Chapter 43
When time resumed, Nix heard the humming sound of Lemmuns’s horrific drill in Ryker’s throat.
She closed her eyes as she heard her mate bellow with pain.
She felt the flame in her chest.
She thought of the ancestors the Goddess told her about. Fighters and warriors, disguised as mothers, daughters, and girls.
She thought about all she had endured in her life.
My anger is not their weapon—it is my awakening.
I will stand—for every woman forced to kneel.
I will burn—for every story extinguished and erased.
She let it build and build, growing her warm flame.
I will rise, not only for them, but for me.
I will rise.
I will rise—
And she let it, finally, explode.
With a battle-cry-worthy scream, Nix’s entire body erupted into ruby red flames. Not her normal fire, the flames melted the collar from her neck until the silver metal dripped down her naked chest, down her thighs, and onto the ground at her flaming feet.
She stood, breaking through the leather restraints on the chair as her flames hungrily deteriorated the restrictive straps. She blurred, with unknown speed, to where Lemmuns held the drill over Ryker.
Placing her hands over his, she burned his flesh, and the mad scientist howled and released his hold over the thin drill. She pulled it from her mate and pushed the metal through Lemmuns’s chest with such ease—as if the man were made of puffy, vaporous clouds.
Hands now freed, Nix laid her fingers over Ryker’s collar and ripped the melted metal from his neck.
Ryker growled animalistically as his shifter abilities and healing came rushing back to him. Breathing heavily on the metal table, Ryker grabbed one of Nix’s hands and kissed the back of it.
She squeezed his palm but stepped away from him. She quickly released Bael and Persius the same way, melting their collars with her flaming hands.
The men were speechless as she saved them. They rubbed their necks and tested their wings, shifting to ensure their powers were back.
Finally, she stepped up in front of Thierry’s statue-stiff, stone body.
“I still need to finish your class, professor,” she said softly as she wrapped her arms around the stone chest.
She hugged him, envisioning her flames engulfing him and burning away whatever harmful elixir Lemmuns used on him. She pictured Thierry’s collar melting to the ground like liquid as hers had done.
The large stone statue twitched under her embrace. It heated and loosened and softened.
And Thierry’s warm arms shot around her, holding her close to him as he dug his face into her hair and the crook of her neck and kissed whatever he could reach of her. “Nix.” He held her so tightly, yet, she finally felt she could breathe again.
Her other mates stumbled over to her and wrapped their arms around her as well.
The group hugged and caught their breaths and held onto each other until every flinched, pained expression turned to one of hope. One of blessed freedom.
A loud, clattering, metallic sound interrupted their moment of reunion.
Nix pulled herself from the warm embraces of her mates and watched as Lemmuns staggered and gripped a metal table for balance after he had pulled the metal drill from his bleeding chest.
“Not…possible,” he murmured.
“You…” Nix began. “I already killed you once. It was very cathartic. You burned until you were ash.”
Lemmuns pressed a hand to his chest wound. “H-How…”
“But I realize now, burning you—it was too fast.”
Lemmuns inched away, stumbling back as he tried to exit.
Nix’s mates circled around him, like wolves waiting for their alpha to howl permission to pounce.
Because Nix was their alpha. Her mates were some of the most powerful winged shifters to exist…and they bent the knee to her.
“First, I need you to do something. Text Kellan. Now. Tell him to summon the council at the academy. You’ve had a scientific breakthrough that they must all know about immediately.”
Lemmuns shivered with fear. “I do this and…you won’t hurt me?”
“I won’t hurt you,” Nix promised, even though she felt the loud disapproval from her hulking alpha mates.
Lemmuns trembled as he fished out his phone from his pocket and typed the message. Once it was sent, he showed her the screen and exhaled in relief when she nodded.
“Bael,” Nix said.
“Yes, my queen?” her incubus mate asked, ready to fulfill any wish she had—no matter how sick, twisted, or violent.
“I want Lemmuns in Hell, living out his own torturous experiments. Perpetually. Forever.”
Lemmuns faltered. “Wait, but—”
Bael grinned, rubbed his hands together excitedly, and transported the man to Hell.
Ryker’s throat was already healing thanks to Nix. Her red flames, so different from the others that came from her skin in the past, had burned away any trace of Evernell in Ryker’s system. He still could not speak, but he projected his every thought from his gaze, boring into hers.
I love you.
You are perfect.
My savior. My mate.
As they exited the mysterious medical room, Nix led them left, and they all followed down the dimly lit hallway.
“Where the hell is this place?” Bael muttered under his breath.
“It must be somewhere on campus,” Thierry assumed. “They would have had trouble transporting us much distance from the academy.”
Nix pushed open a double-egress door at the end of the hallway and…
Cells and cells and cells of prisoners. Students.
brOTHER, Ryker thought.
Ryker raced forward, following the familiar scent like it had lassoed his throat and pulled. Ryker reeled in front of the cell that his dragon instinct led him to. Ryker’s brother.
“Cal,” Ryker pushed with his mind to speak telepathically, a special ability of dragons.
His brother Cal did not hear him. Hunched over, Cal stared, emotionless, nearly catatonic, at the ground of his cell.
As if Nix could read Ryker’s mind, she approached Cal’s cell first.
She ripped open the barred door, the metal becoming flimsy, bendable mush under the intensity of her flames. She leaned down and touched his neck.
She whispered into his ear something Ryker could not hear, but Cal’s shoulders unhunched, untensed.
Cal looked up as Nix snapped off his bewitched collar. Cal’s lips parted, and his golden eyes—the ones their mother gave both Cal and Ryker—watered. He whispered hoarsely, “Goddess…”
Ryker fell to his knees, and Cal’s gaze swung to him.
“B-Brother,” Cal cried and tackled him into a hug. Ryker’s own face was wet—whether from his or Cal’s tears, he did not know. He held his brother, spoke calming promises using their telepathic dragon bond, and stared at his mate.
Ryker stretched his mind and called out to his father and other brothers, “We have him. We found him. He is safe. But we need you here.”
Nix deserved his entire family to back her when she faced the council.
“Fuck, baby.” Bael whistled. “You found Cal Infernox. The whole damn dragon clan will be behind you now.”
Ryker pulled away from his brother to look at Nix and slam a hand over his heart. Cal did the same, sensing this was his new sister-in-law.
Ryker heard his father reply back in their mind-link, “We are coming, son.”
Bael’s white teeth flashed as he grinned. “If Kellan and the council were scared of dragons before, they’ll shit a brick when they realize what’s coming for them.”
“We need to get all of these people out of here and back to their families,” Nix stated. “And then…I deal with the council.”