Chapter 2
The sound of the screams was like background noise to Nix’s ears.
She sneered at Graeves, “Alphas think they can do whatever they want to those without power. You fuck the prey shifters for enjoyment while they fuck you for safety. Isn’t that the way things work here? Well, fuck that. I’m not going to let you—”
“NIX.”
“WHAT?” she yelled back at the warning masculine voice.
“Look down.”
She glanced down and saw flames. Reeling back, she dropped the piece of paper, which instantly burnt to ash before it floated down to Graeves’s desk. She patted her arms and her front torso.
Had Graeves just attacked her? Did Ryker’s shirt have the ability to catch fire? What the hell? Nix thought in confusion.
Fear caught in her throat, but the more she tried to extinguish the flames on her, the more she realized touching them did not hurt. Her hands were completely lit with flames, yet her skin glowed healthily under the blaze.
The orange, yellow, and red, lurid flames danced over her skin, charring the uniform shirt and disintegrating the fabric.
In mere seconds, every bit of fabric she wore turned to ash and drifted down to the floor.
Until she stood, engulfed in flames.
Naked.
“Oh, shit,” Bael muttered in awe from behind her.
A loud, commanding growl broke out from the back row of desks.
Were the flames a sign in regards to what kind of shifter Nix was? The only shifter that came to mind that could survive and generate flames was…
A dragon.
“Oh shit,” someone commented. “A female dragon shifter.”
“I thought they were extinct?”
“The dragon clan is going to have to pass her around to keep their population existent.”
A loud snapping sound of metal came from the back row, and Nix looked over to see Ryker breaking his desk and walking through it.
“Nix, run,” Bael told her.
“What?”
“Get to the hallway. Now.”
Nix watched Ryker slowly stride toward her. His eyes were…fully black. “But—”
“GO.”
Naked, with dying flames waning over her body, she sprinted for the classroom door.
A loud roar shook the floor, rattling each desk in the room.
“Hey buddy, how about you calm down—wait—” Bael’s voice cut off, and a loud crashing sound came from behind Nix as she ran out into the hallway.
She ran down the length of the hall, heading toward the courtyard, but Ryker caught her before that.
The second his big, strong arms encircled her waist, she forgot why she was supposed to run.
“MINE,” he growled into her ear. His large, hot palms on her bare hips guided her into position.
His front to her back, he pinned her against the glass-paned window, which stretched from the floor to the ceiling, overlooking the green courtyard.
With his hot, broad chest pushing into her upper back, she gasped against the cool, smooth glass. She palmed the glass to keep her face from pressing into it.
“MINE.”
She shivered and asked, “I…I’m a dragon?”
Was her memory wrong? The fire engulfing her parents when they told her to run all those years ago—had that been their own fire? Not harming them but protecting them? If so, what creatures had they been running from?
And the cygni told me that dragons were mindless, bloodthirsty, meat-headed killers.
Council President Kellan Oadess, due to his monetary success, had campaigned in the shifter council to remove dragons from holding a seat of power. The man who had raised Nix from age ten to twenty had taken away the dragon species’ voice in council decisions.
Kellan had supported the sudden decrease in dragon procreation due to the drop in female dragon shifters—something that had never been well-explained. The whole cygni clan had spread vicious rumors.
Does Mr. Oadess know what I really am? Could he have anything to do with female dragon shifters going extinct?
“FUCK.”
Nix shivered again at Ryker’s low, growly voice in her ear as he palmed her bare flesh and held her against the long window. Naked from the flames eating away her shirt, she was bare for his hungry exploration.
His meaty palms traveled down her ass and squeezed the globes. His demanding fingers kneaded the swells of her ass, and she felt his hard, needy erection prodding her upper back.
My gods, the size of him. His erection reminded her of a hot, fleshy flashlight nightstick in girth and length. He would have to physically lift her for his hard cock to reach her pussy. Our height difference, our size difference, is so vast.
