Page 23 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

N ix bit her lip and contemplated how she would sneak some hyssop purple blooms into her blazer pocket when no one was looking. It was necessary for another reversal potion.

I will do anything to get the traces of the poison from my system.

“I’ll take the lead on this one,” Nix said. She cleared her throat and tried to sound a bit less tired. “I feel bad that you guys did so much of the work the last few days.”

“You have no prior potion experience,” Bael deadpanned.

“Yes, well, I’m a fast learner. Besides, it’s the same kind of science as baking, and cygnus shifters have to take at least five cooking courses to graduate.”

Nix moved the beakers of ingredients toward her while Bael cursed about how sexist it was to mandate cooking courses. Nix’s fingers stayed wrapped around the hyssop jar.

“Could someone start removing the leaves from the agrimonia?” she asked.

Mara volunteered and grabbed the beaker.

“And um, Ryker?” Nix asked, looking down at her hands as she nervously addressed him.

Yeah, she was pretty ashamed of her interaction with him yesterday in combat class. Sometimes it took a girl’s whole world to fall apart to understand that she should not blindly believe what others have told her.

Does Elle know she is poisoning me? Nix shoved the thought away to deal with at another time.

“Um, Ryker, could you measure the coriander?” she asked.

Ryker nodded, also not meeting her eyes as he began pouring the powder into another glass vial.

“What should I do, Swan Lake?” Bael asked.

Nix bit her inner cheek. “If the purpose of this assignment is communication, patience, and precise and meticulous attention to detail… What if you sat this one out?”

“Burn,” Mara snorted.

Bael smiled and stretched back on his stool. “Sit here and look pretty? Sounds good to me.”

Nix’s hand shook as she raised the jar of hyssop, something she desperately needed to get the rest of the poison and illusion spell out of her system.

They were supposed to need four spoonfuls of the plant’s blossoms for the class’s potion. Meanwhile, she needed only half a spoonful for her potion.

As long as the professor gave us a smidge more in the beaker…

Damn.

Nope.

Nix picked off the blossoms of the two-lipped, tubular, purple-blue flower and measured out exactly four spoonfuls in a beaker.

That meant she either needed to fail the assignment and pocket an eighth of her team’s inventory, or she could ace the potion but give up her chance at creating another reversal potion any time soon.

“Done.” Mara handed Nix the plucked agrimonia. “Exactly five medium-sized leaves,” Mara said.

Ryker pushed forward the correct amount of coriander.

Damn it . Nix gripped the beaker of hyssop. How was she supposed to pocket it without anyone noticing?

“Um.” Nix combined the coriander and agrimonia and a few ounces of liquid vampire venom. Stirring, she said, “Next, I’ll add the hyssop.” She took her beaker of the purple blossoms. “I read somewhere that it’s best if you grind them in your hand before adding them.”

Bael raised an eyebrow. “Where did you read that, Blondie?”

“In a book I am sure you’re unfamiliar with,” she replied smoothly.

“I do read,” Bael defended himself and cracked a sexy smirk. “ Lots of smut.”

Ignoring the incubus, Nix poured the beaker of blossoms into her hand and squeezed them. She then slowly unclamped her fingers to allow the flowers to fall into the potion vial.

Slyly, she did not reveal a small bunch of blossoms she kept in her closed fist like a human magician experienced in deception and misperception.

She then stuffed her right hand into the pocket of her blazer. Pretending to read the recipe once more, she tried to nonchalantly wiggle her fingers and drop what was left of the crushed hyssop blossoms into her pocket.

“Only two more ingredients,” she said.

When she looked up, Ryker and Bael’s heads were tilted as they stared at her. Bael watched her with sneaky fascination, but Ryker’s golden eyes were narrowed on her.

Shit . Did they notice? Were they going to say something?

Ryker’s plush lips pressed together into a stern line as he glanced down at the other potion recipes.

Gods, even his frown was sexy. Nix’s brain thought back to how the combat work-out uniform fit him, so tight she could see every curve and ridge of his muscular build.

“Here,” Mara said, handing Nix a vial with a single eye of newt.

Nix cringed but dropped the eye into the liquid. She stirred it all together with a long, thin glass rod. “Okay, finally, the henbane—”

Ryker’s hand shot out and fisted one of the potion recipes. The paper crinkled under the clamping grip of his thick fingers.

“Um,” Nix nervously mumbled as she wondered if Ryker was pissed at her for sabotaging their potion. He did not know her valid reason.

Bael took the paper from Ryker’s stiffened fingers and flattened it to read. His red eyes widened and flashed with emotion at what he read. His head shot up at the same moment that Nix sprinkled in the henbane.

“What—”

Suddenly, a hard, naked, masculine chest slammed into her front.

Warm, thick arms wrapped around her, and wings shot out from behind the muscled body. The scent of sweet smoke, like blown-out birthday candles, gave his identity away. Ryker.

He pressed her face firmly to his bare, hard pecs and gripped her hips in a tight, possessive hold. From head to toe, he encased her. Her body flush against his, she felt every inch of him through her school uniform.

Much like Bael, Ryker radiated a stifling amount of body heat. Pressed to him, she was reminded of cozy winter nights where she stood directly in front of a heater.

