by Rhea Watson
Floodlights erupted from the four guard towers, bathing the prison grounds in a furious white light. I brought up my hand to shield my eyes, adrenaline skyrocketing at the sound of boots on gravel, men’s voices rising, wolves howling.
No going back now.
Something told me Fintan would approve, while the other two would watch on with disapproving looks as they rolled up their sleeves, ready to get their hands dirty.
Each handsome face flashed in my mind’s eye, but the courage came from within, much of my rotting magic expulsed, the well regenerating, refueling, as I set Tully aside and crawled for a groaning Lloyd. Flat on his back, the warlock clapped a hand to his forehead, dazed—like Tully’s protection had been a halfhearted attempt, just enough to keep him alive but not necessarily well.
Ehh. Not that I could blame him.
Rocks bit into my palms and knees as I rushed to Lloyd, the stupid red dress he had forced me into intact but hiked up, exposing the thong that I’d discovered inside the folded garment.
Just as he started to rise, I scrambled up his body, straddling Lloyd and yanking his wand from the custom-tailored pocket inside his jacket. Teeth bared, a lioness and no longer the lamb, I jammed the end at his neck. Shock flashed in his eyes, and I fisted his stiff shirt collar and twisted.
“My, my, my,” he choked out, hissing softly when I stabbed his wand under his chin and forced his head into the dirt. Still, he had the nerve to smirk, to ghost his free hands up my calves to my bare ass. I tugged harder on his collar, fury twining with adrenaline as he whispered, “You surprise me, kitten.”
“Don’t you ever fucking call me that again,” I spat, which only made him chuckle. And you know what, I understood the arrogance. Not only was he a narcissistic sociopath, but he had an army of security closing in, wolves a fun little addition to his ranks.
Well. I had his wand.
And—
Something jabbed into my foot when I bore down on him. Frowning, I lashed back and into his pants pocket; my fingers closed around something cold and metallic.
A Swiss Army knife.
How handy.
Multifaceted, even.
Lloyd stiffened when I straightened with a newly acquired weapon in hand, but his face read like he knew just how to play me.
“What are you going to do with that, kitten?”
Tipping my head to the side, I popped out the knife portion, hesitated—then slashed at his throat, nicking his skin just enough to unleash a thin dribble of blood. It crept down his neck and plumed over his shirt collar. Lloyd flailed as if to roll me off, but I stabbed his wand to his temple, then pressed the knife back to the open wound with a little more pressure. The skin warped and split beneath the blade, another spurt of blood painting the silver red.
“You move, you look at me like you usually do, you cast anything, and I’ll slit your throat,” I growled, ignoring the incoming storm of boots and paws. When Lloyd just stared at me through murderous grey eyes, all the horrible things he planned to do to me after this if I failed playing across them like a black-and-white film, I pressed hard and zapped him with his own wand. Just a simple jolt, a little hex that first years learned at the academy to shock their friends with, like dragging your feet across carpet and poking someone. He flashed his teeth. I arched an eyebrow. “Do you understand? Answer, you piece of shit.”
Prowling around Lloyd’s head, Tully suddenly stopped and hissed. Ten feet away, a charging guard went down, clutching at his throat and writhing on the gravel like he was choking. It was only then that I noticed how close they were.
“Subsisto,” I murmured, sweeping Lloyd’s wand in a circle around us. Even with a conduit, my magic was more unstable than usual, firing from the tip like a hailstorm of bullets. Each guard it hit not only froze in place, but they were hurled back like rag dolls. Tully, meanwhile, had entered a staring contest with the nearest wolf shifter, the imposing figure dark grey and larger than all the rest—the alpha. Collarless, the wolf bared his teeth, same as Lloyd—and my familiar doubled in size, standing his ground and uttering a low warning growl.
One step toward my familiar and I hit the wolf with another stunning spell. Lloyd’s wand resisted to a degree, shivering in my hand, intentionally throwing my aim. It preferred its owner to a stranger, but my magic was just a shitstorm of power at this point, pent-up and highly aggressive, bullying its way through the conduit whether the wand wanted us or not.
