by Rhea Watson
“It’s nothing,” Elijah rumbled.
“We’re fine,” I insisted, mouth dry. Both of us had ended up talking over the other, which made Rafe shake his head and shoot us one of his famous Oh my fucking god, you two looks that always made me feel like we were being ridiculous. And maybe we were, but I’d never been in this situation with anyone before.
Never been in this situation—period. Never responded so strongly to a shifter, my body igniting with a look. Never floundered around a handsome vampire, unsure where we stood: acquaintances or friends or cellmates who flirted every now and again to distract from the doldrums of their current situation?
And then add a third hottie who I couldn’t stop looking at, couldn’t help but drool over, and I was basically screwed. Prison wasn’t supposed to be a high school soap opera. I wasn’t supposed to be worrying about men’s feelings; I was supposed to be planning an escape so I could get far, far away from this place and find Tully, then go home and never leave my apartment again.
Just as he did with me, Deimos swept over to the fae and walked him out of his cell. I swallowed hard, the memory of the demon’s hot breath on my neck making my stomach churn. That first day, he had taken such liberties with me—taken advantage of my fear, using a very long moment of weakness to touch me, to wrap his arm around me and whisper in my ear. Back then, he had tried to sweet-talk me, to coo and purr, to make it seem like his crew was the safe port in this hellish storm.
What tactic would he use on the fae?
A fae who didn’t exactly seem fazed to be here, despite the bruises peppering his skin, the dried maroon blood under his nose, a streak of it cutting from his mouth to his chin. The guards had beaten the crap out of him—that much was clear—and yet he strolled alongside Deimos with such a confident stride that it made me wonder…
Had he been in prison before?
Was this old news?
Did he play the political game behind bars?
The thought of Deimos acquiring a fae underling didn’t sit well with me, and from the way both Elijah and Rafe watched the situation unfold, their smiles gone, the feeling was mutual.
Deimos and the fae stopped at his usual table, his tattooed hand sliding seductively down the fae’s arm, lingering over his fingers. Right. Apparently seduction was his only angle. Rafe and I exchanged a quick glance before I fully turned around on my stool to shamelessly stare, the cellblock silent save for the ever-present tick, tick, tick of a wall clock over the door. The air thickened, even with our collars muting magic and shifting, and I all but held my breath when the fae moved in and murmured something in Deimos’s ear. Over the demon’s shoulder, he caught my eye, shamrock-green eyes twinkling with mischief and mirth.
When he stepped back, the fae did so with an apologetic smile and a hapless shrug. Deimos’s entire demeanor suddenly tightened, his hands in fists, his shoulders rigid. Even the guards seemed to sense the impending fallout, loitering by the door with an eye on the scene, just Cooper and some new warlock who picked his nose and ate the findings when he thought no one was watching. Thompson had disappeared at some point, the one glimmer of sanity amongst our captors gone. Not good. Not good at all. Not the oppressive quiet. Not the fury twisting across Deimos’s face. Not the way his gang were all rising off their stools, hackles up and teeth bared.
The storm broke when Deimos threw the first punch. His fist cracked hard and furious across the fae’s jaw, and the entire crew pounced. Avery and Blake ripped the fae off his feet and dragged him onto the table, all of them closing in like a pack of wild dogs tearing into a carcass.
No, not a carcass. A very much alive animal, one who felt every bite, still kicking and bleating and begging—
Only he didn’t beg. In fact, as I shot up, heart in my throat and ears ringing, panicked like I’d never been for another prisoner before, I swore I heard the fae laughing. High, clear, melodious belly-aching laughter. No. That couldn’t be right. It was just a trick of the acoustics, another lie in Xargi Penitentiary.
Six on one was hardly a fair fight, especially after the disorienting experience of check-in—the strip search, squatting and coughing, shoved in a jumpsuit by strangers who had just examined you naked. It wasn’t fair, and it definitely wasn’t right. I staggered forward, eyes wide as I searched the pile for the fae, but there were so many bodies in one place, and Constance wouldn’t stop shrieking with absolute delight, dark fae blood under her talons…
“They’re going to kill him!”
