Chapter 9
“The slut is waking up. Did you get a piece of her hair for the spell?”
Spell? Shit. Nix silently screamed at her slow-moving, aching body to wake up and defend herself from whatever kind of attack this was. Blinking her abnormally tired eyes open, Nix saw the familiar platinum blond hair.
“Astrid?” Nix’s voice sounded weird. Too slow, low, and breathy.
Drugged. They had drugged her with…
Nix knew this feeling all too well. The same kind of poison that her captor used on her. The same kind from Elle’s illusion potion, but in a heftier dose. Evernell.
A feminine hand came down hard against the right side of Nix’s face, slapping her and causing instant reeling. Evernell poison weakened its subject, but it did not numb the victim. That was the optimal pain—knowing there was nothing to stop it. No control over her own body.
“I didn’t say you could address me, bitch,” Astrid spat viciously at her.
“I thought they said she would be out for an hour,” someone else complained.
Nix blinked, trying to unblur her vision. The poison was potent in her system, slowing her thoughts, feelings, and movements. She then felt the rope. Ah.
They had tied her hands behind her back and her ankles to the bottom legs of a chair. Where was she? Still in the girls’ locker room? How long had she been out? There was no way Ryker was still waiting for her. Would he burst into the locker room and—
She fought her blurred vision and heavy eyelids to note her location. No, she was…somewhere else. Somewhere she did not recognize. Somewhere Ryker was not.
Shit.
“She’ll just have to be awake during this last part.” Astrid lifted a black permanent marker. “You don’t get to take away our chances of survival,” Astrid sneered at her.
All of this was about her enrolling in the classes that other alphas took? Are you goddamn serious? Nix urged her body to move. Her legs felt unattached. Her arms were as weak as boiled noodles.
No, no, no. Her one vow to herself in this new life had been to be stronger. To never be left vulnerable again.
But here she was. Vulnerable. Poisoned. Restrained. Captured. Again.
Nix bit her tongue as hard as she could, trying to get control of her face enough to speak. “I’m not—”
Another hearty, heavy slap connected with Nix’s already throbbing cheek. Nix’s head swung to the side from the force of it and hung there, motionless.
“Cygni get one husband. One,” Astrid said. “A whore like you doesn’t deserve multiple alphas. You’re not even one of us.” Slap.
Nix tasted blood and swallowed it down. To be this helpless again, after everything…
The other blonde standing beside Astrid, whose name Nix still could not remember, added, “No one would care if you disappeared.”
Nix snorted at that. Maybe in her past life, that had been true. But now? She was pretty sure a dragon, an incubus, and a gargoyle shifter would rip the academy apart if Nix went missing. I…like them. I would…miss them.
“Beg to differ,” Nix muttered through a mouthful of blood, spitting out some of the metallic, red liquid.
The blood splattered right onto Astrid’s school uniform. Astrid’s nostrils flared as she shot Nix a deadly glare, “You bitch!” Astrid lifted the marker and jammed it onto Nix’s forehead.
She violently wrote a five-letter word. The fact that it started with “W” gave it away. So, they were the ones who vandalized Nix’s room.
“Did you just—” Nix sluggishly blinked. “—write ‘whore’ on my forehead?”
Astrid grabbed Nix’s chin and tilted her face up, so Nix was forced to meet her blue eyes. “You really thought we would let you go to the dance with our Adar?”
Since when had Nix said yes to letting Elle’s brother take Nix to the upcoming school dance? If Adar was that important to them, they could have him.
“We’re going to tell them what you are,” the other girl told Nix. “A power-hungry whore.”
Nix scoffed. “You are right about one thing,” she panted as her body fought off the poison like a brutal fever. Her forehead burned with sweat. So…hot. “I do want power.”
“Promise you won’t go to the dance tomorrow night, and we won’t hurt you,” the blonde said.
Hurt me? Cygni were not violent creatures. Scheming, manipulating, mistrusting creatures, sure, but swan shifters were not fans of blood.
And yet…
Astrid shoved the marker into her pocket, only to pull out a small blade—the kind one might use to dissect a frog. Nix was sure Bael would have cackled at the little thing. Nix, however, did not feel like laughing.
Was she really threatening to cut Nix with that scalpel?
“All of this effort, so I won’t go to the dance?” Nix asked in disbelief. There was something else going on here. What was supposed to happen at the dance?
“You’re not wanted there.”
Nix blew out a stubborn breath and said, “Well, now I kind of want to go.”
SLAP.
Nix’s head shot to the side so quickly that her neck ached. Spitting more blood from her mouth, Nix practically vibrated with her indignation. Her skin continued to warm as if she sweat out a sickness.
“First, her family takes you in. An ugly orphan. They help you fit in. Then, you take advantage of their kindness. You break her wrist and try to seduce her brother and—”
“When did I try to seduce Adar?” Nix questioned, incredulous.
“You know when.”
“No. Tell me.” Why did Astrid’s words sound like a script? Nix frowned and looked more carefully into Astrid’s blue eyes. Did she really believe what she was saying?
Astrid sputtered. “You’re not even listening to me.”
“I am, actually. My ears are wide open.”
“Snarky bitch.” Astrid grabbed a handful of Nix’s blood-orange colored hair and tugged forcefully. “You thought dying your hair red would make all the guys interested in you? You care so much about what you look like and stealing all the alphas—”
“How many times do I have to say I don’t CARE—” Nix started, but a strong slap interrupted her. “Stop fucking slapping me.”
“Like you could do anything about it. You’re just a powerless slut who can’t even shift.” Astrid lifted the small surgical blade in her left hand. “Do you think they will still like you when you look like a monster?” Astrid smiled. “By the time I’m done with you, no alpha will want you.”
