Chapter 5
“As you know, a formal complaint can be grounds for an immediate, permanent expulsion.”
Expelled? Nix gaped. In her past life at the academy, she had been a goodie-goodie student who played by every rule, spoken or unspoken. Was there actually a chance she could be expelled in this new life?
“No,” Ryker said.
“Now, wait a moment—” Thierry started.
“No fucking way,” Bael remarked.
Nix shh-ed her mates’ reactions. They obeyed. She smirked and thought, Good boys get treats later. “What was this complaint?”
“Well, it had several points,” Dean Felling stated. “The first being that as a cygnus shifter, you are supposed to be taking classes with your fellow species.”
Dean Felling clarified, “Classes like potions, combat, and history are for the alphas who graduate to lead packs or clans, and having a cygnus shifter in the classroom takes a seat away from a possible young leader. Your presence can also lead to distraction.”
She bit back a retort on his implication that she could not be a “possible young leader” and focused on the last part of his sentence. “Distraction…how?” Nix asked in a voice as sharp as the edge of Bael’s knife.
“You know that prolonged presence around alpha pheromones can lead to prey shifters going into—” The dean cleared his throat. “—heat.”
Right. Nix had never gone into heat before because, in her past life, she was never around alphas as much as she was now. But…she was a dragon shifter. Since she was not a prey, did that mean she did not have a heat cycle to worry about?
The idea of becoming mindless with lust, to the point that she would fall to her knees and beg to be fucked…
“More than that, your mere scent can be a distraction to our male students.”
“That sounds like a them problem.”
“The…” The dean glanced around at the young alphas in the room. He straightened his tie and said, “The seduction of fellow students is all well and good when the rules are being followed, but—”
“What the fuck did you just say to her?” Bael asked, twirling his blade in his fingers so quickly that it blurred as a flash of silver.
“There is only one reason a cygnus shifter enrolls in classes like those,” the dean said pointedly.
“Yes,” Nix replied. “To learn subjects that are specifically withheld from me to keep me ignorant and submissive and compliant.”
Dean Felling gawked at her forthrightness.
She leaned forward in her chair, never breaking eye contact with the dean.
“Your tactless insinuation—that I am only taking those classes to ‘seduce’ an alpha—is offensive and dense. I think I have an idea about the ‘esteemed student’ who complained about me,” Nix stated, folding her hands onto the dean’s desk.
Calmly, because she knew he would call her something demeaning like “emotional” if she raised her voice, she said, “Mr. Graeves accused me of changing my courses this semester to ‘seduce’ a husband out of my classmates—”
“And is that not what you have done?” Dean Felling nodded to Bael, Ryker, and Thierry’s presence in the room.
“No, it is not. It ends up that trying to learn and better myself led me to my fated mates.” Nix added, “I assume Graeves complained about me now that his ego is hurt that I burned his little list.”
“List?”
“Of all the female students he has ‘sampled’ and ranked.”
Thierry coughed and muttered under his breath, “Asshole.”
“Professor Thierry,” the dean pleaded for professionalism. “Honestly.”
Thierry blinked and deadpanned, “I didn’t say anything.”
The dean exhaled and turned back to Nix. “Do you know who Mr. Graeves’s family is, Miss Oadess?”
“No, I do not. Do you know who mine is?”
The dean waved off her question as if it were silly. “Of course, I do. I have been friends with Kellan Oadess for many years.”
Nix said, “I believe the Oadess family donates a lot of money to the academy for the ‘good treatment’ of the cygnus shifters who attend. Top education. Respectable futures.”
Even though the assumed respectable future was marriage. Cygni shifters had the same respect among alphas as filthy rich “new money” humans had among “old money” inheritors.
The dean rubbed his fingers over his chin. “That is correct.”
“Then, Dean Felling, I hope you will help me understand why, when someone broke into my dorm room last night, vandalized it, then lit it on fire with me in it, I never got called into the dean’s office to see how I was after such a traumatic and dangerous event on campus.”
