Page 29 of Wings of Ashes
Bael did not breathe for a moment.
MATE? She had a mate? A fated fucking mate?
In a matter of seconds, Bael was back on top of her, face to face, as he held his shiny switchblade to her throat. “You have a mate?”
Her throat bobbed on a swallow against the blade. “Yes.”
Bael growled loudly, “Then, why thefuckare you doing this to me?”
“I’m not doing—”
His hand shifted to the side and stabbed his blade into her pillow. Feathers spurted out of the white pillowcase, and her eyes widened in fear. Bael demanded, “Give me his name.”
“What?”
“Give me your mate’s name,” Bael commanded her. “I want to talk to him. He clearly hasn’t been satisfying you enough.”
Nix choked on air. “Excuse me?”
“You reek of lust,” Bael sneered at her, inhaling more of that horny, roasted marshmallow and strawberries scent. Her pussy was so damn slick for him… Bael’s allure should not have worked on her if she had a fated mate.
“Stop smelling me!” she exclaimed.
“Stop smelling so horny and I will…” He yanked his blade from her pillow and sat up on his knees, still straddling her on the bed.
Why the fuck would she enchant Bael to want her if she already had a mate? Weren’t cygni shifters out to get a husband? Did this greedy female wanttwo? Yet, still, she denied using her powers on him.
“It has to be an enchantment,” he muttered. “The attraction…has nothing to do with how you look. I can’t stop thinking aboutyou. Thinking about how, one second, you act naïve and blush like an innocent, then your eyes will flash, and your whole face melts into this dark, haunted expression like you’ve seen things you shouldn’t have. I crave to know you.”
Nix appeared at a loss for words.
She doesn’t crave me the way she craves her mate.
Bael cut off the dream, opening his eyes in his own bedroom and leaving Nix’s mind to wander other places in her sleep.
His chest…hurt.
Anger burned inside him as he thought about how she bespelled him and then rejected him.
She will pay with her soul.
12
CHAPTER
“Why are you glaring at her like she cut your penis off?” Mara asked Bael. Nix, Mara, Bael, and Ryker sat at the black-top laboratory table in class and worked on the first test of the potion assignment.
Bael had been silently scowling at Nix for an hour of the class. Even when she wasn’t looking at him, one of the variously shaped glass vials and beakers reflected his glare right into her line of vision.
“Did you cut his penis off, Nix?” Mara asked her.
“Regrettably, no,” Nix replied smoothly.
“Damn, if you’d said yes, we would have become instant best friends.”
“There’s still time,” Nix said.
“Mugwort,” Ryker grunted his request.
