Chapter 31
Nix jerked awake, smelling smoke and dirt and…
No.
She peered down at herself. Naked, she laid in bed, in the familiar bedroom of the off-campus house of Bael and Ryker’s. Her body was still covered in hickies, even though she was certain she was gaining healing abilities just like her increase in supernatural hearing.
If the dream of the Goddess was real…then Nix’s skin would not have completely healed from the dirty group sex she’d had with her mates the night before they caged her.
Because she had been sent back one day previously. That meant her mates were downstairs, discussing what “to do” with her.
She looked down at her bare body. They do not deserve to see me naked, she thought bitterly about how they had left her vulnerable and with a stranger in that iron cell.
I almost died because of them. Her wings had been plucked. Painfully plucked, like bits of her soul and identity were grated away.
They will need to fall to their knees and grovel before I ever let them touch me again.
Yes, she remembered what the Goddess said about forgiveness and matehood not having “sides” and the men needing to “grow.” But…she still expected some groveling.
However, her first goal was to kill her future captor—Mr. Lemmuns—and Kellan Oadess. And no, she was not about to ask for “help” from the same guys who thought locking her in a cage was the most helpful idea they could come up with.
She also wanted to kill Adar for enchanting her. That much was clear to her now.
As long as I can get my hands on a protection potion dose before I see Adar this morning, the enchantment won’t work.
Naked, she rose from the bed and tiptoed quietly to the door. Just like she remembered from the previous day, she heard them talking downstairs.
They better be in the kitchen making me “we’re sorry we locked you in a cage and left you with your future murderer” pancakes. With a chocolate chip for every ounce of their guilt. Even if they didn’t remember it.
As she stepped down the stairs, her ears perked at her mates’ gravelly morning voices.
“She’s dangerous. Both to herself and others.”
“She is a walking death wish.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” Bael replied in the distance.
“She is a phoenix,” another masculine voice stressed. “With the red hair and the combustion habit, sooner or later, others are going to find out.”
“And they will demand her death sentence.”
“Muting her powers could work,” Thierry said. “Maybe a potion?”
Muting her powers? Fuck. Them.
Completely nude, Nix rushed down the stairs to confront them. The pores on her arms emitted the tiniest of flames as her frustration grew.
She strode to the kitchen and saw Ryker, Thierry, Bael, and Persius leaning against the counter and sitting on the barstools, hatching their “what to do with our mate” plan.
“Oh damn, naked Nix in the morning,” Bael grinned salaciously as his red eyes lovingly and lustily laved over her body. “Best fucking wakeup call in the world.”
Thierry rolled his eyes at Bael. “You’ve been awake for two hours now.”
“Not my dick. That makes up like half of my brain. Not that I needed more than half my brain to listen to your nonsense this morning.”
Her face turned red as she waited for them to fall to their knees and grovel for forgiveness. They didn’t look remorseful at all. “Do you have anything to say to me?” she challenged them loudly.
They blinked. Ryker had the decency to guess what she wanted and grunted, “Good morning?”
“Yes.” Thierry nodded, also not wanting to be in trouble. “Good morning.”
“Kaliméra,” Persius pronounced a Greek word.
“You look hot,” Bael added.
They really didn’t remember. I really did time-travel again.
“I’m pissed at you all!” she yelled at them.
Their stunned, confused expressions added to her anger. Small flames raced over her fingers as she clenched them.
Ryker slowly, in a voice of distress, asked her, “Did you...not like what we did to you?”
“Not like it?” she scoffed.
They had purposefully not listened to her when she said not to put her in that cage. They had not valued her thoughts on the topic of her own body and future—it didn’t matter that she had been bespelled to love Adar. They should have listened to me.
“What?” Thierry asked with brows drawn in confusion.
“You can’t just make decisions for me,” she warned them, and her flames flared for a second. She threatened, “Lock me in a cage again, and I will find a way to stab your stone skin.”
“Cage?” Persius repeated.
“Um....are we being scolded for a dream you had?” Bael wondered aloud. “Because for a second, I thought you were saying we took advantage of your body last night. Like in a bad way.”
Nix gaped and sputtered, “It was not a dream! Y-You all locked me in that cage, and I deserve an apology—”
“For your dream?” Bael asked again calmly.
Nix growled and grabbed the kitchen knife that sat beside the cutting board. She lifted the blade and threatened plainly, “Say it was a dream again, and I’ll fucking cut you.”
Bael blew out a long breath. “Did you read my sex fantasy journal without permission?”
“My flóga,” Persius told her softly, moving slowly up from behind her and weaving his fingers around her wrist—the wrist lifting the kitchen blade. “You are not making sense.”
“You dreamed us locking you in a cage?” Ryker asked in a voice just as soft and tender as Persius’s.
“I am so pissed at you all!” she snapped again as she let Persius lower her arm and take the knife from her. “You talk down here about what to ‘do’ with me without even consulting me—”
Thierry touched the bridge of his glasses. “You were sleeping—”
“And then you lock me in that cage—”
“What cage?” Persius asked, petting the back of her head to comfort her.
“Nix, what are you talking about?” Thierry asked, no guilt on his perfectly sculpted face.
Maybe Nix shouldn’t have chosen to go back in time. It was frustrating. What had the Goddess called it? The “guilty knowledge” of the gods.
“I’m talking about what you did to me! Er, what you will do to me. Today. You haven’t done it yet, but you did do it! And I deserve an apology.”
“The cage…was not a dream?” Ryker growled.
“Wait, wait, are we saying the cage is something that happens in the future?” Bael questioned.
Thierry shook his head and stated slowly, “But if you traveled through time again, that means you…died.”