by Rhea Watson
Not that my inner dragon understood or cared about any of that. Impulsive fucker raked his claws up and down my insides as Katja settled on the stool between mine and Rafe’s, then huffed a lock of hair out of her face. Pain seared up my throat, but I swallowed it down with a gulp of too-sweet apple juice and a wince.
“You know,” the witch started, poking at her own mountain of expired scrambled eggs, “they’ve really outdone themselves this morning.”
I grunted in agreement as Fintan guzzled his own juice, slurping noisily at my side. No better way to start the day than some fucking gross eggs, a slice of an orange with what looked like it somehow had extra seeds shoved in there, apple juice that was so artificial I could feel the grains of sugar on my teeth, and then a rock-hard chunk of bread.
Magnificent. No wonder most inmates looked like the walking dead.
I snatched up the bread and clunked it on the table. “I find this particularly insulting.”
After all, Katja and I had access to the fresh stuff several days a week. The bread we made was perfect—and obviously in high demand from the external suppliers, as there was talk of extending the bakery shifts and adding a few more inmates to the crews to up production. The likelihood of another tumble in the pantry looked dimmer with each passing day.
“Oh, yeah, a giant screw-you for sure,” she muttered, picking up her bread and squeezing it in a fist. A few bits of stale crust fluttered to the table, and she glanced at Rafe for his input—only for the pair to lock eyes a little too long, then look away, my mate’s cheeks a delicious rosy red.
My inner dragon sneered, then stabbed hard enough to make me cough. Of course the dramatic shit was punishing me for that interaction. I held a fist in front of my mouth, and when the subdued wheezing settled, I found my skin speckled with bright bloody droplets. Perfect. The bastard was literally tearing me apart from the inside out, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until I marked her.
Do you see where we are? Can you cut me some fucking slack?
A begrudging grumble rattled around my brain as I wiped the blood on my leg, preferring not to look like a human suffering from tuberculosis on top of everything else.
Fintan had gone from drumming on the table to rolling his bread ball back and forth between his cupped hands. I scowled his way, only to find him sporting the standard shit-eater grin as he watched the three of us like we were the best entertainment around.
And we probably were—like a fucking soap opera, me, Katja, and Rafe.
Most days I wanted to punch the fae right in the nose, if only to shut him up, maybe even have a few blessed moments of silence while he was out cold. He still operated under the delusion that he was fae royalty—as did just about every fae I’d ever met—and he flirted shamelessly with my mate right out in the open. The thought of her and him spending hours together in the greenhouse made my blood boil…
But I didn’t want to skin him alive.
Didn’t want to tear his heart out and eat it as I watched the life drain from his eyes.
So…
Again, perplexing. Fintan and I didn’t share Rafe’s and my bond, the connection fostered over eight years and deeply fortified in the last ten months. The fae had just appeared one day, and unlike every other male at Xargi, from the lowliest inmate right up to Warden Guthrie, my inner dragon didn’t want to slit him from stem to stern.
I didn’t relish the implication. Fintan was a stranger—and kind of a pompous ass. The thought of fate aligning us just seemed ridiculous. We couldn’t be more different.
The clattering of a plastic tray on the floor had all of us rubbernecking to the far right of the cafeteria, where a new inmate in purple shot up. Male—a small, thin wispy-haired warlock who was white as a ghost and panicking.
“Take it off!” he screeched, grabbing at the leather collar around his neck and yanking. “Take it off, take it off, take it off!”
It all happened so fast: inmates shouting for him to sit down and shut up, guards charging toward him—then the inevitable tragedy. He snapped the leather band open with a cry, fueled by adrenaline and fear, and the collar reacted just like the rumors said. A storm of bright blue electricity erupted from the sigils and lashed at every inch of him, frying the warlock to a crisp. Katja yelped, hands at her face, eyes wide. Over in seconds, the blackened corpse crumbled to the ground, the cafeteria reeking of burnt hair and sizzled flesh.
