Chapter 22
“You look so much better, Nix,” Elle told her as they exited the car, back at the academy after a day of salon appointments and shopping. The sun set in the distance, warning that the night was almost here.
In a few hours, Nix would be dancing with Adar Oadess. This was everything she had ever wanted. Handsome and kind and witty Adar.
Elle continued babbling about Nix’s new look, “Much more like yourself. That red hair just didn’t match your skin tone. Doesn’t she look better now, Adar?”
Adar. The boy she had always loved growing up. The boy who had asked her to the dance. Her…dream come true. Right?
“You make a beautiful blonde,” Adar agreed, nudging her with his hip as they walked side by side toward the dorm building.
“Sorry that our father had to miss lunch. That was a shame. He’s a busy guy, though—leader of the shifter council, after all.
Apparently, there is a lot going on in the council at the moment. ”
Elle snorted. “I’m glad we’ll never be council members, right, Nix? Sounds stressful.”
Right… Wrong? Nix rubbed at her eyes. Everything looked so…pink. Pretty. Sparkly pink.
“Hey, Nix, I know you and Elle were going to get dressed for the dance in her room, but what if you came to my room for a bit?” Adar asked, touching her back.
The warmth of his fingers seeped into her.
His sparkling eyes were such a pretty blue as he smiled at her. “Like an hour or so? You could spare that, right? Your makeup and hair are already done.”
Alone time with Adar. That would be…nice? Nix wondered why her thoughts kept trickling in slowly and indecisively.
Elle frowned at his invitation. Then, Elle flashed a fake smile to Nix, the kind Nix recognized as when Elle didn’t like the person who sat near her at the lunch table.
Elle grabbed at Adar’s arm, pulling him away from Nix. Still, Nix heard Elle whisper to Adar, “That’s not part of the plan.”
“I am the one she loves. I think I get more of a say on how tonight goes.”
Elle shook her head. “Adar—”
“An hour alone with her won’t change anything. I deserve some payment for all I’ve done so far.”
“But—”
“I am the eldest and the heir,” Adar snapped in a hushed tone at Elle, shooting her a cold expression that froze the bubbly girl.
Adar turned back to Nix and grabbed her hand, tugging her toward him. “Ready to go?” he asked Nix in a benevolent tone. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen my dorm room.”
Elle glanced nervously between her brother and Nix. As Adar began leading Nix to the side of the building, Elle called after him, “You really think this is wise? Don’t mess up her hair!”
“What was all that about?” Nix wondered aloud as they walked away from Elle.
“Elle is just jealous that I am stealing your time and attention from her,” Adar teased, wrapping an arm around Nix’s shoulder and guiding her every step of the way.
His presence was so domineering and dominating as he led her up the three flights of stairs to his large, extravagant dorm room. It had a freaking chandelier.
The room was much better than what cygnus shifters typically received. Dorms were supposed to be based on power, but maybe power could be equated to money. After all, Adar was the heir to the Oadess fortune. And it was a fortune.
Nix had never known where the money came from, but Kellan Oadess had managed to make a big enough name for himself to be an elected member of the shifter’s council as a prey shifter and not an alpha.
“So, listen…” Adar stroked his thumb over her hand as he pulled her inside and kicked the door closed behind them.
He tugged her fingers until they stood beside the edge of his large bed. He sank down on it, sitting, and tapped the spot beside him for Nix to join.
“I know you’ve liked me for a long time now,” he said.
He did? Nix’s cheeks heated.
“It’s always been very flattering,” Adar said softly and picked up a piece of hair, twirling it around his finger and tickling her cheekbone. “So, I was wondering, what happened? What changed this semester?”
Nix tilted her head. Had something changed? She liked Adar a lot right about now. Hadn’t she always… “Hmm?”
“You let those other guys steal your attention from me,” Adar commented in a jovial, teasing tone as he leaned in closer to press his forehead to hers. “That wasn’t very nice.”
Other guys…
The knife-happy, passionate, and damaged incubus.
The guarded and gruff dragon.
The prim, proper, and intelligent gargoyle.
The sunshine, golden retriever pegasus.
A memory came shooting back through Nix’s head, but it speared right through, not sticking to the brain. Her mind whispered, “You don’t care about them anymore.”
“Tell me you only care about me now. That you don’t want them.”
“I…” Nix’s vision sparkled with blobs of pink hues. “I only care about you.”
Adar smiled and kissed her temple. In a low voice, he told her, “You love me more than them.”
“I…love you more,” Nix whispered, breath caught at how he planted little kisses over her face.
“I couldn’t believe how you let them touch you,” Adar said, tangling his fingers at the back of her neck to tip her head and position his lips closer to hers. “When I’ve never gotten to touch you before.”
Nix swallowed. Did Adar want to touch her now? Was that why he invited her back to his room? I…love him, so I want him to touch me.
Adar lowered a hand to finger the hem of her shirt. “If you were going to give it up so freely, why didn’t you ever offer it to me?”
He added, “I contemplated giving you a heat dose; Father wouldn’t blame me if you went into heat and begged me to fuck you. He’d probably be curious to hear what it was like.”
Nix blinked. She…had misheard him. The words didn’t sound right coming from the mouth of the boy she loved so deeply. “What?”
“I have needs too, Nix,” he whispered onto her cheek and sloppily kissed her ear.
He needs me.
Wrong…Wrong? Nix shook herself, her vision blurring with pink and gray for a moment.
I need him too. Love him. I love him.
“Heat…dose?” she asked.