“No, they’ll be stopped just shy of that,” Elijah insisted when I whipped around to my guys, who, while standing, didn’t seem keen on making a move to stop anything. Not that I blamed them: getting involved only made things worse. But… But…
The fae didn’t deserve to die—or end up in the infirmary just for pissing off a jerk like Deimos. In fact, he should get a medal for whatever he had said that sent the demon into a rage. None of us had been able to really trigger him yet.
“Yeah, well, it shouldn’t come to that either,” I snapped, marching around the circular cellblock and searching out the guards. Cooper and the other warlock lingered at the door, arms crossed, mouths stretched in cruel smiles. They chatted amongst themselves like they were watching a damn basketball game—probably taking bets on the fae’s odds of surviving the attack. Pathetic. All of them. Absolutely pathetic.
Even though I had spent my life on the sidelines, always taking a back seat, never involving myself in anyone’s business even outside of prison, something about this place made me want to fight. I’d seen brawls between inmates. I’d witnessed guards slam supers against the walls, scream in their faces, make them wriggle and squirm in agony with hexes that ought to be abolished. I’d met others torn away from their lives, their families, their homes—all to fill the cells of Xargi Penitentiary. It had happened to me: kidnapping, abuse, violations of my body and my mind and my magic.
And…
Enough.
Just—enough.
I clicked with Elijah and Rafe’s way of doing things because we were so similar. Don’t make waves. Don’t draw attention. Just sit back and survive. I understood that—lived it, breathed it. Heck, it was practically my family’s motto, the dwindling Fox coven’s code of conduct. Keep to yourself, take care of each other, and everything will be fine.
Only it wasn’t fine. I was the last Fox witch left, alone in the world and shouldering my dad’s paranoia to this day.
Elijah had broken the rules. He had made waves, drawn attention to himself—fought for me. Protected me from Deimos. Kept the demon off my back and beat a guard bloody for leering at me. Shorter and weaker, I couldn’t defend him like he did me, just a witch nobody saw as a serious physical threat, but I could pay his actions forward. I could step in for someone else.
I could make waves, just like my dragon.
“Stop!” My shout fell on deaf ears, and I waved furiously at the guards, pointing to the dogpile, incredulous—but not surprised—that they were just letting it happen. “What are you doing? Stop this!”
The pair chuckled and nudged each other in a look at this hysterical woman kind of way, and the moment quickly spiraled into just another incident where I felt helpless and lost and so very small.
“Keep your panties on, Fox,” Cooper ordered, his tone harsh—like I was the one out of line.
“A little hazing never hurt nobody,” the second warlock told me, his wolfish smile making my stomach turn. Ugh. I shoved down the desire to flip them both off and marched toward the writhing pile of fists and fury and feet, the fight in full swing.
Fight. As if this was a fight. It was a mob attack and nothing more.
I stuttered to a halt just on the cusp of it, fire in my belly that sparked and hissed like it never had before. Only for all the fight brewing in me, I had no idea where to put it—what to do, when to dive in, who to set my hands on first. I’d never been in a fight before. It never even crossed my mind. Not on a rare drunken night out at t
he club when someone cut in front of me for the bathroom or spilled their drink down my back on the dance floor. Not when customers at the café belittled my staff right in front of me. Not when some neighborhood kids threw rocks at Tully for kicks. Using my fists or my wand to settle things had never been my style.
And I’d like to think it wasn’t because I lacked courage, but because I could solve problems with words instead…
Words didn’t matter in here.
I lunged for Helen, smallest and meekest of the bunch, the little sparrow shifter loitering on the outskirts and smacking at the fae’s legs whenever she had the chance. However, before I could latch onto her arm, Deimos’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes completely black. He snarled and flashed a set of perfectly white, unnervingly sharp teeth—a predator guarding its kill.
Screw him.
I refused to be bullied by this tattooed freak a second longer. Trembling, I swallowed hard, braced myself, and—
Elijah beat me to it. Just as Deimos started to extract himself from the dogpile, black gaze glued to me, a huge body shoved between us, this massive wall of man blocking my view. The fire in my gut exploded, coursing through my every cell, fueled by Elijah’s proximity. It melted the fear, made me stop shaking. In his shadow, I found strength: I was ready to fight.
