Chapter 13 Ashlyn

"You went too far this time, Ashlyn," Igneous chided me across the desk in his office.

All I could do was roll my eyes over my frown and stiffly folded arms. "He's a phoenix, for fuck sake. I'm sure he'll be just fine."

"Language," he barked in warning, and I hid the way it made me shrink inwardly. "Regardless of his species, you cannot just go about hurling phoenix fire at other students. If he'd been any other type of shifter, he'd be—"

"Healed by the harpies in minutes?" I interrupted.

Rage began to etch the wrinkles of his brow, and steam literally huffed out of his flared nostrils. "That is not the point, Ashlyn. Inflicting pain frivolously is simply unacceptable."

I sighed, loosening my arms around my chest. "I didn't hurt him on purpose. I was throwing fireballs at the wall, and he just got in the way."

It was the truth. I had been imagining Niko standing against the spot on the wall I was assaulting in Fire Mastery, venting my jilted heart with the idea of incinerating his stupid, handsome face .

Okay, so maybe I had gotten carried away and accidentally thrown a fireball at Henry when he'd called my name. But seriously, you don't interrupt someone when they're in the zone. Honestly, it was totally his fault and totally preventable.

Igneous put his hand to his forehead, rubbing his thumb and index finger across it before dragging his palm down his face. "Look, I know you're going through something right now. Why don't you take the week off from Fire Mastery? Maybe take up some yoga."

"Yoga?" I balked with a snort.

"Anything to help you vent your anger issues in a healthy way. One that doesn't involve physical violence."

I chewed on the inside of my cheeks, brewing on his statement. "I do not have anger issues," I muttered.

When I glanced up at him, he was arching an eyebrow at me, which both humbled and infuriated me.

"Okay, fine. You're right," I conceded reluctantly. "But I'm not doing yoga. Maybe I'll take to drinking to get over my breakup like normal people."

"Ashlyn," he warned, making me snicker. I didn't know why it was so entertaining to ruffle his fiery feathers.

"Message received, sir." I gave him my customary two-fingered salute. "Can I go now?"

He let out a heavy, rumbling sigh that sounded more dragon than phoenix. "Very well. But if you act out again, I'll have no choice but to give you detention."

"Got it," I said, getting up and exiting his office.

I knew I was being a little dramatic about this whole Niko thing. We had only been officially dating for about a week. But he'd been my first real boyfriend, and he dumped me. He dumped me . What the hell? I was hot and smart and funny. Sure, I'd been the flaming jinx at this school for the last few months, but that was a minor issue. And now that I was the badass phoenix that had saved the day during the vampire attack, maybe my ego had inflated a little.

Ugh. I just wanted to go to my room and disappear into a mountain of junk food. That was a perfectly acceptable coping mechanism, and it met my dad's requirements of not involving physical violence. Win-win for everyone.

After raiding the cabinets in the kitchen, I carried my haul to my room and unloaded it onto the foot of my bed, preparing myself for a long evening of gorging while bingeing reality shows on my tablet.

By the time a hand knocked on my door an hour and a half later, I was buried under a pile of empty wrappers and potato chip crumbs.

"What's up?" I called without looking away from my tablet screen.

The door opened, and I recognized Arya's telltale blue highlights in my peripheral vision.

"Whoa. It looks like a convenience store exploded in here."

I glanced down at the garbage heap of my bed and floor, and at the cheetoh dust smeared across my shirt. "Yep. Just living the dream."

I heard her sigh as she came over and cleared a spot on my bed with a sweep of her hand so she could sit. I let her stare at me for a moment before I relented and turned off my tablet, setting it aside.

"This is probably a stupid question, but are you okay?" she asked, locking me with her gaze now that she had my full attention .

I sat up, brushing wrappers off my lap. "I know this isn't pretty, but I'm just in a bit of a funk. It'll pass."

She eyed me skeptically for several long seconds, making me uncomfortable.

"Wanna watch the Real Shifter Housewives with me?" I asked to break the tension, flashing her a cheeky grin.

Her eyes widened in surprise. "That's a thing?!"

I nodded eagerly, scooting over against the wall to make room for her. "Yeah. It's only on Shiftflix—that's a secret streaming platform only for shifters. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it yet."

She settled against my pillow next to me, kicking an empty popcorn bag onto the floor. "You'd be surprised how many shifter-related things I still don't know about."

I shrugged. "Eh, I only know because my dad showed it to me. But then, he only watches it for the news."

