Chapter 38
As hundreds of students continued to move inside, the massive room still managed to go quiet. Silent. Everyone paused in finding seats. Any side chatter died at the sight of Sarasa’s lifeless body.
Nix did not know what had happened to the kind cygnus shifter. She did not know what it all meant.
But Sarasa was dead and being pushed in a cart to show every student at the assembly, as if her corpse was a show-and-tell object to be shared.
As if she were nothing but a…
A ringing began in Nix’s ears as she watched Kellan smooth a hand over his suit. Kellan Oadess announced into his microphone, “Please, keep coming in and find your seats. Quickly.”
He is going to use her. As a prop.
The ringing in Nix’s ears grew louder. As if in a trance, Nix stepped closer to the stage.
“Wait,” one of the guys murmured, tugging on her arm as she proceeded in the opposite direction of where they wanted her to go.
“We need to get out of here,” Bael warned, sensing something. “Now.”
Was he sensing something dark within Kellan? Or Nix’s rising rage?
Sarasa’s lifeless body laid over the cart, limbs positioned so the students could see from their seats.
Why?
Just the day before, Sarasa had expressed interest in the future Nix depicted. A future where Nix would protect the prey shifters—without strings attached like the other alphas.
Had Nix’s speech…made Sarasa a target?
Was this a punishment for Nix’s going back in time?
“As I am sure you can see, one of your own was murdered last night,” Kellan said gravely into his microphone.
Murdered.
“She was unmated, leaving her vulnerable to attack,” Kellan told the students as they stumbled to take their seats and gazed upon Sarasa’s lifeless body.
“I want everyone to remain calm,” Kellan said loudly into his microphone when nervous whispers broke out around the auditorium.
He continued, “I am here today to remind everyone of the importance of mating. Danger lurks in the dark, and I am here to shine a light on it. This message goes to the prey shifters. As you all know, they hold a special place in my heart.”
Nix scoffed, and one of her mates squeezed her wrist. She felt her men tugging on her, but she was frozen, rooted in place, to listen to her adoptive father.
“You are here at this academy for one thing. To solidify a match before graduation. To learn how to please alphas, who are much stronger and faster than you.”
He told them, “I do not wish to scare you, but I know you all have heard the rumors about unmarried prey shifters graduating and going out into the world, only to be snatched up and met with gruesome fates.”
Like sexual slavery, or cold-blooded hunting games and murder. But Kellan worded it as if prey shifters being unmarried was the reason this happened—not because of sick and twisted alphas feeling “untouchable” by the rules.
“Continue taking your seats.” Kellan waved students forward. “I know there is an academy dance tonight. I urge you not to let your classmate’s death deter you from creating a match with an alpha tonight.”
He was using Sarasa’s death to scare the females into finding alpha “matches.”
Nix’s fists clenched at her sides so hard, her joints gently popped from the pressure.
“Do not be weary. We will soon have her killer in custody.”
“Who?” someone shouted from a second-row seat.
Nix felt her mates pulling on her elbow and waist, trying to drag her to the back exit of the auditorium. Her mates were strong alphas. She somehow took another step forward, causing her men to jerk forward when their tugging on her failed.
“We brought the girl’s body to show you the burns on her skin—”
“Dragons!” a female shifter shrieked.
“Expel the dragons,” another student yelled.
Ryker stiffened beside Nix.
“Collar them!” another person shouted.
Nix gasped at the crowd’s suggestion to use a shifter collar. The bewitched piece of metal could prevent not only shifting, but healing. It reversed immortality. Wounds could be fatal; strength turned as weak as a human’s.
While the shifter wore it, a collar stripped the shifter of all paranormal abilities.
It was cruel.
“Calm down, everyone.” Kellan assured the crowd, “Continue taking your seats. You are safe at the academy now. We will be exploring permanent expulsions for all dragon shifters going forward.”
“For now, ask the gods for safety against such violent beasts. Look at your classmate—” Kellan heartlessly gestured to the corpse in the cart. “—and thank the gods for protecting you.”
A voice in Nix’s head asked, Protecting?
“I have heard that some…odd things have been occurring at the academy, and I came in person today to assure you all that the dean has it under control. We know that some of the alphas in this school believe the females have begun stepping out of their place.”
Stepping out of their place?
Nix ground her teeth and managed to take another step forward as her mates tugged on her from behind.
“How is she…so strong today?” Bael gritted under his breath.
Kellan added into the microphone, “I want to remind everyone that there is an order and hierarchy for a reason. We understand that tensions have risen between the prey and predator shifters, and I am here to remind everyone that the prey shifters are not here to threaten predators—not here to take classes away from them or opportunities of any kind.”
He said, “The prey shifters are only at the academy to cater to you all. To learn how to help you. How to please you.”
Please.
Because that is the only value they see in us.
Because what else would keep them from hurting us?
At the words, Nix felt…something in her unlock.
Something dark and unhinged and tired. And so fucking awake.
“How dare you?” Nix asked under her breath. Her voice came from something so low and guttural in her stomach; it would have been audible only to the other alphas standing close to her with their super hearing.
Her legs pushed forward another step.
“Shit,” Persius muttered.
“Calm,” Ryker urged into her ear, yanking on her arm to pull her back toward the exit.
“How DARE you,” Nix shouted. Considering the crowd had quieted at Kellan’s reassuring words, Nix’s voice cut through every row, all the way from the back of the auditorium to the stage at the front.
“Shit,” Persius repeated.
Thierry squeezed Nix’s elbow, leaned down, and told her in a hushed whisper, “Whatever you do from here on, do not look the basilisk in the eyes.”
Nix barely absorbed the warning as all of her focus and rage pointed her gaze only at Kellan Oadess. The man who had acted as her father her entire life, planning and scheming to eventually cage her for her feathers—Lemmuns had admitted that.
Kellan, of course, heard her from the stage.
Nix’s eyes narrowed as Kellan’s widened.
He had not expected her here. After all, in the last timeline, Adar and Elle had whisked her away, off campus, until the evening school dance.
As Nix’s skin prickled with awareness, ready at any moment to emit flames, she strode forward, down the ramp aisle, and toward the stage.
“Nix…” Kellan said simply, but she could see his brain working behind those blue eyes. Thinking. Assessing. Scheming.
How had she never noticed it before in her past life? Kellan was behind every bad thing that had ever happened to Nix. When she stared at him, she felt it.
Darkness swirls around him.
Nix’s mates followed closely from behind her as she approached the stage. Their unease seeped from them and licked at her back, but she pushed forward.
“Daughter.” Kellan opened his arms up for a hug, as if he wanted her to come up on stage, under the spotlight with him. As if he were goading her to join him.
Fuck you, I’m coming up on that stage.