by Rhea Watson
“I mean, if we’ve got the space in the escape pods, I suppose his royal highness can tag along.”
I trailed after him to the edge of the building, Xargi Penitentiary soaring before us, and I did my best impression of a nonchalant Fintan-shrug. “If Tully even wants to leave this Shangri-La, of course.”
“Of course.”
Fintan then grinned, acceptance and affection glinting amongst the mischief in his eyes, and we broke off into a sprint toward Xargi—hand in hand, off to rescue a dragon, a vampire, and a cat.
25
Elijah
Although forced labor wasn’t my thing, there were very few places in this pit where I truly felt my most dragon-y self than the metal shop. The fire and the forge, the crash of metal on metal, welding and shaping weaponry and machines, commenting on Colin the elf’s exceptional glass-blowing abilities… I tolerated these shifts better than any other setting. The bakery I put up with for Rafe’s sake, and Katja’s company was a bonus that not even the forge could top.
Here, sweaty and dirty and surrounded by male inmates who liked to throw their strength around, I felt oddly at home. Artistry thrived in the shop. Talent blossomed. Exceptional goods left these doors, shipped off to vendors who sold custom pieces, to supernatural clans that still relied on ancient weaponry alongside tooth and claw, to the human militaries and militias who loved the intricacy of our firearms.
A very small part of me looked forward to metal shifts.
Today, I had showed up alongside all the rest—and discovered I would be reloading bullets for nine hours straight. Tucked away in a dim, windowless room at the far back of the shop, I was stuck on a stool doing the most tedious job imaginable. Most shifts had thirteen inmates assigned to this furnace, and although no one had said as much, usually the dimmest fuckers loaded bullets. There was nothing to it—no skill required, no tact or craft or passion. Put all the pieces in the machine. Pull the lever. Crunch. The machine stuffs all the parts and powder together. Out comes a reloaded bullet. Put the bullet in the box. Eventually seal a full box. Put the box on the pile. Repeat.
For nine fucking hours.
No swords for me today. No arrow tips or throwing stars or double-sided axes.
Just… this.
I wrenched down the lever, grinding my teeth as the machine did all the work for me, then pushed the lever back up. The bullet sat waiting in its slot, slightly warm to the touch when I plucked it out and dropped it in the ammunition box destined for some bullshit gun shop in the States.
Of all the inmates assigned to this place, I had the most skill. I did this professionally and could withstand the fire—yet here I was, making bullets in a room with no circulation, a rock-hard stool under me and a wood table in front of me, the reloading machine drilled into its top and bullet parts scattered everywhere by the cunt guard who purposefully spilled the containers before he left me to rot.
This was Guthrie’s doing.
Just a little taste of the suffering he had in store for any male who associated with Katja…
So be it.
I could outlast him.
He was just flesh and bones, even with his magic.
I was dragonfire and steel, nearing three centuries in age and capable of surviving unspeakable horrors.
What I couldn’t stand was not being with Katja. Not speaking to her, touching her, smelling her—and it had only been a day. We three had agreed not to push her, to give her the space she needed to sort through her own unspeakable horrors. In the end, it might have been better for her if Guthrie had no one to use as leverage, but I fucking hated the thought of my mate going up against that filth alone. My inner dragon and I wanted to incinerate the warden, fry him to a crisp and bathe in his screams.
But this was Xargi—and here, no one ever got what they wanted.
And now the odds were stacked so high against us—
A sharp tap on the shoulder made me fumble as I reloaded the machine, so lost in my thoughts, in the mundanity of my task, that neither I nor my inner dragon had sensed anyone creeping up behind. Fool. My inner dragon bristled, missing his mate and desperate to fight, but we both faltered again when I scented… Fintan?
Elderberries and dewdrops on grass and the subtle smokiness of aged bourbon—Fintan.
Abandoning the reloader, I whirled around and found my fae counterpart standing there with one of the metal shop’s guards—a warlock in his early twenties whose voice still broke when he shouted at us. And… he had a knife to the whelp’s throat. My inner dragon unleashed a war cry that rattled in my bones and set off a stress headache between my eyes. I stabbed a thumb at the sharp twinge, scowling, seconds from asking what the fuck was going on—had I fallen asleep reloading bullets? No surprise if I had… So mind-numbingly boring—
But I scented her first.
