by Rhea Watson
“And you’re here because?” She peeled through the rosebush in front of her, on the hunt for the next perfect specimen.
“I dunno—the prison is racist?” Something bright and hot flickered in my chest when she bit back a smile. Amusing the one witch in this whole fucking realm who wasn’t swayed by my charms was a win I’d take any day. “But I no longer care now that I have a beautiful horticulturalist to study under.”
Or on top of. I kept that little bit to myself; overt flirting got me nowhere with Katja Fox. She required a more subtle hand, and sussing out her limits was one of the more enjoyable parts of my day. That and riling up her dragon and vampire bodyguards. They had been so aggressive about asserting their claim on her, stating outright that she wasn’t fair game, that if I intended to sniff around her, I ought to find a new gang. Well, here we were, two weeks into my Xargi sentence, and I sniffed around her whenever I damn well pleased.
Only it was Katja to put me in my place most of the time, not her hulking protectors.
In fact, from the way she exhaled briskly and slammed her clippers down on the table, I suspected I was about to get another tongue-lashing.
“Does this persona usually work on women?” she demanded, facing me with a scowl and an exquisite pink blush. I smirked down at her, then held up my own pair of scissors between us, examining them slowly, dramatically, all for show.
“You know, with the correct amount of force, I could probably drive these through a guard’s eye and into his brain.”
Katja blinked those lovely sapphires up at me, her stern expression flatlining to shock. I got a secret thrill out of surprising her, throwing her off. Unlike all the ladies who had entered my orbit in the past, women who flocked to me in court and in the human realm, it wasn’t physical gratification that drew me to Katja. It wasn’t the opportunity to show her precisely what I could do with my fingers, my tongue, my cock. For once, my words mattered.
They rarely mattered to anyone.
Besides the way my heart did a giddy little jig whenever I stunned the disapproval out of her, I liked providing a distraction from this place. She struggled, this fiery witch, with imprisonment; we all did, in our own ways, and if I could break the monotony even for a moment, it was yet another victory.
My mouth lifted into a handsome smile, the one that wooed and charmed and coaxed women into my bed—not my words, just the smile… and the crown and the money.
“And yes,” I said pleasantly, gripping my clippers’ blades in one gloved hand, “this persona always works, but I think the title usually wins them over before my dashing personality.”
The shock splintered, and her disbelief, that familiar look of incredulity that only made me want to work harder to make it go away, returned full force.
“Right,” she muttered as she grabbed her scissors and dove back into the bush. “Prince Fintan of the Midnight Court… Sure.”
I bit my cheek when she rolled her eyes. Rather annoying that no one believed me; lesser nobles and peasant fae had fucked up my credibility for centuries now. Still, surely I exuded the air of a royal.
“So, how do you think that’s working here?”
I fiddled with a rose’s petals. “What?”
“Your attitude,” she clarified, finally spotting a rose that fit her unknown criteria and snipping its stem with a noisy click. Katja straightened, bloom in hand, and got to work on pruning the thorns. “How do you think it’s working?”
I smirked, tapping my clippers against my gloved palm. “On you, you mean?”
“Duh.” She shot me a look, then hissed when a thorn stabbed at her thumb. Whether it pierced the glove or not remained to be seen; with the quality of goods around this place, it wouldn’t surprise me if these bland, heavy mitts were useless. Usually, I’d scoop up her hand and investigate, brows knit, eyes riddled with false concern. Then I would kiss the wound better, my lips slowly drifting toward whatever I most desired from the woman in question. Her mouth. The underside of her wrist. Her breasts. Down to the cleft of her thighs…
With Katja, I just watched her shake her hand out and get back to work.
“I think it’s going swimmingly,” I told her, the giddy pitter-patter fluttering in my chest again when she snorted. “You’re positively smitten with me.”
The witch arched an eyebrow, scoffing, and dropped her latest sheared stem into the water bucket without looking back, those big blue marbles fixed squarely on me. I let the staring match drag on a few beats, then chuckled.
