Page 22 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

“ U nderneath those studly glasses, you’re secretly dumb, huh?” she asked the alluring professor.

étienne Thierry blinked his gorgeous slate-silver eyes at her. Stunned again.

“Cygnus shifters, or any shifter of the prey variety, need to marry an alpha or strong shifter for protection ,” she said. “Those in power in our world are not protecting us.”

She continued, unable to stop, “They are creating a world where we need to tie ourselves to someone—who may not be our fated mate—because we risk being taken in the night, off the streets. We are taught at too young an age to never walk around alone.”

Nix told him, “Out in the real world, prey shifters go missing after they graduate. Taken as pets or unwilling wives or sold to the most twisted of paranormals. Do you think I wanted to try to find a husband or risk a torturous end once I was freed from the protective academy walls? You think freedom from the tradition of being married young was worth being captured and abused by someone stronger than me?”

Nix stopped her rant when she noticed Professor Thierry’s expression change into scrunched curiosity at her use of past tense. Hopefully, he just thought she was being dramatic for the sake of painting a picture.

“You said my life doesn’t depend on love—it doesn’t,” she said, looking to the ground as she spoke what she wished was not the truth. “I don’t have the luxury of love . My need to look for a husband means our society has made it impossible to feel safe without one.”

Nix swallowed and allowed her gaze to lift to his magnificent face, lit by moonlight, which cast a silvery sheen over his skin. “Maybe we both die without love, professor.”

His jaw ticked as his gaze pierced through her. “You feel pressured to marry? For protection?”

Nix no longer bought into the societal pressure from the other cygni to marry at graduation for safety. Nix wanted to create her own safety.

The alphas never protected me in my past life. Why would I want to be with one?

“Maybe you should take your nose out of history books for a second and look at the state of the world around you.” Nix blew out a breath, bent down, and ripped the side seam of the bottom of her nightgown.

That way, she could move faster. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have more important things to do tonight. ”

“You didn’t sleep last night,” Bael informed a very tired Nix as she slumped in her seat in potions class.

She had not slept. She had wandered around the woods last night looking for ingredients for the reversal potion she found in her textbook.

As the sun broke through the clouds of dawn, she did her best to create the potion. She then drank it this morning only to have her skin darken to a tanner hue and her hair become a mix of platinum and red streaks—making it look like a botched pink hair dye experiment.

“Up all night getting fucked by your mate?” Bael asked, wondering why she had not slept and why he could not infiltrate her dreams.

Nix sighed. One good thing came from last night , she thought. Limiting the sex demon’s presence in her subconscious sounded like a smart goal.

“No, I guess not,” Bael commented, leaning his torso over the lab tabletop to sniff around her. “I still smell the sexual frustration on you from yesterday. In fact, it’s even stronger today.”

“Stop smelling me,” she muttered sleepily.

“If you fall asleep in class, I can dream-fuck you, if you want.”

Nix slapped her cheek. Must stay awake .

“What’s up with the pink hair and tan?” Bael asked her another question.

Exhausted, Nix rubbed her eyes to try to stay awake. Even though she had not slept, she felt…better.

The reversal potion may have been made by a mediocre amateur, but she felt more aware of her surroundings. Like a bit of fog had lifted from her.

I need to ask Professor Bowen how many times I can take a reversal potion without hurting myself .

If remnants of the cygnus shifter appearance still clung to her, Nix wondered how much of the poison could still be in her system.

Her brain kept thinking one word again and again.

Years. Years . She had been taking it for years.

What did that mean for her future?

She knew better than anyone that the poison could suck every bit of strength from a powerful paranormal’s bones. Forget about building muscle—after ingesting doses of that poison, she was surprised she was able to jog one full lap at combat practice.

Nix knew two things. She would never take that potion from Elle again, and she would try everything to reverse it as quickly as possible.

Ryker’s heavy footsteps sounded from the classroom entrance, and Nix pretended to find her pencil’s eraser fascinating.

The dragon’s words from yesterday still bounced around her tired thoughts. “ You judge my kind on a stereotype but fight others for doing the same to you. ”

He was right, of course. Nix had judged him unfairly. After her talk with Professor Thierry, Nix rethought what she had been raised to believe.

The cygni always described dragons as vicious and villainous meathead murderers, and she had just…believed it. Without ever knowing one.

But he was the same species as her parents’ killer. That made her hatred of his species different… Right?

Nix frowned at her pencil.

He had not acted like the rage-filled, violent monsters that Elle’s parents warned Nix about. Ryker spoke slowly, carefully. On her first day, he had searched the woods for her for hours, when Bael left her to get lost.

Ryker was reserved. Guarded. And…thoughtful. Which was the exact opposite of what Nix was raised to believe about dragon shifters.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the pink,” Bael said, still babbling to her. “Just seems not very swan shifter of you to dye your hair. Aren’t you ladies obsessed with your light-colored locks?”

Summoning her toughest, most intimidating voice, Nix asked, “Do I look like I care what my hair looks like?”

“Well,” Bael said. “Considering you dyed it…yes. You do.”

Another sigh.

“Look at those sleepy eyes, lids drooping at half-mast. You have no idea how much I want to sleep fuck you. Consensually, of course. You’d love coming in your sleep.”

“What a kind offer.”

Bael grinned at her sarcasm. Ever since he learned she was not bespelling him, he sure was amused by her.

“I could sing you a lullaby to help you go to sleep,” Bael offered. “In fact, there are a few things I could do to help you sleep all night long .”

“So, now that you know I’m not enchanting you, you’re all flirty?”

“Look me in the eyes, and I’ll show you flirty.”

Yeah, right . He would show her some taboo sex vision if she dared to look him in the eyes.

“We will be working on something a little different today,” Professor Bowen announced from the front of the classroom.

Good . A distraction.

“The most valuable thing to learn about potions is the importance of science and exact specifications. One potion’s recipe can be turned into an entirely different potion with just a smidge more of a certain herb or ingredient,” Professor Bowen told the class, glancing at Nix for an extra-long second.

He added, “I have left three recipes for potions that are very similar in ingredients. Have a team leader follow the recipe on the green paper exactly , or you could end up with one of the other two, which, trust me, are not potions you would be interested in concocting.”

Nix grabbed a copy of the green recipe and scanned the details.

Two of its ingredients were ones she had searched for in the woods last night for her reversal potion.

One ingredient was specifically one she had an extraordinarily difficult time finding. Hyssop. Just what she needed for another reversal potion dose.

And it was right there. A whole cup of it in a glass jar, on her team’s lab table.