Page 16 of The Lion’s Bunny

“And,” Casey cut in. “We get prizes for each treasure we found.”

“What did you get?” she asked excitedly.

“We won’t know until after breakfast,” I answered. “But so far Nazuss is the one who found the most.”

Myve smiled at him. “Well done, bro!”

Nazuss snorted, “I thank you, dear sister.”

She snickered. “Well, even though I missed having you around yesterday, it did give me and Hans plenty of time to talk.”

“Looks like it did you both good,” Nym smiled.

Hans smiled fondly at Myve who returned the smile. “We mated,” she announced, beaming happily.

“Congratulations!” we all exclaimed, smiling at Myve who was glowing with happiness.

“I hope that some day we can all be friends,” Hans said. “I want to show you all that I can be worthy of Myve and be the best mate ever to her.”

Nazuss waved him off. “We trust Myve’s judgement on that. If she’s happy with you, then that’s good enough for us.”

“Besides,” I cut in, “Myve is well known in our kingdom for fighting her own battles.”

Nym snickered at that. “Ball Crusher Myve.”

Myve just rolled her eyes at that. “He shouldn’t have kissed my friend then, should he?!”

Hans looked slightly worried at his mate, but she just patted him on the thigh and explained. “When I was sixteen, a nobleman’s son was visiting our kingdom and he was trying very hard to woo me. I’d finally caved and agreed to one date, only to find him kissing one of my friends in the stable, right before our date.”

“Ouch,” Hans said. “So, you kicked him in the nuts?”

Myve tilted her head at him. “No? I shifted and bit him in the nuts.”

We all instinctively cupped our private parts. The poor guy needed healing after it. Myve’s cat form had wickedly sharp teeth.

The bell rang, saving us from more talk of bruised nuts. “Time to get our prizes,” I sang, grabbing Damon’s hand in mine as we followed our lights outside.

Willa stood near the forest like last time, her hands behind her back as she beamed proudly at us. “Welcome back class. I hope you had fun yesterday?” We all nodded. “Good, because I have a lot of prizes to give out to you all. As I told you yesterday: the prizes can be different, but you all have today off from classes no matter how much you found.”

She took out a long script of paper, reading aloud. “The one who found the most treasures was Nazuss at sixteen. Very well done. Second place was won by Freya, who found fifteen treasures with her mate Ash in third place with thirteen.” Willa then called Nazuss forward and handed him a paper with his prizes and sent him back inside the academy. This continued until I was called and given my paper. I read it as I slowly walked back to the academy, knowing Damon would soon follow.

Prize 1. A night with your mate. To redeem, simply hold your finger over the star next to it for ten seconds and it will be activated. Must have sealed the mating bond for this prize to be redeemed. Will only be redeemable until the first school year ends.

Prize 2. Date with your mate at a hot spring. It had the same instructions as the first one, but this lasted the entire stay at the academy. I already knew the first one wouldn’t be worth much when we would room with our mates after the first year ended, but to me it was the best prize so far. The hot spring date sounded lovely as well. It gave us two hours alone by a hot spring that The Magic would transport us to and we would be given a warning bell when we had five minutes left of our time before we would be transported back to our rooms at the academy.

Prize 3. Get a haircut. After redeeming you’ll be transported to a hairdresser who’ll cut and wash your hair to your desire.

Prize 4. One hour massage per form. Get a massage in your human form for one hour and then one hour for your shifted form/forms.

I waited outside the academy walls for Damon to join me. I didn’t want to activate the first prize before I was certain he hadn’t redeemed his. If he’d won one, that was.

It only took around five minutes for Damon to join me, proudly showing off his list so we could compare them. He’d won the exact same as me, so I placed my finger over the first star and watched as the prize disappeared from my paper. Damon smirked as he placed his own finger on the hot spring one and as soon as it disappeared from his paper, we were transported away from the academy.

Chapter 12

Damon and I appeared in a cave with steam billowing around us. The hot spring was right behind us, nestled between a circle of huge rocks with smaller ones in the middle for us to pass getting into the water. There was a sort of stone table in the middle of the spring that held two bottles of something purple and pink and a nice assortment of fruit and nuts.

“Two hours,” I sighed, grabbing Damon from behind and palming his stomach and pecs. “We better make the most of it.”