Chapter 8
“You are…stronger today,” Ryker told her, a gleam of pride shining in his pretty golden eyes. His firm, bulging erection was also obvious under those tight gym shorts.
The dragon really was insatiable. But then again, so was she.
Something about the new fire and power coursing through her veins left her feeling invigorated and energetic and…horny.
“Oh yeah?” Nix asked, stretching her legs on the field at combat class after running a few miles. His gaze licked over her legs. “Strong enough that you’ll finally teach me some fight moves?”
Still enraptured with the sight of her legs, Ryker shook his head.
“Because you are worried you will hurt me?” she asked. What made him not want to teach her?
Ryker stared at her, expressionless. Revealing nothing.
“Oh, come on,” Nix whined. “I need to learn how to defend myself. I just promised all the prey shifters at lunch that I could protect them if they wanted me to.”
Meanwhile, Nix didn’t truly know how to protect herself yet. The fire that came off her skin was involuntary. She didn’t know how she could summon it other than through rage. And what happened if someone used the shifter poison on her, completely rendering her powerless?
I need to know how to fight.
Nix said, “At least show me something. How do I best throw a punch? How can I get away from someone larger and stronger than me?”
“You will never need to fight or defend yourself again.” Ryker stated, “You have mates. You have me.”
Nix’s face soured. What if she still, even though she had mates, managed to get captured in this new life? The only thing changed so far in this timeline was that she stopped taking the cygnus illusion potion—and somehow, Persius and Elle were together.
Nix was stronger due to the lack of Evernell poison in her system, but she was still not as strong as the other alphas. She did not have an arsenal of combat knowledge she could depend on or extensive experience in potion-making to protect herself.
She was still vulnerable.
She hated that.
Ryker examined her quietly and took his time with each word as he asked, “Why do you wish to learn how to fight?”
“I didn’t enroll in combat class to run miles around the track.”
“Do you fear someone?” Ryker asked in a low growl.
Fear? It was too small a word. Fear. Only four letters for something so crippling?
“My special little birdie.” Her captor’s voice floated through her head, and she stiffened. Her heartbeat quickened from the memory alone. “You bleed so prettily. I could watch you cry for hours.”
“Who do you fear?” Ryker asked darkly. The rumbling in his chest reminded her of a small earthquake.
Nix blinked and refocused, noticing Ryker’s golden eyes narrowing into dragon slits. “Uh, no one. Forget it.”
“No one will ever hurt you,” Ryker promised her, touching her hand.
But it wasn’t true. Unless Nix successfully changed her future. “You don’t know that,” she muttered grimly.
“I won’t let them,” he growled.
“And what if I’m taken suddenly? I just disappear into the night, never to be heard from again—”
Ryker grabbed her arms and snarled at her, “Do not say such things.”
“Why not? You said students are disappearing from the academy—”
“I have lost enough already,” he bellowed. His chest rose and fell with shaken breaths as he tried to calm himself.
The idea of her disappearing left him…hauntingly shaken. His fingers were sure to leave indents from where he clutched her upper arms. But…Nix liked it. He really does worry about my safety.
“I—I’m sorry, I just…”
Nostrils flaring, Ryker admitted solemnly, “My mother was taken. When I was nine.”
“Taken,” Nix repeated, feeling suddenly numb. “W-Why?”
Ryker painfully scowled at Nix’s chin, as if he could not meet her gaze, as he replied hoarsely, “Rare.”
“That is why female dragons are so rare?” Nix asked.
Ryker glared at the truth she hinted at. “They are…hunted. By enemies. And by rogue, lonely dragons.”
That made Nix blink in confusion. “Dragons hunt other dragons?”
“Like any, there are some who…make wrong choices.” Ryker stared off into space, looking over her shoulder at nothing in particular. “As the females disappear, the males…lose themselves. Lonely alphas are very dangerous creatures.”
“You don’t mean that they…” Nix shook her head, her brows furrowing. “With the females going missing, and when you say ‘lonely’ leading to ‘dangerous,’ you don’t mean—”
“Some alphas feel…entitled to whatever they want.” Ryker’s expression tightened into one of disgust as he said, “No matter if what they want requires force.”
Nix’s breath shot out from her lungs. “Your mother…”
“Was taken.” Ryker’s jaw ticked. “By force.”
