by Ivy Asher
To say that my mat isn’t maternal is an understatement. With her deep green eyes, hair, and tail feathers, I’ve always thought that she embodied the envy trait rather well. Nothing is ever good enough for her. No matter how green her grass (or feathers) are, she’s always looking over the fence for something better, for more.
To outsiders, she probably looks like a stern, forty-something-year-old woman with an obnoxious hair color and thin lips that are permanently bowed downward. She looks tough before she even opens her mouth. Even her pristine pantsuit shows that she means business. Everyone in our lounge knows that she’s the one that wears the pants.
My pat, with his ruddy complexion and red hair, eyes, and feathers, would probably look scary if it weren’t for his unassuming posture and his easygoing attitude. I’ve never seen him yell, or swear, or cry, or even belly laugh. He seems to be stuck on one setting all the time: calm.
It’s infuriating, especially when I was a hurting teenager who cried and begged for her father to step in, to speak, to do something. He never did. Not when my mat banned me from the house whenever I pissed her off, leaving me to sleep outside. Not during screaming matches between her and me. Not even when she sold me off to a stranger.
My pat is just...incapable of not deferring to her, and my mat doesn’t have a warm or fuzzy bone in her body. We’ve never gotten along. Things got worse when I hit thirteen and stopped trying to please her. I realized that it was hopeless to get her to give a shit about me. There are a few things my mat cares about, but none of them are named Sinclair.
“Did you think getting yourself incarcerated would stop Alpha Bowen?” she asks, her tone and head tilt condescending. “He had his pick of potential mates. He chose you. He’s not going to just let that go so easily.”
“Clearly,” I grumble and do my best to stare at her with pure boredom. “But word in the prison is that I’m a debt trade, not a power alliance like you pitched. Is that true?”
My mat gives nothing away as she shakes her head and hands the phone receiver to my pat, like she just can’t be bothered with me anymore. But she doesn’t answer the question.
My mind whirs with all the possible paths that could’ve led to the lounge being in debt. I still can’t piece it together. It just doesn’t make sense to me, knowing all the pots our lounge has their fingers in.
“What were you thinking coming in here?” my pat’s deep rumbling voice asks me, pulling me from my thoughts.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I was thinking I’d just been sold off to the worst of our kind, all so that my matriarch wouldn’t have to face a possible challenge when I came of age in a year. I was thinking that prison sounded like a better place than the lounge I grew up in. And I was thinking that since I wasn’t in possession of parents who would protect me or look out for my best interests, it was time I stepped up and started managing that for myself instead.”
My pat’s red eyes drop from mine, and I know he felt that hit.
Good.
He loves my mat and bends over backward for her. Behind the scenes, he does that for me sometimes too, but if it’s between me and her, he chooses her every time. It’s time we both come to terms with that fact.
“Our arrangement with Alpha Bowen was in the best interest of you and our entire lounge,” my mat announces after ripping the phone receiver out of my pat’s hands. He just lets it go, and my heart falls even more. “We are second in power only to Bowen and his extensive lounge. If our forces combine, there isn’t anyone who would be a threat to us, not even the Drakes.”
At the sound of that name, I mock spit on the ground at the same time my mat and pat do. It’s something all cockatrices do whenever the Drakes are mentioned. Bunch of fire-breathing, hoarding, dragon menaces. They think they’re hot shit. Cockatrices and dragons do not mix.
“So you didn’t sell me to settle a debt?” I ask.
My mat smooths a hand over her green coiffed hair, pulling back her shoulders so she sits up more rigidly in the metal chair. “The finances of the lounge are of no concern to you, Sinclair. That’s lounge business handled by your matriarch and patriarch.”
I scoff, making the noise louder than necessary just to get the satisfaction of watching her jerk the phone away from her ear. “If you sold me off to settle your debts, then I have a right to know.”
“Actually,” she begins primly. “You have no rights. Not while you wear that horrid prison uniform.”