“Don’t worry… I tend to grow on people. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, I bet I will,” Katja said under her breath, mouth twitching like once more she was struggling against a smile. I watched the battle out of the corner of my eye, a little deflated when the grin never surfaced, and then halfheartedly picked through the rosebush in front of me. How did she know what to cut? They all looked the fucking same.
Unbeknownst to my many tutors, possibly even my parents, I was a fast learner. Feigning dimwitted frustration in the face of new tasks had been a coping mechanism I leaned on for years, craving the opportunity to prove myself yet also terrified of failure. So, if I came off as just stupid enough, they’d still respect me without dumping anything too important on my shoulders. Hardly the most chivalrous way for a prince to sail through life, but I had an army of older brothers and sisters to fill the roles required of them. As the youngest, nobody had expectations. I had always done as I pleased…
And now I was here.
Locked up and wearing a collar, a shame to my court, to my father, to my title.
Pathetic.
Teeth gritted, I rolled my shoulders back and shoved my father’s insidious whisper deep down, focusing instead on the roses. Studying Katja’s gloved hands rather than her beautiful profile, I noted which roses she ignored and which she selected—those that just bloomed were her preference. I followed suit. Hardly a difficult thing, clipping roses, but a teeny, tiny smidgen of pride flourished inside when I held up my first snipped and de-thorned rose for her discerning eye. Katja plucked it from me, scrutinizing it, and then plopped it alongside all the rest in the bucket with a barely-there smile.
“Why don’t you like me, Katja Fox?”
Her eyebrows shot up, as did mine. I’d never outright asked anyone before, but none of my sycophants dared let on should they find my antics distasteful. Still, I knew the rumors racing through the court grapevine. I was nobody’s favorite prince—unless they needed a prince to host a party, to get pissed off their face with, or to fuck them within an inch of their life. That was all I was good for: my money and my cock.
“Insecure much?” the witch said with a chuckle, those sapphires shimmering with genuine mirth that dimmed when I didn’t smile back. Perhaps she thought I wasn’t serious; I seldom ever was, not even with myself. Clearing her throat, Katja paused her perusal through the bush to her left, then licked her lips, the flicker of her tongue a delectable distraction. “Fintan, I never said I don’t like you. I just don’t like being aggressively hit on all the time.”
“I’m afraid that’s my default setting.” I flashed a crooked grin, but Katja merely blinked back at me, unimpressed.
“Well… Stop.”
“But you enjoy it,” I insisted, refusing to believe that all her blushes stemmed from discomfort. Some, sure. But I affected her. My charm touched her at least a little, and at the moment, that was enough for me.
Not that she would ever admit it. Sucking in her cheeks, eyes narrowed, Katja fixed me with the business end of her clippers. “Look, I’m not here for you to toy with while you pass the time on your sentence. Unlike you, I don’t belong here. I didn’t commit any crimes.”
“Neither did I.” I scratched at the back of my neck with my shears, enjoying their sharp bite. “I mean, not by fae law, anyway.”
She rolled her eyes, back to her rosebush. “Whatever.”
“Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism,” I pondered aloud, all singsongy
and obnoxious—because I had never been strong enough to just blurt out the truth. “Perhaps I fear my truest self will be rejected immediately and therefore put up a wall—”
“Gods, Fintan.” Katja shoved me hard with a giggle, and I staggered to the side, chuckling right along with her. Yet again, a moment of honesty spoiled by bravado, by putting on a show for the sake of the audience. Still, I rather liked that I’d made her laugh, that her smile lingered as she picked through roses. No telling what it was about this woman that so infatuated me. Sure, I’d never had a witch before; she was a conquest in that regard.
Some sick part of me liked when she was mean. Rollo’s wife—future queen of the Midnight Court with three impressive heirs birthed already—was mean. Only to him, of course, and he seemed rather taken with her attitude. Always teasing and pushing one another, the act private and personal, glaringly intimate. Noblewomen in the court were charming and worldly. Intelligent and skilled in many talents.
But they all would have fallen into my bed by now.