Briar rose and candle smoke and a storm raging across a tumultuous sea… Over the crackling flame and seared metal of the shop, my mate reigned supreme.
Katja zipped into the room a second later, out of breath and flushed, sweat glistening across her lovely face. Fire sparked in her big blues, hottest in all the realms, and for the first time since I’d known her, she looked exhilarated. Alive. Stunned, my gaze dipped to the pair of thick gardening scissors clutched in her one hand, the shears bloodless—for now. Had she the courage to use them, to jam them into a guard’s throat just as Fintan tormented the pup in his grasp with the blade’s razor-sharp tip?
Where the fuck had he even found a knife?
A storm of feeling charged through me, clashing, battling to come out on top. Relief and concern and gut-churning confusion that made the room spin as I shot to my feet. My inner dragon had more clarity, snarling, sensing something stupid had happened without me.
“What…?”
“Uh…” Fintan shrugged as Katja fidgeted with her shears, and the fae cleared his throat. “Escape attempt?”
“What?” My temper reached critical mass in a millisecond, and it took every ounce of restraint I had not to throttle Fintan within an inch of his life. Yes, we had agreed to get serious about breaking out of here, but we were nowhere near ready.
“I saw an opening and I ran with it,” he insisted as voices rose from the rest of the shop beyond my little alcove, metal clanging and footsteps pounding. “The greenhouse shift has already breached the main building, and the three guards out there are dead.” Fintan poked the tip of his blade under the warlock’s chin; the boy let out a whimper, squeezing his eyes shut. “This lovely lad will take us through all the locked doors.”
I opened and closed my mouth, fumbling for words. Half of me wanted to take that dagger and slice him from stem to stern—watch him bleed out at my feet. The rest insisted I clap him on the back and embrace him as a brother, because he had done what I couldn’t: he had started a chain of events that might get us all out of here.
Or, you know, might result in our grisly demise.
Struggling, I looked to Katja, who was locked on me, her gaze unfocused as she chased her breath. One blink and she was back—and then she was on top of me, shooting onto her toes to throw her arms around my neck and squeeze tight. Ignoring Fintan’s smug smirk, I wrapped my arms around her lower back and held her, breathed her in, willed her scent to permanently stain my skin so I could carry her everywhere.
My inner dragon purred in her embrace, craving our mate with every fiber of his temperamental being.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out in my ear, fingers toying with the hairs on the nape of my neck. “Elijah, I’m so sorry.”
“You…” I cupped the back of her head with a frown, wishing I could fix whatever made her words so heavy. Was it the escape attempt? The distance? Both? Or had she felt it too—the longing, the same treacherous ache in her heart as mine when we were apart, even for a day. Now that we had found each other, two souls crafted by fate, absence did not make the heart grow fonder. Shaking my head, I crouched so that she could drop onto flat feet, her body stil
l recovering from Deimos’s brutality, her legs trembling. “You don’t have to apologize.”
Sniffling, she eased back and planted her hands on my chest, looking oddly determined as she said, “Yes, I do, so… just let me.”
“All right, star-crossed lovers,” Fintan interjected, cutting off what would have been acknowledgement from me—acceptance that if she felt like she needed to say or do something, I as her mate would support her. Sure, I’d argue when I needed to. I’d put my foot down when it came to her safety and well-being. But… I wouldn’t control her. Never. Fintan, on the other hand, seemed hell-bent on running the show, and had the audacity to sidle between her and I, guard in tow, looking a little too thrilled with the turn of events. “Let’s get Rafe and the cat and then get the fuck out of here. This one’ll give us no trouble at all, right?”
He flicked the knife just hard enough at the warlock’s flesh that it split, bright red oozing from the wound. The boy cried out and shook his head. Honestly, weren’t all the prats patrolling this place hardened criminals themselves? I’d assumed those inside Guthrie’s organization had a backbone, but maybe the best and brightest—like Thompson—had fled for greener pastures when they realized what a shit gig they found themselves in out here.
