by brett hicks
He was bald with tattoos mapping his scalp. I noted the tribal style of the tattoos. They looked like totems, and Native American designs and colors. He was light skinned, but tan enough to pass for white, or Native. Considering my mixed heritage, I was guessing he was a mutt of some sort, like me.
His arms were bigger than my torso, ripe with muscles large enough to make a WWE wrestler cry for his mommy! His odor was rank of some type of animal musk. It wasn’t lupine, nor was it cat. I had become accustomed to those musky scents. They were very natural to me now.
“Well, well, aren’t you just a pretty little flower. All ripe for the picking too. You look just like that chick on the Superman show.”
I quipped, “It’s Smallville, not ‘the Superman show. And, I’m not being plucked. I am bond and mated.”
My voice was equal-parts sassy and sarcastic. There was a lethality to the last bit. I was spoken for. Rachelle is mine, and I am hers! I felt the magic in my eyes lighting my green eyes up. I was toning back the succubus powers now. I was certain this shifter could still smell the pheromones, but they should be less noticeable. Mostly, I smelled like a weird vampire when I suppressed my true self.
He leaned into my personal space, and it took a considerable effort not to shy away from the hulking giant of a man. I locked onto his eyes, they glowed a deep brown. His tongue ran along his thin lips. I felt like I had spiders crawling up my skin now. Not for the first time, I swore to kick Detective Clarke square in the balls for this!
The huge gorilla of a shifter was about to say something else, but he was cut short.
“Hey, get moving jackass. You really don’t want to make a cat miss her chow.”
The voice was feminine, deadly ruthless in tone, and it was backed by a lot of magic. Not an alpha, but not a push-over either. She could probably hold Jaden’s gaze for a very long while before having to back down.
My gaze flicked to her once the hulking gorilla grumbled and started to move forward. I was met by a pair of dark-blue eyes, like the evening Atlantic waters at Virginia Beach. She was about three inches taller than me, maybe five-ten. The girl wasn’t even my age, she looked maybe twenty. She was thin, but she was chorded with generous feminine muscles. She looked like a female cage fighter. She had a druidic triquetra tattoo on her right arm, and a five-fold knot on her left arm. Her head was shrouded by long, wild raven locks flowing down the middle of her back.
She stared back at me, curiosity mostly. She seemed to be sizing me up, much as I was her. She finally nodded her head slightly. She seemed to have come to some decision.
“Name’s Debra Troy. You’re eating with me today.”
I nodded, the statement was devoid of wiggle room for decline, but then again, I’d rather eat with another female. Safety in numbers, and all that good stuff.
“Melony Toyo, I would say ‘nice to meet you but…’”
She nodded, giving a knowing look and a cocky smirk.
“But, we’re locked in the seventh-level of hell together.”
I nodded in agreement.
“There is that.”
“Let’s get some chow. The food’s not too bad here. You’ll get used to it.”
I noted the scent of cat musk on her. She was a feline shifter. It made my heart ache for my best friend Lyra! She tilted her head a bit, sensing the change in my mood.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I snapped myself from my dazed state and shook my head.
“Nothing, sorry, just this whole being locked-up thing. You know, sort of screws with your head.”
She snorted in agreement and turned towards the direction of the eb and flow of teal-clad supernatural traffic. I followed her closely. Safety in numbers was a very good thing here and now! It was worrisome, why this young woman would speak up for me at all. There was no mistaking the situation I was in here in this federal super-max. There is no such thing as a criminal with a heart of gold. She likely wanted something, even if it was just information.
I would have to keep my eyes open and my senses on high alert. Just because she seemed sane, if not grumpy, she could be a raving psycho. Still, it was disturbing, wondering what she might have done to get herself locked up here at her age. Then again, I hadn’t done a damn thing, and here I was!
