Page 44 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)
CHAPTER
“ Y ou think what? ” Thierry questioned Bael.
Bael removed his blade from Nix’s chin. It had not pierced the skin, but he still leaned forward to lick and press a quick kiss over the flesh he had threatened.
“I don’t have proof of it—not yet,” Bael said. “Oadess—the evil male one, not you, sweetheart—likes to pull strings behind the scenes.”
Bael added, “Students have gone missing at an alarming rate in the last five years at the academy. The species of the students coincidentally tend to be species that Oadess believes are a threat to the shifter race. Similar to how he has turned people against dragons over the last decade.”
Nix flinched at the reminder of how vocal her adoptive father was about how “disgusting” and “violent” all dragon shifters were, how they were a threat to every paranormal. Ryker has never been anything but kind to me .
“Students are…disappearing?” Nix asked. Was this new to this timeline, or had Nix just never noticed in her past, too wrapped up in the societal pressures of “winning” an alpha?
“There’s a reason why Ry and I live off campus,” Bael told her, tucking his hidden blade into his back pocket. He cupped her face and laid his forehead to hers. His woodsy alpha scent puffed onto her face as he exhaled. “The rarest winged shifters keep disappearing from here.”
Nix swallowed nervously, trying to shove away her sensual thoughts of how good he smelled. “Okay?”
“We are not here to take classes. We are here to find the fuckers responsible for stealing students in the night and doing fuck knows what with them. Have you never read the disappearances in the school paper?”
In her past life, Nix had never known anything other than what Elle wanted her to know and focus on. Elle would have scoffed at Nix for picking up a school newspaper. “I…”
“Prey haven’t been the ones disappearing. Ryker’s brother was taken a few years ago, a year before he was supposed to graduate.”
Nix’s heart clenched. “His brother?”
Was that why Ryker had solemnly said, “ More to lose ,” when Nix saw the photo of his family? His family members have gone missing . What if the culprit was Nix’s future captor? What if, in this life, Ryker and Bael were able to find Nix’s captor before her torture ever began?
“Someone is managing to capture extremely powerful shifters from this school—”
“ Yes ,” Nix exclaimed rather loudly.
Bael’s brows drew together at her odd, excited reaction to his words.
“There is. I mean, I…” Was she supposed to tell them what happened to her in the future? Would the timeline punish her in some way if she did?
She already witnessed Persius and Elle together—was it because she was changing things? What if this whole second life was a punishment?
She blinked and looked up at Bael and Thierry. No . Their new presence and warmth in her life did not feel like a punishment at all.
Nix asked, “How do you know my father—adoptive father—is responsible?”
“Baby, if I knew for sure it was him, his body would be charred and roasted on a stake in front of the academy gates, courtesy of Ryker.”
She nodded as thoughts flew through her head. My life could really change this time. With their help, we can kill my captor before he ever gets me . “I want to help,” she said.
“Absolutely—” Bael kissed her forehead. “—fucking not.”
Her jaw dropped.
“Phase seven is ‘terminating’ Council President Oadess from the winged shifters council. We are currently still in phase three: trying to pin down the perpetrators and preventing any new students from being abducted.”
“I can assist you with that,” Thierry promised. “It has been quite a while since I got my head out of my books, as my mate once told me.” Thierry smiled softly at Nix.
“ Mate ?” Bael spat out in disgusted shock. He pulled his hands from Nix’s face and rubbed his index fingers into his temples. Reeling, he added, “Wait. She’s your mate ?”
Nix and Thierry both shot Bael where-have-you-been expressions.
“I thought you were just hot for your student,” Bael muttered, shooting his gaze back and forth between the two of them. “ Mate? ”
“Why can’t I help, too?” Nix asked, getting Bael back on track with the conversation.
“Baby…” Bael shook his head. “You’re a prey shifter. You could get hurt.”
Nix’s fingers balled into tight fists.
“I caught her trying to break into a section of the library to read and learn how to fight,” Thierry informed Bael.
Bael’s expression scrunched in embarrassment. “The library? Babe, there are way sexier places to break into.”
“She tried to do so in daylight,” Thierry added.
“Hot,” Bael commented.
