Page 3 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

N ix fought to maintain calm breathing the next day as she tried to set her plan in motion.

“Swans have no reason to fight ,” the guidance counselor stated, stunned disbelief leaking from her voice.

“What about self-defense?” Nix shot back.

“Defense from who? ”

Nix held back a shiver when she thought of her captor—the man who would become her future enemy. She needed to learn how to fight, so she could slay him when their paths crossed in less than two years.

“Mostly alpha males are in these classes,” the guidance counselor continued, listing concerns.

“So?”

“So…it’s not an appropriate subject for someone like you to…”

Nix’s eyebrows sprang up. “ Learn? Around boys?”

Nix had always known the academy was old-fashioned; it was part of why her adoptive father, Kellan Oadess, sent so much financial support to the school. He wanted all of his cygni followers to have a “traditional education.”

In Nix’s past, she had believed that was a good thing. She was told it would be distracting to the alphas if female cygnus shifters attended the same classes with them.

After all, why would the females need to learn the same subjects as their future mates? Better for them to learn about how to please alphas and provide domestic bliss. Better to try to stand out from the crowd by being the best student in cooking class or something as equally unimportant.

Ridiculous.

None of what Nix learned the first time around helped her in captivity—especially cooking and homemaking.

But in this second chance at life, she would take the classes she knew she needed, rather than what was suggested to her.

“There is no written academy rule prohibiting female prey shifters from enrolling in those classes,” Nix stated. She had reread the academy manual last night while deciding what classes to change.

“It may not be written , but…” The counselor shook her head. “I don’t understand how changing your class schedule in the second semester would help you, Miss Oadess. Your grades will suffer from missing the first semester of content.”

To convince the guidance counselor to finally approve the changes to her class schedule, Nix made up a new excuse.

“I…haven’t been having much luck making connections with male students in my current classes. If I enroll in some new ones, I could meet my future husband in one of my classes. Otherwise, I worry about my chances of finding a match before graduation…” Nix feigned a look of sadness.

And it worked. Apparently, that was a more acceptable reason to enroll in her new desired classes than her real reason of “ I want to learn to be stronger .”

Nix did not care about finding a husband like Elle and the rest of the female avian shifters. Nix knew her future ball and chain. And she wanted to kill him.

Potions 101 might help her understand why he kept her for experiments, or she might learn potions that could counteract the poisons he exposed her to during her years of captivity.

Introduction to Combat would strengthen her weak body to be able to fight back and bend the metal bars of her cage—maybe. Hopefully.

And in history class…maybe Nix would finally begin to understand what she was. All she knew was that she was not human, but she was not a swan cygnus shifter like Elle and her adoptive family.

Nix was something he wanted. Rare? Perhaps. He always whispered to her through her cage, “ My special little birdie .”

By the time their paths crossed in this second chance at life, Nix would be a birdie with claws. Talons so sharp, he would not dare cage her. But what type of winged shifter was she?

Walking down the hall to her first class of the new semester at Alatus Academy, daydreaming about revenge, she walked right into a hard, muscular, male chest.

She rammed into a man so hard that she bounced right off of him and tumbled to the ground. Her ass throbbed at the sudden, painful landing. Great . That sting would last for the day, reminding herself to be more vigilant. Nix had never been a fast healer like the other shifters.

The sound of laughter and muffled snickering wafted through the hallway at her fall. A bystander whispered, “Ugly Fuckling could’ve taken a face plant, and it would have made no difference.”

Blushing, Nix rushed to stand and assess her situation.

“See?” Exasperated, the man, who possessed the violently hard set of abs beneath his tight black shirt, exclaimed to his friend behind him. “I told you that women attack me!”

The friend—a stoic witness to Nix’s embarrassing crash—was a massive build of darkness tucked into an oversized hoodie.

He walked right away from the scene, passing a disgruntled Nix without a single look.

He moved so swiftly, he blurred. She hardly got a look at him other than broad shoulders, tall height, and an overall aura of doom and gloom.

Instead, her gaze focused solely on the man who had just claimed she attacked him.

The…heartbreakingly and hauntingly gorgeous man.

Her breath caught as she stared.

He reminded Nix of a dark prince. Black clothing fit him, snug, from head to toe. Long, wispy, black hair perfectly framed his face.

His plush lips were so provocative, they could have been deemed vulgar—like the sight of his lips was something parents would block their young daughters’ eyes from seeing because it would give the girls too many “ adult ideas .” Especially the little hoop lip-piercing.