I look down at the gray fabric and turn it bright yellow without a thought. Not to please her, but because gray is my least favorite color. “Happy?” I ask with a snarky smile.
My mat just levels me with a look. The same one she used when she’d send me to bed without dinner. “Alpha Bowen isn’t happy, Sinclair. He knows you’ve thwarted his attempts to break you out from jail.”
I shrug because I don’t give a fuck. “Good. I’m not happy about being given to him or him trying to break me out, so we’re even.”
“No, we are not!” she shouts, slamming her palm onto the surface in front of her. My brows hike up at her burst of emotion. She leans forward, clutching the phone in her hand so hard that her knuckles go white. “You listen to me now. You will not get any time added on to your sentencing. You will behave yourself. And if you have a chance to get out of this place, you will take it, and then you will go to Alpha Bowen, because that was what was agreed upon.”
Anger and dismay crawls up my throat. “I never agreed to that.”
“We did,” she counters, “as is our right as your parents and lounge leaders.”
“Fine. Then you can consider me a rogue.”
Their faces blanch. My mat’s mouth drops open, and my pat breaks out into a sweat. I just stare back at my mat coldly, dispassionately, though my heart is pounding in my ears. So much blood and emotion is running through me that black circles appear in my vision.
Being rogue in our world is like throwing away your family, your friends, even your identity. It means no protection, contacts, home, alliances, and hell, not even a last name. And once you’re rogue, there’s no going back. No other lounge will take you. You’re destined to live life shunned, to be a pariah.
“How could you...take that back!” my mat shouts into the phone.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, because as terrifying it is to be a rogue shifter, I’m digging my heels in now. I’ve finally gotten to them. I’ve finally found the only button I can press, so I’m going to jam my finger on this motherfucker as hard as I can.
“Sinclair…” I see my pat mouth from the other side of the glass.
“If you go rogue, then Alpha Bowen will consider our deal null and void. He won’t strike our debts off his ledger,” my mat tells me, cutting off whatever my pat was about to say.
I grind my teeth. So I was sold for money. “Guess that’s your problem.”
I start to get up from my chair, but my mat’s voice stops me before I can hang up the phone. “If you do this, you will be the reason for Denali’s downfall. Our entire lounge will go bankrupt, Bowen will take us over instead of watching our backs, and your lounge, your people, will be gone forever.”
I scoff. My people? Part of the reason she did what she did was to make sure they would never become my people. I try to focus on that, but despite my efforts, guilt pricks the backs of my eyes. Aside from my shitty parents, my lounge isn’t bad. They’re my family, my friends. “Then give me another option,” I beg. “Please.”
Her green eyes twinkle with my plea. She knows her guilt hit home. As much as I try to be the emotionless hard-ass that she is, I just can’t do it.
Running away from my responsibilities? That’s easy. I’ve been doing that my whole life, although I was half running and half being chased away. I knew at a young age that even though she went through the motions of setting me up to take over, she would never let it happen. She’s not ever going to give up the reins.
After that realization, the running became more about fighting f
or control of my life. She wanted me to set the table, so I didn’t come home until bedtime. She wanted me to make a speech at a lounge meeting? I claimed I had laryngitis. Running away was supposed to cure this stupid mate contract too. It was par for the course she and I always played. Except this time, it’s different.
Prison was supposed to be a break from her and all the damn politics and messed up expectations. But this...this crosses a line that I might not want to cross. This is suddenly too much responsibility and I’m not sure my shoulders can carry it. I’m a sloucher, dammit. My posture isn’t meant for these kinds of decisions. I don’t want to obliterate my lounge. I just want to obliterate my mat’s hold over me.
“This is the only option,” my mat tells me coldly.
“Selling me off to a monster is the best you could come up with?” I shake my head. “Let me look over the books, maybe there’s something there that you’re just not seeing. I’ve always been good with numbers.”