What I wouldn’t give for my wand, which was hopefully still sitting in my desk drawer, untouched by any of my human employees—or some super who came sniffing around the café in my absence.
“Heard, Katja,” Lloyd gritted out with a stiff smile. “I hear you. I respect you—”
“Good.” As if he actually respected me: his hands were still on my ass. Eyes narrowed, I reached back and zapped each, and he shoved his fists into the gravel as if to make a point. A cool breeze decided then was the opportune time to rip across the prison grounds, ruffling my stick-straight hair and whooshing over my exposed thighs, and I resisted the urge to tug down my dress. “Now that I have your attention… Take down the ward.”
Lloyd gawked at me for a beat, then snorted. “You can’t be serious.”
I pursed my lips, then dug his knife into his throat. Lloyd twitched and kicked out beneath me, hissing as I sliced a few inches of flesh open, a stronger gush of blood pouring down his neck and watering the earth. For once, the anxiety churn was gone, replaced by a very welcome focus, anger and intent melding with the adrenaline, steadying my hand and centering my thoughts.
“Katja Fox,” he hissed, twisting his head like that would even do anything, his tone leaning more toward harsh father figure than the gross daddy he had been masquerading as ever since we’d met, “you stop this immediately—”
“You have time to sort out the bleeding,” I mused as I flicked the blade under his chin, opening up a line of red there too. “It’s not deep enough to do any real damage… yet.”
I tapped his cheek with his wand when his hands shot up, then readjusted my thighs so that my knees dug into his arms, pinning them. Then, with Tully circling, guards positioning themselves all around us, half the wolves slinking off and the others sniffing at their stunned alpha, I set his wand tip right over his eye. Xargi had taught me so much about myself, about my capabilities without magic—and I didn’t need to utter a damn thing to maim him. I just needed to jab his wand into his eye and press until something popped.
“Remove the ward,” I repeated. My calm firmness promised that this was the last time I would tell him. The way he flinched, the dance of the bulge in his throat with a not so subtle gulp, suggested the message hit home.
But Lloyd had run a criminal empire before this. Threats probably bounced right off him, especially with his cronies lining up to take the shot.
To put me out of my misery.
Not today, boys.
Lloyd called my bluff; he did nothing but stare, goading me to make a move. So, eyeing the small army of warlocks clustering around us, I removed the blade from his neck, wiped it clean on his stubble, blood smeared up his cheekbones like blush, and then placed it on the other side of his throat. Lips pursed, I poked at a few spots, then looked him dead in the eye.
“I’m sure you know the exact pressure needed to sever the carotid,” I said with a sigh, leaning on the blade while stabbing his wand into his cheek—right between his teeth, just as he’d done to me with his disgusting fingers time and time again, squeezing my jaw and forcing my lips open. “You just let me know if you feel your life slipping away and I’ll—”
“Katja,” he choked, kitten a distant memory as he stared up at me with rounded eyes. I shrugged, breaking the first bit of skin with a cavalier slash.
“I have nothing to lose,” I whispered, then leaned in close enough to brush his ear with every word. “And don’t ever speak my name again.”
This man had killed my parents, my brothers. He planned to make me
some sex slave, just another piece of property, a pretty doll to screw whenever the urge struck. He had already taken everything from me, but still came back for more.
And he had threatened my guys.
A part of me wanted to just drive the blade in, consequences be damned, and deal with the ward some other way.
Maybe he saw that, how close I was to the brink, seconds from going nuclear, because Lloyd sucked in a stuttering breath, then flicked his gaze pointedly toward his wand.
“I’ll need that to remove the ward.”
“Good boy,” I sneered, easing it away from his face and flipping it between my fingers, offering him the stupid ivory handle. “If you do anything beyond that, you know what happens.”
Shifting in place, I allowed his right arm out from under me, then gave him only enough leeway to prop himself up on his elbow. As soon as his hand coiled around his wand, I slashed at his throat again, and right on cue, Tully appeared at our sides, glaring the warlock down, unblinking and huge, his magical aura almost suffocating.
