Incantations and Inmates (Prisoners of Nightstone Book 2)

by Helen Scott

  "That's quite a testimonial," she said, loosening her arms slightly until they fell at her sides once more.

  "He was attacked by a guard last night, thankfully Nas was there to help out, but they think he broke his arm."

  "A guard?" Her eyebrows shot to her hairline.

  I nodded. "It was supposed to be an execution. Probably would have been if not for Nas's visions."

  "Fine, I'll help, but your tab is getting quite long. How are you going to start paying me back, vampire?" Doc asked as she put a few things in her black bag.

  "I'll think of something, I promise." The woman was right. I knew there was only so long she'd work for me for free without expecting to start getting these favors repaid. No one did anything for free in Nightstone. Favors were repaid or people stopped helping you. It was one of the few unspoken rules.

  When the alarm sounded my heart felt like it crumpled in my chest. The alarm only meant one thing, guards and possibly even the warden were coming down onto the prison floor. Sometimes they'd toss our cells, confiscate everything we weren't supposed to have, beat a few of us bloody. We all knew if we responded with any kind of aggression then it would be a permanent lights out for us at the end of the day. I'd seen it happen a few times.

  What most inmates didn't realize was that every cell had the ability to have the lights that swept the hallways in their cells as well. The whole place was designed to be able to kill us if they needed to. Mass extermination in the event of us trying to overthrow our captors. Like we were fucking cockroaches or something.

  Rumor had it there was a way around it, but no one had ever confirmed it. There were a few in the early days who tried, and died for their efforts, with no results to show the rest of the inmates since they never made it back out of the guard's room at the top of the stairs.

  "Want a lift?" I asked Doc, the need to get to Nas and be by her side while whatever was happening happened was overwhelming.

  "Sure," she replied, clearly feeling just as on edge as I was.

  I scooped her up and ran through the hall once more only stopping when we came to the door to Bane's cell. The three of them were still inside which made me breathe a little easier as my eyes traveled over Nas. I put Doc back down on her feet and she looked at Bane with a mixture of anger and regret on her face.

  "We've only got a few minutes before the guards come down," I said.

  "I can just brace your arm for now until I get a proper look at it," Doc said.

  Bane nodded and I couldn't help but reach out for Nas, taking her hand and pulling her close to me as I waited for the hammer to drop and the world to change once again.

  27

  Nasima

  “You should both go be with your people,” I told Ambrose and Christian. I didn’t know what it would be like with the guards down here, but both vamps and shifters sometimes got out of hand without Ambrose or Christian around. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “That’s pretty much inevitable when the guards come down here, I’m afraid,” Christian said.

  “You two, come with me, where I can keep an eye on you both,” Ambrose ordered Bane, who looked back at him with a distinctly unimpressed look written across his handsome features.

  “Are you sure your shifters are under control?” Bane demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure Nas is safe around them.”

  Ambrose’s upper lip lifted in a bit of a snarl, but he looked to me. Great, we were definitely going to have a talk about the shifter that Bane had gotten into a fight with after he insulted me.

  Three domineering alpha types. What had I gotten myself into?

  “We’re going,” I told Bane--and Ambrose.

  The alarms started, letting us know that the halls would soon become impassable. There wasn’t a lot of time to argue.

  “I’d agree, just to keep this guy’s growling to a minimum.” Bane said, indicating Ambrose. “But I think it’s safer for you if I stay right here.”

  “You’re on thin ice, bounty hunter,” Ambrose warned him.

  Bane gave him a thin smile.

  I wouldn’t have needed to be a seer to see trouble in my future.

  “Bane, you’re coming with us,” I said. “Over here without witnesses--”

  “Nas is safer without me,” Bane interrupted. “And we don’t have time to talk.”

  “He’s right,” Christian said. The expression on his face was regretful. “Nas, everyone is supposed to be in their own cell when the guards arrive. They’ve been known to execute an ‘extra’ to bring the numbers in each cell down to what they expect. It’s time for you and Bane to say goodbye for now.”

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d be saying goodbye for ever, but Bane gave me a wink.

  I grabbed Bane and kissed him hard. “Just for good luck.”

  It didn’t seem like Bane and I had ever brought each other good luck, but maybe now we’d finally start.

  Christian and I shared a quick kiss goodbye, and then he and Doc were off in a blur. Ambrose and I ran toward the shifter cells. Ambrose briefly stopped by the door that led outside, making sure the shifters in the yard had heard the alarm too.

  The metal halls and walkways were chaotic--people were far from their own cells and had little warning to return--and Ambrose roared at the shifters, forcing them into order and calming down the whole block.

  “Go,” he told me, and I knew arguing with him wasn’t worth it, so I sprinted toward my own cell. Meanwhile, I could hear Ambrose behind me making sure that everyone had made it safely back to their cells.

  It was a good thing I was back in my own cell when the vision washed over me. I bit my lower lip, trying to fight it off, but there was no escaping it and I was already stumbling toward my bed, determined to get myself onto the soft mattress before it overwhelmed me.

  God, when a seer was so valuable to so many, did I have to have a vision right before the guards came through?