My mat’s eyes turn hard as jade, and I know where this is going to go before she even opens her mouth to speak. She wants a solution to the lounge’s problem, but only the solution that she’s decided on. After all, it’s not just the debt that she wants gone, it’s me.
“Sinclair Denali, I am your matriarch, and you will do as you’re told.”
I stare at her for a beat and wonder how I could’ve ever hoped that she would someday care about me. My eyes move from my mat to my pat. I wish I saw some hint of defeat in his slumped shoulders, like he had fought for me but lost, but it’s not there. He looks...unaffected.
Clearly, my mat and pat are a dead end on the how to save the lounge issue, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other options. I just need to find out exactly what the debt situation is and why. Once I have that, I can figure all of this out on my own.
Hopefully.
Probably.
Maybe.
“No, I won’t,” I answer to her demand. There will be no sitting pretty and doing as I’m told.
I hang up the phone and push back my chair before standing up. My mat slams a hand against the plexiglass, but I ignore it. Another fist against the barrier echoes around me and then another, but I give them my back. I walk to the door and can just make out the high-pitched resonance of words being screamed at me. I let them bounce off my skin to land uselessly on the polished cement ground. Nothing either of them can say will penetrate. They raised me to have a hard hide, and they can be as mad as they want, but it’s partially their fault that my thick skin now serves as my armor.
I don’t pay any attention to the banging or aggressive noises. From the sound of things, my mat is attacking the barrier between us. I’m tempted to turn and watch the spectacle, but I know I need her hard eyes to be the last memory I have of this meeting. I need that image burned into my mind so I can find a way to get my lounge out of whatever mess she’s created for them.
I raise a fist and bang on the door, waiting for Sandbag to come back and try to force me to stay here. I don’t care if I have to gouge his eyes out through the little rectangle in the door, he better let me out. I’m not in the mood for any more bullshit.
I breathe through the adrenaline and anxiety that are forcing my heart to beat faster and my breaths to come quicker, but it’s not sand-colored eyes that I see. It’s a stunning pair of turquoise irises that take me in.
Rook looks over my shoulder at what is clearly my mat having a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums. The yelling seems like it’s getting farther away, and I can just picture my pat escorting her furious ass away and trying to calm her down. The noise fades, and Rook and I look at each other for a beat, me challenging, waiting to see if he’ll open the door or just leave me to stew in all the animosity saturating the room. I hear the lock click open, and then he pulls me out of the chaos and wraps me up in comfort and safety.
Or shackles. Same thing.
I look down at the handcuffs and arch a brow as he clicks them around my wrists, the door closing behind me. “Is this really necessary?”
His lips twitch in amusement. “I thought it would be a good distraction,” he says before fixing the last lock and then letting go.
My hands hang in front of me, the handcuffs firmly in place. “A good distraction?” I repeat dryly.
“Yeah, from your nice visit that seemed to go so well,” he replies, hiking his chin up toward the empty viewing glass.
I turn to look and confirm what the lack of noise already told me—they’re gone. My shoulders relax just a bit, and a sigh escapes my lips. That was one of the worst interactions I’ve ever had with my parents, and I’ve had some doozies in the past. Just as I feel the guilt and the emotions settle over me again, Rook suddenly holds up his black watch in front of my face.
“Timer starts...now.” He clicks one of the buttons on his watch, and it starts counting up from zero.
He drops his hand, and I cock a brow. “Timer for what?”
“The handcuffs, of course. Let’s see if you can get them off in under three minutes.”
Three minutes? Does he think I’m an amateur?
I shuffle on my feet, feeling myself growing excited. Me and my cockatrice always love a good race. “What do I get if I win?”
To my utter amazement, he shoves his hand in his pocket and pulls out a trio of Pop Rocks packets. My mouth instantly waters. “Deal,” I blurt as I quickly raise my hands to my hair and pluck out my handy pin. My orange hair falls in front of my face, but I just blow it back with a breath as I get to work.
“You’re a terrible guard,” I point out. “Encouraging me to de-handcuff myself and whatnot.”
