by Rhea Watson
“Second…” I licked my lips, unsure if I wanted to play this card just yet but knowing I would hate myself if I didn’t. “Tully comes with me.”
“What the fuck is a tully?”
Ugh, just hearing Lloyd say his name made the anxiety churn amp up a notch, like he had finally found the heart of me and stomped all over it. “He’s my familiar. He… He’s a cat. He followed the bounty hunters who took me and snuck in with a guard. He’s been living in the shadows of my cell for a while now. He’s… my best friend. Please.”
Panic reared its ugly head again when Lloyd’s face twisted, his teeth gnashed, his fury so sudden and dark that it made me jump. But it was gone just as quick as it appeared, replaced by an unreadable calm—calm that wouldn’t last, a maelstrom swirling beneath the surface.
“I can’t have some familiar protecting you from me,” he growled, and I frantically shook my head.
“No, he won’t.” Of course he would—Tully would die for me. All familiars would die for their witches and warlocks; the only difference with me and him was that it went both ways. I’d give my life for that spoiled brat ten times over. “I promise—I’ll make sure he doesn’t interfere. I just want him with me. He… He’s good at healing.”
Lloyd’s lingering erection implied a penchant for violence and a mean sadistic streak; I would probably need Tully’s abilities in the very near future.
The warlock considered me for what felt like an eternity, then sniffed and picked a bit of fluff off his suit’s charcoal-grey jacket sleeve. “If he fucks with me, I’ll skin him and wear his pelt as a hat.”
Another surge of anxiety vomit, fire sizzling up my throat. “Okay, and lastly—”
“What makes you think you get any more conditions?”
I knew I’d been pushing my luck, and I nudged it just a little further with a flick of my head, tossing my hair over my shoulder to show off the side of my neck Rafe hadn’t scarred. Lloyd’s gaze plummeted to my throat again, to the pinpoints of pain left by his fingertips, to the bruises forming slowly but surely. Gods. He was going to choke me until I passed out regularly, wasn’t he? A shiver raced down my spine, eyes burning with a new batch of tears, but I pushed through, needing this last condition approved most of all.
“Lastly,” I started again, voice thick, each word a chore, “Elijah, Fintan, and Rafe are taken care of once I’m gone. They’re treated well in here. I’ll do whatever you want, go wherever you want, so long as they are looked after… or freed.”
Lloyd chuckled coolly. “I’m not releasing them. They have a sentence to serve—which has just been extended for causing a riot and murdering a handful of my guards, I might add.”
“Okay, just…” Gods, I couldn’t believe I was saying this, doing it, throwing away my life and legitimizing this bastard’s insanity. But I would. For them, I had to. “None of them get hurt. Or maimed, or tortured, or singled out. They stay together in Cellblock C. Just leave them alone, and don’t order any other inmates to do the dirty work for you.”
“My, my… That’s a tall order, kitten.” He pinned me with a frighteningly serious look, and just as I started to really sweat, he flipped, mouth twisting into what he must have thought was a sinfully handsome smile. “But you’re worth it.” Easing off his desk, Lloyd tipped his metaphorical hat to me, bowing slightly as he said, “Agreed.” His hands then settled on the back of my chair, caging me in on either side, and he dropped down to my eyeline, his breath hot and his eyes wanting. “Now, seal it with a kiss, Katja Fox… like you’ve made a deal with the Devil.”
As much as I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and turn away, I just sat there and let it happen. Stared at him as he planted his thin, vile mouth on mine in a hard, domineering kiss. Lloyd’s eyes fluttered before they closed, and his soft, barely there moan had me fighting my gag reflex. I looked away, out the window and beyond the blurry horizon, then squealed when his hand suddenly fisted in my hair and wrenched my head back. His tongue thrust between my parted lips, and I did everything in my power not to bite it off.
I took it. I took him and his mouth that tasted like burnt basil and nicotine and mint. I sealed the deal. I dealt with a man who thought he was the Devil, who saw himself as invincible and all-powerful.
In these walls, Lloyd Guthrie was exactly that.
