Page 16 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

H er back pressed to the wall as a tall, muscular male body caged her there. He moved his hands from her hips and flattened them on either side of her head against the wall.

“Who is bespelling you?” Bael asked her. “What is the spell?”

“Can you not just leave me alone? You got the answer you wanted.”

Bael’s red eyes flared with emotion. Which emotion, Nix was not sure. “Did I?” he asked.

Nix raised her hands to her hair, wrapped the damp strands around her fist, and squeezed what was left of the potion out. It dripped to the floor between them.

Bael almost had the emotional intelligence to appear guilty. “Did it truly hurt you?” he asked in a low, genuine voice that wrapped around her throat like a warm, dominating scarf.

She coughed and choked on an inhale of his titillating woodsy scent. “What, you think I faked it for attention?” she shot back.

He slammed his hand to the wall so hard that it cracked beside her head. “Tell. The. Truth,” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said. “It stung. Does that make you happy?”

“Fuck no, it does not,” he replied angrily.

“Will you let me go now? I need to head to my next class.”

It would be embarrassing to arrive late to Professor Thierry’s class when he watched her leave to walk there. Maybe he would assume she tripped on her way and ended up sucking some alpha’s dick in the hallway for a promise of a date to the next school dance.

“Where is your mate?” Bael asked, leaning closer so his distracting lips hovered over hers. “Or was that a lie?”

His breath blew more of his mesmerizing scent onto her face. “Because I’ve never seen a fated mate able to not be around his woman every second of the day. Is he in your other classes? Where is he now to carry your books?”

“I can carry them myself.”

Bael scoffed, his lips nearly brushing her cheek due to how damn close he leaned over her. “You’re a brittle, little swan shifter. A thick textbook could break your wrist.”

“ So soft and tender. So delicate. My little birdie ,” her captor used to coo to her as he happily watched her bleed.

“I am not brittle,” she growled back at him. “Or weak.”

Bael quirked a dark eyebrow and gazed at her with amusement. “You look like you want to bite me.”

“I do .” Bite, choke, throttle. All of the above.

“So much fire for a swan.” Bael marveled and tipped his chin down. He dragged his plush, soft lips over her cheek, right beside her mouth. “Make it make sense.”

She shoved at him, and he stepped back, allowing her space, because the gods knew she wasn’t strong enough to actually push him away if he did not want her to do so. That pissed her off.

Strength training. I’ll start doing push-ups each night or something , she decided.

She scuttled in the direction of her history class, but Bael followed her, easily matching her rushed pace.

“Look,” Bael said as he walked beside her. “That potion seems to suggest you’re not enchanting me.”

Nix overdramatically gasped. “It’s almost like I’ve been telling the truth the entire time.”

Bael rolled his hypnotic red eyes. This time, the ever-present anger was gone, leaving only amusement when he looked at her. “So, if this isn’t an enchantment…it means that for some reason my dick likes you.”

Nix stumbled over her own feet and coughed. “Wow.”

“What?” He sped up and turned, so he could walk backwards in front of her and watch her face. “Would you rather I lie and say I’m interested in your personality?”

“Didn’t you say last night that you wished it was just physical attraction, but that you were fascinated by me?”

He smirked, but this time his eyes felt warm on her. An unfamiliar pleasant warmth. “You must have dreamed that.”

“Hmph.” Nix stopped in front of her classroom. “Well, bye now.”

Bael snickered as he peered inside the doorway. “Interesting.”

She did not ask what he found interesting. Instead, she walked right inside, grateful to see Professor Thierry was not yet back from speaking with Professor Bowen. The class bell was sure to ring soon.

Nix waved to Mara and sank down into the seat beside her.

A wall of heat sat on Nix’s other side.

Nix turned to Bael, who leisurely leaned back and stretched his legs out under the desk beside Nix. She told him, “You’re not in this class.”

Bael’s lips lifted at the edges, and Nix’s heart jumped. She cursed her body for such a strong reaction to the smallest hint of a smile from him.

He replied smoothly, “Actually, I am.”

Nix sputtered. He was in this class with her, too? “You weren’t here yesterday.”

“I was predisposed in the forest.”

Right. Searching for her. A confusing detail that wrongfully suggested the sex demon could care about anyone other than himself.

Nix sank lower in her seat as she muttered sarcastically, “Great.”

“Hey, look at me,” Bael requested softly in a voice of pure temptation.

The second Nix’s eyes connected with his, the classroom blurred around her.

“I’m going to enjoy teasing you in this class,” Bael said as he stood from his desk and moved to stand in front of her.

His tall height cast her in shadow as his right hand moved to clasp her throat. He did not squeeze, but the collar of his fingers was dominating and firm. He pulled her up, so she was partially standing under the wooden desk.

He brushed his lips over her chin, and she gasped. The feeling of his skin against hers left her breathless and annoyingly needy.

His alpha scent and pheromones overwhelmed her nostrils as he flicked his serpent tongue from the bottom of her chin, up the side of her face.

She gasped again and trembled as his hot saliva tingled on her flesh.

“Did you know an incubus’s saliva is like an aphrodisiac?” he cooed to her.

Damn it . She did not know. She hardly knew anything about the different winged creatures at the academy, which was the reason why she took this history class.

Her nipples tightened into sensitive peaks behind her blazer, and she clenched her thighs together as a pulsing began between them.

“You look warm,” Bael told her.

She felt so warm. He was so warm.

So…hot.

“Let’s get this blazer off of you,” Bael offered and ripped the front button from her blazer. He swept the suit jacket fabric down her arms and left her in nothing but her white silk under-blouse.

Bael’s smile was as powerful as an injection of undiluted lust to Nix’s neck. “Ahh, there they are,” he purred. His eyes lovingly skimmed over where her pink nipples pebbled under the thin top. “I’ve missed them. My tongue, especially.”

Leaning down closer, he opened his mouth, and his tongue slithered out. It lengthened, longer and longer, until it dragged the forked edge over where her hard nipples showed through her blouse.

She exhaled sharply as the tongue flicked and swirled around her nipples.

“Your pupils are dilating. I can scent your arousal in the air,” Bael told her.

Suddenly, she was out of her desk chair and pinned over the desk, her ass facing Bael’s front.

Nix looked to Mara at the desk beside her, but she was blurry. What was this? A vision? It felt so real.

Bael had Nix’s torso pressed to the desk as her legs stood, separated on the ground. He flipped her uniform skirt up an inch and teased his fingers over the flesh just below the curve of her ass.

“Now that I know you’re not manipulating me with your swan enchantments, I think I’d like to get to know you better.”

He fell to his knees, reached under her skirt, and ripped her panties down her legs.

“Oh my Gods ,” Nix choked out as his tongue shot out and slapped at her pussy.

“I’ve never wanted to give sssomeone ssso many tongue lashingsss,” he lisped around his serpent tongue as it slid between her pussy lips and rubbed over her clit.

“ Oh…my… ” Nix’s brain broke—she swore she heard it click off—as he lapped over her clit. Wetness gushed at her entrance, which he knew immediately because it happened against his tongue.

“I am going to have you, Swan Lake,” Bael rasped. “You know that, right? I don’t care if you have a mate, I will take you from him.”

His tongue spun around over her clit with such vibrating force that her hands gripped the edge of the desk to keep herself from mindlessly slipping off as her hips bucked for more. More. MORE .

The scene faded.

And Nix was back to sitting at her desk like normal, between Bael and Mara.

A book was held by long masculine fingers, right in front of Nix’s face.

Professor étienne Thierry scolded her, “ Never look an incubus in the eyes,” in an obvious tone of “ you stupid girl .”