Pleased, Fintan tapped the boy under his chin with the flat side of the blade. “Fantastic.” He then looked between me and Katja, brows up. “Shall we?”
While Katja hopped to, immediately headed for the door, I couldn’t move until I’d said my piece. Grabbing hold of Fintan’s green sleeve, I hauled him back when he tried to trail after my mate.
“You are putting her at risk, Fintan,” I hissed, hoping he realized what he had started with his trademark impulsivity. If something happened to her in all this, I’d kill him. The fae merely glanced down at my huge fist, then snorted.
“This was her bloody idea!”
“Hey…” Katja wheeled around in the doorway, hands on her hips, the end of her scissors nudging at the wall. “The riot was not my idea.”
“Coming back here was most certainly your idea,” Fintan argued, his grin tinted with dark delight—like he relished a fight before a fuck. My inner dragon growled at the thought but seemed more focused on Katja than the other male fate might have chosen for us to share her with.
Arms crossed, Katja sidled back into the little room, eyes on me.
“Nobody gets left behind,” she murmured. In an instant, I melted, all soft and gooey on the inside, infatuated with her even more now that I saw her loyalty in a crisis. This new side of her set off the protective alpha in me, my inner dragon on high alert for possible threats, but it also made me want to bend her over this table and make her mine in front of everyone. Fuck her until she begged for mercy, then mark her over and over again, my bite forever burned across her flesh.
I just smiled instead, wholly on board with whatever these two had in mind—because from the look in her eyes, the pride, the promise, the confidence in what she was doing, I figured I ought to encourage this. An alpha’s mate could withstand our strength, our fury, our darkest side. Yet they also made us better. Whatever we needed, we found it in them, and they in us. An alpha wasn’t exempt from growth, from personal betterment. Before Katja, I had always assumed I would pluck my fated mate from obscurity and tuck her away in a tower, dazzle her with jewels and keep her safe.
But my mate wanted to fight.
Katja longed to stand on her own two feet—to make the difficult call when necessary. I’d suspected it the second she ran to Fintan’s defense on his first day, but I saw it now, bright and glaring, her tenacity and her potential. The days of distance and quiet were gone. It was time to make waves.
“Let the record show that I wanted to bribe someone to quietly sneak us out the front door, but here we are,” Fintan insisted when I started toward her. He stiffened as I passed by, flinching ever so slightly when I raised my hand and clapped him hard on the shoulder. Our eyes met, dragon and fae, and an unspoken understanding passed between us. In no way did I condone him doing this without consulting Rafe or myself, but it was happening. No going back now. No stopping it.
He had tried to take the less dangerous of the two paths, but Katja dragged him down the one full of thorns and brambles—all the way back to me. And Rafe. And, of course, Tully.
I could respect that.
But I also wouldn’t let anyone hurt her either. She ought to be better armed than she was now so that despite our collars, she could still protect herself.
“Come along,” I rumbled, snatching her hand as chaos erupted in the metal shop. “Let’s find you a more suitable weapon.”
“Yes…” Katja squeezed my hand as she hurried to my side—the perfect match for me, this little witch. Her eyes all but glittered when they drifted toward the semiautomatic rifles prepped for shipment this weekend, and when they met mine, I realized I was a fucking goner. She nibbled her lower lip and pulled me toward the firearm of her choosing. “Let’s find us both a weapon to—”
“Oh, little mate…” I yanked her back and stole a hard, fiery kiss that had her gasping and Fintan chuckling. When we broke apart, I cupped her chin and arched an eyebrow. “I am the weapon.”
26
Rafe
I awoke to a blitzkrieg.
My eyes snapped open at the distant explosion, the walls of my cell shuddering. Dust sprinkled down on Tully and me, the lone lightbulb overhead swinging back and forth. Another boom, followed by the wail of a siren, and as I blinked the fog of my afternoon nap away, I legitimately thought I was in London and the Germans were bombing the absolute shit out of us—again. Back in my flat, unable to enlist—medically disqualified after a checkup by a human physician I had vampirically encouraged to scribble whatever I told him on my chart. The war. The war to end all wars—
Only Tully wasn’t there during the war.