“ Focus ,” Nix said. “Where did you find the needle? Of the shifter poison?”
“Ryker found the box with the needle buried in the woods during one of his patrols. We set up a camera there in case someone put it there for safekeeping and goes back for it.”
“The map, with the question marks,” Nix thought aloud. “Those are places where the disappearances happened?”
“They are places we found that we thought there was a chance the bastards had been holding the students there, but no luck. All empty.”
Nix cursed. “What evidence do you have against my, uh, father?”
“Promise you’re not a double spy?” Bael requested confirmation.
“If they are linked to that needle of poison, I want them destroyed,” Nix said like a dark promise.
Both Thierry and Bael stared at her, absorbing her words.
“We are still gathering evidence, actively,” Bael told her. “We should know more within the week. Right now, it’s based on the assumption of how his propaganda calls for the isolation, imprisonment, or forced sterilization of certain winged species.”
Nix blinked. “Forced…sterilization?” She had never heard him preach that before.
“Even the humans have done it to their own people before. Choose desirable traits; wipe out the rest in terms of ability to procreate. Eugenics, baby. If you want to get pissed off, look it up later.”
Nix grumbled under her breath, thinking back to her “searches” about self-defense, “It’s probably blocked.” Nix crossed her arms and hugged herself as she asked Bael, “So, you didn’t get close to me to get information about my adoptive father?”
Bael bared his teeth in an I-hate-to-say-this manner.
“Eh, love, the Oadess family has let the entire school call you the ‘Ugly Fuckling.’ I was pretty sure you wouldn’t know anything.
And when you proved you weren’t enchanting me, and I realized my dick just liked you for you, I believed I could trust you were not involved. ”
Nix deadpanned, “So, you trust me because I make your dick hard?”
“I’m a simple man. A sex demon who hasn’t had an erection in decades. Can you blame me?”
Nix gaped. “ Decades? ”
“I’m a little older than I look. Incubi don’t age.”
“Why are you at the academy? Now?”
“There are rumblings in Hell about a rising dark force with enough power to wipe us all out. The demons down there love their gossip.”
“Rising dark force?” Thierry repeated.
“One problem at a time,” Nix said, taking a deep breath. “I will be helping you find the missing students,” Nix informed the men adamantly.
“Baby, I’m loving this enthusiasm, but… how do you plan to help us?”
The incubus’s insinuation was obvious, and it grated on Nix’s nerves.
Nix was not strong; she had no special powers. Despite her efforts, she did not know how to fight.
“You think I’m too weak,” Nix muttered. A soft anger slithered in her stomach. “You think I’m powerless. That I would slow you both down. A nuisance.”
With narrowed, heated eyes, Bael shook his head. “I don’t think that.”
“Then, why? Why don’t you want my help?”
“It’s dangerous, what we’re doing,” Bael said. “If they can inject us with that fucking shifter neutralizer, even Ryker or I could be taken.”
“Then, why risk yourselves?” she asked.
Nix had always been told that dragons were naturally inclined to evil. Her clan taught her that winged demons like incubi would be just as sick and twisted. Yet, the only incubus and dragon shifter Nix knew were two students risking their freedom to save others?
Nix muttered, “You have no idea the torture that those missing students could be going through. No idea the Hell it is—uh, could be—for what they are doing to them.”
But Nix knew.
Nix had wanted to kill her captor in this new life. She did not realize this could be an entire underground organization that needed to be burned to the ground. She did not realize that potentially others—besides Nix and Persius—lived futures of captivity and torture.
Is someone being tortured now? Like I was?
Nix’s rage spiked, and her heartbeat stuttered. “What if they do take you and Ryker? What if you save no one and end up taken too?”
Bael smirked. “You worry about me, baby? You care if I live or die?”
Frustrated, Nix slammed her hands onto Bael’s chest and pushed him—but Nix was not strong, and his body was like a massive, chiseled statue.
“Be serious,” Nix exclaimed. “There are fates worse than death.”
“Ryker and I will be fine. We’ll find the culprit, and we’ll find those who were taken.”
Nix shook her head but held back her retort.
Because Nix had died in captivity six years in the future. She knew.
She knew that Ryker and Bael never saved her.
If they get taken…who will save them?