The harder he kissed, the more I wanted to just vomit into his mouth. Instead, I kissed back—barely—so that he wouldn’t make me do it again. Nothing too enthusiastic or he would know it was an act.
An eternity later, he retreated, looking all too pleased with himself, still hard as a rock.
“Good girl,” he purred, and another shiver of disgust shot down my back. A cold numbness followed, slow and steady as it worked its way down, cutting me off from him, from this place, from everything.
Disassociation.
I used to do it a long time ago—processing so many deaths in the family was bound to mess you up a little, but I had taken the steps. Gone to therapy. Processed the grief to the best of my ability. Come out of it a different person, but still whole. No need to disappear inside myself anymore. No need to run from reality.
But maybe that would be the only way to survive what was to come.
Lips wobbling, misery burned behind my eyes, in my nose, and I looked back to the windows again, trying desperately not to cry.
“Tell me, kitten,” Lloyd murmured as he ghosted a finger along my jaw, over my swollen lips, mapping me, touching me. “Do you love them?”
The dams finally broke, and I twisted my head away with a strangled sob. Humiliation and anger and disgust and heartbreak spilled down my cheeks in hot, wet tracks, and I hated myself for crumbling right before his eyes, but I couldn’t stop it anymore. The buildup had been going on for too long, everything stacking higher and higher until it toppled over. Crashed and burned.
Maybe I did love them—each one, Elijah and Fintan and Rafe. All to varying degrees, our relationships separate yet heavily intertwined in Xargi. Maybe I had been lying to myself, deluding myself into believing it was just sex with Fintan, just great conversation with Rafe, just a soul bond with Elijah. Just, just, just.
I’d played myself for a fool. We all did, four fools denying what had blossomed between us in the armpit of the world.
It was easier that way—to pretend we weren’t in love.
Because I loved them.
I did.
That was so painfully clear now that I folded over and wept at the thought of never seeing them again, of never experiencing our love, of watching it grow and flourish. Right now we were just seedlings barely sprouted above the soil, little wisps of green poking above the black earth, all cozy in the same garden bed, all complementary to each other.
And Lloyd was the boot, trampling each of us to nothing before we had the chance to bloom.
I had to love them.
I wouldn’t throw my life away for anything less.
And that made what was about to happen so much worse.
Gasping, fighting for air, struggling against the panic, I sat upright again, and through teary eyes watched Lloyd grit his teeth, grind them, glower down at me—then whip around and swipe everything off his desk. I yelped as it all clattered viciously to the floor, glass shattering and papers flying. He grabbed his desk lamp, the sole survivor of the first attack, and hurled it at a bookshelf. The crash made me jump, and I turned away as stained shards came whizzing back in our direction.
Whatever wasn’t nailed down, he threw. Destroyed. Smashed into itty-bitty pieces under his polished loafers. A pulse of raging magic detonated from him, and the shock wave knocked books off their shelves and splintered the windowpanes. Fueled by his fury, a fire sparked on its own in the hearth. Since meeting Elijah, I had tasted so much fire—in him, in myself. I welcomed its burn, but this one, the flames snapping and hissing and crackling, terrified me. It wasn’t the comforting heat I felt with my dragon, not the inferno that bolstered me, made me feel strong when I had
nothing else, just a witch without her magic.
This was a warning, a message, an omen for the future.
I feared its wrath.
I feared him.
This man, this warlock, was going to kill me one day. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe ten years from now—he was going to snuff me out in a rage just like this one.
I closed my eyes, chest shuddering as I braced against another breakdown, twitching and flinching as Lloyd continued to obliterate his office.
All in absolute silence.
No yelling or cursing, no snarling or sneering. Just cold, methodical fury that seemed to go on forever.
When it finally stopped, when I dared open my eyes again, there was practically nothing left. Curtains torn. Every book on the floor. Huge imposing chair overturned. Firelight engulfed the room and white spiderwebbed cracks covered both windows.
And in the middle of it all, Lloyd Guthrie. He’d barely broken a sweat, not a hair out of place, tie slightly askew again. He fixed that without ever taking his eyes off me, without even blinking.
