Chapter 24
Cool cement pressed to Nix’s cheek as she slowly twitched awake. A soft and plush blanket was thrown over her naked body. Sleepily, she swiped a hand over her drooling mouth, and her eyelids fluttered open.
Her body jerked.
She was…in her cell.
In her cage.
Had she just jumped time into the future?
No. No, no, no. How had she gotten captured? She had alpha mates in this second life.
She let out a heart-wrenching shriek and flung herself against the metal bars. Nix wailed as the bars seared her skin.
At the pain and the scent of her burning flesh, she peeled herself off the bars and stood back in the center of the cage. She had forgotten how the metal bars burned her in the past.
“Careful,” a masculine voice sounded. “The bars are made of iron, which is known to harm phoenixes.”
Professor Thierry. Thank goodness. He would set her free—
Nix swung her head around to see him. Standing outside of her cage, staring at her, were Thierry, Persius, Ryker, and Bael.
“This is fucked up,” Bael remarked and crossed his arms.
“She burned half of the dorm building. In seconds,” Thierry said gravelly. “We were lucky everyone had already left for the dance, and there were no casualties. You should have come and found me immediately when you scented her back on campus.”
“You think you’re better at calming her down than Pers and Ry?” Bael scoffed.
“Where is Adar?” she asked desperately while her mind raced. She wanted out of the cage. Now.
This was her future cage. The exact cage. This room, wherever they were, was her future captor’s experiments room. The room she had only survived for four years.
So, they were still on campus? All those years into the future, her captor had kept her on the academy campus somewhere, hidden?
“Where am I?” she asked, grabbing onto the iron bars again and hissing as they scalded her fingers.
“Stop touching,” Ryker grunted, removing her hands from the bars and shoving them back inside the cage. “No touching.” He did not want her to burn herself.
“Don’t worry, you will be safe here till we get you a reversal potion for the Oadess enchantment.” Thierry fiddled with his glasses. “For now, you need to lay low. The mysterious fire cannot be known to have anything to do with you.”
“If the council finds out a phoenix is at the academy—” Persius started.
Bael raised his hand. “I would like it to be on record that I am not okay with keeping my mate in a cage unless it’s for sexual purposes.”
“It’s for her safety.”
Like the muting-her-powers potion would be that the guys had discussed that morning before she slipped out of their off-campus house?
They had thought that was for her safety, thinking that because they could protect her, she didn’t have to be so strong.
Her mates were such alphas. Such…men. Gross. “Let me out. Now,” she gritted between clenched teeth.
“It’s for your safety—”
“Fuck that.” She glared at the group. “I am not safe in this cage. I am not a pet you can lock up.”
“It’s what is best for you right now.”
“Like you know what that is?” She scoffed at Thierry and lashed her venomous voice at him. “All those books, and you’re so goddamn dumb.”
Thierry flinched, and Persius clapped his shoulder. “Don’t worry, that’s the enchantment. She doesn’t really think that. Earlier, she told us she didn’t care about us and that she loves Adar. She is saying things she doesn’t mean while she is bespelled.”
“Actually, I do mean it. I mean it when I say let me the fuck out of this cage.”
Thierry cleared his throat, having the decency to appear pained as he said, “No.”
“RAHHHHHHHHH,” she screamed violently and flung herself onto the bars. Her skin sizzled with burns as she yelled at them, “LET ME OUT.”
“Nix, you are not thinking straight. You are bespelled and angry; and your species is known to cause catastrophic events. No one is going to hurt you. We are only keeping you here while we get you a reversal potion.”
“I hate you,” she snarled and slapped at the bars. Her skin burned with each touch with a loud sizzling hissssss. “My fated mates would never keep me in a cage. Fuck all of you!”
Ryker glared at her and grabbed her hands again, pushing them back to her sides as his arms moved between the bars. His thumb dragged over a bit of her scalded flesh. “Stop. Touching.”
“Let. Me. Out,” she shot back.
“I’m not staying here and watching this,” Bael muttered and walked to the door. “Nix, I don’t want you in the cage. I’m all for you burning the world down if that’s what you want to do.”