Nix tsked and continued, “Yet, I am called in to be told that a male student said my presence is ‘distracting’ him. My presence in his class does not sound very traumatic or dangerous, but his complaint is taken very seriously because, I believe, you were about to mention his especially special family?”
Nix removed her hands from his desk, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her legs.
“Damn, that got me hard,” Bael mumbled.
“You’re always hard,” Thierry muttered.
Dean Felling scowled at Bael, then at Nix. “Young lady—”
“Dean Felling, I would also like to comment that I did not ‘dye’ my hair as you suggested, thus forsaking my cygni community. I believe you know, as well as I do, that the Oadess family is my adoptive family.”
“How ungrateful,” the dean murmured under his breath.
“They were the ones who wanted me to lie to help me ‘fit in’ with the swan shifter community. A few days ago, I found out someone has been poisoning me with Evernell, and when I stopped taking the poison, guess what color my hair naturally turned?”
Ryker growled at the word “poison.”
“I might have continued being affected by the Evernell poison if not for Professor Bowen. In fact, the teaching staff at the academy—for the alpha classes—is top notch, as I am sure you know.” Nix shook her head.
“Anyhow, it turns out that I am a dragon shifter, after all, which makes me an alpha. Not a prey shifter. And being an alpha makes me a ‘possible young leader’ in your definition, unless you were basing it on gender as well as species?”
Bael chuckled silently.
Ever the cool, stoic bodyguard, Ryker’s blank face almost flashed a smug smirk.
“As a dragon shifter, I don’t believe it is suddenly ‘distracting’ for me to be in the more ‘serious’ classes,” Nix said. “I’ve never seen a dragon shifter forced to take cooking or family relations.”
Dean Felling’s nostrils flared on his red face. “Female dragons are rare. What you are suggesting…”
“Thanks,” Nix said. “That makes me feel special.”
“Dragons cannot live on campus.” That was what the dean had to say to her? “Fire hazard,” Dean Felling added.
“Well, that works out fine, I guess, since someone burned my room and destroyed all of my belongings, and my fated mates have a house off-campus that I can stay in for the rest of the school year.”
“Miss Oadess, you will apologize to Mr. Graeves by the end of the school day tomorrow, or I will pursue expulsion. Do you understand?”
“Apologize for burning his list and giving him a fright? Wounding his ego? He is not being made to apologize for the harassing comments he has made toward and about me since I joined the class.”
Dean Felling warned, “A promising, young alpha from a good family like Atticus Graeves will not be treated with disrespect in my academy.”
“Fuck young alphas like him.” Nix could not help herself. There was just so much…fire inside her. More words slipped out like the last trickle of smoke from an extinguished flame. “And fuck you.”
Thierry palmed his face at her impulsiveness. Bael cackled at it. Ryker’s lips just barely quirked up at the edges of his mouth.
“Miss Oadess,” Dean Felling snapped. “I will be calling your father. I am sure he will want to speak to you about this new attitude of yours.” Dean Felling gestured to the door. “You’re dismissed.”
Nix stood on shaky legs, vibrating with…something. Dark and powerful. And so long hidden. Before she turned to leave, she asked, “Why was the rule about the school dance changed?”
The change of subject caused all of the men to stare at her with confusion etched on their faces.
She asked, “Why can only couples attend? Students could typically attend dances without a date.”
Frown lines appeared on Dean Felling’s face, but he nodded. Maybe because the school dance was a topic he deemed appropriate for Nix to discuss. “Actually, it was a request of your father’s, Kellan Oadess. He thought it would be a great way to enforce matches in the school—”
“Thanks,” Nix said, turning and walking out of the office. The school dance rule was new in this timeline, which meant something Nix did or changed had triggered Mr. Oadess to ask the school to make that rule. Why?
As they left the dean’s office, Bael followed last and waved at Dean Felling. “Bye-bye, sleep well tonight.” Acting as a nightmare prince who could slip into any person’s sleeping subconscious, Bael told him, “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of dreams.”
The door slammed behind them.