Guards from all cellblocks swarmed the dining area, zipping around tables, bellowing for the rest of us to stay seated. An uneasy quiet descended over the entire hall, and just for a moment, unity had its day. Inmates glanced between themselves, to other tables, the threads of understanding and outrage strengthening, twining, binding us all together. Of course, it would fade. Supers had too much internal bullshit to wade through to ever act as one united force—or we would have overrun this place and burned it to the ground by now. As much as we loathed the guards, we despised each other almost equally.
Out of the corner of my eye, Katja shot to her feet and scuttled some five tables over to Willow. She was still on friendly terms with the rabbit shifter, who sat at her table alone now, tears cutting down her cheeks, and folded over as soon as Katja dropped down beside her. My mate rubbed her shuddering shoulders, flinching when one of the guards snarled for us all to stay seated. Fucker. If one of them made a move toward her—to chastise her, to haul her back to our table like it fucking mattered, I’d be back in solitary within the hour.
Much to my surprise, it was Fintan who reacted first, rising from his stool and gliding over to the pair as muted chaos rumbled through the cafeteria. While Katja comforted her friend, Fintan settled beside her and sat up straight, tall, strong, meeting the eyes of a pair of prowling guards on their way over. He tipped his head to the side, then flashed that smile that grated every guard here—the one that dared you not to beat him bloody.
Muttering to themselves and rolling their eyes, the pair in black fucked off to deal with bigger fish.
My inner dragon merely stalked about inside me, snarling at the situation but not at Fintan, not at the closeness nor the way he reached around Katja to pat Willow’s rounded back. In fact, we both acknowledged and appreciated his protective instincts; I’d yet to see him step up for anyone else in here. If keeping him around meant we had another set of eyes to watch out for Katja, to keep my mate safe, then fine—he could be as irritating as he wanted so long as he served a purpose.
Exhaling sharply, I faced Rafe again, all our earlier tension gone.
“We need to get out of here,” the vampire growled, bright eyes tracking the trio of guards who levitated the charred warlock for all to see, then slowly maneuvered him toward one of the staff doors. I gritted my jaw for a moment, then nodded.
“Agreed.”
“For real this time.” Rafe shot his cold blood breakfast back, then tapped the empty vial on the table. “Not just talk.”
We had entertained the idea of an escape countless times since the first day. Unfortunately, sunlight kept Rafe trapped and I would never leave this place without him. Then there was the squadron of armed crooks masquerading as guards, the wolf shifters patrolling the grounds, a warden hell-bent on making his prison baby the first, best, and most productive of its kind. If, somehow, we got past all that, there was still the impenetrable ward to deal with, and then the vast tundra wasteland of Siberia.
All this with our collars intact.
Because neither of us planned to leave this place a scorched corpse.
Not exactly a cakewalk, but it wasn’t just me and my friend anymore. I had a mate to think of, a prison family—a clan of misfits. Witch, vampire, fae, dragon. Hardly the most conventional clan, but they were mine. All the petty shit about Rafe marking Katja first—gone. Fintan’s antics—white noise. There was a bigger picture to consider, and as the scent of death and char and ash thickened in the air, vile black magic polluting our lungs, I decided it was time to act…
Or risk losing my ne
w clan, the only clan I had ever valued or wanted, for good.
Growling, I shoved my tray away, the prison’s breakfast even more grotesque in the aftermath of everything. “Agreed.”
18
Fintan
“Gentlemen…” Towel slung low around my hips, I bowed and gestured toward the shower-room door. “I’ll take it from here.”
Williams and Katz shot each other a look, then meandered toward the doorway—and clear through it, shutting the door soundly behind. I straightened with a smirk, then crossed my arms and ambled around the wall that separated—barely—the male and female shower quarters.
“And where are they going?” Katja looked beautiful in anything, but wrapped in just a thin strip of cloth that barely passed as a towel, she was exquisite. The shower shoes were a bit of an eyesore, but I wasn’t exactly interested in her feet, was I? While I yearned to drop my gaze, to explore the barely concealed curves ordinarily hidden behind that purple jumpsuit, I kept my focus on her face.
