Page 31 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)
CHAPTER
W hen Nix got out of combat class, she typed, “ Learn how to fight, ” into her phone’s web browser and waited as it loaded.
If Ryker and Professor Matten did not plan to teach Nix real strategies to overcome an attacker, Nix would find the knowledge somewhere else.
Her phone screen loaded onto a fully white page that read, “ Violence is a restricted topic at the academy. Your search has been logged. Please refrain from searching similar topics .”
The academy had blocked her search?
Grinding her teeth, she typed, “ Learn how to defend myself as a woman .”
The result appeared as, “ Violence is a restricted topic at the academy. Your search has been logged. Please refrain from searching similar topics .”
“‘Defending myself’ is considered violence?” she muttered in frustrated disbelief. This was ridiculous.
She searched again. “ Female safety techniques .”
The result appeared as, “ You have searched a restricted topic at the academy. Your search has been logged. Please refrain from searching similar topics .”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she growled and typed, “ What topics are not restricted by the academy, motherfucker? ”
The screen replied, “ The use of profanity by a female student is prohibited at the academy. Your search has been logged .”
Nix gaped at her phone. “ How do you know I am a female student? ” she typed.
“ Your gender is logged in our systems. May we suggest a few topics? How to tell if an alpha is attracted to you, weddings and mating expectations, academy dress code… ”
Had Nix ever gotten a “ this is a restricted topic ” result in her past? She racked her memory.
Back then, in her previous life at the academy, she had never looked up such topics as she did now. The past Nix had searched for ways to catch an alpha’s eye or strategies to please an alpha once she “snagged” one.
If websites or articles on self-defense were blocked by the academy, then Nix would go looking elsewhere.
“I would like to check out a book on fighting, please. Self-defense moves or some kind of skills or tricks—you get what I mean. Where could I find a book on that?” Nix asked the front desk worker in the dusty academy library.
Nix would not be waiting to learn how to protect herself. If she had to find a book on it instead of learning it in-person or online, so be it.
Dark, gothic architectural arches, dim lighting from emerald glass lamps, and ceiling-to-floor black bookshelves added to the intimidating and dark appearance of the library. Hardly any students sat at the study tables, creating an eerie and lonely quiet.
“Um…we do not have books available for you…on that, uh, subject,” a nervous male student, working at the front desk of the grand library, told her.
Nix blinked, stunned for a moment. “What do you mean? This library has thousands of books. There is absolutely one about the art of combat. We have combat classes available at the academy. There must be one book here that speaks to fighting skills.”
The glasses-wearing young man looked like a second-year student with the confidence level of a first-year. He swallowed, throat bobbing at the act, and he mumbled, “That subject is not…available to you.”
Nix stared at him, completely expressionless as she read his strained expression. “Excuse me?”
“Books containing violence are stored in a special, closed-off area of the library.”
So, the books did exist. “So, I have to read them while I’m here or something? I can’t check it out to take with me?”
“No.” The male bit his lip. “You don’t seem to understand.”
“Enlighten me then,” Nix said.
“Very few students have access to the restricted section of the library,” the library worker whispered to her while nervously fingering his glasses. “You do not have the approvals required for that section. Maybe I could interest you in some magazines?”
There were books in the library that were banned for certain students?
“And what special approvals do the books require, huh?” Nix snapped. “A penis?” She wondered if she had gone too far with her guess, but the anxious twitch of the worker’s eye made her think she had assumed correctly. “Males can read the books on violence, but female students can’t?”
“Only certain males can read them,” the jittery worker explained. “Not all. That makes you feel better, yes?”
“What books do I have access to?” she asked in a voice so sharp that it could cause as many papercuts as the books in the grand library. “And if you mention magazines or anything about how to please alphas, I will find your favorite manuscript in this dusty library and rip out every page.”
He gasped. “That is needlessly violent. I am not responsible for the rules.”
“Who is?” Nix asked earnestly.
“The dean enforces the rules.”
“Enforces,” Nix echoed. “But who creates them?”
“I think you should leave, Miss Oadess,” the worker spoke timidly.
“How do you know my name?” Nix asked.
