Conveniently Convicted

by Ivy Asher

  Fuck. This prison’s magical barrier is no joke.

  Despite my awesome flying moves, the wolf still hasn’t let up. If anything, he’s just holding on tighter. The pain in my neck is almost to the point of being unbearable. Wolfy tries to partially shift, turning just his front two legs back into his human arms so that he can grab hold of me and not fall, but all he ends up doing is losing his fur there and getting stuck in this weird and gangly half-leg, half-arm stage.

  Fed up with him, I start doing barrel rolls in the air. His leg-arms scrabble for purchase, but my neck is too big around for him to get a good hold. When he starts frantically grabbing me and plucks out a couple of feathers, that’s when I get really pissed. No one messes with my feathers.

  I dive.

  The air whips at us so strongly that Wolfy’s teeth finally start to loosen on my neck. The ground rushes up at us faster and faster, but I don’t slow down. It’s me against him, and Wolfy just entered a game of chicken with a goddamn cockatrice. You can’t win chicken against a half chicken. This dude has no hope.

  We’re a hundred feet from the ground. Fifty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten.

  He starts to full-on panic as the ground gets closer and closer.

  He screams and squeals in a wolf-human way, and just as we’re about to hit, I pull up my wings parallel to the ground and shoot forward, my underbelly barely missing the dirt. Wolfy isn’t so lucky. I purposely drag his body against the ground, giving him the worst road rash in history.

  With a yelp, his jaw unhinges off my throat, and he lets go, his body flipping to a stop in a heap. I circle back around, slowing my momentum as I go, and land right over his bloody, panting body.

  I snap my beak at him, clucking at him aggressively, my beast ready to tear into him. Wolfy has the good sense to tuck tail, which, in shifter’s language, is waving a white flag.

  But my cockatrice isn’t satisfied. Our throat is throbbing, blood pouring from the deep wound he left with his teeth, and she wants to get even.

  She lunges for him.

  The wolf barks, eyes wide with terror, because he knows that he’s about to get pecked to hell like a bag of seeds. But right before I can turn him into minced wolf meat, Rook suddenly steps between us.

  My cockatrice jerks back in surprise. Holding my eyes, he shakes his head. “That’s enough, Sinclair. It’s over.”

  I look around and see that the fight has indeed been broken up. Most of the inmates are already kneeling in the dirt and are either being gathered up because they’re in major trouble or taken away for medical attention.

  But Wolfy growls behind Rook, like he’s suddenly all tough guy again now that he has a barrier in front of him. I snap my beak at him and cluck angrily, my wings coming out in a move of intimidation.

  Rook spreads his arms out on either side of him to regain my attention, mirroring my movements so that I can’t get to the bastard. I make a growly noise at Rook for interfering and narrow my eyes at him. My cockatrice is not impressed right now.

  Rook smirks, and then slowly, so as not to alarm my beast: reaches into one of the pouches at his belt, pulls out a fist-sized rock, and holds it up to me.

  Holy shit. It’s so pretty!

  I stand corrected. My cockatrice is super impressed right now.

  I step forward, but Rook moves his body and begins to walk backward, away from Wolfy. A total diversion tactic, and it’s working.

  “Come on, this way,” he coos, dangling the greenish rock in front of me like a carrot on a stick. My cockatrice lumbers after him, talons digging into the dirt yard with every step.

  When Rook is satisfied that we’re far enough from Wolfy, he smiles. “Good girl. Now shift back, and I’ll let you have this,” he says, shaking the rock enticingly.

  My cockatrice doesn’t want to shift back though. Instead, she starts clucking again, but this time, it’s like a feminine, throaty, come-hither cluck. Rook’s smirk widens, and his own tail tries to come out to play with mine.

  I’m distracted when I see a group of more prison guards heading our way, including the Warden. Shit. He looks super pissed as shadows hover around him and shift in a very disconcerting way. When the guards keep walking closer and closer, my beast grows nervous. A pissed off screech comes tearing from my mouth, and my cockatrice rears up, spreading its wings in warning.

