Page 19 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)
CHAPTER
A s soon as Professor Matten walked away to join the other students, Nix glared at Ryker.
Why? he wondered. He had done nothing. Said nothing.
Yet, she glared at him like she found his existence disgusting.
Ryker bit his inner cheek and took a deep breath. “Should start with—”
“No, thank you.”
Ryker lifted his arm to rub the back of his neck, not sure what to do next. Ryker did not have much experience in talking to women, let alone training a female one-on-one. Female dragons were near extinction, after all. And his mother had been taken from him at a young age.
“Did you just flex at me?” Nix, the woman Ryker had been thinking about for the last twenty-four hours, asked in an accusatory tone.
“No,” Ryker grunted.
Well, he had not meant to flex at her. He guessed he did unconsciously flex just by moving his thick, muscled arms—
“I don’t know what kind of game you are playing here,” Nix said. “But I am not going to roll over because your arms have lickable veins and your dick is hugely noticeable through your shorts.”
Stunned, Ryker did not know what to say, but what was new there? He was not a talker.
Dragons could communicate telepathically with each other. Growing up, he had never needed to talk aloud about what he wanted, how he felt, anything.
But I wish I knew how to talk to her , he thought. She was clearly scared of him. And angry at him. Ever since Bael told her Ryker was a dragon, Ryker saw how on edge she was around him. She watched him closely, with suspicion and disdain. It bothered him.
“I know what you are,” she snarled at him.
Ryker bowed his head and nodded.
“Your kind are violent and vicious and evil. No wonder you can survive flames—you were meant for Hell just like your buddy.”
Ryker blew out a sharp breath as her words sucker-punched him in the gut. “You don’t…know me,” he said slowly.
“I don’t need to.” Nix’s eyes watered, and Ryker felt his heart squeeze in his chest at the idea of her rising tears. “We aren’t going to become friends. Or teacher and student. I will never accept help from a dragon.”
Utterly confused, Ryker asked, “ Why? ”
“Because I have no interest in learning how to be strong from the creature that will later hunt me for sport.” Nix crossed her arms over her chest. “You could specifically teach me things to leave me more vulnerable to your future attacks.”
“Attack,” Ryker repeated, baffled. She thought he would hurt her?
Never hurt her , his inner instinct growled.
“Dragons are the reason I will never see my parents again,” she said. “Unless seeing ashes blown by the wind counts.”
Ryker exhaled. Shit . Nix’s parents had been killed by dragons? That…made no sense. “Dragons don’t attack—”
“I saw the flames. I heard the screaming as they told me to run. It’s a miracle I survived.
” Nix stepped closer to Ryker, her fear seeming to subside as her anger rose.
She pointed a finger at his chest. “My parents would be rolling over in their graves if they knew a dragon shifter was teaching me to fight. What is this to you, anyway? Do you like playing with your food?”
Was she now referring to herself as food to him? He was having trouble keeping up with all of her statements.
No one had ever chatted with Ryker so frankly before. Everyone always spoke around him like they lightly stepped over broken glass. They were all scared of his infamous fire—capable of killing an immortal.
“I’m here to help,” Ryker mumbled.
“You can act all calm and collected now, but cygnus shifters know the truth. It’s why they will never try to take a dragon as a husband, no matter if we have no one else to go to for protection.
If I train with you, how do I know you won’t be overrun with bloodlust and snap my neck when you are trying to—”
Ryker gnashed his teeth at her and grabbed her by her shoulders. “Stop. Talking.”
They will never try to take a dragon as a husband , she had said. As if he needed another reminder of his species being ostracized and cursed into future loneliness.
None of his family members knew where the baseless assumption of dragon shifters being needlessly violent and dangerous came from in the paranormal community. It had arisen over the last century. The hateful rumors had cost Ryker’s family…much.
And “ blood lust? ” She really thought he was so mindless and violent?
Granted, he was dominantly gripping her shoulders, but he hoped she would listen to his words better if he held her. He pushed back his desire to shake the judgmental thoughts right out of her.
She pressed her lips together in a thin line but kept the scowl on her face. Her shoulders were warm and delicate under his fingertips.