This whole situation was a quagmire with no answer! Eyes open, head held up, and succubus energy in check, that is all I can do for now. The dull yellow walls and floors were uniform throughout every portion of the prison I had seen so far. As we passed through the dense metal cages, I spotted some smaller cells with shifters in their animal forms. The animals looked weary, nearly drained of all life, of all energy. They had no space to move around. My heart panged for them. I didn’t know what they might have done, but the treatment was inhumane—if that word held any meaning for us non-humans.
“Why are they keeping them in cages like that?”
I couldn’t help but ask. The girl Debra stiffened ramrod at the question. Her hairs seemed to bristle.
“Sorry, that was insensitive of me. It’s just that I belong to a pack. This is insane! I cannot believe that any apex would agree to their people being caged, even if they broke the law.”
She flicked her gaze to me. Her eyes lit for a moment, the slits elongated and thinned, cat-eyes. Lyra often did the same thing when her mood shifted.
“They do this to us as punishment for shifting. If we get caught changing out of our skin, we are punished like that. A month in the box in animal form. If you shift to human, just to try to stay lucid, they add another week on.”
I shook my head and made a sound of disgust.
“How can they get away with this?!”
Debra snorted and rolled her eyes at my naivete.
“This is a human run place. No shifter ever steps foot into the prison, outside the visiting room. Besides, shifter sentences are steep. The humans justify it because we are immortal. We could spend a whole lifetime in here, and they wouldn’t care. More of us in cages, the better to them.”
There was a hard edge in her tone, something dark and lethal. Debra was dangerous, or at least that’s the aura that she seemed to project.
“Well, trust me, I am going to mention this to my friend. I am sure she can do something about this.”
Debra just shook her head and rolled her eyes. She muttered something about my gullibility.
We entered the massive dining hall. It was what you might expect from a prison dining hall. There were long metal tables in neat rows with built in circular stool style seats. Everything besides the gunmetal colored tables and seats, were the same dull yellow.
“It’s like big bird exploded all over this damn prison.”
I muttered to myself, and Debra snorted in amusement. At least I was entertaining I guess.
We went to the back of the protracted line. There were guards with what looked like cattle-prods everywhere. I noted that people eating, were using their hands to scoop up the gruel, or gravy concoction.
“No spoons?”
Debra chuckled lightly.
“Humans think that we are deadly enough as it is. Heavens forbid we get a little plastic spoon! Besides, it cuts down on the prison’s overhead costs per-month. You must be new to this world, welcome to the real reality of human tolerance.”
She had a point, a grim one, but a point nonetheless. It was as if we had learned nothing in the past few hundred years. One form of racism was replaced with another. I guess in this case it was more like xenophobia.
***
I took my strange gravy concoction in the metal bowl and followed Debra to a smaller table with two other tattooed and scared women at it. One was a vampire, the other was a wolf shifter. Debra introduced me to them. Karen, the vampire, and Chloe, the wolf-shifter.
Their introductions were cut short by the looming presence of several figures. Hulking males of varying species. Melony tensed, noting that the other girls had also tensed up.
This can’t be good…
Nine:
The gorilla of a man was back, and he brought friends. One of whom was a tall blonde who somehow made the ugly teal jumpsuit look fashionable. He immitted sex appeal in a way that other men exuded testosterone. I noted the prison patch on his uniform. I knew the patches had a letter in front of the number. The letter indicated species. His said “I0015.”
“I”
Incubus! Shit on a stick!
“I didn’t believe my colleague, when he told me a rare beauty had lit our cellblock. My, you are a vision in this dark level of hell.”
His voice was like a lyre, or a harp. It thrummed with seduction and smooth sexual prowess. I could feel his magic, and his incubus pheromones swirling around us. I felt the shifters, and the other vampire girl ignite their magic in defense. They wouldn’t meet his gaze, they eyed him wearily, watching his limbs for motion.
Incubi can enthrall with a look, if they push enough magic and suggestion into it.