  Rook tries and fails to regain my attention, but the rock is all but forgotten as the guards pull out weapons and aim them at me.

  Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be?

  With a ferocious roar, I swing my scaled, feathery tail and swipe it at the guards. Only the Warden is able to dodge it, like his shadows make him untouchable. The rest of the guards go flying back, bowled over like pins, their shouts and grunts ringing out through the air.

  They all jump back to their feet as quickly as they can, and my eyes narrow. They should’ve just stayed down, because now they’re just asking to be pecked to death.

  “Wait—” Rook’s call gets cut off when the Warden nods, and the guards suddenly open fire at me.

  Huge barbs shoot out of their black tasers, loaded with both electricity and magic. I manage to dodge some of them, but even through my tough hide, a few of them hit me on my chest and back, the barbs digging into my skin and sticking with brutal accuracy.

  Letting out a ferocious and pained shriek, I shake side-to-side, but without proper arms or hands, I can’t get the barbs off of me. Electricity and magic course over my body and dig through my skin like splinters of lightning glass. I bend my neck down, my beak snapping and trying to rip out the small darts. While I’m distracted, the Warden comes up and snaps a collar around my leg.

  I feel it the moment the cold magic activates. It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad.

  Snapping into place, the collar grips my shifter power like a dentist yanking out a tooth. One minute, I’m a giant cockatrice, and the next, I’m naked on the ground in my human form, with five tasers still stuck to my skin.

  “You muddder fuhhkr…” I slur, as I try and fail to curse out the Warden who’s staring down at me with a sinister grin. My mouth won’t work right, and my vision is blacking out, but I manage to shoot him the middle finger right before I pass out.

  7

  “I’m hungry!”

  My voice echoes down the dark labyrinth of the corridor as I clutch onto the rectangular peephole in the thick iron door. My eyes strain to the right as I try to stare down the endless length of the hallway, but despite my heightened shifter senses, there’s absolutely nothing to see down there.

  I woke up yesterday in this dark, dank cell room that smells like vinegar and sweat. At least, I think it was yesterday. I’m underground without any guards, other inmates, or even the sky to be able to tell for sure.

  I got myself landed in solitary confinement. I guess the guards here at Nightmare Penitentiary aren’t too fond of being tail swiped by a fifteen-foot cockatrice.

  At least the collar was already removed by the time I woke up, and the wound at my throat from Wolfy thankfully healed too. But I still have marks all over my body from where the magical taser guns hit my flesh. All my injuries aside from the taser burns have healed without a mark, so those magic-laced electric barbs pack a serious fucking punch.

  This entire cell is made of iron. The walls, the ceiling, even the damn toilet and sink. A sink which gives off water that tastes like toilet water and, you guessed it—iron. Yummy.

  There’s nothing else in this six-by-six iron cell aside from a cot and a lone pillow that’s more case than filling, and the gray uniform on my body that’s about three sizes too big. I rolled up the waist, legs, and sleeves and tied the midriff together to try to cinch it a bit, but I’m still swimming in it. I’ve changed the color to starbursts of tie-dye orange, yellow, and red, and it practically glows beneath the lone lightbulb hanging above me.

  This place is seriously boring, so I’ve been playing around with changing the colors of my clothes and taking a lot of naps, but
I’m all napped out right now. Luckily for me, I’ve always been a self-starter, so I know how to occupy myself. Chalk it up to the many, many times my mat grounded me when I was a kid.

  Sighing, I grumble a curse at the shadows and go slump on my flat pillow again. Digging into my pocket, I grab the piece of iron pipe that I managed to break off the sink, and get back to work in the corner of the room.

  Hours later, I’m so engrossed in my task and singing “Oops!... I Did it Again” that I don’t hear anyone approaching until my door suddenly clinks open, and I turn to look over my shoulder at Rook stepping inside.

  His bright turquoise eyes land on me, and damn, he looks good in the dim lighting. His hair looks like it’s almost glowing in greens and blues. His mouth is open like he was going to say one thing, only for him to close it and frown. He cocks his head as he takes me in. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m digging a tunnel out of my cell like Andy Dufresne. Obviously,” I say, because duh.

