Page 20 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

I n complete darkness other than the blanket of moonlight, wandering around the woods at night was maybe not so smart. But that’s why Nix had a flashlight.

Sneaking out of her dorm building, Nix was on a mission. She had found a chapter on reversal potions in her class textbook, and she would not sleep until she found all of the ingredients and made and drank the potion.

After years of being kept weak by that fragrant poison, given to her by her future captor, Nix could not close her eyes and relax until she knew she did everything she could to reverse any of it that was in her system now.

“ Weak little birdie, could never break from her cage ,” he would sing.

A reversal potion required several herbs found in the woods, on the outskirts of the academy campus.

Agrimonia, pondweed, honey (for taste), rosemary, a tear of a virgin, and a very rare purple flower called hyssop.

Tear of a virgin would be easy—thinking about losing her mate, Persius, or how her adoptive family had been secretly poisoning her for so many years would trigger her never-had-sex tear ducts. Finding honey would also be easy; she kept some in her room for hot tea.

So: agrimonia, pondweed, rosemary, and hyssop. Due to her previous potions class, she knew where she could find plenty of agrimonia and rosemary. Pondweed, she hoped, would be close to a pond that was about one mile into the dark forest. But hyssop…

She had never seen hyssop in real life. It required sunny areas, and most shifters lived in secluded, wooded areas with plenty of shade to avoid human interaction as much as possible.

She took a deep breath and quietly snuck by the main academy building, approaching the woods. In her previous life, she had never done anything like this. Broken rules, curfew, etc.

I need that reversal potion. I won’t sleep until I have it.

Just as she stepped in front of the line of trees on the outskirts of campus, a harsh gust of wind flung against her back, and she stumbled forward.

“What do you think you are doing, Miss Oadess?”

Ah. A familiarly stuck-up, displeased masculine voice.

History professor étienne Thierry stood behind her. Behind his studious glasses, his silvery, slate-colored eyes penetrated her back like a fishhook, preventing any chance of her escape.

“Professor!” she greeted him—very friendly, very not suspicious. Turning to face him, she faked a smile. “I was just going for a walk. Couldn’t sleep—”

“You were headed into the forest.”

“I like to walk amongst trees,” she fibbed.

“Swan shifters don’t hike.”

Ugh . Another assumption. “Actually, I enjoy a good nightly workout. So, I guess you don’t know everything, huh?” Nix could not control the edge of annoyance in her tone. “Maybe making generalizations about an entire species is as foolish and dense as it is ignorant.”

Thierry’s jaw clicked as he continued intensely staring at her. His was the kind of gaze that made her feel naked. A consuming, fervent focus on every inch of her. Each rise and fall of her chest with breath felt under scrutiny. A heated perusal.

She even glanced down to double-check that she wore clothes. Okay, so… She was wearing a flimsy silk nightgown.

She had thought to grab a flashlight. She had just not thought to worry about what she looked like. She assumed no one would notice her—like in her first life. A wallflower who faded into the background.

Maybe a pink silk nightgown camouflaging in the dark forest was wishful thinking.

“You went for a walk in that?” he asked. Though his eyes remained locked onto her face, she felt a sweep of warmth sink down her frame.

“Are you the fashion police?” she asked. “What are you doing out here? Dressed like that?” She shot back at him.

He did not wear the typical high-end tweed suits she saw him wear to class. This was a fitted, sleek, dark ensemble, like a sexy bank robber. Black pants encased his strong thighs. A dark cotton shirt appeared painted over him.

What was it with the sexy men at the academy not getting two sizes bigger, so their shirts did not show off their abs underneath?

“I do not need to explain myself to a student,” he stated.

“Did you swoop down like that from the main building? Are you cosplaying as the mortals’ bat vigilante man?”

Thierry scowled at her.

“Right, well, I’ll be on my way—”

“Students are not supposed to be out past midnight,” the professor said. “Who are you sneaking out to meet?”

Nix sighed, deeply disappointed in her professor. “Are you serious?” Again, with the assumption that because she was a swan shifter, she was out chasing dick twenty-four-seven?

“Is it Obsidius?”

Bael? Nix quirked an eyebrow.

étienne Thierry’s bottom lip quirked down in displeasure as he added, “You two flirted rather carelessly in my class.”

Oh? Nix placed a hand to her sternum. “That’s funny, because I seem to remember I was trying to focus on the class while one of your male students was distracting me .

And, instead of addressing the problem of these alpha males thinking they are owed female attention, you labeled me as the distraction.

You kicked me out of a class I wanted to be in. ”

Thierry’s smug lips thinned into a line. His mesmerizing, silvery-gray eyes shone under the moonlight as he tilted his head and looked at her with something new in his expression.

“You really did not wish for the incubus’s attention?” he asked.

“ No . I wanted to listen to your observations about chapters ten through fifteen on Nephelium, angels, griffins, and sphinxes, and their ties to human religions.”