“What do you hope to accomplish here?” Lloyd murmured with a shake of his head, patronizing as hell. “Your lovers are still collared. You would condemn them to a life without magic or access to their inner—”
Rolling my eyes, I drove the Swiss Army knife into his neck—just the tip—and glared down at him as another rush of cold calm fury washed over me. If he thought pinning the blame on me, like he hadn’t concocted this whole batshit scheme just to make a dollar, would somehow soften my hand, Lloyd Guthrie was delusional.
With a hiss and a scowl, Xargi Penitentiary’s warden jabbed his wand straight up. “Exsolvo tutela.”
A jet of white shot out of his wand, straight as an arrow and thick as the floodlights sweeping the prison grounds. It collided with the ward’s domed top, then flared out, skittering like lightning, cracking the magical barrier just as Lloyd’s rage had splintered his office windows only a few hours earlier. As soon as the light touched the ground, it dissolved into a gentle mist, taking with it the ward and the invisibility it projected over the building, over Lloyd’s supernatural abomination.
His work camp.
His death camp.
My vision blurred briefly, relief seeping into the inferno raging inside, and my hold on the knife loosened just enough that Lloyd seemed to think he was allowed to sit—
Purple fire suddenly exploded in the ward’s place, shooting up from the ground, bright and furious. I shrieked at the onslaught, magenta flames circling Xargi, obliterating the guardhouse as it blazed through, reeking of old magic and wanton destruction.
Seconds later, horns—a whole symphony of baying horns from the other side, blasting through the ten-foot-tall ring of fire and threatening to burst an eardrum. I clapped my hands over my ears, same as Lloyd, and braced against the attack.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, replacing my hand with my shoulder so that I could shove the knife back at his neck. Only the threat didn’t seem to hold the same weight anymore; Lloyd sat up fully, eyes wide, the firestorm reflecting in his bewildered greys.
“That…” He shook his head, bloodied and panicked, me still straddling his lap and his half-hard cock, not a lewd comment to be heard. “That is not me.”
30
Fintan
At the first blast of a fae war horn, I thought I was dreaming.
Only I was awake.
Stretched out on my cot, head pillowed on my folded arms, the last however many hours spent ruminating the failings of today—I could have sworn this was just another rescue dream. But my eyes were open, and I hadn’t nodded off and holy shit had the cavalry finally arrived?
Took them bloody long enough.
“I know those horns,” I whispered to no one in particular, staring up at the depressing ceiling, at the extinguished lonely bulb that had kept me company come nightfall all these many months. The Host of Horns—heralds of doom and triumph and tragedy. Markers of ceremony and parades. The collective voices of all the court as my father rode into the night with his raiding party, off to pillage lesser kingdoms, conquest in his eyes and savagery in his heart.
I had heard those fucking trumpets all my life—and I’d never been happier for their existence than this very moment.
All the frustration for today’s failing ebbed. The fear for Katja’s fate—gone. In their place, exhilaration. I rolled off my cot, light and bouncy on my toes, and practically skipped to my cell’s tiny window. Wildfire raged in place of the ward, lavender flames snapping at a black sky, spurred by the horns, by the army undoubtedly waiting on the other side. I grinned. My brother’s best friend and lifelong confidant had recently ascended to the Master of Midnight—the court’s high priest, the maestro of magic and history. When Rollo became king, this dramatic shit would be his chief advisor.
No one put on a show like the Master of Midnight.
His violet sea struck terror into the hearts of our enemies, burning brighter than the stars and hot as dragonfire.
The horns intensified, varied in pitch and depth, a war song bleating from their mouths…
I snorted. Rollo must have been fucking fuming to still be in the mortal realm after all these many months, waiting, searching, charged with bringing his wayward baby brother back to court. The ward could have hidden me away for good, but in its absence…
Invasion.
For my kidnapping was a declaration of war.
How fun.