  Instead of getting pissed or running off to tell on me like a prison guard probably should, Rook smirks. “I thought you didn’t want to get out of here.”

  “I don’t,” I say, shrugging. “But tunnel-digging is a good way to pass the time.”

  He snorts and then tosses me a burlap sack. I manage to drop the pipe and catch the sack before it hits my face. I open it and peer inside. I find a blanket, a change of uniform, some apples, water bottles, packaged snacks, and even some candy.

  “Cellwarming gift?” I quip.

  “Pretty much. The guards upstairs are pissed at you. They all voted to let you starve down here.”

  Geez, it was just a little tail swipe. I grab one of the packages of crackers and dig in, eating all six in rapid succession. Thank goodness. If they left me down here much longer, I would’ve seriously started to worry about how hungry I’ve become. I have no doubt that this prison would gladly starve some of its inmates.

  “But not you?” I ask, my mouth full of food and dry crackers flying out as my cheeks bulge like a chipmunk.

  He shrugs and sits down against my closed door, hiking a knee up to rest his forearm on it. The move looks way too sexy for my food-starved brain to ignore.

  My stupid tail goes a-thumping.

  I quickly shove it in my pocket and turn back to my tunnel. Well...it’s more like a divot. I’ve only managed to dig about an inch down through the weakened wall in the corner where the iron cracked and split open, revealing crumbling rock behind it.

  “Is that a tail in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” Rook teases.

  “Ew,” I say quickly, digging through the rock harder than necessary.

  “Ew?” he repeats. “What does that mean?”

  “It means come up with better lines,” I reply.

  “Your tail doesn’t mind my lines,” he says with a teasing glint in his eye. “It’s happy to see me.”

  I scoff. “My tail couldn’t possibly be happy to see you. It just...likes cellwarming gifts. That’s all.” I lie, trying to keep my voice incredulous despite my cheeks starting to flush.

  “I think your cockatrice likes me.”

  I shoot him a glare over my shoulder and drop my pipe, flexing my sore hands. Picking up the satchel again, I pull out one of the apples—bright green, my favorite—and bite into it.

  “Pshhhh...you wobbled at me first. That means your cockatrice likes me,” I say around my bite.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”

  “Yeah. All the time,” I say as I chew. “That’s why I still do it.”

  He chuckles, the shadows curling into the clefts of his dimpled cheeks. “You don’t get along with her, huh?”

  I swallow the sour apple down. “She sold me off to a power-hungry, psychopathic rival alpha without even consulting me or telling me until it was done. What do you think?” I deadpan.

  Rook considers me. “So that’s why you’re hiding out in here?”

  “Why? You wanna break me out for some money? Prison guard salary not cutting it for you?” I snark.

  “I do alright for myself,” he says, not really answering my question.

  “Hmm,” I say, taking another big bite of apple.

  “If you don’t want the match, why don’t you just tell the male that?” Rook asks me, like it’s all just that easy.

  I give him the come the fuck on side-eye. “Because it’s Alpha Bowen,” I answer, knowing the name alone will explain all the reasons why his question is ridiculous.

  I watch Rook and wait for the telltale recognition and concern to enter his eyes, but he just looks at me blankly.

  My mouth drops open in shock. “Are you seriously telling me that you don’t know who that is?” I demand, studying him for any hint that this is all some kind of ruse.

  “Should I know who that is?” he questions.

  I shake my head at him. “Uhhh...he’s only one of the most powerful cockatrice alphas in the world. Of course you should fucking know who that is! Did you grow up in a cave?”

  Rook snorts. “No, but my lounge travelled a lot. We stayed out of the useless conflicts and the gossip.”

  I pause and take a moment to try and imagine what it would be like to grow up in a lounge like that. But...I can’t. I’ve never heard of a lounge that wasn’t into power plays and politics.

  “Must’ve been nice,” I tell him around another bite of apple.

  “Sometimes it was. Sometimes it was lonely,” he admits, and I’m taken aback by the confession.