I reminded myself. Yet, I held his gaze levelly. My magic threatened to unfold around me like a cloak, or long angelic wings. My succubus screamed to be let out, to put this inferior male in his place! My inner seductress wished to twist him around my little finger, just to display my prowess, my desirability.
No, no, no! You’re supposed to be a damn vampire Melony Toyo!
Reminding myself of this little fact. I was dead if they discovered what I really was. Hell, I wasn’t sure the girls at this table would have my back if they knew what I was. After all, everyone hated my kind, or distrusted us. We were the very apex of the immortal predatory food chain. Shifters could maim, and vampires could drink you dry, but I could twist your mind in on itself. And, I could drink you dry too.
“Rowan leave us in peace. This one is with me.”
Debra spoke possessively, she almost sounded like Lyra right now. There was a cattish growl in her throat now. Rowan, the incubus didn’t even shift his gaze from me. I felt his torrents of magic colliding against my metaphysical boundaries. One thing I knew of the incubi, their powers were inferior to their succubi counter-parts. His magic slipped around me or flowed back towards him.
His brows furrowed in confusion.
“You’re not at all common, are you?”
His voice was silky, he licked his lips in delight.
“I’m afraid I cannot leave this rare gem alone. After all, she seems to be immune to me. I cannot have that, now can I? I must have every one of you at least once. After all, this is, my block. I am your king, you must all pay proper homage.”
My skin chilled and my fangs descended, unbidden. I knew my eyes were glowing green lights now. My vampiric magic roiled free, and I let it. I let the master class inside flow. The massive gorilla man swung past Rowan, and I barely deflected his blow in time. His fist grazed my left-side lower ribs. I felt them groan in protest at the impact.
Instinct kicked in, and no shortage of Rachelle’s intense sparring lessons. I twisted his arm the wrong direction and I jerked it up, snapping it backwards at the elbow. The large man hit his knees and roared in pain. A vampire behind him jabbed me in the mouth before I had fully released him. I staggered back about two-feet. His blow was nothing compared to sparring with my master-class girlfriend. Rachelle didn’t pull her punches in training either! She wanted to ensure my survival, so she had her own form of “tough love.”
I spit out some blood on my lip and I dodged a follow-up right-cross punch. I kneed him in the groin, that dropped him to his knees as well. I was about to be tackled by a large burly shifter growling, likely a wolf, when I heard a sigh from behind me. Long streaming raven hair fluttered past me quick as a whip, as Debra delivered a single perfectly placed blow to his sternum, I could hear the crack of the bone.
Rowan watched the exchange but didn’t offer his minions any help. He seemed content to size me up. His eyes held a lethality to them. His was a gaze of a man scorned. He had just been made the fool in front of his “kingdom.” His look told me that I had just gone from bed-buddy, to death-mark.
Tall muscular guards jumped from the floors above, and I didn’t have time to dodge all the long rods pointed at me. I felt my body explode with the crackling and burning of the electrical current as the cattle-prods connected with flesh. I swore to myself, and I felt my knees threaten to buckle. Instinct wanted to take over.
Drain, feed, slaughter!
No! No! NO!
Another prod ignited the flesh on my upper back as it connected through my jumpsuit. I fell to the floor limply. My mind was clouded and dizzied from the massive jolts of electricity. I hadn’t thought I could ever feel agony like this again. Not after being chained up and beaten raw and bloody. Electricity held its own edge of pain.
Still, I was a survivor, I would deal. I wouldn’t let them beat me! I swore this to myself as my consciousness drifted, and darkness claimed me.
***
I awoke in a dull grey room. I had been cuffed to a titanium table. I swore under my breath.
“I was just a damn English Lit major. How do I keep getting into these situations!?”
I looked around, the room was void of anything, except a mirror. Likely with someone observing me on the other side.
Great, just great! What next?
As if I had egged it on, the door opened with a clank. In walked a pair of men in what one could describe as G-man typical. Medium quality black suit, white dress shirt, and dull black tie.
“So, the Men-In-Black do exist.”