“Aw fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.” He flexed his arm, scratching the back of his neck, then he shrugged. “But I can make you forget it later.”
A heat cycle happened naturally in female prey shifters when they were around alpha pheromones for too long…right? So, what was a “heat dose?”
“Hell, maybe I should still give you a dose,” he muttered under his breath. “Might make this even hotter to have you beg for it.”
“Dose?” Nix asked again, confused.
“My father’s genius idea. Winged shifters, prey or not, don’t naturally go into heat the way other prey shifters do,” Adar revealed something that shocked Nix to her core.
Her vision momentarily went from pink to purple.
How could he say it so nonchalantly?
The threat of going into heat was what kept so many female prey shifters from taking the same important classes as the alphas. Going into heat was also a reason why alphas agreed to marry prey shifters—for the “wild experience.”
It wasn’t even real?
“But it was easy to create something to trigger a fake heat cycle in winged female shifters. A couple of drops makes them go mindless with lust. Does that sound good? You want to try it?”
Nix gaped, still in shock that heat cycles for winged shifters had been manufactured. Did only Adar and his dad know?
His hand slid under her shirt and snaked up her stomach, up, up… “I may not be as good as the incubus, but at least I can come inside you more than three times and not steal your soul.”
Nix’s lips pursed as he squeezed her left breast. With his other hand, he lifted her free hand and placed it onto his crotch, where a bulge lifted her fingers.
“Dad always said I couldn’t touch you, that it would be dangerous to get too attached.” He kissed down her chin, nuzzling her neck. “But a part of me has always been curious. Always desired your crush on me.”
His thumb brushed over her nipple. “When they said to do a spell, I was a little offended that they didn’t think I could seduce you away all on my own,” he said.
Seduce her away? “What are you—”
“Shhh, let me enjoy this,” he requested, and Nix knew she was supposed to do whatever he requested.
Love him.
Love him.
You love him.
Her vision was once again consumed by pretty pink hues.
“That’s it,” he cooed to her as he gripped her breast harder.
BAM.
The dorm room door came flying off its hinges, catapulting into the room with such force that, when it flung down to the flooring, it reverberated and cracked the tiles under it.
Loud, thunderous footsteps bounced Nix on the bed as Ryker’s large build stomped into Adar’s room. His broad chest heaved with enraged huffs as he grunted in a deadly tone, “Here.”
Bael flounced inside but lost a bit of the pep in his step when he saw Adar’s hand under Nix’s shirt. He jerked to a stop and stared at Nix’s hand on Adar’s crotch.
Persius walked in after him, gazing around the room before gaping at Nix. “You dyed your hair, my adelfí psychí?”
“Have my eyes gone bad, or is Nix groping another man?” Bael asked the group.
“Leave us,” Adar snapped. “She loves me. She has always loved me. You were all just temporary.”
Bael quirked an eyebrow and smirked at Nix. “Another dumb mate? How many more do you plan to accrue? We were at maximum mattress capacity.”
“You are mated to Elle’s brother, too?” Persius asked, walking forward, clearly not afraid of anything the cygnus shifter could do to him. He sat beside her on the bed and touched a piece of her now light gold-colored locks. “Why did you change your hair?”
The pink hue covering Nix’s vision blurred again.
Adar lifted his chin and lowered his hand from underneath Nix’s shirt. “Because she knows I like her better this way,” he replied. “And she likes pleasing me.”
Nix held her breath.
Bael’s red eyes flashed. “Pleasing you?”
Adar nodded, appearing so confident and self-assured for a physically weak shifter in the room with three bulky and strong alphas.
“Nope.” Bael’s blade flung from out of nowhere, blurring from the speed at which he threw it, and lodged itself into Adar’s thigh.
Adar screamed and held his leg, gawking at the new flesh wound. Hurt. Adar. Hurt.
My love.
Rage tore through Nix like teeth violently chewing disintegrating taffy, until there was nothing left but the sizzling anger to leave an aftertaste.
“We liked you as your natural red, baby,” Bael commented.
He hurt my Adar.
Flames danced across her skin as Nix stood and shrieked at Bael, “How dare you hurt him?”
Bael blinked, surprised by her dramatic reaction. “What?”
“He is mine now. Finally mine. I don’t care about you. I only love him now. And you just hurt him!” She kneeled beside where Adar stood and gripped the area of his leg around the knife.
Bael blinked some more as he watched her fuss over Adar. Then, the incubus’s eyebrows lifted to his forehead.
Bael mumbled, “He wouldn’t fucking dare.”
With a dark aura and massive presence, Ryker stepped closer. “Spell?”
Persius stiffened from his seat on the bed.
Bael scoffed and also stepped closer to Adar. “Swan boy can’t be stupid enough to bespell our girl.”
“Nix, make them go away,” Adar told her, waving for her to do something. “Don’t you want to be alone with me? Alone with the man you love?”
“Would you all just leave?” Nix demanded, sneering the words at the incubus, dragon, and pegasus.
“First, you enchant her,” Bael muttered, inching closer and closer. “Then, you dye her beautiful goddamn red hair. And…” Bael stepped right in front of where Adar stood. “You actually groped my mate’s lush tits?”
Adar swallowed nervously and looked pleadingly at Nix. “Make them leave—”
“Oh, I’ll leave right now.” Bael grabbed the sides of Adar’s skull and disappeared.
He evaporated from existence, taking Adar with him.
One second, they were there. The next, they were gone. As if a blink had eliminated their mutual existence.
“ADAR?” Nix’s bespelled brain, simply, broke.