He was just much better at it. Swift as a striking viper, Elijah dug into the gang and ripped the two shifters in identical blue jumpsuits out. He tossed Helen and Faustus away from their usual table, and when the bird shifters righted themselves, they both appeared to try to get back in—only to lose themselves in Elijah’s gaze. I knew the feeling well, but rather than eliciting desire, the dragon’s unflinching stare seemed to scare the absolute shit out of them. Both shifters folded, eyes plummeting to the ground and shoulders rounded as they scampered back.
Gods, alpha energy was so stupidly hot.
“Stay out of it, Greystone,” Deimos ordered, his voice gruff and foul, nowhere near his usual seductive purr. Elijah squared off with him as the assault slowed on the table, the demon’s lackeys stilling and glaring us down, fae blood on their knuckles and splattered across their cheeks.
“Stop being a twat, Deimos,” Elijah fired back. “This—” He dipped his head toward the fight, to the fae on his back with his head lolled to the side, his gorgeous mouth stretched wide with soundless laughter. “—is petty, and you know it.”
Deimos rose from his place in the middle of the table, one foot on either side of the fae, lording over his carnage like a lion guarding a fallen gazelle.
Which made us the circling hyenas?
Right. That was just laughable.
“Whipped by a female, eh?” the demon snarled, wiping the blood from his mouth, his black jumpsuit splotchy with dark wet spots.
“Just sick of your shit, honestly.” I flinched when Rafe materialized at my side out of nowhere. Elijah fell back, the three of us standing in line, and I noticed both men had crossed their arms, their elbows just in my personal bubble enough to make a point. She’s with us. Sleeves rolled up, Rafe seemed ready to get his hands dirty for the first time since we’d met.
Now, the million-dollar question: Was it because Elijah had thrown himself into the fray, his best friend stepping into the minefield that was Cellblock C’s political landscape? Or was he standing beside me because I’d asked—without really asking—for them to have my back? Or… Or was he actually sick of Deimos being a bully?
Impossible to tell—and that was starting to really bug me.
But no more than all the spilled blood must be bothering him. As Deimos stomped off the table, using one of the stools as a step, his lieutenant Constance had taken it upon herself to lick the fae’s bloody hand clean. She knelt at his side, eyes shut, ecstasy written across what would be a beautiful face on someone less batshit insane. Her tongue swept over his bloody knuckles, lapping up the dark, glittery red smears.
Was this killing Rafe? Did vampires crave all blood, or just a specific type? Were some human-only?
Whatever the case may be, the prison was starving their vampire population—and this couldn’t be easy for him. Pale-faced and glowering at Constance, Rafe had started to shake, and this time, as Deimos stalked up to us, got right in Elijah’s face, I shouldered in front of him, ready to hold the vampire back as needed.
Not that I… physically could. Collar or not, I was no match for a ravenous vampire.
“Think carefully, boys,” Deimos whispered in that unsettling demonic rasp. “This, right here, is a line in the sand. Are you ready to cross it?”
Still sprawled on his back, the fae suddenly cackled, then shoved Constance away, his hand covering her entire face as he tossed her off the table like she weighed nothing.
“My, my,” he rumbled, chuckling, all bloody and beaten and bruised. He tipped his head to the side, wriggling his eyebrows at Deimos, Elijah, and Rafe, then winking at me. “Isn’t this a fun group?”
I inched closer to Rafe with a gulp. Great. Just what we needed. Another psycho who got off on violence.
Still hot though—just infinitely less appealing.
The main door creaked open partially, drawing all our eyes to it, and seconds later Thompson stepped in with his usual air: casual, quiet, not braggy like all the other warlocks. As soon as he saw this, the blood, the inmates on top of each other, he hurled the door the rest of the way so that the handle clanged off the stone wall.
“What the fuck is this?” he demanded, stalking into the room with his wand drawn. Cooper and the other asshole hopped to, quickly falling in line behind him. “Everybody back up!”