“We both know you’d de-handcuff yourself anyway. Might as well make it interesting,” he replies. “Besides, you said yourself that you don’t want to leave this place, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He’s got me there.
“Come on. Walk and unlock,” Rook orders, amusement clear in his voice as he nudges my arm and forces me to walk back to my cell while simultaneously picking the lock.
It’s a little bit tricky because there’s just enough slack on the chain for me to bend my hand the way I need in order to dig into the lock on my left hand. Plus, the prick is making me walk at the same time, so I keep stepping out of sync and running into the wall or into him—which is basically another solid wall.
“You didn’t ask what happens if you lose,” Rook points out beside me.
I don’t look up at him, because I’m very aware of my countdown, and there’s no way in hellfire that I’m losing this bet. Not when I’ve been going through serious Pop Rocks withdrawals.
“That’s because it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to lose,” I tell him.
A slow, rumbling laugh escapes his chest, and the sound actually makes me trip over my own feet. I stumble to a stop, momentarily stunned as I look up at his smiling face. Dimples. The fucking dimples! Just like that, my tail starts flicking behind me like crazy, trying to jerk around my body so he’ll see my bright-colored feathers and pay attention to them.
I quickly reach behind me to try to stuff it in my pocket, but I can’t reach with the cuffs, and my tail darts out of the way. I curse and spin around, trying to catch it like a dog chasing her tail, and I drop my pin in the process.
“Son of a bitch!” I dive for it, but a black boot comes down, landing on top of it before I can snatch it up.
I lift my head up, glaring at Rook from the floor, my tail still going wild behind me. He has the audacity to shine those dimples and perfect teeth at me like they’re high beams. “Problem?”
“Move your foot!” I hiss.
Biting his bottom lip in a gesture that is way too sexy for a prison hallway, he shakes his head. “Your tail seems to be doing some very interesting things right now, don’t you think?”
“No!” I snap. “It’s just irritated. It’s twitching in irritation.”
He pretends to consider this while my tail sneaks between my legs and shakes at
him like a crazed maraca that’s begging to be shaken or fucked. I slap it away, and it goes back behind me and curls around my hip to sweep over the top of his foot like it wants to shine his boot. And I mean that sexually and literally.
Letting out a string of curses, I reach for my horny tail and manage to finally grab hold of it and stuff it into my pocket. The feathers bulge obscenely, gyrating around my pants like a hussy on the dance floor. So embarrassing.
Still on the ground between his feet, I glare at Rook who’s clearly enjoying this way too much. “Are you gonna move your foot now?” I growl.
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Fucking cocky ass cockatrice!
I glance at his watch, seeing that I only have thirty more seconds. I give him a sickly sweet smile. “Fine.”
With a move that would make lightning jealous, I slam the heel of my palm up directly against his balls.
Bam!
A pained grunt flies out of his mouth, and he falls to his knees, his feet coming up enough for me to pluck the pin from the ground. While he’s swearing and sweating and clutching his family rocks, I whistle a happy tune and quickly unlock the first cuff before getting to work on the other. With three seconds to spare, I pop off the second cuff, my whistling changing to mix with the beep of his alarm going off.
I swing the handcuffs around on one finger as I smile at his pained face. “I won.”
Still clutching his cock rocks, he glares at me. “You can’t fucking attack a guard!” he snaps, though I must say, his voice is a little more high-pitched than usual.
I shrug and get to my feet, so that this time, it’s me standing over him. “Why not? You were standing on my pin, which was a total bastard-cheat move, by the way. Besides, I’m trying to extend my sentence. The opportunity presented itself.”
With some effort and a lot of grunting, he manages to stand upright, though he’s hunching a little. “My balls are not an opportunity.”
“Agree to disagree,” I singsong before I turn to start walking back to my cell. I have a smile on my face the entire way while he stalks beside me, and when we get there, he slams my cell door shut with a clang.