“She’ll just have to be awake during this last part.” Astrid lifted a black permanent marker. “You don’t get to take away our chances of survival,” Astrid sneered at her.
All of this was about her enrolling in the classes that other alphas took?Are you goddamn serious?Nix urged her body to move. Her legs felt unattached. Her arms were as weak as boiled noodles.
No, no, no. Her one vow to herself in this new life had been to bestronger. To never be left vulnerable again.
But here she was. Vulnerable. Poisoned. Restrained. Captured. Again.
Nix bit her tongue as hard as she could, trying to get control of her face enough to speak. “I’mnot—”
Another hearty, heavy slap connected with Nix’s already throbbing cheek. Nix’s head swung to the side from the force of it and hung there, motionless.
“Cygni get one husband.One,” Astrid said. “A whore like you doesn’t deserve multiple alphas. You’re not evenone of us.”Slap.
Nix tasted blood and swallowed it down.To be this helpless again, after everything…
The other blonde standing beside Astrid, whose name Nixstillcould not remember, added, “No one would care if you disappeared.”
Nix snorted at that. Maybe in her past life, that had been true. But now? She was pretty sure a dragon, an incubus, and a gargoyle shifter would rip the academy apart if Nix went missing.I…like them.I would…miss them.
“Beg to differ,” Nix muttered through a mouthful of blood, spitting out some of the metallic, red liquid.
The blood splattered right onto Astrid’s school uniform. Astrid’s nostrils flared as she shot Nix a deadly glare, “Youbitch!” Astrid lifted the marker and jammed it onto Nix’s forehead.
She violently wrote a five-letter word. The fact that it started with “W” gave it away. So, they were the ones who vandalized Nix’s room.
“Did you just—” Nix sluggishly blinked. “—write ‘whore’ on my forehead?”
Astrid grabbed Nix’s chin and tilted her face up, so Nix was forced to meet her blue eyes. “You really thought we would let you go to the dance withourAdar?”
Since when had Nix said yes to letting Elle’s brother take Nix to the upcoming school dance? If Adar was that important to them, they could have him.
“We’re going to tell them what you are,” the other girl told Nix. “A power-hungry whore.”
Nix scoffed. “You are right about one thing,” she panted as her body fought off the poison like a brutal fever. Her forehead burned with sweat.So…hot. “I do want power.”
“Promise you won’t go to the dance tomorrow night, and we won’t hurt you,” the blonde said.
Hurt me?Cygni were not violent creatures. Scheming, manipulating, mistrusting creatures, sure, but swan shifters were not fans of blood.
And yet…
Astrid shoved the marker into her pocket, only to pull out a small blade—the kind one might use to dissect a frog. Nix was sure Bael would have cackled at the little thing. Nix, however, did not feel like laughing.
Was she really threatening to cut Nix with that scalpel?
“All of this effort, so I won’t go to the dance?” Nix asked in disbelief. There was something else going on here. What was supposed to happen at the dance?
“You’re not wanted there.”
Nix blew out a stubborn breath and said, “Well, now I kind of want to go.”
SLAP.
Nix’s head shot to the side so quickly that her neck ached. Spitting more blood from her mouth, Nix practically vibrated with her indignation. Her skin continued to warm as if she sweat out a sickness.
“First, her family takes you in. An ugly orphan. They help you fit in. Then, you take advantage of their kindness. You break her wrist and try to seduce her brother and—”
“When did I try to seduce Adar?” Nix questioned, incredulous.
