Page 8 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

“ I , um, actually am one of your students.” Nix cleared her throat awkwardly as everyone stared at her. “I just transferred this morning.”

“You just transferred? Into a year-long course—during the second semester.”

“Um, yes?” Nix said, but her voice got higher at the end, making it sound like a question.

“How ridiculous,” the attractive professor stated.

Ridiculous? That sparked a heat at the back of Nix’s neck. How dare he call a student, who wanted to learn, ridiculous?

“You will have missed an entire semester of material. You will be setting yourself up to fail.”

“I’m a quick learner,” Nix said, her tone featuring a bit more of an angry edge than it had before he uttered the word “ ridiculous .”

“A quick learner?” the infuriatingly sexy professor repeated.

“Yes.”

“So, you are here to learn?”

Why did that “you” feel so pointed? “Yes,” she replied, Wasn’t that why everyone came to class?

“You didn’t register for my class, knowing a few students dropped out due to the difficulty, so you could sit there and stare at me with dreamy hearts in your eyes and try to grab my attention in a romantic manner like the rest of them?”

Nix’s jaw clicked and panged from falling so fast. “I’m sorry, what? ” she asked, offended at such an outlandish accusation. Professor Thierry was good-looking, but damn, he was a conceited son of a bitch.

“Come to the front of the classroom.”

Nix sat there, still in shock, disobeying a direct order.

“Come,” he demanded in a harsh voice that cracked down like a dominant whip.

“ Ohh! ” a few of the females in the class gasped and squealed and swooned at the power in his commanding tone.

Mara shot Nix an uh-oh expression.

Nix ground her teeth as she jerkily stood from the desk and walked down the aisle to the front of the classroom.

“I have had many cygnus shifters enroll in my class and fail out of it because they were only here for one reason. I’ll give you a hint—it was not to learn.”

Cygni? So, was he taking all this angst out on her because of what he thought her species was or because she destroyed his vial in the hall?

“Professor…” Nix began. “Are you implying my species cannot learn ?”

The classroom went completely silent. A shifter in the front row paused in tapping his pencil and mumbled, “ Oh, shit .”

Professor Thierry’s silver eyes seemed to flash and ensnare her for a moment behind those glasses. “Not at all,” he replied. “I was just stating a fact.”

“So…” Nix said, “You are implying you are so attractive that I won’t be able to focus on the content? The content, which I enrolled in this class specifically to learn—without ever having seen or heard of you before?”

Professor Thierry’s silver eyes narrowed as he glared at her. “Is that right?”

“It is.”

“You are interested in the history of winged paranormals?”

“Yes,” Nix said, gritting the word between her teeth in frustration. Did he really think it was appropriate to try to humiliate her on her first day, in front of the whole class? Any apple you ever get from me will be rotten .

“Then, tell me, what kind of creature is known for stone wings?”

“Stone?” Nix repeated. What the heck kind of shifter would that be?

“No answer?”

Nix glared right back at him and replied, “I don’t know.”

He nodded, and his top lip curled into a smirk. And damn it…it was a tantalizing, sultry expression on him. “What species of fiery winged shifters have become rarer than even Pegasi?”

Pegasi. Like a Pegasus shifter.

Like Persius. My mate . Heartbreak stabbed into Nix’s chest, and her face went white and expressionless at the reminder of her loss.

The professor mistook her expression for complete I-have-no-idea . “That’s what I thought,” Professor Thierry said smugly. “You clearly do not have the background knowledge to enter this class in the second semester—”

“I. Will. Learn,” Nix spat out each word with a little too much venom. So, she added, to be respectful, “Professor.”

“I don’t think—”

Nix cut him off and stared right into his liquid silver irises.

“ I think there seems to be a lot of assumptions about a female cygnus shifter trying to educate herself on things other than homemaking and satisfying a future husband. I think that this school needs to remember that classes are open to everyone , not only to specific species.”

She added, “And if you have a problem with a female—who will never have super strength or speed like some of the alphas who take your class—wanting to learn about other species to expand her knowledge and give her a better chance at life outside of the academy, instead of people gatekeeping history and her continuing to be uninformed and na?ve, then I would ask you to speak with my advisor who agreed to enroll me in your course mid-year.”

Professor Thierry had…finally stopped glaring. He blinked at her behind his glasses, pursed his lips, and ever so slowly gave her a single nod.

A wild grin burst across her face, and he blinked some more.

Then, his breath caught, and an expression of pain slammed over his face. He turned his back to the rest of the students and coughed into his fist.