"There's shifter news, too?" Arya gasped, flicking a piece of popcorn off the sheets.

"There's basically shifter everything," I replied, pulling my tablet onto my lap and turning on the screen.

I exited the Real Shifter Housewives and let her scroll over the available viewing options.

"SCIS?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"Shifter Crime Investigation Service," I explained.

"Holy crap! That's awesome! How do I get access to this?" She scrolled up as she gushed over all the shows.

"You can only find the app if you have specially encrypted devices invented by kitsunes. And since all of our tablets fall into that category, you can easily get it on yours. "

"This is amaze-balls!"

I beamed. "I know, right."

Eventually, she handed my tablet back to me, and I started the Real Shifter Housewives over from the beginning. I didn't mind rewatching it. I'd already watched it several times, actually. There was something really comforting about seeing people with more fucked up love lives than mine.

We watched two episodes together before Lord and Lady Dracul made their entrance.

"Wait." Arya tapped the screen to pause it. "Dracul. Are those Tobias's parents?"

I nodded with a scandalous grin. "Yeah. They do their best to limit their air time on this show, but they still make an appearance every few episodes."

"Huh," she hummed, then unpaused it, eager to continue watching.

"Octavia, my dear, would you mind fetching us a drink?" Lord Dracul asked his wife from the ridiculously lavish parlor of their mansion.

Virginia Drake, a frequent star of the show, was sitting across from him, and they were making eyes at each other. Octavia smiled beneath a pair of sad eyes, then nodded and left the room.

"What the hell?" Arya hissed.

"Yeah…" I hedged. "It's pretty common knowledge that Arthur Dracul has this ongoing affair with Virginia Drake. There's even a rumor that her two sons are his."

"Damn, how sad," Arya lamented. "No wonder Tobias is so emotionally stunted. "

I tilted my head in agreement. "Good point." I glanced at her sideways. "Speaking of the devil, any news on the dragon douche front?"

Judging by the way her cheeks instantly pinked, I knew there was.

"Okay, spill," I demanded, pausing the show again.

She pursed her lips with embarrassment for a moment. "We might have, kinda, maybe had sex yesterday."

"What! How did that happen?" I tossed the tablet onto the bed because this was so much better than celebrity gossip.

"Well, he asked me to heal him in the greenhouse because he was too ashamed to return to Ms. Heather after…well, you know," she explained. "But before I even started, we made out a little bit, until I hurt his injured leg and remembered what I was supposed to be doing. After I healed him, we went back to his room, and…yeah…"

My pretzeled legs were bouncing beneath me with excitement. "Omigod, that's great! Wait, was it great?"

She giggled and nodded. "It was pretty great."

"So, what does that mean? Are you two dating now?"

She shrugged. "I don't really care what it means. He's such an emotional mess that I've decided not to read too much into his flaky behavior. But he hasn't done his normal thing and run—yet—so, who knows? I'm sure he'll find a way to fuck it up again."

She gave a sardonic laugh.

"You know, maybe that's what you need to get out of your funk," she suddenly suggested .

I frowned at her in confusion. "You want me to have sex with Tobias? I don't care how great it was, I'm done with dragons—"

"No," she laughed. "A rebound."

"A rebound? You do remember that Niko was my first boyfriend, right? It's not like I have experience pulling guys in. Getting Niko to acknowledge me was its own battle. And honestly, I'm just not ready for that."

Arya rolled her eyes. "That was before everyone knew you were such a badass. If you come with me to eat in the dining hall tonight, I could point out three guys who would gladly take the title of your new boyfriend. Besides, you know what they say. The fastest way to get over someone old is to get under someone new."

"Mmm-hmm, and how did that work out with Kendall?" I quipped.

She scowled at me. "Low blow, Ash. Low blow."

I chuckled apologetically. "I know. Sorry. And yeah, I am a badass. It's just going to be difficult to find someone worthy of my badassary. And frankly, right now, it's not worth the trouble."

Arya sighed. "You're probably right about that."

"Of course, I am. Love is overrated, and just as fake as Virginia Drake's boobs. Now, let's keep watching the reason your psycho boy-toy is so screwed up."

With a devious smirk, Arya reached for the tablet. "You are wise beyond your years, Ashlyn Summers."

"I know." I unpaused it, and we continued to visually indulge on Tobias's fucked up family life .

I didn't need that drama. Niko breaking things off was a good thing. Chances were, if we had ended up together, I'd be on this show in ten years. No thank you.