Page 13 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

“ W hy are you glaring at her like she cut your penis off?” Mara asked Bael. Nix, Mara, Bael, and Ryker sat at the black-top laboratory table in class and worked on the first test of the potion assignment.

Bael had been silently scowling at Nix for an hour of the class. Even when she wasn’t looking at him, one of the variously shaped glass vials and beakers reflected his glare right into her line of vision.

“Did you cut his penis off, Nix?” Mara asked her.

“Regrettably, no,” Nix replied smoothly.

“Damn, if you’d said yes, we would have become instant best friends.”

“There’s still time,” Nix said.

“Mugwort,” Ryker grunted his request.

To hand it to Ryker for his vial, Nix reached for the herb, but Bael reached for it at the same time. When their fingers brushed against each other’s, Bael’s hand sprung back, as if it had touched flame.

His red eyes narrowed on her. In a flash of movement, Bael’s left hand rose, clutching his blade, and slammed the knife down into the tabletop.

Dramatic . “Wow. Really?” Nix asked.

“Don’t touch me,” Bael bit out each word. “Or I cut your pretty little fingers off.”

“Are you mad because you both wasted hours searching the forest for her yesterday after class?” Mara questioned the guys.

Ryker looked away, focusing on following the steps of the potion. He had a talent for ignoring everyone around him. Nix was envious of that.

“Mr. Obsidius,” Professor Bowen said evenly from behind Nix’s stool. “Please refrain from damaging academy property.”

Bael shrugged and wiggled the knife out of the black tabletop. “Not going to try to confiscate my blade?” Bael asked him.

The charming, cocky smile Bael flashed the professor stunned Nix. Maybe because a glare was all she typically saw from the sex demon.

“I value my organs being inside my body too much to try,” Professor Bowen replied in an amused tone. “So, how is your team coming along with the potion?”

“Soon,” Ryker grunted.

Nix found Ryker’s strong, quiet, and grunting personality charming. Much more appealing than Bael’s crazy, possessive, flirty, vengeful, dangerous vibe.

Nix’s lips curled at the edges at the low, booming quality of Ryker’s voice.

He could clearly command a room if he wanted to, but instead he spoke in few-worded sentences and seemed so…

withdrawn. Even though Bael was his friend, Ryker did not light up around him or suddenly turn into a chatty person.

Ryker, hidden in shadows under his oversized hoodie, was the embodiment of the word “guarded.”

“So, what does this potion do, Teach?” Bael asked Professor Bowen.

“A very intellectual question, Mr. Obsidius.”

“I’m more than just a rock-hard set of abs and big dick,” Bael shot back.

Professor Bowen’s lips fought off a smile as he said, “This potion, if done correctly, can be poured onto any paranormal with magical capabilities. If the mixture turns blue upon skin contact, it means that the individual has recently performed magic. It was often used when witches started practicing black magic in the second war with—”

Bael’s head swung to stare at Nix when he asked Professor Bowen, “If we pour the potion onto someone’s skin, it will show whether they have used powers? Like bewitching or enchantments?”

“That’s right.”

Nix rolled her eyes again. No matter how much Bael wanted to believe she had enchanted him, the potion would not turn blue on Nix’s skin.

“How much longer till this thing is done, Ryker?” Bael hurriedly asked his friend. Now he cared about the assignment.

“Soon,” the broad-shouldered man grunted.

Suddenly, Bael was actively involved in helping their team complete the potion. He read the instructions carefully and went back and forth with Ryker as he asked, “Have we done this step yet?” to which Ryker replied each time with a sigh, “Yes.”

“I’ve never seen you… try this much,” Mara told Bael in a voice of pure astonished disbelief.

Bael flipped his middle finger to her in thanks.

“Final step is the heating.” Bael grabbed the vial from Ryker and held it up to Ryker’s mouth. “Blow.”

Nix’s face scrunched in confusion. “Why would he—”

Ryker opened his mouth and blew out a red and orange flame over the bottom of the vial to heat it.

Fire. From his mouth. What other shifter could do that, other than a dragon?

Ryker was a dragon.

Nix fell back on her stool, feeling it tip beneath her. She knew her ass would collide with the hard tile floor, but she had no way of stopping it. “ Oof! ” She landed and stared up at Ryker with a stunned expression.

“You’ve never seen a dragon shifter blow some fire before, Swan Lake?” Bael asked disdainfully.

Dragon.

Nix’s parents were killed by dragon shifters.

Though she did not remember much about the situation surrounding her parents, she remembered the flames. The red and orange flames that covered her mother and father’s skin.

Nix remembered her parents screaming for her to run. And she did run.

She ran until she stumbled across the cygni community, and Elle’s family took her in. The Oadess family raised her for the rest of her childhood and young adulthood. In the swan shifter community, Nix was told plenty of tales about roaming dragon shifters who enjoyed going out for “a bite to eat.”

Nix knew better than anyone how dragon shifters only cared about themselves. They swooped down, took what they wanted, and flew away without any concern for who they had hurt.

Big. Strong. Powerful. Those were the ingredients for malicious villains.

An alpha dragon shifter burned communities to the ground and roasted bystanders for a laugh or a meal.

Dragons were also rare. What if Ryker is related to the dragons who killed my —

Nix rubbed a hand over her face. “I feel sick.”

“Hey, Ugly Fuckling,” a male voice called from the lab table closest to them.

Seated on the floor, Nix looked over her shoulder to see the idiotic Mr. Graeves, who accused her of being a slut on her first day in class.

“We prefer cygnus shifters on their knees, not their ass,” Graeves said as he gripped his crotch to make it obvious what he implied.

This school is full of men who think women can’t get what they want without seducing or manipulating them . So, Nix was either a femme fatale whore or a puppet master bitch?

Nix’s face heated as fast as the vial Ryker had breathed fire onto. “What did you just say to me?” she asked in a tone she found hard to recognize.

Her voice thrashed out like a whip. Nix was not the kind of person to sound so…threatening. So strong.

Graeves blinked at her dark tone but repeated at full volume, “I said that you will find it easier to find a husband if you’re on your knees—”

A familiar switchblade flew through the air and pierced through Graeves’s hand. The hand that gripped the front of his crotch.