Page 57 of Wings of Ashes
“I’m sorry,” Nix squeaked out in a broken voice of guilt.
“You did your best,” Mara replied and shrugged, dusting some of the soot from her blazer. “Just maybe never bake us anything.”
“Not all of us are meant to be potion people, Swan Lake,” Bael said, standing from his stool to examine the crime scene.
The severe burns…
Ryker had saved her life.
And he knew to do so…because he had seen her pocket some of the hyssop, tainting the potion.
“Um, thank you,” Nix mumbled to Ryker, looking down at his perfectly sculpted chin because those golden eyes burnedtoo intensely into hers. Like a foolproof lie detector test, his beautiful eyes could have made her confess to any and all sins.
Ryker grunted and turned away from her. Gods, the lined ridges of muscle on his back were sexy too.
She reached out and touched his back before she could stop herself. “Really,” she said, feeling the need to repeat her thanks after she spat out vicious words at him the day before. “You saved me.”
Ryker paused and stiffened at her fingers brushing where his wings had disappeared into his taut, smooth skin. Keeping his back to her, he turned his head to mutter, “Not so violent, vicious, and evil now.”
Throwing her words from the other day back at her.
She deserved it.
“Surviving flames does not mean you were meant for Hell,” Nix said. “I’m sorry I said that. I’ve been…adjusting, and I lashed out. I—I lost everything to dragons.”
Still keeping his back to her, Ryker grunted, “Not everything.”
23
CHAPTER
“Would you please leave so I can have a private moment with Professor Bowen?” Nix asked Bael, who wore his effortlessly sexy grin and stood right beside her.Rightbeside her.
His arm kept grazing hers as his sensual forest scent perfumed over her face.
Focus.
The rest of the class had left the room with the sounding of the dismissal bell. Ryker had beelined right for the exit, shouldering into people like he did not notice they were there as he rushed to leave Nix behind. Would she see him in combat class?
How was a girl supposed to get over a shirtless dragon shifter saving her life?
“Leave?” Bael asked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red lollipop. Biting off the wrapper and spitting it to the floor with no concern that the professor saw him do it, Bael stuck the lollipop in his mouth and gave it a twist. “Why would you want me to leave?”
“Do you just carry lollipops with you?” Nix frowned at how normal andhumanthe sex demon appeared while sucking on the cherry ball of sugar.
“You want one?” he asked around the lollipop. “I love an oral fixation.”
“I have something private to discuss with the professor,” Nix said, stepping toward where Professor Bowen nodded at her from his desk several feet away. “So, if you could just…”
“Nah, I think I’ll stay,” he said.
“But—”
Bael pulled the lollipop out with a loud, wet suction noise that Nix felt between her legs. “I am not leaving your side,” he rasped with a possessive and intense expression.
His red eyes blazed and penetrated her with a ray of warmth. Something about his voice whispered, “I would die for you,” and messed with Nix’s perception of the insouciant incubus who cared about very little.
He sucked the candy sphere back into his mouth and rolled the white stick to the left side of his mouth. Nix shivered.