Nix felt the little flames emerge between her knuckles as her fingers balled into fists. Ryker’s mother was taken by other dragons as a…sexual plaything. Treated like a trophy or toy or…
Nix wanted to vomit. “Do you know who took—”
Ryker’s gaze refocused on Nix as he promised in a low voice, “If I knew, I would wear their bones around my neck and listen to their screams every night.”
Nix’s mouth dried. Ryker always seemed like a misunderstood teddy bear. This dangerous side of him was new to her, but it stemmed from a desire to protect his mother. Gods, his poor mother.
“What if rogue dragons take me too?” Nix asked softly.
Ryker’s eyes fully shifted into slitted, reptilian diamond irises as he growled, “Then they will pray to the gods for death to come to them before I do.”
Trying to lighten the mood, Nix remarked, “So maybe…we are a bit prone to violence?”
“Is it violent—” Ryker reached up and touched a lock of Nix’s reddish orange hair. “—to hurt those who hurt others?”
Nix thought of her plan in this second chance at life. She wanted to kill her future captor before he knew she existed. Before he committed atrocities against her.
“Violence exists because there will always be someone with power who justifies it,” Nix commented. “And there will always be someone without power, hurt by those who justify it, willing to do anything for revenge. Violence is a snake eating its own tail.”
Ryker stared at her, reading her expression as if her words had appeared on her skin as she said them.
He looks at me like I am the most amazing and fascinating thing he has ever seen. He stares through me like he can read my thoughts.
Nix changed the subject, blushing under the intensity of his gaze. “You said dragons also have enemies. Other than just other dragons.” Nix asked, “Who are the enemies? Sounds like I should learn how to defend myself against them.”
Nix faked a fight move, chopping the air with her hand.
Ryker pressed his lips into a thin line at the topic of teaching her fight moves again. “The enemies are other powerful paranormals. Those who betray their own and sell rare creatures on the dark market. Dragon scales are worth…much.”
Sell rare creatures. Rare creatures like Pegasi shifters? Like Persius?
Had Nix’s captor realized she was a rare female dragon and captured her because of it?
Ryker stated, “Hunters…come in many forms. Like those who are different from us and villainize our species.”
“Like the cygni,” Nix said. “The clan leader, my…non-biological father, was the one who established the ban on dragon shifters being voting members of the council. He is the reason no laws have been made against hunters, to protect dragons from extinction—”
Ryker leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I do not wish you to worry…about enemies,” Ryker said softly.
Nix shivered. “We all have enemies. I want to fight mine. Teach me. I need to know how.”
Ryker told her, “We are gifted with fire.”
“But what if we were weakened by something, and we couldn’t use any powers? What fight moves should I know then?”
Ryker’s brows furrowed at her very specific question.
“Look, either you show me fight moves, or I learn the hard way.”
“Hard way?”
Nix launched herself at him, throwing a practice fist toward his face.
He suddenly had her flat on her back and restrained.
She huffed out a frustrated breath. How he had restrained her so swiftly, protecting her from any impact on the ground, was just another annoying reminder of how fast alphas were.
“You tried to hit me,” he said.
Nix chewed her inner cheek and grumbled, “Sorry.”
Ryker breathed in her scent and dragged his lips down her neck. “Smell so good.”
Cue the horniness.
Nix swallowed and wiggled under his sexy, hulking body. He had her pinned expertly, and his sweet alpha scent was also so good. The memory of his thick dick pistoning inside her earlier heated her core.
A low rumble shook his chest as he rasped, “Could fuck you into the grass…right here…in front of everyone.”
Nix’s breath hitched, and her nipples tightened instantly at his words.
“Maybe I should,” Ryker purred. “So everyone will know who you belong to.”
Nix felt Ryker’s hot, heavy erection weigh down on her left inner thigh. Fuck. She could imagine it thrusting inside her now. Hitting her so deep that her toes curled. “That’s not fair.”
He tilted his head and kissed below her ear. “Hmm?”
“You are not allowed to get me horny to distract me from wanting to learn to fight.”
“No one will hurt you.” Ryker said, “Because I will be with you. Always.”
But Ryker should have never made a promise he could not keep. Because he was not always with her.
When combat ended, Nix—the only female in the class—retired to the empty girls’ locker room to change back into her normal school uniform.
Before she had time to sense the intruder, someone grabbed her and pierced her neck with a needle.
And everything blurred after that.