Page 3 of Wings of Ashes
Elle, just like her family and the rest of the herd where they lived, was a swan shifter—a special avian shapeshifter with unique siren-like abilities to enchant others and control water.
Meanwhile, Nix came from the forest on the outskirts of the clan’s land. She had wandered in as a young child, having lost her parents without the traumatizing memory ofhow.
Alone. Scared. Powerless.
Elle and her family had taken Nix in, fed her, and cared for her. But Nix stood out like a sore wing. Where all swan shifters were unfairly beautiful blondes, Nix was, well, something else. Somethingunknown. An unusual paranormal energy unrevealed.
Elle’s parents found Nix a special potion to alter Nix’s physical attributes, so she would better fit in with the swan shifters. Nix had taken that potion once a week, every week, since childhood—until she was captured.
Kept shackled in a cage without the potion, Nix’s natural appearance returned. Her hair had turned to a fiery red shade. Her skin had tanned, growing darker than the pearly cream color of typical swan shifters.
From another quick glance in the mirror, in the present, Nix saw just how different the potion made her look from the natural appearance she had gotten used to over the last few years of captivity.
The glamour of fake blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and pointed features felt…wrong now.
Her face was…different.
Why wouldn’t the illusion they gave her just alter her hair color to help her fit in with the swan shifters? Why did it change her face so much?
“You are still not packed for the academy?” Elle exasperated, tearing Nix from her thoughts. “Nix, we move back into the dorms tomorrow.”
So soon.Nix inhaled.Good.
“I can’t believe we’re going to be betrothed in less than two years.” Elle danced around Nix’s tiny room excitedly.
“Youwill be,” Nix muttered under her breath.
Unlike other winged predator shifters who attended Alatus Academy—dragon shifters, incubi, Nephilim, fae, gargoyles, griffins, and more—many of the females were born as prey shifters.
As prey shifters, they were enrolled in different classes than their stronger and more powerful peers. The swan shifters, also known ascygni, attended the academy for one purpose: to find powerful mates. In their twisted world, those without supernatural physical strength needed protectors.
Elle, one of the most beautiful and eligible female cygnus students at the academy, was expected to mate and marryverywell off—like to a royal griffin shifter or rich fae.
Nix, on the other hand, knew who Nix was destined to end up with. Nix knew the evil man who plucked her away the day before graduation and treated her like a pet. No, like a lab rat.
This time around, she would become strong enough to kill the man who killed her six years in the future, before he even knew she existed.
This life will be different.
“Oh, come on, you will find someone too! Adar or not,” Elle reassured her. “You will find an alpha who will protect you and keep you safe.”
“Fuck the alphas,” Nix snapped, shocking Elle again. The past Nix did not curse or raise her voice, and the past Nix certainly would have never said anything disrespectful about the alphas.
Because I used to believe all of it, Nix thought.
She used to praise the alphas like the others, begging for their attention like a human girl at a boy band concert.Serve them, and they will protect you. That was what all the women were taught.
In her past, Nix, though she was constantly bullied as the “ugly duckling” of the school, had tried so hard to solidify a match with an alpha by graduation. No match meant no protection outside of the academy, in a world where female prey shifters were hunted for sport or randomly disappeared off the streets to be kept or sold as pleasure pets.
Nix had disappeared. And when she was tortured in her cage for years, she did not regret her inability to find an alpha protector.
She regretted not being her own protector.
“Did you just say…” Elle whispered as if the alphas could hear their conversation, though they were far from the academy walls.
The females were taught to cater to the alphas, stroke their egos, and look good for the males. Nix had never been taught self-defense or survival skills or anything remotely important to the dark future she now knew awaited her.
Fuck the alphas. If the strong fae and winged shifters only wanted to protect those they wanted to sleep with, then Nix did not need their twisted, manipulative,I’ll scratch your back if you massage minenegotiated “protection.”