Most of them had fallen into my bed with minimal effort on my part. No wooing. No courting. They bowed and thanked me when it was done.
None of them were mean.
Katja had a ward around her, one that effortlessly repelled my usual tricks, one that made me work.
And that delighted me.
Intrigued me.
For the first time in centuries, the object of my desire challenged me, possibly without even realizing it.
I cast her a sidelong glance, fiddling with a wilted rose, pretending to be busy while I studied her. What a gift, this witch.
“Tell me about Café Crowley.”
She snipped too hard, fumbling over the request, then shot me a frown. “What?”
“I’ve heard you mention it in conversation,” I remarked casually. Eight days ago, at breakfast, with Rafe—discussion topic: coffee. Lately, I had taken it upon myself to note, catalogue, and file interesting tidbits about her—about all of them, actually—for later use. But just those three, only Katja, Elijah, and Rafe. No one else necessitated that level of detail. Everyone else was an open fucking book: no layers. “Tell me about it.”
Setting her scissors aside, Katja laid into the newly clipped rose, ridding it of its thorns. “Why?”
“Because you interest me.” Ah, yes, there it was—the delectable plume of pink in her cheeks. A dewy carnation, just like those on the table across from the roses. “Therefore, your life interests me. Ergo, Café Crowley interests me—”
“Gods, I get it.” She shot me another wry grin. “What do you want to know?”
Tossing my shears and my gloves aside, I popped a fist under my chin, then swooped in and fluttered my lashes. “Everything, Miss Fox. Everything.”
Her flush sharpened in color, which positively tickled me, but I laid off the dramatics when she started to pull away. Begrudgingly, I shoved my hands back in the gloves and pretended to work, my efforts coaxing her to spill a few details about her profession.
And it was oddly fascinating to hear her share her passion. She loved the work. Loved her employees. Loved the books and the drinks and the kitschy aesthetic. Katja’s eyes lit up when she spoke of it, so animate and wild, and I did my best to swallow every crude thing that came to mind as I watched and really listened, utterly enraptured. No sense in pushing her away—not when she was unfurling her petals like so many of these thorny flowers.
When she eventually tapered off, her smile different, faltering, I let her. Only a fool would push for more than she was willing to give, especially when everything about this place was a painful reminder that she was so very far from home.
That I was…
I tossed the one rose I’d clipped and cleaned into the bucket, a measly contribution compared to her nine.
“Katja?”
“Hmm?”
I hesitated, scanning our surroundings for any eager ears. The nearest inmate was one row over and a good fifty feet down the way—another purple jumpsuit with his head stuck deep in the greenery. Above, the fans whirred, the greenhouse humidity suddenly stifling, the glare through the brushed glass too bright.
“Never mind.”
“What? No…” She nudged me with her elbow, and a bead of sweat dribbled down the side of her face. “Say it.”
Ignoring the urge to brush the droplet away, to lick it away, I tightened my gloved hands to fists as she got to work on the bush that I’d been poking at for the last… however long we’d been standing here.
“I… want to go home.”
The witch stilled, then straightened, tossing her thick, messy braid over her shoulder and unleashing a waft of primrose that almost made my eyes flutter—like I’d never smelled fucking primrose before. When she frowned up at me, face etched with concern, I almost backpedaled and whispered something lewd. But she had shared a piece of herself with me. She had been open and honest, gifting details of Café Crowley to one of the fair folk, to the sort of creature who hoarded information and used it to their advantage, who trapped unsuspecting mortals and supers alike in their web all because their prey had been foolish enough to talk.
She had shared—and trust was a two-way street, especially in here.
“I’m afraid prison isn’t as fun as I’d originally hoped,” I muttered, picking at a frayed string on my left glove, coiling it around my finger and yanking it free. “It’s really menial and boring, and most of the creatures here are fucking prats who—”
“Wow, imagine that…” Katja smirked up at me, equally patronizing and breathtaking, then patted my arm. Her touch lingered, annoyingly firm, painfully present, even when she withdrew. “Welcome to the club, Fintan. We all hate it here. We all want to go home. Prison isn’t supposed to be fun.”
