Page 112 of Wings of Ashes
What Nix wanted was tothink.
She did not have the one and a half years to prepare for her future that she thought she did.
My future captor might be on campus right now. Watching. Waiting. Stealing away others before he took Nix.
What if, in this timeline, he grabbed Nix earlier? Strange things were already happening…
Like Persius and Elle. The idea of it made her nauseous. And angry. Like she wanted to break something expensive.
Had I ever been such a hothead in my past?
Nix needed to see if Persius recognized her today. She finally looked like herself: hair fully red, eyes a different color, and body and skin tone altered. She hoped it was a sign that the last of the illusion potion was out of her system.
And maybe this time, Persius’s instinct will tell him I am his mate.
Yes, she was Thierry’s mate, and she appeared to be Bael’s favorite plaything of the month, but sheknewPersius down to her bones.
He is a piece of me. And even more than that, she needed to get close to him and figure out how to steer their lives in theoppositedirection of their future captor.
“You appear to be very in your head at the moment,” Thierry commented. “I know the feeling well.” Thierry’s long, warm arms wrapped around her and pulled her head to his muscular chest.
Cradled into him, his chocolate cherry scent distracted her. There was too much to think about to afford such a distraction.
His lips brushed over her hair, kissing her temple as he held her close.
Focus, Nix!
There was still the underlying mystery of:if I am not a cygnus, what kind of shifter am I?
Bael said that the students disappearing were of rare shifter species descent or that they were a type of shifter that Kellan Oadess felt threatened by. Nix had no super strength or powers, not like her peers. So, what was she?
Where do I belong?
“I am thinking she needs an orgasm before class,” Bael concluded. “Look at that brain working a mile a minute.”
As Bael moved back over to where Nix and Thierry sat in the living room, Nix abruptly stood from her seat and said, “Listen, what happened last night—in the dream…”
Bael blinded her with a sexy, crooked grin as he walked closer to her. “Yes?”
Flashes of images from the shared sex dream drifted through her brain.
Thierry’s glassy eyes as he desperately humped the air for her touch every time Bael pulled her away from him. Bael’s patient, amused, and almostlovingsmile on her as she learned techniques to drive Thierry wild.
She swallowed thickly before finishing her sentence. “Can only happen in dreams.”
Bael blinked, and his grin fell off his face and onto the floor. Even Thierry wore a distressed, concerned expression. Bael asked, “What now? Is this because of fear that I will steal your soul? Baby, as an incubus, I would have to come inside you three times for that to—”
“No.” The image of Bael coming inside her just left her blushing harder. “There are just, um, more important things that I need to focus on right now,” Nix told the men who slowly inched closer and closer to her. “And I need to maintain focus.”
“On important things?” Thierry echoed her.A man who listens. Was there anything sexier?
But if Nix ended up distracted by her lust and feelings for the men and was captured and ended right back in her cage, getting tortured, she would have wasted her second chance at life. She would never forgive herself.
Straight-faced and with genuine bafflement, Bael said, “I don’t understand what could be more important than sex with me.”
Nix sighed. “I have something I need to do this morning. Alone.”
“Masturbate?” Bael asked.