That surprised him. Thierry’s lips separated on a choppy inhale as he pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.

“You…read the chapters?” he asked in a low murmur, as if he wished she wouldn’t hear him because he didn’t want to know her answer.

“I read the whole freaking textbook in two days,” she replied. “I mean, I skimmed chapters one through five because all the overview was a little dry, but the rest of it was fascinating. Is it true sphinxes kill anyone who cannot solve their riddles?”

His broad chest moved up and down with deep breaths as he asked huskily, “You read the entire book? In two days?”

“Does that blow your swan-shifters-are-airheaded-husband-hunters mind? Yes, I read it that quickly. It’s funny how those who are kept in ignorance—with no knowledge of what they are or the creatures around them—are so starved for information that they will dedicate vital sleep hours to learning.

Meanwhile, those who are born to an advantage and power—who were raised to know things about the world—waste the class by passing notes and not doing the homework. Funny.”

Thierry gaped at her. His perfect cheekbones seemed ready to pop out of place from how shocked his expression appeared.

“Now,” Nix continued. “If you’ll excuse me, I do want to hike the forest to try to calm my ever-running mind. So much to think about from the full semester’s worth of homework reading I finished. Something about so much knowledge causes sleepless nights, wouldn’t you say?” she asked him.

Nix knew it was true of her knowledge of six years into the future. Sleeping was…not easy. Hence, why she had read the textbook so quickly as well.

She added, “I’m hoping a little exercise will tire me out enough to fall asleep. After all, the last few chapters on rare creatures were riveting.”

She spun around and strode into the forest, leaving a stunned étienne Thierry behind her.

Agrimonia, pondweed, rosemary, and hyssop .

After exactly two minutes into her hike through the woods, to get to the body of water where three out of the four ingredients grew, a loud crunch of a tree branch stalled her.

Professor Thierry had followed.

“Are you planning to follow me to ensure I’m not sneaking out to hook up with an unsuspecting, impressionable, well-off—”

“You cannot hike in a nightgown,” he told her in a scandalized voice.

She bunched the fabric’s bottom hem into her hand, pulling it to hit her mid-thigh. “Would you rather I take it off?”

“ What? ” Thierry rasped deeply.

Whoops . Had she just accidentally flirted with her gargoyle professor?

She dropped the hem, not sure what had come over her to flash him more leg. Her calves and knees were already exposed in the nightgown and prickled with awareness under the sexy professor’s gaze.

“I am not going back inside until I’ve had my hike,” she said. “Now, leave me be. Shoo, shoo.”

He stepped closer to her, casting her in part of his shadow. The movement caused his delicious scent to float over and caress her face. “Did you just shoo me?”

Damn. He really did smell like chocolate-covered cherries and leatherbound books. A tempting, decadent, and cozy day in a library.

“I cannot allow a student to walk alone through the woods,” he said sternly. The tick of his jaw implied he would not back down.

“That’s unnecessary,” she replied. “I am fine to walk alone.”

“You could be attacked.”

“By a tree branch?”

Professor Thierry crossed his arms and told her, “I mean this with no offense, but your species is not known for healing abilities. If you were to trip over the forest ground, you could snap your own neck.”

Something about that pissed Nix off.

It wasn’t his words or even his you-are-delicate tone. Maybe it was the reminder of how helpless everyone thought she was. How weak and fragile her captor kept her.

Maybe it was the last straw of what her brain could take for the night. Her limbs screamed for their nightly rest; yet, still, she pushed.

With a murderous expression, Nix eliminated the space between them. She had never glided through the air, but she was just suddenly only an inch from his face.

He flinched back. Did he think she might throttle him?

She bit out a reply, spouting out each word like they were darts aimed for his face. “I am not some fragile object. And even if I am, who are you to care if I break?”

“As a professor, I am legally obligated to care.”

“Yet, you have been nothing but rude to me since I first started your class.”

Damn it . His sweet, sophisticated scent infiltrated her. How was it possible to be so attracted to someone and be so disappointed and enraged by how he treated you?

“Rude?” he echoed. His breath puffed onto her face like an airborne aphrodisiac.

“Real assholery behavior.” She inhaled another wave of his warm, smoky, and spicy, sweet chocolate pheromones.

She hoped her hardening nipples, rising under her thin nightgown, were not noticeable in the dark.

“No one has ever accused me of ‘assholery,’” he said.

“Glad I could be your first honest acquaintance.”

He chuckled sinisterly. “Honest? You think I don’t know why you are really in these woods? Did you know I come out here every night? Did you wear the silk to ensure I would follow you?”

She scoffed. “Professor, let me teach you something: just because some female students only take your class to try to seduce you, not every woman wants you.”

With flaring eyes, he asked in a daring and accusatory tone, “Oh, you don’t want me?”