Wearing several dark rings and featuring swirling, devil tail tattoos from his hands, up his arms, and under his shirt, he was the embodiment of dark, rich desire.

Even his scent was a sweaty, earthy smell that brought to mind images she had no right imagining. Slick, naked bodies, shuddering and moving against each other. Low moans eaten up by the sound of rain pinging against tree branches and forest floor.

Sex in the woods. That was his scent.

Even though they stood indoors, a pair of dark sunglasses blocked the view of his eyes. His razor-sharp cheekbones added to his untouchable and dangerous persona. Like he was the needle in the Sleeping Beauty human fairytale. Seductive, but cursed. Alluring, but deadly.

Hmm, the prick reminds me of a needle , Nix thought to herself. Fitting.

The old Nix would have submissively looked down at her feet and scurried away, uttering apology after apology. But I am starting new this semester .

It was not all her fault for running into him. Shifters had quick reflexes. He had chosen not to move. Because the males here all expect the women to bend, submit, say “thank you,” and disappear .

Nix tipped her chin up—because wow, he was tall—and asked, “Is this the part where you tell me to look where I’m going next time?”

The bystanders in the hall gasped.

Were they that shocked at Nix showing a backbone? Yeah, things would be different in this new life.

One bystander asked at a low volume, “Ugly Fuckling thinks she can talk to him like that?”

“She must have hit her head during the break,” someone whispered back.

“Can’t wait to watch the trash get taken out,” another said.

The man Nix ran into ignored everyone in the hallway around him. Did he hear their comments? He seemed focused solely on her.

The seductive man’s dark eyebrows shot up in surprise from over his sunglasses. “Blondie, don’t act like you didn’t know exactly where you were going and exactly who you were walking right into.”

Who? Was he someone special? He clearly thought so.

She had no idea who he was. It was hard to remember years back to the academy, and her version of wallflower-shy had never crossed paths with a man like this. He was too…menacing. Too dominating. Too Alpha.

He has probably gotten everything he has ever wanted in life . He was probably born with the supernatural strength to never allow himself to be caged and held as a pet.

That pissed her off. He had not earned his strength; yet, he would never have to deal with the dangers of abduction like her.

“You walked into me,” she lied.

He scoffed at that, not believing her. Who cared?

She shrugged. “Maybe don’t wear sunglasses indoors. You might walk into a wall next time.” She spun around and began walking in the opposite direction.

Hmph . Her first time having the last word in a conversation. Nice! She cheered herself on before she glanced at her schedule and realized she was walking in the wrong direction for her potions class. Right.

She spun back around and began walking back to the man, trying not to look at him.

He, however, still stood in exactly the same spot as if he had been staring after her.

He smirked as she strode back in his direction. She really wanted to smack that smug smirk from his face.

Her captor used to smirk at her like that. Like she was never a threat to him. Like it was inevitable for her to be trapped by him. Like he viewed her as weak and unable to fight back.

Nix partially walked into the gut-wrenchingly attractive, smirking man. She tried to aggressively bump his shoulder. When her shoulder collided with his, her collarbone instantly screamed at how hard his body was and quietly popped. Ouch .

But she had faced worse injuries—maybe not in her current body, but in several years, she would undergo daily torture. Her ability to endure pain was incredibly strong now.

She swallowed and masked any pain from showing on her face as she snapped at him, “My class is this way.”

She sipped in the smallest inhale her lungs allowed, trying to limit her exposure to his alluring sex-in-the-rain scent.

“Did you just shoulder bump me?” the man asked in amused disbelief.

She walked faster. She did not have time for men in this new life. A trust and reliance on alphas was the reason she ended up caged for years.

Men only want one thing . To possess that which gave them status.

That was the difference. Men craved power to abuse it; women craved power to protect themselves from abuse.

Well, except for one man…

The man who had once been wheeled into her captor’s laboratory. The man who smelled like citrus and sunshine and spoke to Nix when their captor stepped out for meals and errands. “ I will get you out of this, my flóga ,” he had promised her. Persius. But they had never gotten out of their cages.

Nix had only felt true romantic love in her darkest days of torture.

Would she ever find Persius in this new life? Would she recognize him without red blood dried in his white-platinum blond hair? Would she recognize his eyes before they were tarnished with pain?

Oof .

Nix proceeded to walk right into another solid male, this time into a hulking, muscular back.