  I study his face, and he lets me. There’s no hardened mask or defensive posture. He’s relaxed, enjoying himself even. Here, in this really uncomfortable room. How...strange.

  The solitude and quiet of my cell wraps around us tightly, and it feels oddly intimate and safe in this moment. I wonder what would’ve happened if we’d met under different circumstances.

  “My lounge was always up in all the shit...and it was still lonely,” I tell him, suddenly wanting him to understand that the grass wasn’t greener on my side either.

  “I guess we have that in common then,” he says, surprising me. Our eyes lock, and there’s a moment that passes between us. It’s not just attraction. It’s nothing close to wariness. There’s a palpable link between the two of us that makes my heart rate quicken in my chest. We have...things in common. I’m suddenly seeing him as a person—as a fellow cockatrice. As someone who might’ve been just as lonely as me.

  Shaking my head at myself, I try to sever the connection that feels like it’s trying to snap into place. Although I can tell that he feels it too. But instead of trying to ignore it like me, he’s just watching me steadily, drinking my every movement and expression in like he thirsts for it. Maybe I was wrong in my assumption. Maybe he isn’t the one that Zen was hinting at.

  I clear my throat, needing to break this emotionally-charged silence between us. “Alpha Bowen is known as the king of destroyed lounges. He takes what he wants and doesn’t care about the destruction or ruin left in his wake.”

  “You’ve seen this?” Rook asks, his eyes going wide with shock and worry.

  I pause. “Well, no...not exactly, but everyone knows what he’s about.”

  Rook raises an eyebrow in question, his stunning tropical water gaze glimmering with disbelief and reproach.

  “Don’t start that devil’s advocate bullshit with me, okay?” I warn. “Alpha Bowen tried to claim me as repayment for a debt. He didn’t bother to ask me what I thought of the whole thing, just like my mat and pat. That’s all I need to know. Someone who can do that could never care about me, and I’ll fucking rot in this prison before I live under someone’s boot for the rest of my long, feather-blessed life.”

  Rook raises his hands in surrender, and I bite into my apple, chewing and stewing on anger, hurt, and frustration.

  “I get it. I wouldn’t want that life either,” he admits, and my seething softens ever so slightly. “So when you’re not getting yourself
locked up in prison, what sort of stuff are you into?” he asks, and I’m thrown off by the question.

  I groan and shake my head.

  “What?” Rook demands with a smile so gorgeous that it almost has my breath hitching.

  Look away, Sinclair. Do not stare directly into that megawatt smile, or you’ll go blind. The safe eclipse viewing advice feels strangely applicable here, so I’m going with it.

  I turn away and stare at what I think are claw marks in the wall behind Rook’s head instead.

  “I hate the what do you like to do question,” I explain, refusing to make eye contact.

  He waits for me to elaborate.

  “I do a ton of shit, but do you think I can remember any of it when I’m asked like that? It’s like the question itself is some kind of mind wipe. All I can ever think of is the three Fs all cockatrice love, but honestly, I’m over one of the Fs, so that answer is one-third a lie.”

  Rook chuckles. “The three Fs?” he queries.

  “Man, you weren’t kidding about your lounge keeping to themselves, were you? Everyone knows the three Fs: flying, fighting, and fucking.”

  “And which F is the one you’re not a fan of anymore?” he teases.

  “Fucking,” I chirp.

  Rook pauses for a minute, like he’s not sure what to say to that. He scratches the back of his neck like he’s uncomfortable.

  I laugh. “Fighting, you idiot. I remembered during the prison yard fight that that shit hurts.” I narrow my eyes on him. “But why do males always think they win in the libido department? If you guys only knew how horny most females are on the daily, you’d cover your dicks and run, screaming out, ‘Save yourself!’ to every male you scurried past.”

  He snorts. “I would never run, let alone scurry away from a willing female,” he counters with a wicked smile.

  This playful banter is making my stomach do flips. I look him up and down assessingly. “I knew you had fucked up standards. You’re just ready and waiting to pounce on any ol’ willing female, huh?” I tease.