“You are the adopted daughter of the president of the council, the man who funds all of the collections in this library,” he gushed like he had a crush on Mr. Oadess. “Of course, I know who you are.”
Would Nix have the guts to ask her adoptive father, Mr. Oadess, to make the dean do away with the restriction on reading materials for female shifters? Would he listen to her?
She nibbled on her inner cheek and stared at the blushing worker.
Nix considered her options.
Call the man who adopted her and may have been knowingly poisoning her for years. Ask him to let her read about fighting skills.
Break into the library after hours and sneak the books out.
After all, Nix’s mate had taught her how to pick locks. Even though it had never ended up helping either of them.
“ You twist and turn and press, until you hear the click ,” Persius would inform her while they waited in their cages for their captor to return.
They always schemed and dreamed together—on ways to escape. Daydreamed about things their captor could “drop” by their cell and then they could use to get out of their cages.
“ How did you learn how to pick locks? ” she had asked her Pegasus shifter mate.
He smiled sadly at her, face caked in dirt and dried blood.
“ Those who wish to be gods have locked my kind in stables for centuries, trying to tame us as domestic flying beasts. We are both creatures that the sick and twisted, greedy and morally corrupt bastards of our world will try to own and use for their own selfish purposes. ”
“ Do you…know what I am? ” Nix had asked Persius.
“ I dare not say it aloud and make it true ,” he had replied. If he did know—what her red hair and reddish wings had meant—he never told her in their captivity.
There is so much I need to know, need to learn , she thought to herself in the present.
“Do you have a date to the dance?” Nix asked the library worker.
He blushed harder and nervously adjusted his slanted bow tie. “Um…”
“If you show me where the restricted section of the library is, I will be your date to the dance.”
The worker cringed, looked down at his desk, and mumbled, “I’d rather not go to the dance at all than attend with the Ugly Duckling. I just…I have a reputation to uphold. I hope you understand that?”
Wow. Nix had degraded herself; she tried to use her rusty feminine wiles to get access to the books she wanted, and she was shot down.
“Forget it,” Nix told him. If she had to break in after hours, she wanted to lessen as much suspicion on herself as possible. “Forget I was ever here.”
“I can’t. Hardly anyone comes into the library anymore, and I log everyone in, so I will only have your name on today’s log—”
Nix leaned over the dark wood desk and grabbed the sheet of paper from the spiral notebook. She ripped the day’s log out and stuck it into her blazer pocket. “There.”
“I can just write your name on another piece of paper…”
Nix scowled at him, and he shook with momentary fear.
Turning on her heel, Nix speed-walked out of the library. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Professor Thierry walking in as she moved to leave.
Professor Thierry’s brows arched above his sexy, wide-brimmed, black glasses when he saw her. He pursed his lips and glanced behind her, where only one bystander—the front desk worker—could overhear them.
“Miss Oadess,” Professor Thierry said softly as a greeting. He acted much more cordially than she would have expected after she removed her panties in front of him in his classroom hours earlier. “I was hoping to speak with you.”
“Oh?” Nix asked, still pissed off at the academy and unable to keep the anger from her voice.
“Could we…speak in private?” he asked her.
Nix glanced at the front desk worker, who gaped at them. He was probably shocked that the most handsome professor at the academy wanted to speak with the “Ugly Duckling.”
“Yes…apparently, there is a section of the library where few students are allowed,” Nix said. “Maybe we could go there? For privacy?”
Professor Thierry frowned. “I will not be having sex with you in the abandoned aisles of the academy library.”
“That’s not…” Nix pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and sighed. She grumbled, “Nobody mentioned sex, damn it.”
She just wanted to figure out where the restricted section was.
She turned to the worker and asked, “Professor Thierry is allowed in the restricted section, right? As a professor here.”
The worker jerkily nodded.
“Great. Let’s go there. For a private conversation.”
The worker described to Thierry how to get there, and Thierry led Nix to a secluded area deep in the back of the massive library.
The lighting was even dimmer in the back, the tall bookshelves casting shadows. There were three shelves roped off, and a small metal gate prevented Nix from walking inside and grabbing the book she needed.
“I don’t know that we needed this much privacy…” Professor Thierry began but trailed off when Nix lowered to her knees in front of him. “Miss Oadess!”