Bael’s red eyes narrowed viciously on her. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to maintain eye contact as he rasped, “Then, fuckinginformme, baby.”
His sex-in-the-woods alpha scent clouded her brain.
She tried to tear her chin from his grasp, but he would not let her go. She exhaled sharply and asked, “Where did Thierry go?”
Without Professor Thierry, Nix’s second mate, Nix had all of Bael’s undivided, slightly chaotic, and dangerous attention on her. She could not escape Bael and return to Elle’s room like her instincts screamed for her to do.
“Had to head to his class. Real stickler for the rules, that one.”
“I want to go to potions class,” Nix snapped. She needed a potion. Immediately. Before she marched right back to Elle’sroom and threatened to burn it down with some matches and a whole lot of spite.
Had the Oadess family or Elle been poisoning Nix on purpose? Had Elle chosen Persiuson purpose? Elle had never known Persius in the other timeline.
Things are changing so quickly.
“Hey,” Bael said in a serious tone and lightly collared her neck with his fingers, so she had no escape from him. “What happened back there?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hm,” Bael made a noncommittal sound as he stared at her with an unreadable expression. “What did you mean by ‘this isn’t how it’s supposed to be’ when you yelled at her?”
“I haven’t had any breakfast. Clearly, skipping the most important meal of the day can have detrimental consequences,” Nix replied.
“Just before I grabbed you, you were shouting, ‘What did you do to him?’ Who is ‘him’?”
“You didn’t see him?” Nix thought back to how Elle had shoved Persius back behind her when Nix started shouting.
“I have a very strange habit now of only seeingyouwhen I enter rooms.” Bael sighed. “Was there a guy in her room? I saw you and scooped you up immediately.”
Nix glanced down at Bael’s tensed forearm and asked, “Can you let go of my neck now?” He did not squeeze or cause any pain, but the fingers felt like a warm, dominating leash. It…distracted her body.
“Baby.” Bael stepped closer to her, so his lips grazed the side of her cheek and spoke directly into her ear. “As surprising as it sounds, I do not like being kept in the dark. I told you my secrets earlier.”
Right. Like the secret that Bael and the sexy and grunting dragon shifter named Ryker were attending the academy for onepurpose: to end the student disappearances, find the missing students, and bring justice.
Bael believed that Nix’s adoptive father, Shifter Council President Kellan Oadess, was somehow behind the student disappearances because certain species he spoke ill of were the ones declining in population.
Nix wanted to know if Kellan Oadess was tied to the disappearances and if so…had he known Nix was captured and held in a cage, victim to torturous experiments performed on her by a mad scientist for years in her past life? If he knew…I will destroy him, Nix promised herself.
Nix was lucky she was given a second chance at life to change her future and punish the perpetrators of her future death.I cannot mess up this chance.
Right now, Bael wanted to know things Nix could not explain.
I’m actually myself six years into the future, but I woke up in my twenty-year-old body with a second chance. But now my mate is with my ex-best friend, who—I think—has been poisoning me since childhood.
Nix nibbled on her bottom lip and breathed in more of Bael’s alluring, sensual, and earthy rain scent.
“You can trust me,” Bael promised. His dark eyes were so…dark. Like a haunted night sky with no moon or star to provide a gleam or shimmer of light. A blackhole that sucked at her secrets, wanting them for himself.
But Nix did notdotrust. Not since every time seemed to lead to betrayal in her life.
“I might be able to help you,” Bael said.
Nix sighed. With Persius possibly taken from her, what more did she have to lose? “I think that Elle is enchanting the guy who was in her room.”
“Enchanting?”
“You know, the thingyouaccusedmeof doing to you at the start of the semester?” Nix rolled her eyes.
