose Your Cool
LEXI
One second I’m looking down at an unconscious classmate and the next I’m… I don’t know what I’m doing. Panicking? Everything feels wrong. My fingers won’t move. My head is pounding like someone is knocking from the inside of my skull. There’s a sharp, stabbing pain right behind my eyes, bright and relentless. I’m on my hands and knees. Actually… Not my knees. My feet. Wait. What? Am I doing some weird yoga pose? How am I balanced like this? My weight feels wrong. Too evenly distributed. Too… Wide. I try to lift my hands and immediately stumble forward. What the hell? I look down at my hands and… They aren’t hands. They aren’t even close. They’re pale. Solid. Rounded at the ends. Hooves. Gold hooves. My stomach drops. What IS this?! Did… Did I shift? Oh shit… Oh shit, oh shit, oh SHIT! My brain is racing but my body isn’t cooperating. My hands aren’t hands. My feet aren’t feet. My limbs feel too long, too heavy, too powerful and somehow too fragile all at once. My neck feels longer. My centre of gravity is completely wrong. And my head still hurts. I try to focus. The unconscious girl is still on the floor in front of me. There’s a tight, nagging pressure in my chest as I look at her, something unfinished. Something urgent. Before I can overthink it, instinct takes over. I lean forward. My face dips toward her side and I prod her gently with… My head? No. My horn. I freeze. I have a horn? Am… Am I a unicorn? The thought feels absurd and obvious at the same time. Okay… Okay. But why am I suddenly desperate to poke this girl with my horn? That is objectively a weird thing to do. And yet I do it.
The moment my horn makes contact with her side, something surges. Magic. It rushes out of me in a warm, bright wave and flows into her. It feels familiar. Not identical, but close. Like my healing magic, just… Amplified. Cleaner. Stronger. It feels like light. Clearing and purifying. That was the first step with cuts. So I try to focus on that. Clear it. Remove it. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t have words for this. There are no incantations, no diagrams in front of me. Just instinct and that textbook memory whispering in the back of my mind. So I follow it. Push the poison out. Neutralise it. Purify. The magic pours through me again, this time less explosive and more controlled. My head throbs harder with the effort. When I pull back slightly, she looks… Different. Less flushed. Less drenched in sweat. Her breathing doesn’t sound as ragged. I would check her pulse. But I DON’T HAVE HANDS! This is so inconvenient. I try to push myself upright. It takes far more effort than it should. My legs wobble. My hooves scrape against the stone floor. I feel clumsy and oversized, like I’ve been dropped into someone else’s body without instructions. My limbs don’t feel like mine. I shuffle awkwardly, trying to orient myself, trying to find Professor Matthews. Surely he’ll know what to do. To my horror, he looks completely stunned. Just staring at me. The other students aren’t any better. They’re pressed back against the walls. Some look terrified. Some look awestruck. I catch the glint of phones. Great. Perfect. If someone could just tell me how to change back into a human now, that would be fantastic. They’re all just staring. I need help. Why aren’t they saying anything? Why isn’t anyone helping me? My breathing speeds up. My heart starts racing. My head spins harder. The room feels tilted. Too bright. Too loud. What if I’m stuck like this? What if I can’t change back? What if I can’t talk ever again? What if I’m just… Trapped? Helpless, I need help. I need… Blake.
Just as the thought forms, he bursts into the room. The door slams against the wall and I flinch instinctively, my hooves scraping against the floor. For half e second he looks stunned, his eyes widening slightly as they take in the chaos, the scorch marks, the unconscious girl. And then he locks onto me. The shock disappears almost instantly. He clears my classmates out of the room with barely any effort, his voice low and firm. The room empties fast, which is a relief all on its own. I don’t think I could handle all those eyes right now. He kneels beside me. He doesn’t look scared. He doesn’t look confused. He looks focused. It helps. He quickly works out that I don’t know how to change back. Of course I don’t know how to change back.
“Okay, it’s not hard. You will be just fine.” He says steadily, like we’re just working through a basic spellcasting exercise. His hand strokes the side of my face, slow and deliberate.
