Page 52 of Wings of Ashes
He inhaled, exhaled, and spoke slowly, “Gargoyle shifters perish without a mate.”
He reached out to touch one of her stray locks of pink-tipped platinum hair. Did she think she needed to dye her hair to stand out from the other swan shifters?
“My life depends on love.” He stressed in a protective growl, “Yoursdoesn’t.”
Nix’s brows wrinkled as her face formed an expression he was not sure how to catalogue.
“You can do anything. Be anything,” he said. “And instead, I watch as you cygni go to dances, flirt in the cafeteria, and throw yourselves at alphas, trying to secure a partner who may not even be your fated mate. You don’thaveto marry someone when you graduate. That tradition, you don’t have to follow it. You have your whole immortal future ahead of you—”
“Wow,” Nix muttered. “Underneath those studly glasses, you’re secretly dumb, huh?”
21
CHAPTER
“Underneath those studly glasses, you’re secretly dumb, huh?” she asked the alluring professor.
Étienne Thierry blinked his gorgeous slate-silver eyes at her. Stunned again.
“Cygnus shifters, or any shifter of thepreyvariety, need to marry an alpha or strong shifter forprotection,” she said. “Those in power in our world are not protecting us.”
She continued, unable to stop, “They are creating a world where we need to tie ourselves to someone—who may not be our fated mate—because we risk being taken in the night, off the streets. We are taught at too young an age to never walk around alone.”
Nix told him, “Out in the real world, prey shifters go missing after they graduate. Taken as pets or unwilling wives or sold to the most twisted of paranormals. Do you think I wanted to try to find a husband or risk a torturous end once I was freed from the protective academy walls? You think freedom from the tradition of being married young was worth being captured and abused by someone stronger than me?”
Nix stopped her rant when she noticed Professor Thierry’s expression change into scrunched curiosity at her use of past tense. Hopefully, he just thought she was being dramatic for the sake of painting a picture.
“You said my life doesn’t depend on love—it doesn’t,” she said, looking to the ground as she spoke what she wished was not the truth. “I don’t have the luxury oflove. My need to look for a husband means our society has made it impossible to feel safe without one.”
Nix swallowed and allowed her gaze to lift to his magnificent face, lit by moonlight, which cast a silvery sheen over his skin. “Maybe we both die without love, professor.”
His jaw ticked as his gaze pierced through her. “You feel pressured to marry? For protection?”
Nix no longer bought into the societal pressure from the other cygni to marry at graduation for safety. Nix wanted to create herownsafety.
The alphas never protected me in my past life. Why would I want to be with one?
“Maybe you should take your nose out of history books for a second and look at the state of the world around you.” Nix blew out a breath, bent down, and ripped the side seam of the bottom of her nightgown. That way, she could move faster. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have more important things to do tonight.”
“You didn’t sleep last night,”Bael informed a very tired Nix as she slumped in her seat in potions class.
She had not slept. She had wandered around the woods last night looking for ingredients for the reversal potion she found in her textbook.
As the sun broke through the clouds of dawn, she did her best to create the potion. She then drank it this morning only to have her skin darken to a tanner hue and her hair become a mix of platinum and red streaks—making it look like a botched pink hair dye experiment.
“Up all night getting fucked by your mate?” Bael asked, wondering why she had not slept and why he could not infiltrate her dreams.
Nix sighed.One good thing came from last night, she thought.Limiting the sex demon’s presence in her subconscious sounded like a smart goal.
“No, I guess not,” Bael commented, leaning his torso over the lab tabletop to sniff around her. “I still smell the sexual frustration on you from yesterday. In fact, it’s even stronger today.”
“Stop smelling me,” she muttered sleepily.
“If you fall asleep in class, I can dream-fuck you, if you want.”
Nix slapped her cheek.Must stay awake.
“What’s up with the pink hair and tan?” Bael asked her another question.