“Hmm. Yes, well…” Well, what the fuck had I been thinking, sharing something so unbelievably naïve and ridiculous with her. I want to go home. Hardly sexy, that comment. Not brooding and masculine, so far from alpha male territory that I was practically on a different planet. Heat tingled in my cheeks, shame ripening and rearing its ugly, uncomfortably familiar head—
Until she touched me again. Featherlight at first, she pressed her hand to my arm just above my elbow. My eyes flashed to hers, but she didn’t meet them, staring at the middle of my chest instead. And then her touch turned firm. She held me as few ever had, empathetic and comforting and soothing—nothing I’d ever experienced from my father, rarely from my mother, and only occasionally from my sisters. It wasn’t pity either. Just a squeeze to tell me that she understood, there one moment and gone the next. She then turned and grabbed the bucket of clipped roses, heading for the rear of the greenhouse, and I trailed after her like a good little dog, smitten, utterly in need of her attention.
Both when she was mean and when she was kind.
We must have walked at least a half mile inside the magically enhanced greenhouse, headed for a section with cement floors and a flurry of activity. Produce and flowers and dried, ground herbs were counted, stocked, and loaded into shipment crates, all this hard work headed elsewhere. An elvish inmate in green mused that the funds acquired from the sales must go back into the prison, which made me snort cruelly. Back into the prison? Really? Nothing about this shithole suggested any real funding went into its upkeep, the main building just some basic stone fort with warlock muscle keeping the workforce in check.
Right then and there, the penitentiary’s purpose became so glaringly obvious. It wasn’t a stronghold for supernatural criminals, but a forced labor institute thinly disguised as a, what, a rehabilitation center?
Katja refused to join in the hushed conversations, the speculation about where the flowers were headed, which country we were feeding with the produce grown by magic rather than pesticides or genetic modifications. She just loitered at my side, silent, arms crossed and expression distant. I much preferred her being mean to me, but before I could poke the bear, stir her up with my back to the others, a shrill alarm blared through
out the greenhouse, so sharp and screeching that every super present, with or without my exceptional hearing ability, clapped their hands over their ears and cowered.
As soon as the siren ceased, guards rushed in, wand-happy and probably sporting hard-ons now that they finally had the chance to do something. Really, greenhouse duty must have been as mind-numbingly boring for them as it was for us. Barking orders and shoving inmates, the few guards assigned to monitor the sprawling space herded all of us to the front, where two more stood waiting alongside a pack of men in smart suits and leather shoes. All but one radiated a supernatural aura, though beyond the obvious human in our midst, a rare one in the know about the supernatural world, the rest were more difficult to discern who was what without the jumpsuit colors. The fellow on the far left, however, had the chaotic shimmer of a demon, handsome and beaming as he surveyed us with bright blue eyes that twinkled like starlight and thin lips stretched into a great white’s smile.
Maybe one of the fallen? He had an air of loveliness to him that not all demons possessed.
In the center of it all, a warlock who radiated authority, salt-and-pepper hair and slate-grey eyes. One of the guards addressed him as the warden, then snapped for all of us to smarten up. Eyebrow arched, I glanced left, then right. Glistening with perspiration, this lot couldn’t look smart right now if we tried, with dirt under our nails, smeared across a few cheeks, spattered on jumpsuits.
But the warden was untouched and no doubt untouchable. Sporting a crisp navy suit, a painfully clean white dress shirt beneath and a checkered blue-and-silver tie, he commanded the room with just a look.
He was my ticket out of here.
The gold on his fingers, the cruel twist of his mouth, the wand with its ivory handle hanging loosely in one hand, and the control exuding from his every pore meant absolutely nothing to me. In my world, this creature wouldn’t even ascend to the rank of the lowliest courtier.
Tall, wiry, birdlike in the way he surveyed his captives, Warden Guthrie could still be bought. Every man had a price, and as soon as I had the means, he could name it and I’d be gone.