Read Online Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1) by Jen Rasmussen - Free Book Online Page B

well then, what do you already know?” Stefan asked.
    “Nothing,” said Thea, and ignored the snickers of Philip and his friends. “I just got hired yesterday. I only know a little about what the company does. They gave me a month to pass training.”
    Stefan burst out laughing. Thea kept her face neutral as he explained to her, with great relish, that the average student took three months, and the exceptional ones, two. And that was for people who were born to it. He didn’t know how long the last human transformation had taken, but he was willing to wager it was a lot more time than Thea had.
    “And they didn’t even go over the basics of the transformation process with you?” he asked.
    “No.”
    He narrowed his eyes again, down to slits that made him look reptilian. “Yet you accepted the job anyway, without knowing what you were in for? I wonder why you wanted to join the colony so badly?”
    “Probably because nobody in her own world had a job opening for a slut,” said Philip.
    His friend—the male one—laughed. “Nah, always room for sluts.”
    For once, Thea didn’t resent the teasing; she was glad they’d deflected attention from Stefan’s question.
    “Well, you’ll want to take notes, because I’m only going to say this once, and quickly,” Stefan said. “We won’t be wasting our time in here with things the others learned before they were ten. The transformation happens in three stages. The mental, physical, and spiritual components of each phase are aligned, so that as you master the concepts of each, a corresponding physical change will happen. In your case, your skin will also change, and that will happen gradually throughout the process. The scope of stage one is virtues and claws, and we’re beginning it immediately.”
    Thea was scribbling in her notebook as he finished, and spoke without looking up. “So none of these guys have claws yet either?”
    “No, nor wings, as you can see,” Stefan said. “Their blood is already purple, unlike yours, but it thickens when they complete stage two.”
    Without waiting for more questions, Stefan turned to the white board behind him. “Virtues,” he said as he wrote the word, then underlined it, “are the easiest characteristics to identify in humans. They don’t try to hide them, you see? But that doesn’t mean working with them is without subtlety. Sometimes it’s possible to confuse a virtue for a vice, or vice versa. Who can give me an example?”
    The others looked blank, but Thea raised her hand.
    Stefan rolled his eyes. “This isn’t school, Thea, it’s training. We’re all civilized adults here. I’m sure we can be trusted not to talk over one another without having to enforce hand raising.”
    She ignored the needling in favor of answering the question. “I once saw shame and confused it for the sin the person was ashamed of,” she said. “But Graves tells me what I was actually seeing was a virtue.”
    “Ah, so good of Graves to answer the question, then.”
    The other female student, a tiny, dark-haired thing with a pixie cut and several tattoos on her purple skin, tittered.
    “Yes, contrition is a virtue,” Stefan went on. “Of course, atonement is better, but humans rarely make it that far.”
    Thea spoke quickly, before she could stop herself. “You seem to have an awful lot of contempt for humans. Isn’t that kind of unfair?”
    Stefan smiled at the other three students. “I’m sure we don’t think it is. How so?”
    “Well, I’ve heard some of you say you’re third generation, or something like that. Which would suggest you weren’t always furies. Everyone here comes from a human transformation somewhere along the line, right?”
    “As I said, this is training, not school,” said Stefan. “If you need answers to such basic questions, see me after class and I’ll direct you to some of our elementary schoolbooks.”
    His nastiness was having its desired effect, but Thea would never let him see it.