She shut her eyes, pretending to sleep and I arched a brow at how easily she dismissed me. I didn’t like to admit how much that bothered me as a flicker of irritation ran through my chest. But I wasn’t giving up yet.
“Well let me make some intelligent guesses then.” I dropped down onto the end of her bed, lifting her legs to make room for me then dropping them over my lap. A growl left her throat, but she said nothing as I rested my hands on her calves. “You don’t need the money to bother with a bank job, and you certainly wouldn’t fuck one up if you did. So…you’re in here for a reason.”
I watched her expression closely, but she kept her eyes firmly shut. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Come on, put me out of my misery, little pup.”
Her eyes flew open and she scowled at me, making heat burst through my chest. I’d gotten a reaction, so I’d definitely scored.
“I’m not a pup anymore, Roary,” she said in a dangerous voice.
“You’ll always be a pup to me,” I taunted and her cheeks puffed out angrily. It felt too good winding her up.
She flipped upright, catching the collar of my jumpsuit in her fist. “I just beat down a Dragon and I’ve got enough energy to upend a Lion Shifter too.”
My grin widened. “Please try. It would make my day.”
Her upper lip peeled back and I could sense she was really about to try it so I reached out and pulled her in for a hug, aiming to totally disarm her.
“It’s good to see you, Rosa. I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but you’re already in the most dangerous prison in Solaria, so I don’t think you can get yourself in any deeper.”
She pulled out of my arms, a smile gracing her lips and drawing my attention for far too long. When did the little pup get full, lickable lips like that?
“Trust me, Roary,” she said in a husky voice that had my throat tightening. “I can get into far more trouble than this.”
I cleared my throat, pushing her off of my lap so she hit the bed, treating her like the young Wolf I used to tussle with without a single inappropriate thought. Though I regretted that a bit as she winced again. “Well lucky you, because you’ve got one of the toughest guys in here watching your back.”
“Really? Where is he?” she asked innocently as she moved onto her knees and her dark hair tumbled around her.
I snorted a laugh, rising to my feet and leaning down so we were nose to nose. “Still got that quick wit I see, little pup. It won’t do you any favours in here. There are fucked up creatures between these walls that would gut you for less.”
“I can look after myself,” she said with an eye roll.
“Why not let your childhood crush live out your fantasies for you? I’ll take real good care of you, pup.”
She lunged up, shoving me in the chest with a snarl. “I’m not a pup. And I never had a crush on you.”
I chuckled softly, catching hold of her wrists. “It’s okay. Half of Dante’s cousins had a crush on me. It’s my Charisma. Although, you’re definitely still blushing right now and I can’t use my Order gifts while they’re pumping suppressant through the vents. So what do you think that means?”
As a Nemean Lion Shifter, I had the power to sway other Fae to do my every desire. I just had to turn on the charm and people came flooding around me like I was a god. I’d used it to gather a decent sized following in here, but I had to reinforce my sway over those I’d gathered every time I went into the Order Yard. If you didn’t have a gang in this prison, you were automatically at a disadvantage. Numbers meant power. And without power in Darkmore, you were gonna fall to the bottom of the food chain fast.
She huffed, yanking her wrists free of my hold. “Why would I have a crush on an old Lion fart?”
I held my heart, stumbling backwards until my back hit the wall, pretending I’d been shot. “Shit, Rosa. You hit me right where it hurts. I’m thirty four not a hundred and four like your old Grandpa Fernando.”
She broke a laugh and the sound set off a deep purr in my chest. I moved toward the door, lingering there as I glanced back at her. “You know…you might have beat one Dragon but you’re gonna have a hundred more Fae challenge you in here in the next week. You’re fresh meat. And power levels mean nothing outside of magical hours. Scores are settled in blood more often than not.”
“I’ve been fighting my own battles for as long as I can remember,” she said lightly. “You really don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know you can hold your own in an honourable fight, but people play dirty in here. Are you sure you’re prepared for that?”
She smiled in a way that set my pulse racing and she nodded easily. “I’m prepared for everything, Roary.”
“Alright.” I rapped my knuckled on the bars of her cell so a metallic gong rang out. “But I’ll be right here when you realise you need me.”
“I run half the Oscura pack these days. But I guess you wouldn’t know that since you’ve been in here since I was a kid.”
“Yeah,” I grunted, an ache of sadness filling me over that fact.
I’d missed out on so much during my time in Darkmore. My brother visited weekly, keeping me filled in but it wasn’t the same as being out there in the real world. I’d missed his wedding for fuck’s sake. And I’d missed seeing Rosalie grow up too. She’d visited me on the odd occasion, but never alone. And never regularly enough for me to really know her anymore.
And all because of one fucking cock-up. One job gone wrong. But a part of me couldn’t regret it. Because that night on the Acrux grounds, I’d been torn between a choice to run or go back for Rosa. I’d chosen her. And I’d gotten her out of there, saving her from a stretch in juvie before ending up in this hell hole. Though apparently that had been for nothing, because here she was right beside me anyway. Fuck, she better have known what she was doing by coming here. It was a place where dreams came to die a bloody death.
