Page 9 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

“ T here you are,” Elle squealed happily when Nix sat beside her at the long wooden lunch table in the massive cafeteria. “Where have you been all day? Were you feeling sick? You weren’t in any of our classes—” Elle’s eyes grew wide as she looked down. “Wow, you sure got a lot to eat, huh?”

Nix’s lunch tray was, in one word, full.

After years of living in a cage, waiting for her captor to bring her scraps or starve her to see what the “effects” would be, Nix was starting this second chance at life off with a big passion for food.

Funny, she remembered that back in her days at the academy, she had never eaten all that much. She always felt weak or sick or just not in the mood for normal-sized meals.

Even though her body was not prepared for the adjustment, Nix was hungry. Her mind was famished. And all the hot food in the cafeteria line? Nix could not say no.

“You typically don’t eat that much,” Elle commented. “Aren’t you worried about making yourself sick?”

“I’ll survive,” Nix said.

“Okay… Just remember the glamour can only do so much to make your body look like a cygnus shifter,” Elle whispered to her.

Nix paused right before opening her mouth for her first bite. That had sounded…rude. Right? Judgy. Nix couldn’t remember Elle ever saying something like that to her in the past.

“When was the last time I had my, uh, glamour?” Nix asked, trying to subtly understand how long it had been without raising suspicion with Elle that she could not recall. “It’s been a crazy day; it feels like I can’t remember anything important anymore.”

Elle’s eyebrows furrowed as she slightly frowned at Nix. “You’re right, it has almost been a week since your last dose. I’ll bring you a new vial of it tomorrow at lunch.”

“Great,” Nix said. Though she was worried about never figuring out what she was, she knew taking the cygnus shifter illusion elixir and maintaining a low profile was best. Randomly showing up not as a swan shifter, after years of appearing as one to her community, would raise a big red flag.

Elle’s family had gotten her the glamour back in childhood; Nix did not fully remember when she started taking it. It was just always…there. In her memories.

Elle’s father told her the potion would lessen the bullying Nix experienced in the clan because she looked “different” from them. But most of what Nix remembered was when her friends stopped wanting to talk to her, other than Elle, and when everyone started calling her “Ugly Duckling.”

Once they became older teenagers, the nickname became even cruder and crueler. Ugly Fuckling .

If Nix stopped using the glamour in this new life, would much change? She would have red hair and a different face, but Elle would treat her the same, surely. Underneath the glamour, Elle knew Nix.

How many people know me? Nix wondered as she looked at the mostly full, long, dark wood lunch table. Most of the other cygni knew Nix as Elle’s quiet, shy friend. The social pariah.

That’s not me anymore .

“Nix, is it true?” one of the other cygnus shifters, a girl named Sarasa, asked Nix from her seat on the other side of Elle.

It was odd for anyone to talk to Nix when Elle was around. After all, Elle was much more interesting and social. And talking to Nix always seemed like social suicide. Ugly Fuckling .

“What?” Elle asked.

“Nix got placed into the Professor Thierry’s history class. Gods, I would give anything to get to call him ‘sir’ and hear him talk every day. He is the dreamiest man in the whole academy.”

“He’s a bit rude,” Nix commented through a bite of food.

“That’s his studly yet stuffy vibe. Gods, he is hot,” Sarasa said.

“What is she talking about?” Elle asked Nix.

“I changed some of my classes in my schedule,” Nix mumbled with her mouth full. Gods, the lunch food tasted amazing today. Had it always been so amazing?

“What?” Elle asked. Her upset voice hiked up in pitch and volume. “Why would you change your classes? Is that why you missed our cooking and alpha psychology classes this morning?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Why wouldn’t you have told me that you were switching your schedule? And in the second semester?”

Nix shrugged uncomfortably, not prepared to lie to her best friend or tell her about her current time-traveling situation. “I don’t know. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“ You don’t make spur-of-the-moment decisions.”

