Page 48 of Wings of Ashes
Thierry’s smug lips thinned into a line. His mesmerizing, silvery-gray eyes shone under the moonlight as he tilted his head and looked at her with something new in his expression.
“You really did not wish for the incubus’s attention?” he asked.
“No. I wanted to listen to your observations about chapters ten through fifteen on Nephelium, angels, griffins, and sphinxes, and their ties to human religions.”
Thatsurprised him. Thierry’s lips separated on a choppy inhale as he pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.
“You…read the chapters?” he asked in a low murmur, as if he wished she wouldn’t hear him because he didn’t want to know her answer.
“I read the whole freaking textbook in two days,” she replied. “I mean, I skimmed chapters one through five because all the overview was a little dry, but the rest of it was fascinating. Is it true sphinxes kill anyone who cannot solve their riddles?”
His broad chest moved up and down with deep breaths as he asked huskily, “You read the entire book? In two days?”
“Does that blow your swan-shifters-are-airheaded-husband-hunters mind? Yes, I read it that quickly. It’s funny how those who are kept in ignorance—with no knowledge of what they are or the creatures around them—are so starved for information that they will dedicate vital sleep hours to learning. Meanwhile, those who are born to an advantage and power—who were raised to know things about the world—waste the class by passing notes and not doing the homework. Funny.”
Thierry gaped at her. His perfect cheekbones seemed ready to pop out of place from how shocked his expression appeared.
“Now,” Nix continued. “If you’ll excuse me, I do want to hike the forest to try to calm my ever-running mind. So much to think about from the full semester’s worth of homework reading I finished. Something about so muchknowledgecauses sleepless nights, wouldn’t you say?” she asked him.
Nix knew it was true of her knowledge of six years into the future. Sleeping was…not easy. Hence, why she had read the textbook so quickly as well.
She added, “I’m hoping a little exercise will tire me out enough to fall asleep. After all, the last few chapters on rare creatures were riveting.”
She spun around and strode into the forest, leaving a stunned Étienne Thierry behind her.
Agrimonia, pondweed, rosemary, and hyssop.
After exactly two minutes into her hike through the woods, to get to the body of water where three out of the four ingredients grew, a loudcrunchof a tree branch stalled her.
Professor Thierry had followed.
“Are you planning to follow me to ensure I’m not sneaking out to hook up with an unsuspecting, impressionable, well-off—”
“You cannot hike in a nightgown,” he told her in a scandalized voice.
She bunched the fabric’s bottom hem into her hand, pulling it to hit her mid-thigh. “Would you rather I take it off?”
“What?” Thierry rasped deeply.
Whoops. Had she just accidentally flirted with her gargoyle professor?
She dropped the hem, not sure what had come over her to flash himmoreleg. Her calves and knees were already exposed in the nightgown and prickled with awareness under the sexy professor’s gaze.
“I am not going back inside until I’ve had my hike,” she said. “Now, leave me be. Shoo, shoo.”
He stepped closer to her, casting her in part of his shadow. The movement caused his delicious scent to float over and caress her face. “Did you justshoome?”
Damn. He really did smell like chocolate-covered cherries and leatherbound books. A tempting, decadent, and cozy day in a library.
“I cannot allow a student to walk alone through the woods,” he said sternly. The tick of his jaw implied he would not back down.
“That’s unnecessary,” she replied. “I am fine to walk alone.”
“You could be attacked.”
“By a tree branch?”
Professor Thierry crossed his arms and told her, “I mean this with no offense, but your species is not known for healing abilities. If you were to trip over the forest ground, you could snap your own neck.”