“So, you love them,” he growled, that smoky rasp strained and dangerous. “That’s fine, kitten. I understand… But you’ll get over that soon, won’t you?”
I nodded frantically, an outright lie, my heart shattering and my world ending. Lloyd stabbed a hand through his hair and then grinned as his gaze dropped to my neck again.
“Good girl.”
28
Elijah
While my last memories of Cellblock C were hazy, a few stood out stronger than the rest. Black smoke filling the air, thick and suffocating. Fintan unconscious at my side. Rafe crawling for us, reaching out, me and my inner dragon desperate to draw him near. Katja’s limp body beneath me, her eyes open and glossy.
I am the weapon.
Pathetic. What sort of protection had I offered in the outbreak? My snarling presence had kept other rioting inmates away on the way to fetch Rafe, but beyond that, I’d been helpless. Useless. Again. No more than a block of muscle—dead weight against the might of magic.
I hadn’t expected a blazing triumph, but I had hoped to at least make it to the ward before shit really hit the fan. But it made sense that they came for us so fast; at the first whiff of trouble, Guthrie would have secured his prize.
And he had.
He had stolen my mate right out from under me.
Hands cuffed behind my back, a trio of grim-faced warlocks in black escorted me down the hallway to the door that we had busted through for Rafe and Tully. All the locks back in place. The wood repaired—fortified, even, with thicker metal hinges and additional bolts, some with an iron hum, a few others made of silver.
A warning.
After the dozen locks slid open, an empty cellblock greeted me on the other side. I’d come to in the cafeteria with dozens of lesser shifters and supers, some bloodied and battered, but myself untouched. Honestly, I had expected to wake up in a hole, confined to solitary for the rest of my miserable days, buried and forgotten.
Instead, they brought me here.
Uncuffed me.
Shoved me inside and slammed the door.
Not another inmate in sight. Just… eerie silence. Someone had repaired the place, swept away all the dust and mopped up blood. Williams bled puddles of the stuff after Katja had shot twice as he reached for his wand. Then there had been Fintan with his broken nose, blood oozing, dark and rich. They had probably cleaned some vampire blood too from Rafe—my last true memory of my friend, my vampiric brother, with a wooden stake in his shoulder.
It was like nothing had happened.
Only everything had happened. Xargi Penitentiary, from what I’d seen, was in pieces. Inmates across the prison followed those from the greenhouse, arming themselves and rising up. Some did it for the sake of chaos. Others for freedom. I had done it for my clan of misfits on the slim chance that maybe, just maybe, they could get the fuck out of here and taste free air again.
And now I was alone in a stained jumpsuit, patches of dried blood splattered across the navy-blue, dust in my hair and Katja’s scent on my skin. Fading. Fading fast. My inner dragon bristled at the thought of losing that little piece of her, stalking around inside me, flapping his wings, stretching, bellowing such mournful sounds, calling for his mate.
No answer.
The silence stung.
Jaw clenched, hands in fists, I checked each empty cell just to be sure. Even Tully was gone, all the shadows abandoned. I lingered between Katja and Rafe’s cells after I’d made a few rounds, unable to stop moving, barely able to breathe. Where were they? What was being done to them? Who was I going to flay when all this was over?
Everyone.
I’d kill them all. For Rafe. For Katja. Hell, even for Fintan, who, while impulsive, had only wanted to help us—to save her.
With my inner dragon’s song thundering around my head, pounding through my veins, I veered left toward Katja’s cell, desperate to run my nose along her cot, bury my face in her pillow. Scent up, keep her with me even in my solitude—
Only the clinking of locks stopped me, and I whipped around, seething, ready to pounce…
On Rafe. Same as me, he lingered in the open doorway, backed by a trio of unfamiliar guards. They uncuffed him. Pushed him inside. Slammed the door behind him. Without hesitation, we marched to one another and embraced as brothers. My inner dragon stopped baying for Katja, just for the length of that hug, then started up again as soon as we broke apart, Rafe rubbing at his shoulder with a wince.
Besides the gaping hole in his jumpsuit where the stake had pierced, he also looked relatively unscathed—disheveled, yeah, but I probably didn’t look much better.