For which I should get a fucking medal of honor, really.
“They’re standing guard,” I told her, about to lean on the edge of the wall, all casual and nonchalant, before opting to stand tall and firm instead. I mean, yes, I intended to woo her in this place, but no inmate willingly set their bare skin on the grungy bathroom tile, myself included. Would I rather have seduced her in the greenhouse? A supply closet? Literally anywhere else in this entire building? Absolutely. But beggars couldn’t be choosers in Xargi—and this was the first time in my extraordinarily long and banal life that I was a beggar. For now, I’d take what I could get.
The witch’s fiery brows crept up, and she glanced toward the closed door. “Uh… Why?”
“So no one bothers us.”
My shrug had her eyebrows inching ever higher. “What? And why would they do that?”
“I’ve access to my accounts now.” Despite my pathetic earnings from backbreaking labor in the greenhouse—labor I only occasionally indulged in, usually when my little jewel was watching—I had been in this shithole a month now. When permitted, I could check my finances, where I’d learned that “charity” donations had been transferred straight from my accounts and into the warden’s bottomless pockets. No matter. Unlike many inmates, I now had hundreds of thousands of dollars at my disposal. No amount of slow and steady siphoning by the pricks in charge could change that.
I mean… Based on the assumption that Rollo had acquired a grand hunting party and spent the last month scouring the entire realm for his most impish of little brothers, theoretically I wouldn’t be here much longer. Neither would Katja. And, I suppose, neither would Elijah and Rafe. I couldn’t fathom any scenario where she would willingly leave them behind, not after the fucking and the biting and all that nonsense.
Katja stared back at me in an expectant silence, like my statement wasn’t obvious explanation enough, and I cleared my throat, then threaded my hands behind my back.
“Well, for ten grand a piece, they’ll do as I say… for today, anyway.” Her eyes rounded, lips slightly parted, and I beamed as I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet, beyond pleased with the response. “And I told them I wanted to worship at your altar—”
The witch exhaled a sharp, barking sort of laugh, then threw her hands up, arms still stiff enough to keep her towel in place. “You are the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met.”
I tipped my head to the side, smile barbed, and then closed the distance between us in two long strides while she was busy rolling her eyes. Katja started at my sudden nearness, at my swift and silent approach, then stiffened when I caught her by the chin and steered her back to me. Gone was the incredulous grin, replaced with another flicker of genuine surprise, perhaps even a pinch of fear and a dash of uncertainty.
“I’m not a man,” I whispered, dropping the smug, dashing pretense for a touch of the brooding fire she seemed so drawn to with her dragon and vampire. When she tried to twist away, I gripped harder, fingertips bruising into her jaw like a snare, forcing her lips into a delectable pucker. “I’m a prince, Katja, and I know quality when I see it.”
Her throat bobbed with a gulp, the motion making the pink dots on her flesh just beneath the collar twitch. “Why?”
“Why?” Hardly a question of why I saw quality in her—Katja had never struck me as a woman who required a man to sing her praises so that she realized her value—but rather why her. I loosened my grasp on her jaw, ghosting a finger along it instead. “Why not?” When she didn’t immediately swoon, I released her and grabbed my towel, dramatically wrenching it from my hips and tossing it onto the ground, baring myself—regretting it only slightly, given the state of the floor. “Am I not beautiful to you, witch?” Cock slowly swelling, heat percolating in my loins, I smirked when she stared as pointedly at my face as I had at hers, refusing to even sneak a peek downward. “Tell me honestly.”
“You’re very attractive, Fintan,” she remarked, still quiet, still slightly unsure of the situation. I could work with that. She then wet her lips and sighed. “You know that, I know that, and the millions of women you’ve—”
“Don’t forget the odd man.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Right. Men and women in all the courts and all the worlds know that you’re hot. It’s a fact.”
“And all those others…” I shifted closer, gaze falling to her mouth, then the collar around her throat. What I wouldn’t do to remove it, to let loose the magic festering inside. “They pale in comparison to you.”