A few cells down, Elijah started up again. He had been bellowing for his mate ever since they locked him away—not that I could blame him. His inner dragon was probably driving him up the wall, raging over the fact that a competitor had stolen her.
Well.
We would see about that, wouldn’t we? I’d never stuck a foe’s head on a spike before, but I would do so with Guthrie. Let Rafe or Elijah cleave it from its perch, then plop it on top of a spear with the Midnight Court’s banner fluttering below. Yes—plan.
Just as I eased away from the window, bored with the maestro’s same old tricks already, battle lust simmering in my heart, there came a mighty crash from Elijah’s direction. Hands threaded behind my back, broken nose on fucking fire, I sauntered toward my sealed door and pressed an ear to the wood, then flinched back when another thud reverberated through the walls, the door’s rattle drowned out by a cry that teetered between dragon and man. Thrilling, really. If only we could remove these collars—I’d give my left nut to see Elijah shift.
Dragons were so rare these days, even in my realm.
More thumps. More roars. Metal splintering and springs groaning.
Then thunder ripped through the cellblock, followed by the pitter-patter of wood chips raining down on the floor.
Had he…?
Had he broken through the door?
Such a magnificent battering ram, Elijah Greystone.
How fortunate that he had fated with Katja; I couldn’t rescue her all by myself, and there was no one more tenacious than a shifter on a mission to find his mate.
“Back in your cell, inmate!”
Ahh, Cooper, you dumb bastard. Positively giddy, I pressed against my cell door again, listening to the telltale echoes of flying fists and a snarling shifter. Blasts of magic illuminated the doorframe briefly, followed by a mannish squeal that had me snorting again.
Then silence.
I pushed closer, ignoring the throb of pain through my entire damn face, then reared back when the door unbolted and slid open. Same as it did every morning. Only we were far off from dawn; it was nearing midnight—my favorite hour.
Tiptoeing out of my cell, I paused at the sight before me: Elijah holding warlock Cooper in a headlock, both panting, their hair askew, cheeks red, the cretin’s wand a few feet away on the floor, forgotten. Then—a sharp jerk, and the guard who had gone out of his way to make our lives miserable, who once flicked lit matches at me in the shower, crumpled to a heap on a dragon’s feet, neck snapped, eyes vacant.
Yes. Thin
gs were about to get awesome.
I met Elijah’s slitted gaze with a grin and a bow, deference given where deference was due—for I stood before a true alpha whose eyes glowed with a raging wildfire. He had, in fact, busted his cell door clean off its hinges, then, if all the other open doors were any indication, had bullied Cooper into opening the rest before offing him.
Fantastic.
“You know,” I mused, sauntering a few paces toward the fallen warlock, “we could have maybe used him.”
“Are you seriously going to lecture me about hindsight?” Elijah speared a hand through his rumpled golden locks, eyebrows shooting up. “Really? You?”
“Just cut his arm off,” Rafe insisted, stalking out his cell’s doorway without a backward glance—hopefully for the last time if me and Elijah had anything to say about it. The poet vampire didn’t exactly strike me as a warrior, but he had beat the snot out of Deimos for attacking Katja, so perhaps the dragonfire that bound us all together sparked in his dead heart too. Time would tell. He slowed on the other side of a table, tapping his fingers on the metal surface with a shrug. “I mean, we only need his arm with that tattoo… Maybe it’ll unlock something besides the ward.”
“Ward’s down,” I said absently, totally transfixed on Elijah as he grabbed Cooper’s limp arm, shoved the sleeve down, and then stomped on his elbow hard enough to snap the bone like a twig. He then tore the tattooed forearm off at the joint, spraying blood like a tidal wave. Satisfaction rippled between the three of us when Elijah hucked the arm to his friend, who then tipped his head back and opened his mouth, holding the severed arm up and guzzling the free-flowing red like a starving man devoured his first meal.
Fair enough. The poor fuck had been in this cesspit for the better part of a year now; perhaps this truly was his first real meal in all that time. The pittance served in the dining hall could hardly sustain a vampire long-term.