“Where were you?” I demanded, studying the slowly healing wound inside that hole, his flesh waxy and pink as his delayed healing abilities kicked in. The vampire assessed me with an equally keen gaze, looking me up and down with a shake of his head.
“They locked me and a few other vamps in the library closet.” He hesitated, black brows knit, everything about him hard. “I thought for sure they would have put me in solitary… or just tossed me in the sun. Guthrie had an excuse to take us all out.”
I grunted in agreement, stabbing a knuckle between my eyebrows when my inner dragon temporarily lost his shit just hearing that name. Pain thrummed behind my eyes; what I wouldn’t do to fucking shift already and unleash the hellfire bubbling inside.
“I was in the cafeteria,” I managed when Rafe prodded at me, his question unspoken but obvious. “With the general population.”
“Anyone said anything to you?”
“Guards?”
“Hmm.”
I shook my head. “No.”
Which was… odd. With Katja, we all had a target on our backs, and some of the goons had been using that lately to imply a whole load of bullshit. But this evening had been radio silence.
“Me neither,” Rafe muttered, taking stock of the cellblock with a quick sweep. “No one’s kicked the shit out of me either, which is—”
“Concerning,” I said gruffly. This was a change of pace. Even if we hadn’t been singled out by the warden, Xargi guards got a twisted thrill harassing inmates. Physically. Verbally. No doubt sexually. The fact that no one had said a word or put a hand on us except to cuff us for transport set me on edge more than anything.
Rafe’s eyes met mine, that sea-glass gaze riddled with worry—with icy suspicion. “Agreed. Where’re the others? Any idea?”
“None.” Pathetic. An alpha who lost his clan, who couldn’t do a mental head count in the wake of a disaster, didn’t deserve to be an alpha. Rafe exhaled sharply, then gritted his thumb into his shoulder, massaging it absently.
“Fuck.”
Yeah, that about summed it up.
We whipped around together when the door opened again, my inner dragon silent for a beat, sniffing boisterously, searching for Katja’s scent—only deflate and then rage when Deimos and Constance stumbled into the cellbl
ock. In an almost violent contrast to us, the demon and the maenad looked like they’d been in the brawl to end all brawls: cuts, bruises, scrapes, shredded knuckles and torn jumpsuits. Pink hair matted, Constance limped along without a sneer or a crazed cackle, and Deimos’s left eye was swollen shut, dried blood caked under his nostrils. His lieutenant leaned heavily on him as soon as the guards removed their cuffs, and the pair shuffled straight for their cells, parting without a word and vanishing inside.
Right.
This day was a mess—and the mindfucks just kept on coming. Deimos was a pet favorite amongst the guards, but someone—or someones—had beaten him to a pulp.
“What—”
“Where’s Katja?” Rafe growled, grabbing my arm and forcing me back around to him. Deimos and Constance hadn’t seemed to penetrate his radar. I shook my head, a snarl rumbling in my chest, my inner dragon bathed in his own fire at the thought of her absence.
“Wish I knew,” I muttered, steeling against the next onslaught, then coughing up a bit of smoke. Fantastic. “The guy inside won’t stop calling for her. He’s losing it.”
Rafe pursed his lips for a moment, then patted at my shoulder. “We all are. She probably is too. Her emotions are… a lot. Do you feel them?”
“Barely.” We needed to strengthen our bond before I truly felt the ebb and flow of her feelings. When we were in the same room, I could read her like a book. Separated, I struggled to connect to the tether that stretched from her heart to mine—and it pissed me the fuck off that Rafe could sense her, all from something as simple as a bite.
“Well, something’s gone wrong on her end,” the vampire insisted softly, retracting his hand and sliding both into his jumpsuit pockets. He even leaned back on his heels, putting some subtle distance between us like he realized the minefield he had stumbled into. We seldom discussed both our connections with Katja. To his credit, he usually addressed mine, but he felt for her. It was so obvious that even a blind man could see it—the look in his eye when he spoke about her. I could hear it in his voice, his tone affectionate, warm, even in the direst of circumstances. Rafe reserved that inflection for me and his work.