Any hopes I’d have of a reduced sentence had been crushed like a nut in a nutcracker a long time ago. Lionel Acrux had ensured I paid for my crimes with my youth. Since then, I’d tried to live vicariously through my brother’s stories. In here, it was all about survival. And I’d been caged so long, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to live without watching your back at every second.
If Rosa thought she knew what she was in for in this place, she was going to get the shock of her life. I’d seen Fae with far more swagger than her stalk into his prison like royalty, only to be dethroned in a brutal execution days later.
“The Dragon will strike back at you,” I told her. “Keep your eyes open.”
“I know what I’m doing, Roary,” she said casually, dropping back down onto her bed.
“I really hope so, little pup.”
The darkness pressed in on me as I waited in the closet, my knees curled to my chest, my thin arms wound around them. It was cold in here. And the dust always made my nose tickle. But Mamma said I mustn’t ever let the man know I was here. So while he visited, I stayed hidden.
I could hear their voices in the front room, not loud enough to make out much of what they were saying but Mamma’s high pitched laugh reached me over and over while the deep baritone voice of a man came in between.
This was the easy bit. Before they made it into the bedroom where I was hiding. If I had my own room then maybe I could have hidden in there instead. But Mamma said runts didn’t get beds for their own so I slept on the floor in the kitchen, although sometimes I snuck onto the couch.
The bedroom was dark beyond my hiding place, but there was a thin gap along the edge of the closet door which I could use to peek out. So when they stumbled into the bedroom, I caught sight of Mamma’s slight frame wrapped around the man. He was tall and wiry with dark hair and cruel eyes. Mamma said if he ever found out about me, he’d drown me in the nearest lake.
‘Alphas don’t want runts.’
So I hid.
Mamma started peeling off her clothes as the man watched through hooded eyes, swigg
ing whisky straight from the bottle.
He pulled his shirt off then unbuckled his belt and I closed my eyes, clamping my hands over my ears as I waited for this part to be over.
He always left when it was done. Then I’d wait for Mamma to fall asleep and slip out of the closet. If I was lucky they’d have left some of their dinner uneaten like last time.
I could still hear Mamma as she said something to him and I wriggled further back into the closet, clamping my hands down harder to try and block out the sounds before the bed started creaking and the man started cussing.
My shoulder knocked against a jacket hanging in the back of the closet and it slid from the rack, disturbing the dust and making it billow around me.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and held my breath as the most unbearable itch started up in my nose. My bare feet scrambled against the hard floor as I fought it, but my body was betraying me and I was going to lose the battle-
The sneeze burst from me and the room beyond my closet fell utterly silent.
Heavy footsteps beat across the floor.
“Come back to bed, Felix,” Mamma called, a hint of fear to her voice.
The cupboard door was wrenched open and I found myself looking up into the eyes of a monster.
“Well, well, well, what have we got here?” he growled.
I jerked awake as a roar sounded outside the cell block door and something huge slammed into it. Someone screamed a curse down in the coop and someone else replied with a string of profanities while others yelled for them to shut up.
My pulse hitched as the Belorian continued its attack on the door for another minute before it gave up and headed away with another angry shriek.
That thing was going to throw a serious spanner into the works of my plan. I was either going to have to figure out a way to trap it in its cage one night or I’d have to adjust my plans so that we escaped during the day. It was damn frustrating, but there wasn’t anything I could do aside from adapt.
The nightmare tried to cling to me but I shrugged it off again, refusing to fall into the trap of its clutches. I might not have been able to escape my past in my dreams, but it would be a cold day in hell before I’d allow one single second of my waking moments to be ruled by it.
My first night in Darkmore Penitentiary had been filled with the sounds of snuffling, crying, the odd scream, a fight which I was almost certain had ended in someone dying down in the coop and the most moon awful, earth rumbling snores coming from the dude in the cell to the left of mine. Whoever the hell was sleeping in cell eleven was officially on my shit list.
And now, as I’d finally dozed off, I found myself woken again by a repetitive snip, snip, snip.
“Ooo yeah, that’s the business,” a low male voice sounded and I pushed myself upright with a snarl of irritation.
The snip, snip, snip was coming from somewhere outside and I shoved myself to my feet, prowling towards the bars which lined the front of my cell and were currently locked into place for the night. I shivered in my white tank and boring black panties. My great aunt Marina could have chosen more appealing underwear than the standard issue bullshit I was currently sporting and she was eighty four and about as prudish as a prune in a basket of grapes.
I made it to the front of my cell and draped my arms through the bars as I looked out over the wide open space to the gangway opposite mine.
“Merda santa,” I cursed as my eyes fell on the cell directly in front of me. Holy shit.
A man stood butt naked with one leg on the floor and the other hooked up onto the bunk beside him as he bent forward and trimmed his pubic hair with a pair of scissors fashioned from what looked like plastic canteen cutlery. He had a wiry body and thick grey hair everywhere which he seemed inclined to individually trim in full view of every fucker on this side of the cell block.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded, my upper lip curling back in horror.
“If you like the view, you can come on over for a closer look when the doors slide open, new pup,” he purred, thrusting his hips so his dick flapped back and forth.