Nix fidgeted under Elle’s intense, analytic gaze.

“Elle, stop monopolizing Nix,” Sarasa whined. Elle’s shocked expression was warranted—no one had ever wanted to hear from Nix before. “Nix, tell me all about Professor Thierry’s class. Doesn’t his accent just make you want to die?”

“No. It sounds nice. Why would it make me want to die?”

Sarasa sputtered at Nix.

“Actually, he had to, uh, dismiss class early,” Nix said.

“Really? Oh no, I hope he is feeling okay.”

Nix asked, “What do you mean? Is he unwell?” Did the other girl know what was making Professor Thierry experience fits of pain?

“Well, he’s a…you know,” Sarasa said. As if Nix would know.

“He’s a…jerk?”

“He is a gargoyle shifter,” Sarasa whispered like it was inappropriate to say at full volume. “And you know what that means…”

“I don’t know.”

Sarasa gaped. “Nix!”

“Nix doesn’t know much about other shifters,” Elle said. “Gargoyle shifters begin to turn to stone when they reach a certain age without finding their fated mate,” Elle informed her.

How did Elle know that? Why was Nix so uninformed about the different species at the academy compared to her peers? Nix took almost all of the same classes as Elle.

“It’s a slow transition, very painful. Limb by limb, internal organ by internal organ, turns to stone.”

He was turning into stone?

“The last thing to harden is the heart,” Sarasa said. “If a gargoyle shifter can’t find his mate before his heart turns to stone, he…well, he remains a statue. Forever. It’s sad. AND romantic. Every girl wants to take his class and melt his stony exterior and—”

Nix tuned them out as she chewed.

Professor Thierry was basically…dying. Slowly. In an excruciatingly painful way.

What if he never found his mate?

What if, in this life, Nix never found hers? Persius, where are you? Some place safe?

“Ready to head to dance class together, Nix?” Elle asked.

“Uh, actually, I ended up enrolling in something else.” Nix admitted, “Combat.”

“ Combat? ” they both repeated.

“Who are you?” Sarasa asked in an amazed, fascinated voice.

Nix did not miss the way Elle flinched at her friend receiving such attention.

“What. The. Fuck.” A familiar, annoying male voice sounded from the group on the field as Nix strode toward where the rest of the class met for Introduction to Combat.

Considering it was the second semester, Nix expected more “ You won’t be able to keep up; you’re going to fail ” statements of encouragement.

“Are you stalking me, swan girl?” the annoying male voice spoke from the crowd again.

Nix met the gaze of the blond-haired jerk from potions class who had told Professor Bowen that she would be too much of a “distraction.” Mr. Graeves, right? Great .

“Birds are supposed to be flighty, not fighty, don’t you know that?” Graeves asked like a real douchebag. “Or is this just an excuse to grope some muscles during hand-to-hand combat practice?”

Another male said, “Probably the only context an alpha would let the Ugly Fuckling touch him.”

A couple of the guys in the group snickered.

Nix pushed her shoulders back and asked, “What am I doing to offend you by being here, huh?” Her hands fell to her hips.

“What does a woman learning do to you? Unless you prefer us to not know how to protect ourselves. I bet that’s it, isn’t it?

You prefer your women to not know how to fight back? Is that the only way you can get one?”

“ Daaaaamn ,” someone laughed in the crowd.

“Just wait until Professor Matten gets to you,” Graeves said, this time lacking the same amount of confidence he had during his earlier insults. “You’ll be chewed up and spit out of this class within a week.”

In the span of the two hour class, Nix hated to agree with him.

She limped back to her dorm room, covered in bruises from an obstacle course that tried to kill her.

Professor Matten knew exactly how to break a gal’s spirit. Still, it was refreshing to have a female combat instructor. Anytime one of the guys made a sexual comment about the workout uniform, Professor Matten flipped him on his back.

I want to be strong like her.

I want to protect myself and others.

After all, Nix knew what was coming.