“Uh, Astrid,” the other girl said nervously. “That wasn’t in the plan—”
Aggravated, Astrid replied, “I don’t care what they wanted.” She lifted the blade to Nix’s mouth. “You think the guys in this school will still want to kiss you when you have this scar?”
Astrid slit Nix’s lips in a downward cut from just above her mouth to below the curve of her bottom lip. Warm blood trickled over her mouth and chin. Nix whimpered at the shock of pain but kept the hurt from her expression.
Anger sparked in Nix’s lungs, radiating warmth. Heat. More sweat dotted Nix’s forehead as the Evernell poison weakened in her system. They must have given her a smaller dose than what her captor used to give her.
“Astrid!” the other blonde yelped.
“What…happened to you?” Nix muttered around the blood. She remembered Astrid in her past life as a mean girl, but nothing like this had ever happened. A few cruel words, sure, but mutilation? Something is wrong with this timeline.
Why?
“You think anyone will want to look at you after I do this?” Astrid laughed when she cut a large line into the side of Nix’s face, seeming to follow the angle of her cheekbone.
She…did it. She cut Nix.
Hot streams of blood flowed over Nix’s face as the voice of her captor speared through her. “My special little birdie. Are you going to cry for me? You know I love it when you cry.”
Fear. Anger. So many damn memories—an overwhelming rush of them slammed through Nix.
The cuts Astrid left on her face stung, but it was the triggered memory of her cage, of her torture, that ignited something dark and powerful inside of Nix. Even through the poison, Nix felt her skin heat, invisibly searing. Nix smelled smoke.
“Maybe I should cut ‘whore’ into your forehead, so everyone will always know what you are.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Astrid’s friend asked her. “This isn’t what they said to do.”
“Who is ‘they?’” Nix asked and tugged on the rope. Yes. Movement. Nix tried to distract them as she wiggled her wrists, trying to loosen the restraints. “What did they tell you to do to me? Who doesn’t want me to go to the stupid dance?”
Because Nix was pretty sure the culprit was Elle.
“Now she is asking questions,” Astrid’s friend whined.
“Maybe we should just kill her.” Astrid ran her fingers through her hair and scratched at her scalp. “It would get all of this to just, finally, stop.” She scratched her scalp. Scratch, scratch. Astrid closed her eyes and winced in pain.
“Does it…feel like someone else is in your head, Astrid?” Nix asked. Could Elle have bespelled more than just Persius?
“Fuck you.” Astrid flung the small blade out, but Nix leaned to the left just in time to avoid it.
“Stop!” Astrid’s friend grabbed at Astrid’s wrists, trying to secure the blade. “You can’t kill her. Think of what they will do to you! They said she can’t die.”
“What makes her so special, huh?”
“My mates will kill you if you hurt me,” Nix told her, looking up from under her messy red-orange hair. “Actually, they will probably make you wish for death.”
“Mates? You mean the hell demon and the thug dragon shifter?” Astrid faked a pout as she cooed, “Aww, I hate to tell you this, but they haven’t even realized you’re gone. Nix, you really shouldn’t make stealing your hair so easy. A real cygnus shifter knows to hide her hairbrush from thieves.”
What did that mean?
“They haven’t even noticed she is not you yet,” Astrid added smugly.
They haven’t even noticed she is not you yet.
Nix froze. Her wrists paused in twisting the ropes at her back. Nix knew she inhaled, but she swore she could not taste air. It was as if any oxygen converted to smoke the second it entered her mouth.
They haven’t even noticed she is not you yet.
“What…did you just say?” Nix gritted through clenched teeth. After breaking into Nix’s room, they had stolen bits of her hair for an enchantment. What spell?
Another illusion? Making someone else look like Nix? Around my mates?
More heat ignited deep in Nix’s chest. She locked eyes with Astrid, staring through her as her blood boiled and bubbled in her veins. Every one of her pores felt like tingling pins and needles.
They haven’t even noticed she is not you yet.
Nix’s amber eyes burned into Astrid’s.
Not sensing the shift in Nix’s body temperature, Astrid calmly informed her, “Honestly, she looks just like you right now. I don’t see the appeal, but your men won’t be able to tell a difference. Not that they’d care. Like you could ever keep their interest for long.”
Nix’s hands fisted behind her back. Unhinged rage lifted Nix’s eyebrows crazily as she absorbed her words.
There was someone walking around, enchanted to look like Nix.
And distracting her mates.
“Distracting” how?
If she touches them, I will kill her.
If they touch her, I will kill them.
“I don’t understand why they are even attracted to an ugly bitch like you,” Astrid commented. “You are nothing but a weak, powerless—”
Nix’s body erupted with flames. The uncontrollable fire shot out and burned Astrid and her friend. The girls screamed in pain and jumped back. The scent of their burned flesh perfumed the room as they cried and clutched their faces.
“Oops,” Nix muttered sarcastically. Her voice was so…dark. Malevolent. The tone of her voice threatened violence. Revenge.
Nix glanced down at how the fire burned the ropes and Nix’s clothes to ash. The protection potion for Persius fell from the disintegrated pocket, and Nix quickly grabbed it before it could shatter onto the floor.
Standing naked in front of the women, flames still covered Nix’s skin, yet all she felt was a pleasant warmth.
She stood, on fire, and cracked her flaming knuckles as she stared at Astrid.
“What are you?” Astrid yelled, but her friend yanked her away. “Demon!” They ran for the exit, leaving Nix to figure out where she was.
Leaving her to figure out how she would get home to Bael and Ryker’s house off-campus.
Whoever is disguised as me, whoever is touching my mates, will die tonight.