“If I come over there it’ll be to do some cutting of my own,” I warned, baring my teeth.
“You can come and play armies with me if you like?” he offered as he finally dropped his leg from the bunk. My relief was short lived as he moved into a squat, giving me an even more graphic view as he started trimming his ball hair. “I’ll lie down and you just come and blow the fuck out of me…”
“Per l'amore della luna!” I snarled. For the love of the moon. “Why don’t you hang a fucking sheet?”
“The more attention Plunger gets, the harder he works for it,” Roary’s voice came from the cell to the right of mine. “Just ignore him or he’ll bend over and give you a real show with a full view of his asshole.”
“Plunger?” I asked with a grimace, wondering if I even wanted to know what had earned him that nickname.
“Yeah,” Plunger called. “Because I’ll plunge into anything.”
I turned away from him in disgust as he started making kissy noises at me and I began pacing my cell, muttering to myself in Faetalian about perverts and freaks.
“You should start hanging a sheet so you don’t have to look at him,” Roary said from the other side of the bricks which separated us. His voice came to me clearly and I frowned as I looked at the wall which divided us, smirking when I spotted a little metal grate in the rear corner of the cell.
“I don’t have a spare sheet to hang,” I muttered.
I wasn’t going to be sleeping on that mattress without something to cover it. I hadn’t missed the old stains on it when Twenty Seven had been making up my bed. Some of them looked like blood and the others…well I didn’t like to think too much about that big ass Dragon Shifter being alone in here at night when his body got urges.
Blugh, I might just puke if I focus on that too much.
“Well maybe you should get yourself one today. Or I could get one for you…for the right price.”
“And what would you want me to do for a sheet, Roary?” I asked as I dropped onto my hands and knees and peered through the grate into his cell. My bruised ribs twinged uncomfortably at the treatment, but I gritted my teeth against the pain and forcefully ignored it. The metal was thick and strong with little holes in the shape of stars punched through it to allow the air to flow freely. I guessed they wanted to make sure the Order Suppressant they pumped into the cells could get everywhere easily, but it also meant that I could see Roary while talking to him if he got out of bed to join me.
“I’m sure I could think of something you could do to earn it,” he replied in that flirtatious tone I used to daydream about when I was younger. Not that I’d ever admit that I’d had a crush on him as a teenager but if I was being totally honest with myself, I’d been borderline obsessed. Every time he’d been at our my Aunt Bianca’s hanging out with my cousin Dante, I’d found myself tongue tied and blushing. But I wasn’t that innocent little girl anymore.
Okay, so maybe I’d never been innocent but I had been a teenage girl who was surrounded by dipshit boys who couldn’t handle me.
Roary was all Alpha, and in the years since he’d been carted off to Darkmore, I’d come to realise that that was what I’d liked about him. I was drawn to men who were my equal. It was a Wolf thing. We craved mates who could match us and there weren’t a whole lot of men who I could say that about.
Werewolves were generally polyamorous with their pack in the years before they found their true mate, but I’d stopped participating in the pack orgies years ago. For a start, three quarters of my pack were my relatives so I only had a choice between the other twenty five percent anyway. And with the options available to me, I hadn’t found a single true Alpha amongst them. I just couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for sex with a guy who wasn’t my equal and they certainly couldn’t handle me on the occasions I’d tried. Who wanted shit sex with a guy who couldn’t turn you on, let alone get you off? Not
me. And since I’d started on the Alpha diet I’d realised that there was no turning back. Not that there were ever many of them around to pick between. Solaria may have been filled with powerful Fae, but for every Wolf there seemed to be a thousand sheep.
“Come down and talk to me at the vent,” I said, shifting my hips to get comfortable on the floor.
“Do you want to stare into my eyes while you get all moony over me?” Roary teased, but I could hear him climbing out of his bunk all the same.
I blew out a breath of irritation. This teasing was going to get old fast. I wasn’t some little girl for him to push around and mock anymore. I was Rosalie Oscura and I didn’t let anyone make a fool of me.
“You need to get over yourself, Roary,” I muttered. “If you seriously think I’m anything like the little pup you used to push about and make fun of then you’re wrong.”
Roary moved to the other side of the grate, laying down and looking through at me with a smirk on his lips. It was hard to make out much through the small holes while the lights were still out but I could see his mane of long, dark hair falling around him and that mischievous look in his eye which had once had me swooning when I was fourteen.
“Are you ready to let me in on your devious plans?” he asked in a low voice to keep our conversation private.
“They don’t concern you,” I replied lightly. Although that wasn’t true. If I was going to successfully escape this place then I needed him on side, and I fully intended to bring him with me when I went.
Not least because it was my fault that he was in here, not that he had ever admitted it. But I knew in my heart that it was true. Dante had told me to stay behind that day but I’d refused and because of me, it had all gone to shit. Roary wouldn’t have been caught if he hadn’t been protecting me and as they’d hauled him away, I’d sworn on all I was that I’d get him out of this place somehow. I was pretty late on making good on my promise but there wasn’t a day that had passed in the last ten years when it hadn’t crossed my mind.
Darkmore Penitentiary (Supernatural Prison for Dark Fae Book 1) Page 6