“MATE.”
Nix was Ryker’s mate, too? What was happening in this new timeline? She had never had such connections between alphas before.
First Persius, then Thierry, and now Ryker? Then again, in her past life at the academy, she had never had a sex drive or burst into flames.
I am swimming through unmapped waters. And with Ryker’s heat at her back, it felt…exciting.
“brEED,” Ryker hissed.
Nix swallowed. “Um.”
Ryker ripped the front of his pants and tore free his massive erection. It felt scorching against her bare back, in the same pleasant and delicious way a steaming melted marshmallow could burn her taste buds.
She whimpered as her nipples tightened and pressed against the cool glass. He grabbed her, thrust her up, higher on the glass, until her feet no longer touched the ground.
“Ryker!”
With the change of her height and the angle, Ryker fed his massive erection between her thighs. Though not inside her, the thick length rubbed over her slick pussy lips.
He jerked his hips, and the engorged length slid over her swollen clit hood, which peaked out for attention the moment he pinned her to the glass window.
Her breasts slid up and down the glass as he moved her hips.
Loud footsteps came closer and closer to where Nix could only look through the window, blind to what happened in the hallway behind her.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” Bael said as he trailed closer to them. “You’ve really got her pinned to that glass, huh? Uh, big guy, I know you’re pent up, and you’ve finally found a female dragon, but you can’t just fuck her in this hallway.”
“Why not?” Ryker grunted onto Nix’s shoulder and rubbed his dick between her pussy lips, slickening it with her growing wetness.
“Mmmm,” Nix moaned onto the glass, vibrating it, as his plump cockhead scraped over her clit again and again. Back and forth. Back and forth. A consistent, heady rhythm over her sensitive bundle of nerves.
“Because you are the patient one of our little group, and if you fuck her in the middle of class time, all hope is lost,” Bael remarked.
“MINE.” Ryker lightly bit her back shoulder, and she yelped and shuddered with desire. She liked the roughness of his teeth, of his touch.
Gods, I’m so fucking horny, she thought as she rocked her hips down to move over his cock harder.
“You have her pinned against a window,” Bael stressed. “Naked. In the middle of the academy. I am very damn proud of you, but you can find a place more private to—”
“No,” Ryker grumbled. “brEED.”
“Fuck, your eyes are fully black, man,” Bael said. His voice sounded closer this time when he said, “Nix, I need you to tell me if he hurts you, okay? He’s…overcome by hormones and some major animalistic urges at the moment. He’s not thinking straight. He thinks you are his mate—”
“MATE. MINE.”
“And the fact that you are stark naked—and your pussy is wet as hell—makes it harder for me to calm him down right now,” Bael told her. “Now, I can try to tackle him and hold him down long enough for you to—”
“No,” Nix whined softly. She…wanted it. She wanted him. She wanted this. She wanted to be fucked by a man who would kill for her. She wanted to be held and treasured by him.
I want to feel claimed by my mate.
If her future was uncertain, then she would not run away from these new relationships. She would not waste her time chasing something she thought she knew how to fix.
If I am still doomed to four years of captivity and eventual death, then I am going to spend the next three semesters before graduation at the academy enjoying myself. She would make memories she could hold onto during the dark days.
“No?” Bael repeated, dumbfounded.
“I want it,” she snapped. “Now.”
Her tornado of emotions—anger, sadness, fear—all boiled down to one thing. The need to feel wanted. To feel safe.
She wanted Ryker.
The dangerous, hulking creature behind her smelled like vanilla smoke and birthday candles, and she wanted him. Ferociously.
“You don’t fully understand what’s about to happen here,” Bael said slowly. The incubus actually sounded cautious for once. “He is going to want to breed you—”
“brEED.” Ryker’s hand snaked around her torso and dominantly cupped her throat as he growled, “Mine to fill.”
And he thrust his massive cock to her entrance.