I said to myself, more than to them. I was still a bit dizzy, being shocked until unconscious could do that to a girl! After all I had been through, I was starting to give fewer, and fewer fucks about how nice I was being. My Japanese mother Aki would have kittens if she heard me now!
“Toyo, Melony. Classification, vampire. Troublesome from her very first moments of awakening.”
The middle-aged man spoke like he was reading facts from a file. I had little doubt that he was quoting some file they had on me. I rolled my eyes at him.
“So sorry, I will remember to tell the crazy vampire drinking my blood to stop, or I will be labeled troublesome, next time.”
I sassed at him, locking eyes with him. I could feel his emotions. He seemed to be mildly amused with me. That was strange, considering he had just called me “troublesome.”
Suddenly, my throat burned, and my body convulsed. I felt the flesh around my neck burning, and the smell was burning my nose, causing my eyes to water up. I was being shocked, again. I had been too out of it to notice, but they had put a metal collar around my neck. I spasmed and twitched. My restraints kept me from tumbling into the floor.
After what seemed like an eternity, the current stopped. I was left hunched over wheezing and coughing.
“Have we gotten the rebellion out of the way? Are you prepared to cooperate?”
I looked up through my light-brown hair and my green eyes flashed in defiance.
“Last I ch-checked I was trying t-to cooperate. I got locked up for my efforts.”
His plane face didn’t seem to register my words. It’s as if he didn’t hear them. The younger mid-thirties agent beside him cleared his throat.
“You are in detainment under suspicion of murder.”
I chuckled like a lunatic. My brain was on hiatus. The timid me seemed to have gone on vacation. I looked over at him with all the incredulity that I could muster.
“I have a bullet-proof alibi, and corroborating evidence submitted by my council! Do not insult me with your false claims of justice! I want my lawyer present right now!”
My voice boomed, and my succubus magic twisted inside them, pushing my will on them. I felt my throat explode in sizzling pain again, and my body spasmed again. I choked and gagged as my body shook and contorted in pain.
This time, I held the older man’s gaze through the full duration of the electrocution. I hardened myself, and I gave him nothing. He would not hear me beg, nor would he be able to break me! I swore I would nev
er be tortured again, but my own good intentions had delivered me to the hands of evil men hiding behind badges.
Never again, I will raise this place if I must!
‘Patience child, you will weather this, as you have the vampires dungeon.’
My body stilled, and I felt myself suddenly forgetting the electrocution.
‘Mom! Mom! Is that really you!?’
‘Be still my child. Steel your resolve and find your inner warrior. The times have changed again, and you cannot afford to show any weakness. Leave your softness in this room my daughter.’
‘Mom, what do you mean?! What’s happening? Why do they all blame me for these deaths?! What is going on? Who are these men?!’
‘I must go but know that you are far from forgotten. Your mate is about to destroy the city, less you be freed!’
‘No, don’t go! I have so many questions! I must know why, why did you leave me? Why did you leave me with Aki? Mom!?’
Tears trickled down my eyes, not form the pain of the collar. I looked back up at the greying man. I let my magic loose in the room, let my heady feminine appeal fill every corner of the room. I saw the younger man’s eyes go dreamy. I smiled in delight.
The older man looked confused. His features kept twitching, like he wanted to smile, to fawn over me. I felt his sudden rush of masculine desire. My magic was more potent than any little pill that humans could ever invent. I bat my lashes at him and I squirmed in my seat.
“I really wish I could help you fine gentlemen, but I really didn’t even know there were murders happening. I have been forced to stay home since I was attacked and abducted two months ago. It’s been a very dull two-months.”
The door clanked open and in walked Detective Clarke. His eyes landed on me, collar and all. There was something akin to shame in his eyes. He cleared his throat.
“She is being released, now. The video has been checked. She is innocent, and I fear that we are risking a full-scale Jameson-shifter incident, if we don’t return her. Our stations have been congested with shifters and vampires advocating for her release.”