Bael waved a hand toward Ryker. “Ry, we need to go. We both know someone is getting snatched at the dance tonight. We need to be there.”
“You’re going to leave me like this?” she yelled at the incubus.
“Baby, the Nix I know would want me to go try to help someone not get stolen into the night. Like Stoney said, you are safe here.”
No. No, I’m not. In this second chance at life, she had never felt so unsafe as right now. In her old, or rather, “future” cage.
Ryker did not trail after Bael. The dragon shifter stared at Nix, concern beaming from his face as he scanned her expression. He shook his head and grunted, “Staying.”
Bael stumbled and turned back to look at his friend. “The fuckers who took your brother are out there, probably plotting to grab someone from the dance tonight. We could catch the bastards tonight,” Bael reminded him. “She will be safe with Pers and Thierry.”
Ryker clicked his jaw, and Nix watched as the hesitation faded from his face. No. Reminded of his brother, Ryker nodded and followed after Bael.
“No,” she whined and grabbed the bars again, trying to shake them, but the burning sensation was too much. She let them go and called out, “Do not leave me like this. I won’t forget this!”
“Will you stay with her while I retrieve Bowen?” Thierry asked Persius.
“Of course. She’ll be safe with me.”
No. Wrong. Persius had been caged right alongside her in their futures.
“Wrong.” Nix fell to her knees and rubbed at her temples. “Wrong. Wrong.”
“We’ll get you back to normal soon,” Thierry promised her.
Thierry rushed from the underground, abandoned basement of an old building on campus.
Bael, Persius, and Ryker’s knowledge of hidden spots at the academy, learned from their mission to find the missing students over the last few years, came in handy with where to keep Nix until the enchantment was broken.
Bespelling a creature as powerful as a Phoenix was as impressive as it was dangerous. Thierry had been surprised to hear that Nix only burned half the dorm building after Bael sent the man, whom she had been bespelled to love, to Hell.
“Bowen,” Thierry shouted outside of the professor’s bedchambers in the faculty building. He knocked and swept a hand over his suit jacket as he waited.
Once Nix was cured, she would not hate them for keeping her in a cage. She would realize they were right and just trying to protect her. All would be fine.
“Bowen?” Knock, knock, knock. “I know it’s late, but—”
The door swung open to reveal not Bowen.
Thierry frowned and double-checked the room number. “I, uh, am looking for—”
The older man grinned and nodded. “Actually, Professor Bowen moved on to a different job this morning. The dean flew me in as his replacement.”
“Bowen is…gone?” Thierry thought back to the session with the dean. Nix had mentioned what a great professor Bowen was. Would the dean have really…
“I’m still unpacking, but would love to have you over for some tea, maybe? Being a new professor, it is always difficult to make friends.”
“I need…” Thierry shook his overthinking brain, remembering why he was there. “I need a reversal potion, Professor…”
“Lemmuns,” Professor Lemmuns replied. “Reversal potion?”
“There is an enchanted student who needs it.”
The new potion professor’s eyebrows lifted. “A student has been bespelled?” Lemmuns asked, incredulous.
“Do you have any of the potion on you? Or the ingredients you need? It’s urgent.”
“I could…whip something up. But I would need to see the student. Ensure I am not handing off a potion to someone who is not truly under an enchantment.”
Thierry’s nose scrunched in annoyance. “Do you think I am lying?”
“No, no,” Professor Lemmuns said. “But a student could be lying to you about being bespelled. A reversal potion is only a few common ingredients away from an elixir that creates an addictive high.”
“She is not a druggie.” Thierry breathed through his nose, trying to keep his tone as cordial and not enraged as possible. “Can you come now? It is urgent that the enchantment is reversed.”
“Isn’t there a dance going on?”
“Yes, but she is…being kept safe in a basement near the edge of campus.”
“A basement?” Professor Lemmuns chuckled unevenly. “And you are sure she is not a druggie?”
“Will you come with me?” Thierry bit out impatiently.
“Lead the way.”