“I bet you said that to all the others too.”
Her scoff suggested doubt—not that I could blame her. “Never.”
“I…” She leaned in closer, scrutinizing the furrow of my brow, the slight downturn of my mouth. “I don’t know why I believe that.”
“Because I don’t enjoy telling you tall tales,” I admitted, flashing a little grin despite my best efforts to remain as stoic and brooding as her other suitors. “No lies, Katja.”
“I thought fae can’t lie.”
My chuckle had her blushing. “Ah, well, that’s the biggest lie of them all.”
Those lovely sapphires dropped to the ground—not to my magnificent form, but to the filthy flooring underfoot. She toed at the tile, frowning, then pinned me with another searching look that had my cock on its knees. Why did I lust after her when she was serious? When she was mean and teasing and standoffish? Fucking why indeed.
As if reading my mind, she forced out another whisper. “Why, Fintan?”
“Because you make me feel,” I told her. Naturally, I could have played around with the words, made her guess, possibly even kept the truth to myself and fed her the same nonsense I did everyone else. Embarrassing as it was to admit, I had practiced this little speech in my cell. For weeks now, I had searched my depths for honesty, forced myself to say it aloud. I shirked the easy path and hurdled down the one less trod—even when it scared the absolute shit out of me. “For the first time, I feel…”
Feel what, precisely, was still up for debate. I hadn’t quite gotten that far yet, but from the way she softened, this seemed like a good start. The heart palpitations and cold sweat on my palms, all hidden beneath a confident exterior, certainly suggested this was what I needed—what I had spent most of my life hiding from.
“I feel when I’m with you,” I muttered, pleased that I didn’t trip over the confession, “and I rather like it.”
The shy drop of her eyes and the subtle lift of her lips sent relief pounding through me. Rejection had been a fear of mine ever since I first suffered its brutal sting, and in time, I had learned how to act out to avoid it. Make jokes. Leer and sneer and chuckle my way through life, using what material advantages I possessed to cement bonds. The entire court might have thought me a joke—but I let them. None of them mattered, all those noble fae chasing our coattails, just hoping one of their sons or daughters might catch the eye of true royalty…
But to be rejected by someone who mattered…
I couldn’t stand it.
And from her first dismissal of my usual charade, her blushes when our gazes first tangled, Katja mattered.
“Listen, little witch…” I caught her by the chin again, tilting her head up as I eased even closer. One deep breath and it was all over. “We can fuck right here, or I can lick your pretty cunt until our time is up.” I gripped tighter when her eyes widened and heat exploded across her entire face. “Or, we can just talk. Or shower—in separate stalls if you so desire. But I’ve bought us an hour in which we can pretend we’re not in a fucking prison. Pretend it’s a bathhouse, darling, and we can be whoever you want.”
No one had ever received such an offer before.
And no one ever would again.
Tentatively, Katja reached up and brushed the brown curls away from my forehead. She smoothed my hair back, taking her time to ensure it stayed, clutched in my grasp yet utterly at ease.
“I want to be us,” she murmured, voice low and certain, like she was whispering a secret for my ears alone, “but I don’t want to touch a single tile in this bathroom.”
I grinned down at her, relief mingling with need and, for the first time with a potential lover, earnest affection. “I will fall on that sword for you, my beauty.”
I had never taken a sword for anyone before—they always took them for me. Always.
“Chivalrous and rich,” Katja mused as she gently coiled her hand around my wrist, then coaxed my fingers from her chin, slowly steering them down to her chest. Nothing too scandalous, of course, just to the broad, flat plane beneath the hollow of her throat, and still my cock responded as if she had steered me between her thighs. Instead, it nudged insistently at her toweled belly, aching for attention. Katja, meanwhile, lost herself in my eyes, and I in hers, her little dubious breath like the sigh of the heavens. “How are you still single?”
I needn’t think of a clever response—truth came free and easy for once. “Because none of the rest ever made me feel anything.”