And then the magic really flew. It was what I’d wanted all along—for the guards to just do their jobs—but it should have happened long before that fae ever wound up on the table. Thompson and the others handled us roughly, dragging and shoving and sparking inmates back to their cells when they didn’t move fast enough, barking orders, issuing a lockdown until dinner.
“Not you,” the least awful of the three growled. Thompson snagged my wrist just before I zipped into my cell. He then hauled me out so fast that I tripped over my own feet, crashing into him with a yelp, heart in my throat.
“What’s this?” Rafe demanded, loitering in his cell’s doorway, paler than usual, the tips of his fangs exposed with every word. Whether he drank fae blood or not, it had awoken something in him, something animalistic and demanding; I saw it in his eyes, the way they had darkened.
His voice had deepened.
His fangs—just there. A shiver cut down my spine, the fear fleeting but visceral.
“Come on,” Thompson muttered, ignoring the vamp completely as he marched me across the cellblock toward the main door. I scrambled to keep pace with his much longer strides, shooting a panicked look back to Rafe—who was being ordered into his cell by the nose-picker—and then to Elijah, who had Cooper’s wand in his face.
Not that that seemed to matter.
The dragon shifter tracked me with his relentless golden stare—and for once I was grateful for his intensity.
“Where are you taking her?” he snarled, but just as he tried to bulldoze his way through Cooper, a bolt of amber light exploded from the warlock’s wand and struck him square in the gut, visibly knocking the wind out of him as Deimos sniggered from his cell. The last thing I saw before Thompson hauled me through the door was Elijah’s knees buckling, his hand slamming into the hard ground just fast enough to ensure it wasn’t his face, and the last thing I heard…
“Simmer down, boys. Your bitch has an appointment with the warden.”
And then the door clunked shut, instantly muffling the chaos of Cellblock C. The usual cacophony of locks shifting into place cut through the dense quiet of the stone corridor, and as I stumbled along behind Thompson, a high-pitched whine stretched between my ears. What the hell had happened to this day? One minute we were playing yet another round of cards, and then…
And then…
Adrenaline had made
me forget how wrecked I was after my bakery shift, but as it slowly faded now, the aches and pains and weariness trickled in.
“Is that true?” I asked, every word an effort, my feet desperate for me to sit down and put them up somewhere. Oblivious, Thompson kept his pace even, and I had no choice but to follow. “Am I seeing the warden?”
We darted left where we usually went right, the air cooling, the hallway brightening.
“Yeah,” Thompson said, quickly glancing over his shoulder at me. “Don’t forget your manners—and don’t piss him off.”
Great advice. I might have been ready to defend the helpless new guy against a dick like Deimos, but the warden was another beast entirely. He was king of this place, and whatever fight I’d had in me died at the thought of sitting across from him. Maybe, just maybe, something had happened in the outside world that brokered my freedom. Maybe he would issue an apology and send me on my way.
A snort snagged in my throat, choking me. Right. That would be the day.
Without another word, Thompson hauled me into a wing of the prison that was totally foreign to me—that my fellow inmates wouldn’t believe existed unless they saw it for themselves. After crossing through a set of double doors, we left the dusty stonework and narrow corridors behind for a grand foyer with marble columns and glittering checkered tile. Sunlight spilled in through tasteful windows in the domed ceiling. Paintings in ornate frames adorned the walls. Ivy spiraled around the railing of the staircase Thompson marched me up, its dotted purple blooms giving off a sweet and soothing scent.
This was a whole different world, but at Thompson’s breakneck pace, I hadn’t the time to properly digest it all. From my hurried glances around the sprawling space, silent except for our footsteps, it was open and airy and clean. Rich, splashed with marble and gold and ivory and—
Gone.
Thompson and I blitzed through another set of double doors, which opened into an arched corridor made of black wood paneling. Thin carpet stretched all the way down the dark hallway to the one door in sight, which was partially ajar, sunlight slanting through the opening. There it was—the final destination. Adrenaline spiked again when I spotted a black placard on the door, WARDEN embossed across it in stark gold lettering.