From her nearby position, she saw the way his arm shook. His fist was clamped so hard, he might have broken his own fingers with such a grip.

He grunted and announced unevenly, “Class is dismissed early today.”

“But professor—” A girl from the front row scowled at Nix. “—we haven’t even gone over—”

“ Dismissed ,” he exclaimed. “Read the next two chapters of the textbook and prepare a one-page reflection before tomorrow’s class.”

So…Nix needed a textbook.

Students packed up and rushed for the door, excited for a few hours back in their day before lunch.

Nix hesitated to leave as she peered around his back to see the way his hand now clenched at his chest. “Um,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”

“Get. Out.”

The last of the students quickly exited, but Nix stayed, frozen where she was. The professor’s body began lightly shaking.

“What’s happening?” she asked, distressed, as she stepped around to face him.

She saw…pain.

Horrible pain flashed across his face before he quickly tried to mask it again.

Nix knew pain like that. The kind that made breathing difficult. The kind that felt like internal organs would rather shut down than continue feeling it.

“What do I do? How do I help you?” she cried out in concern when he slumped over his desk and slammed a hand onto the wood to steady himself. “What’s happening?”

“My arteries are…fuck…” Professor Thierry used the hand not on the desk to claw at his chest. “This is…why…potion.”

The vial with the red liquid. It was medicine? And she had broken it. Damn it! No wonder he looked so pissed at her earlier.

“What do I do?” she asked. “Should I get Professor Bowen? Does he make your potions for, um, this?”

“Get. Out,” he repeated in a grating tone so icy and stone-like, it felt like getting pelted with pebbles.

Still, she stayed next to him. “No. I know what it’s like to go through pain alone, and it’s worse.

Trust me.” She gently laid her palm onto his back, and he stiffened.

“ Shhh .” She tried to calm and comfort him as she rubbed a circle over the middle of his spine. “You’re, um, you’re going to be okay.”

“No,” he muttered solemnly. “I won’t.”

She continued smoothing her hand over his back in reassuring circles. So close to him, she breathed in his heady scent for the first time and bit back a soft moan.

Okay. Wow . She had never had such an instant reaction to a smell before. He smelled like chocolate-covered cherries and old leather-bound books. Like a decadent day of reading and snacking. Sweetly sophisticated. Delicious and filling. Comforting.

“I will be fine in an hour. You are dismissed,” he said.

“See? Look at you?” she cooed, still rubbing his back. “Speaking in full sentences again. That means the pain is lessening.”

He frowned and looked down at his hand, which slowly relaxed on the desk. He inhaled and shook his head. “It…typically lasts longer than this.”

“Must be the amazing back rub,” Nix commented.

“This is…so inappropriate,” he grumbled.

“More inappropriate than when you implied in front of the whole class, on my very first day, that I was only here to try to sleep with you and not learn?”

He scowled down at his hand, not meeting her gaze as he grunted.

“Do you have that many students trying to sleep with you? To make that your instant assumption?”

He grunted again.

“Gross.” Nix’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized after realizing she kind of just insulted him.

“I mean, you’re hot and all. It’s just gross that people sign up and take the class seat away from others who could enroll and then don’t make any effort to learn anything.

It sucks when people take opportunities from others and then squander them, you know? ”

Finally, Professor Thierry looked up and over to meet Nix’s gaze.

She fell down the rabbit hole of those enchanting silver eyes instantly.

He really was very attractive. All sharp cheekbones and pouty lips and striking eyes with long lashes. I guess I can kind of understand why all the girls want to be in his class , Nix admitted to herself.

“Yes. Squandering that which you have is the greatest mistake in life,” he said gravely.

“Yes,” she replied instantly in agreement, thinking of her second chance at life. “It is.”

He blinked at her again. That same stunned look of confused and fascinated astonishment claimed his face. “You speak very maturely for someone your age.”

“My life has felt…pretty long.” Her mind was probably closer to the age of the professor than to the other students, considering she came from six years in the future.

“You never know how much time you have,” he said cryptically just before his gaze dropped lower on her face. Her lips?

“Yes,” she said, a little breathier than she meant to. Was he staring at her lips?

He jerked his head to the side, away from her, and stood, removing his hand from the desk. His body was stiff, but most of the pain had clearly worn off from whatever episode he’d just had.

“I promise to never accidentally break your medicine again,” she said.

He nodded and turned further away from her, granting them distance. “Good.”

“If you ever need another back rub, uh, you know, cause of the pain—”

“Won’t be necessary.”

“Some things don’t have to be necessary.”