Page 5 of Even Werewolves Learn

3

Louis

Icame early to the French classroom with the worst intentions.

When the council decided each of the species of shifters in Paris and its surroundings would have to provide one person each for this little language experiment, I didn’t react.

I saw the lions roar in displeasure. I saw one of them even break a table that was unlucky enough to be in his way.

I saw some of the snakes look around in disgust.

But I didn’t react.

Instead, I started planning.

I had no intention of making anyone aware that I abhorred the idea of going back to school. Not because of what it meant—including humans in the ways of the wolves has never been a problem for us—but because I finished business school three years ago, and I thought I was completely done with this bullshit. Add that to the fact that I would have to go into the city for four hours of lessons a week, and it pissed me off some more.

It’s not like I live close. Paris is about fifty kilometers away from the closest border of the Fontainebleau forest where my pack is, which is about half an hour with a flying car and an hour if I’m running in my shifted form at my fastest.

Needless to say, I don’t want to run that fast for that long, but I hate small spaces, and I would do anything to avoid being stuck in a damned flying casket, even running for an hour at top speed.

Which brings me to why I’m here early on the first day of school.

I ran, showered, got dressed in the apartment I’m renting for the week right next to the Sorbonne School, and now I’m here.

I came with a specific idea in mind, though. To piss the teacher off enough that they would send me back home.

I knew that was the only way I could get out of it, the only way I could go back to my pack.

I had an entire plan in my mind. One that would get me out of this program in less than a week—hence why I rented the apartment only for that time.

It included coming early, criticizing the way the teacher looked, their ability to take on a class of shifters, finding what makes them tick, making sure to amplify it, and getting on their nerves. I was good at that when I was a kid. I stopped doing it only when I got to fifteen and realized I needed school to know what I was doing with the family business if I wanted to take care of my pack in the right way.

But knowing how to piss off people is not something one forgets easily, and I am ready to use all my skills on the new teacher.

Until I arrive at her door, and her smell hits me.

All thoughts of pissing her off leave me in a second, and the scent of citrus and jasmine wraps around me like an embrace.

I know it’s coming from her. She’s the only one in the vicinity. All the other classrooms are currently closed. Classes won’t start for another twenty minutes, and this one in particular won’t start for another hour added to that.

I’ve seen who I think is the German teacher on the other side of the corridor, but there are two classrooms between them and the French one, so it’s unmistakable who the smell is coming from.

And so, instead of entering and trying to get under her skin, I watch as she moves around in the room to put things into place. I’m not lurking or trying to stalk her. I just lean against the doorframe and enjoy her less adept senses that make my presence inaudible to her.

Now, I want to know what makes her tick for a whole other reason.

She’s cute, short, with clothes that look to be too large for her frame and hide most of her form. But I can clearly see the heart-shape of her face, the tiny freckles on her nose, the speckles of green in her brown eyes, and the fact that she has pulled her strawberry-blonde hair into a tight bun to make herself look more severe.

There’s not a severe bone in that woman’s body, though. When her face is relaxed, it still sports a soft smile that looks too good for this world.

But it’s the way she moves that mesmerizes me. She’s wearing red high heels—the only fashion statement in an otherwise very tame outfit made of a white button-down shirt and a wide, below-the-knee skirt in dark blue—and I haven’t heard a single click since I arrived.

It’s like she’s walking on clouds, floating just a centimeter above ground or even gliding instead of walking. It feels like a dance just for my eyes, and I want to stay here looking at her for as long as I can.

Except I know it won’t last.

I’ve seen the German teacher going in and out of their classroom a couple of times already. I have a feeling their class is starting earlier than this one, but that if they keep catching me at the door, they might come and ask what I am doing.