“I want you to close your eyes. I’ll be right here. Focus on your breathing. Feel the magic, just like when we first started practicing. Don’t force it. Just notice it. He instructs. I squeeze my eyes shut. My breathing is uneven. My heart is still racing.
“Good.” He murmurs.
“Now picture yourself the way you normally are. In as much detail as you can. What you look like What it feels like Imagine your fingers, Your toes. Your hair.” He suggests. Fingers. Toes, Hair. The concepts feel distant, but I try to cling to them.
“Oh, and don’t forget your clothes. Unless you want to ” He pauses briefly
“You know what, let’s not worry about that too much. Just think about how you were before you shifted. He tells me. Despite everything, a faint flicker of amusement tries to spark through my panic. His voice doesn’t waver. It’s calm. Rhythmic Almost soothing. I try to follow his instructions I really do But it isn’t the meditation itself that starts to calm me. It’s him. The steady cadence of his voice. The warmth of his hand against my face. The certainty in the
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Chapter 91 91- Never Let Him See You Lose Your Cool
way he speaks, like there isn’t even a possibility that this won’t work. Slowly, the frantic edge of my breathing softens. The sharp pain behind my eyes dulls
slightly. The magic that had felt chaotic and overwhelming starts to feel… Contained. Present. I reach for it. Not in panic this time. On purpose. I picture my
hands. My actual hands. Fingers curling. Nails. The weight of my hair on my shoulders. The feel of fabric against my skin. I focus on the moment before
everything went white. Standing. Human. Normal. There’s a pulling sensation, deep in my chest. Like something is folding inward. Compressing. The magic tightens around me. My heart pounds once, hard. Then… Another flash of bright white light. It’s blinding, even with my eyes closed. And as quickly as it
happened the first time, it’s over. The floor feels different beneath me. Colder, harder. I gasp as air rushes into lungs that feel unfamiliar for a split second,
and then completely mine again. Human. I’m human.
As soon as I’m back to myself, Blake sweeps me off my feet. I barely have time to register being upright before I’m in his arms. Normally I would protest, at
least out of habit, but this time I don’t even try. My legs feel like they belong to someone else. Like if he set me down, they would simply fold beneath me. I
am exhausted. Not regular tired. Not ‘long day‘ tired. Drained. Like something reached inside me and wrung out every drop of energy I had. I don’t think I
have ever been this tired in my entire life. My muscles ache. My head still throbs faintly. Even keeping my eyes open feels like work. So I just let him carry
- me. I don’t even bother holding onto him properly. My arms hang loosely. I don’t need to cling. He won’t drop me. He doesn’t pause. Doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t hesitate. He just walks. Out of the classroom. Down the hall. Away from the wreckage. There are people in the corridors already. Word
spreads fast here. By the time we turn the first corner, students are staring openly. Pointing and whispering. But it isn’t the same kind of whispering as before There’s no mockery, no smugness, no cruel curiosity. This is different, filled with shock and awe. I don’t know if that’s reassuring or not. Some of
them look impressed. Some look stunned. A few look almost reverent. I catch snippets as we pass.
“Did you see-”
“She healed-”
“It was bright-”
“Unicorn-”
The word follows us like a ripple. Unicorn. I would laugh if I had the energy. Blake doesn’t look at any of them. His jaw is set, his expression unreadable. He keeps moving, steady and purposeful, like none of them exist. We reach the dorms. Instead of taking me to my room, he carries me straight into his. I’m too tired to argue. Too tired to even process that decision. If I tried to object, I’m not sure the words would come out properly anyway. He lowers me carefully onto his bed. The mattress dips beneath my weight and the softness feels unreal after the stone floor of the classroom. The room smells faintly like him, clean linen and something warmer underneath. Familiar.
“Best. J’ll be here.” He says. At least I think that’s what he says. His voice sounds distant already, like I’m hearing it through water. The last thing I register is the weight of the blanket being pulled over me. And then everything fades. I’m asleep before my brain can even try to replay what just happened,
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