Another crack-boom, more violent than any of our recent thunderstorms, followed by another misting of chalky dust from the walls and ceiling. Then just the siren—and men shouting. Groaning, I sat up, forcing Tully to sink his claws into my chest so he didn’t tumble off. We had retired to my cell hours ago if the heat on the window said anything, the sun at a different spot in the sky now, and the silly familiar continued to purr away, steadfast, stubborn enough to think he could regrow my fangs. Unfortunately, their loss was one he couldn’t fix, magic or not, but I found comfort in his company, in the constant vibration of his deep, soothing purrs.
Just me and Deimos in Cellblock C today, the bastard off from library duty and the rest of our crews gone.
And now—
Wood splintered outside my cell, then another boom sent chunks crashing across the block. Metal warped with a pitchy groan, and Williams gave a lone shout before being silenced by gunfire. Two shots—bang, bang—and then nothing but his moans. Tully whipped around, doubled in size and completely rigid. Both of us tracked the warlock guard’s wand as it bounced across the floor outside my doorway, away from him, like someone had kicked it.
What… the hell?
Tully clung to me as I tried to stand, growling low, his tail swishing, and I finally had to just peel him off in order to get upright. The familiar toppled to the ground with a yowl, then darted for a nearby shadow. Brushing the dust from my face, my hair, my arms, I staggered for the opening at the end of my cell, still blinking the sleep away, all the while wondering if this was a nightmare.
Until I saw them.
My people.
Elijah, Katja, Fintan—and a guard hostage. The main door to Cellblock C had been blown apart, most likely by the wand in the trembling warlock’s hand, and just as Katja opened her mouth to greet me, lips stretched in a nervous smile, Deimos blitzed out of his cell and across the block. The demon moved like a great black shadow, faster than I’d ever given him credit for, sprinting by Elijah and straight out the door. Smart. With none of his cronies here and bedlam unfurling outside, we could have finally just killed him.
No great loss there.
But what—
Was that a gun?
I blinked down at the pistol in Katja’s left hand. No one else had a gun. Fintan had the thin blade that most guards carried on their belts a breath away from slitting his hostage’s throat, and then Elijah had… himself, nothing but a metal shield at his side.
So. Katja had shot Williams. Bang, bang. One in the leg, the other in the shoulder—if the blood pooling around the fallen, moaning, sniveling guard suggested anything. My mouth watered, but I forced myself to ignore the buffet—for now.
“What the hell are you doing?” was the best I could manage under the circumstances. Elijah, Fintan, and I had discussed whisking Katja away from Xargi, but we hadn’t gone beyond a general agreement that it was absolutely critical to get her as far from Guthrie as possible before he went full psycho and killed her.
“Escape attempt,” Fintan told me, his eyes brighter than usual, his tone suggesting he rather enjoyed the unfolding carnage. Typical fae. Must have been Unseelie as I’d always suspected. “Get with the program, Rafe.”
“What?” I stabbed both hands through my hair, frustration on the rise. “Now?”
Looming over the group, Elijah just shook his head when our eyes met, his expression twisting into something that said he understood my feelings—and to just go with it. Let it happen. Right. Sure. Totally logical and not going to fail at all.
Another explosion rocked the prison, and I braced on the doorway while Katja did the same on Elijah’s arm, more dust shuddering from the ceiling and coating the block’s common area in white—like falling ash. Like the blitz. I pinched the bridge of my nose, pushing a lifetime of memories aside, my gums still sore from the extraction. The holes had healed over, but they would never be filled.
“We aren’t leaving without you,” Katja said when the structure around us stopped shivering through the aftershocks. She studied me with wide, imploring eyes, begging for forgiveness. I’d seen that look many times in my long life, and I’d never been more inclined to accept an unspoken apology before. Only now wasn’t the time or place for this—not when the prison was probably literally on fire.