Page 2 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

N ix had no explanation for it. She wondered “ why ,” but Nix did not care to question it.

I’m free . I’m…back. Back to six years earlier.

Whether it was all a fever dream from being bled out too much by her captor or an actual fated gift of a second chance at life, Nix was back to being twenty, six years before her eventual death—murder.

Less than two years before her capture and torture and… She shivered and looked down at her arms and legs again. No marks .

Could she really start over? Knowing what she knew about her future, could she try to change it?

What if I make it so that I never get taken? Never get caged.

There were several defining moments in her past that could have led to her twisted, horrible future. I will change it , she thought.

“So, the nudity thing. Was that your first attempt to get my brother to see you as a ‘woman’ and not just his little sister’s best friend?” Elle asked after following Nix back to her room.

Elle watched as Nix ransacked the closet for something to wear.

“Are you actually planning to do something about your crush this year?” Elle asked.

Crush . An innocent and childish crush. It had been so long since any sensation other than pain existed in Nix’s emotional catalogue. To like a boy felt so…odd now.

Elle added, “Because I’ve told you many times that I think you and my brother would be such a cute couple.”

Elle’s brother Adar had always been Nix’s dream crush. But Nix had never been brave enough to ask him out or say much more to him than a few rushed-out words while staring at his shoes instead of his enchanting, bright blue eyes.

Brave .

In Nix’s youth, she had never been brave. She was a fade-into-the-corner wallflower. A pretty, used doormat with dirt-covered flowers. She allowed others to walk over her. She politely smiled at people who sneered at her.

Nix was exactly the type who ended up taken advantage of—and eventually kidnapped off the streets and caged by a madman who performed torturous experiments on her.

In this second chance at life, Nix would be brave.

“Imagine, if you ended up with my brother, we could be real sisters,” Elle said dreamily.

Sisters . At that point in life, Nix had already seen Elle as her sister. Inseparable best friends for over ten years. Nix had always felt supernaturally connected to Elle.

“So, where were you?” Nix viciously snapped under her breath, accidentally asking it out loud.

Where were you when I was caged and kept inside for years? Tortured. Used. Irrevocably lonely.

Had Elle even tried to locate her? After Elle was married off at graduation, had she even cared about where her best friend had gone?

Elle’s usual bright and beautiful smile twitched into a confused frown. “What?”

“N-Nothing,” Nix quickly said, trying to brush off the tense rage and hurt buzzing beneath her skin. Nix had been left, forgotten. Not this time .

Brave .

This time around, Nix would not passively sit in the shadows and accept her future mistreatment. She would become stronger—until no metal cage could hold her. She would make more connections—so someone would go out looking for her if she suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.

I have almost two more years at the academy to change my fate .

“Being real sisters would be…nice,” Nix said, trying to erase the awkward “ where were you ” comment from the conversation.

But where had Elle been? Had there been search parties for Nix? The Oadess family, her adoptive family, were moguls of the shifter community. They had enough money to buy power and influence.

And they never found her. Never saved her.

In the end, I died all alone.

Elle blinked but went back to smiling at Nix. “No one would mess with you if we were real sisters.”

“Mess with me…” Nix blinked.

Right. She had forgotten the bullying. Years of actual torture easily erased some harsh words or pranks Nix went through in her young adulthood at the academy.

What was it that her classmates used to call her? Oh yeah, “ Ugly Duckling .” No…something a little harsher. Ugly Fuckling.

Elle, just like her family and the rest of the herd where they lived, was a swan shifter—a special avian shapeshifter with unique siren-like abilities to enchant others and control water.

Meanwhile, Nix came from the forest on the outskirts of the clan’s land. She had wandered in as a young child, having lost her parents without the traumatizing memory of how .

Alone. Scared. Powerless.

Elle and her family had taken Nix in, fed her, and cared for her. But Nix stood out like a sore wing. Where all swan shifters were unfairly beautiful blondes, Nix was, well, something else. Something unknown . An unusual paranormal energy unrevealed.

Elle’s parents found Nix a special potion to alter Nix’s physical attributes, so she would better fit in with the swan shifters. Nix had taken that potion once a week, every week, since childhood—until she was captured.

Kept shackled in a cage without the potion, Nix’s natural appearance returned. Her hair had turned to a fiery red shade. Her skin had tanned, growing darker than the pearly cream color of typical swan shifters.

From another quick glance in the mirror, in the present, Nix saw just how different the potion made her look from the natural appearance she had gotten used to over the last few years of captivity.

The glamour of fake blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and pointed features felt…wrong now.

Her face was…different.

Why wouldn’t the illusion they gave her just alter her hair color to help her fit in with the swan shifters? Why did it change her face so much?

“You are still not packed for the academy?” Elle exasperated, tearing Nix from her thoughts. “Nix, we move back into the dorms tomorrow.”

So soon. Nix inhaled. Good.

“I can’t believe we’re going to be betrothed in less than two years.” Elle danced around Nix’s tiny room excitedly.

“ You will be,” Nix muttered under her breath.

Unlike other winged predator shifters who attended Alatus Academy—dragon shifters, incubi, Nephilim, fae, gargoyles, griffins, and more—many of the females were born as prey shifters.

As prey shifters, they were enrolled in different classes than their stronger and more powerful peers. The swan shifters, also known as cygni , attended the academy for one purpose: to find powerful mates. In their twisted world, those without supernatural physical strength needed protectors.

Elle, one of the most beautiful and eligible female cygnus students at the academy, was expected to mate and marry very well off—like to a royal griffin shifter or rich fae.

Nix, on the other hand, knew who Nix was destined to end up with. Nix knew the evil man who plucked her away the day before graduation and treated her like a pet. No, like a lab rat.

This time around, she would become strong enough to kill the man who killed her six years in the future, before he even knew she existed.

This life will be different .

“Oh, come on, you will find someone too! Adar or not,” Elle reassured her. “You will find an alpha who will protect you and keep you safe.”

“Fuck the alphas,” Nix snapped, shocking Elle again. The past Nix did not curse or raise her voice, and the past Nix certainly would have never said anything disrespectful about the alphas.

Because I used to believe all of it , Nix thought.

She used to praise the alphas like the others, begging for their attention like a human girl at a boy band concert. Serve them, and they will protect you . That was what all the women were taught.

In her past, Nix, though she was constantly bullied as the “ugly duckling” of the school, had tried so hard to solidify a match with an alpha by graduation.

No match meant no protection outside of the academy, in a world where female prey shifters were hunted for sport or randomly disappeared off the streets to be kept or sold as pleasure pets.

Nix had disappeared. And when she was tortured in her cage for years, she did not regret her inability to find an alpha protector.

She regretted not being her own protector.

“Did you just say…” Elle whispered as if the alphas could hear their conversation, though they were far from the academy walls.

The females were taught to cater to the alphas, stroke their egos, and look good for the males. Nix had never been taught self-defense or survival skills or anything remotely important to the dark future she now knew awaited her.

Fuck the alphas . If the strong fae and winged shifters only wanted to protect those they wanted to sleep with, then Nix did not need their twisted, manipulative, I’ll scratch your back if you massage mine negotiated “protection.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Elle asked cautiously.

“Never been better,” Nix replied.

Fuck the alphas . This time, she would learn to protect herself.