Taking his time with each word, sounding it out in his head first, he said, “You judge my kind on a stereotype but fight others for doing the same to you.”
Nix blinked at his words as they came out in a low rumble from deep in his chest.
For a moment, she appeared to soak in his words. Then, she coughed and hostilely exclaimed, “You smell like blown-out birthday candles.”
What was Ryker supposed to say to that?
“Let me go,” she added, and he followed her instruction immediately.
She appeared surprised at how willingly he obeyed her request.
So, she thought all dragons were violent meatheads who raged and ravaged and pillaged—just like the stereotype Ryker fucking hated. Just like the propaganda that had destroyed his family.
“I am not learning anything from you,” Nix declared, glanced down, blushed, and ran off, leaving combat class early.
She left Ryker wondering why she had looked right at his crotch, bitten her lip, and blushed a rosy pink before running away.
Damn it , Nix thought to herself when she was back, safe at her dorm. Was she supposed to drop out of combat class just because a dragon was assigned to teach her? This was not going according to her plan.
She needed to learn to fight. She needed to get stronger.
It’s the only way to change my fate . Yet, the combat instructor just wanted to make Nix run laps and do crunches.
I need to learn how to punch without breaking my hand .
She needed to learn how to escape a man who was taller and stronger than her.
She threw herself onto her tiny bed.
“Ow,” she said into the pillow and rolled over to look at what hard object had pressed into her ribcage.
A very familiar cylinder vial sat on her bed; a pink note sat beside it.
“ I got asked on a hot date tonight! Sorry we didn’t get to chat. Here you go .” Elle had signed the card with little hearts.
Nix had never really thought about how odd it was that Elle had a key to Nix’s dorm room. She did not remember giving Elle a key but maybe she had. In her past life, she would have done anything for Elle.
But then I spent four years in a cage, locked away from society, and wondered where my best friend had gone . Wondered if Elle even cared where Nix had disappeared to.
Nix picked up the vial of liquid and stared at it. It looked normal to her.
She tapped a fingernail over the cork. She had taken the elixir for over ten years, never missing a dose, and for what? To avoid being bullied for not looking like a cygnus shifter?
I am not a cygnus shifter . Even if she did not know what she was, she knew that.
Who cares if I look like a blonde? Who cared if Nix experienced some bullying? She already went through “Ugly Fuckling” bullying. It is nothing compared to what I went through in my cage.
She popped open the top of the elixir vial and lifted it to her lips. She instantly recoiled.
Without thinking, she flung the vial out of her fingers, and it hit the wall, shattering and oozing onto the floor. There, it sizzled over the carpet and perfumed her room with a hauntingly familiar smell.
That scent .
Nix would have never recognized it in her youth. But after years of being injected with high-potency doses of it, in her cage, by her captor…
Poison. A rare kind of poison that weakened the shifter who ingested it.
Nix shivered uncontrollably and clutched herself in fear. Her mind sprang back to the horrific memories. The smell of her blood. Her burning flesh. When her body was unable to move after the large doses her captor gave her.
Why the hell did the illusion potion Elle’s family gave her have that same shifter-weakening poison in it?
It was a very small dose, but Nix would recognize that smell anywhere after everything she had gone through.
Springing to her feet, she ran to her potions textbook and skimmed the table of contents to try to find a specific recipe.
If she had been exposed to the poison all this time… Was this one a bad batch, or had the horrible ingredient always been in her illusion elixir? Was that the reason she had felt so weak and fatigued in her past years at the academy? She did not know what to trust.
What she did know was that she needed to get any traces of the illusion elixir the hell out of her system.
No wonder I’m weak.
No wonder I can hardly jog without losing my breath and keeling over.
She had been ingesting traces of poison…for years.
Professor Bowen was right. A nefarious ingredient, indeed.
But did Elle’s family know? And if they did, if they had added the poison…
Why? Were they linked to her future captor, who had buckets of the stuff?
If so… If Nix’s adoptive family for the last ten years was involved somehow or linked to Nix’s future capture and torture, then Nix would destroy them.