“Fire!” Someone shouted loudly, snapping Nix out of her hazy thought.

A fire? Nix tried to peek around Ryker, but his wings twitched to block her vision.

His wings…

They were such a dark red, they reminded her of merlot spilled on a mahogany table. Each scale glistened with a crimson shine and called to her. Under the light, they seem to glow rhythmically. The scales flashed in a pattern, as if following a throbbing tempo, like a low, sensual bass drum.

Feeling hypnotized by the alluring colors, she reached a hand up to graze a few fingers over his dragon scales.

The wings shuddered under her light touch, and Ryker’s hands on her hips tensed. Sharp nails bit into her, right under her blazer. Had his nails grown into dragon claws?

Only the most powerful shifters were known to half-shift like this. Ryker’s human body stood before her, yet his talons and wings were magnificently dragon.

Predator , she reminded herself. You should be afraid .

But his birthday candle scent was so sentimental and sweet and cozy. Sexy and spicy and sugary. She couldn’t stop inhaling him. Breath after breath. He just smelled so…good.

So good .

Her breasts ached as she pressed herself against him harder. A pulsing tension began in her lower abdomen, and Ryker groaned a low rumbling noise into her ear. Was this the effect of alpha pheromones on her brain? Or was it him ?

Want him , a primitive part of her brain, which she did not know existed, sent a message through her slow-moving thoughts. She wanted him. A dragon .

So warm. Smells so good . She moaned softly onto his pecs as he tightened his hold around her. The snug, toasty embrace quieted her mind.

When was the last time she felt so comfortable and safe?

“You’re…okay,” Ryker hummed in his gravelly, slow-speaking manner that made her traitor toes curl.

You’re okay . In the past, every day through the cage, Persius used to tell her those words. Given little sustenance, she had lived off of his “ you’re okay .”

“ I don’t feel okay ,” she would tell him.

“ When I break us free from here, you will never feel anything but safe, cherished, and happy ,” Persius told her.

But, of course, he had not gotten them free. His life force had been drained in front of her crying eyes.

A tear slid down Nix’s cheek at the memory, and she nuzzled her face into Ryker’s chest. He clearly felt the dampness because he stiffened.

A low growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating her face. His thumb caught one of her tears. Wearing a concerned and slightly freaked-out expression, Ryker pushed the teardrop to her mouth, as if to push her sadness back inside her.

She flicked her tongue out to catch the droplet of salt water from his thumb.

“Okay, you’ve played the hero. You can let her go now.” Bael’s voice sounded behind the cage that Ryker’s wings made around Nix. “The fire is out. You can put the wings away now, buddy. Prying eyes in the room.”

What did that mean? Prying eyes?

Nix blinked when a gust of wind shot up around her as Ryker’s wings shot back into his spine suddenly. She glanced up and caught the split second of his pained expression before he masked the emotion.

His shifted wings had ripped his uniform right off of him, leaving him tantalizingly bare-chested.

Do not ogle him . Nix tried to have the common decency to look away. Even though she had felt those warm, firm muscles flexing against her face and chest.

Stepping to the side so she could see over Ryker’s massive, broad shoulders, Nix saw that where she had stood and poured in the last potion ingredient…was singed. Even the floor where Nix’s feet had been planted, under the table, was black with soot.

Where the potion vial had exploded, the shards of glass had melted as well as the, now contorted, tabletop. Fewer hyssop blossoms than what the potion called for had created a fire strong enough to melt the table.

Nix looked again at the burn mark of where she had been standing, before Ryker’s body had appeared in front of hers and his wings broke out.

That kind of fire… That kind of intensity could have killed her. It would have killed her.

My second chance at life, exterminated so quickly . Due to her own doing.

Shame colored her cheeks as she glanced at Bael and Mara’s ash-covered faces and clothing. They appeared physically unharmed, other than needing a good scrub, but…

“I’m sorry,” Nix squeaked out in a broken voice of guilt.

“You did your best,” Mara replied and shrugged, dusting some of the soot from her blazer. “Just maybe never bake us anything.”

“Not all of us are meant to be potion people, Swan Lake,” Bael said, standing from his stool to examine the crime scene.

The severe burns…

Ryker had saved her life.

And he knew to do so…because he had seen her pocket some of the hyssop, tainting the potion.

“Um, thank you,” Nix mumbled to Ryker, looking down at his perfectly sculpted chin because those golden eyes burned too intensely into hers. Like a foolproof lie detector test, his beautiful eyes could have made her confess to any and all sins.

Ryker grunted and turned away from her. Gods, the lined ridges of muscle on his back were sexy too.

She reached out and touched his back before she could stop herself. “Really,” she said, feeling the need to repeat her thanks after she spat out vicious words at him the day before. “You saved me.”

Ryker paused and stiffened at her fingers brushing where his wings had disappeared into his taut, smooth skin. Keeping his back to her, he turned his head to mutter, “Not so violent, vicious, and evil now.”

Throwing her words from the other day back at her.

She deserved it.

“Surviving flames does not mean you were meant for Hell,” Nix said. “I’m sorry I said that. I’ve been…adjusting, and I lashed out. I—I lost everything to dragons.”

Still keeping his back to her, Ryker grunted, “Not everything.”