  The lights lasered through the hallway, and I saw it only dimly, because I was already succumbing to the vision.

  The lights that ran over the floor were everywhere. They crisscrossed people’s cells, coming from the walls, floor, and ceiling like we were in a fucking heist movie, cutting through their bodies like butter until there was nothing but little cubes of people left. As the blood covered the floor, the concrete glowed brighter than ever, and I knew that they’d just executed everyone. Why? I had no idea. All I knew in that moment was that this was a probable future if we didn’t do something. It would be another extermination event, leaving the supermax section of Nightstone completely unusable instead of just a wing of it.

  “Nasima,” Ambrose said, and his voice was a worried rumble. It seemed to anchor me here even as I fell through a bloody future.

  “What the hell is wrong with her?” An unfamiliar voice demanded. “Get her up.”

  My eyes opened to see Bane right in front of me, and relief washed over me. He was here, he was fine.

  He was being held by two guards. The look on Bane’s face was resigned and cunning, as if he was searching for a way out.

  But the situation we were in seemed impossible. In the distance, I could hear the thump of booted feet on the walkways, the sound of furniture being overturned. The guards were searching Nightstone and all was chaos.

  But when I looked past Bane, I could see Ambrose watching. Nothing else distracted him from me. He gave me a nod as if he were encouraging me--as if I could handle anything Nightstone threw at me.

  A dark-haired man with cruel eyes and a mustache stood beside him. Horror washed over me along with realization--he was the same man I’d seen talking to Micah in the poisoned sector, during my vision.

  He cocked his head to one side, studying me. “Nasima. You’re a seer--I didn’t know. That’s not on your papers.”

  He sounded so intrigued.

  “I just get sick,” I said. “I’m just a witch.”

  “Oh really?” he said. He turned
and grabbed Bane’s broken arm, his fingers sinking under the brace. Bane gritted his teeth, and the man kept his gaze fixed on me as his fingers tightened on Bane’s broken arm. Bane’s face blanched, his teeth gritted. He gave me a subtle shake of his head. Don’t tell him anything.

  Bane would have fallen to his knees if the guards hadn’t been gripping his arms.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Sometimes I have visions.”

  I hoped no one realized the extent of those visions.

  “I’m the warden,” he said pleasantly, as if Bane’s eyes weren’t rolling back in his head from the pain. He finally seemed to remember what he was doing and pulled his hand back, clapping his hands together. “I like my prison to run in an orderly fashion, and ever since you’ve arrived, Nasima, things seem to have become rather messy.”

  I’d thought the guards threw us down here and let us fight each other for scraps. But it sounded as if he knew more about what was going on. Unless that was what he wanted us to think so we wouldn’t try to keep our secrets.

  “Let’s take them both,” the warden said idly, and another guard grabbed me and shoved me toward the door.

  Take us both where? My heart hammered. I tried to remember where Bane had put the damned ID card from the guard; had they found it? Did they know I’d killed the guard?

  Ambrose’s eyes were full of the wolf, predatorial and fierce, when they met mine through the bars. I could tell he could barely restrain himself from trying to break through the bars to reach me.

  I gave him the smallest smile, trying to reassure him even though I was terrified myself.

  The guards took us away.

  28

  Nasima

  They steered us into the hallway down from the yard, and when one of the guards opened the door and sunlight flooded the steely structure around us, my heart sank. They were taking us somewhere private. They had all the power--if it weren’t for Ambrose and Christian, no one would blink an eye if Bane and I never came back--and yet they still needed to move us somewhere no one would see or overhear what happened.

  It was the first time I’d ever felt dread stepping into the sunshine and greenery. This place had been a respite from the rest of Nightstone for me.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel the same way again.

  “Now that it’s just us,” the warden said to Bane, “tell me why you’re really here.”

  “Just us?” Bane asked, glancing around at the warden and six of his closest friends.

  “Just us Black Guard. And the seer. But the seer doesn’t really count--I mean, she can’t know much, or she’d have seen this coming, wouldn’t she?”

  I’d seen the guard coming to kill Bane, and I hadn’t managed to stop that situation. Maybe if I could have convinced Bane to go with me and get out of there, we could have avoided killing a guard and all the hell that might bring on our heads.

  “I started poking into the wrong person’s business,” Bane said. “I got on the wrong side of Jason Wentworth. I guess he got on the wrong side of someone else, because no one’s seen him lately--probably hightailed it to some country with no extradition.”

  “Nice try,” the warden said.

  One of the guards whipped out their telescoping nightstick, which was suddenly a long black weapon. He slammed it into my thigh, and my legs buckled from the force before the pain washed over me, so badly that bile stung my throat. I hit my knees there in the soft grass.

  Bane stared at the warden without reacting. “Beating her won’t change the truth. And she’s nothing to me, anyway.”

  The words still hurt, because he'd convinced me that he meant it so recently, even though I knew he was playing a game. Bane was always playing a game. If he looked like he cared about me, it would just get worse.

  “That’s why you failed to bring her in all those times,” the warden said.

  “She’s slippery.”

  “She looks pretty harmless right now.” The warden sounded amused. He made a gesture and two of the guards pulled me up to my feet. “But okay. If she means nothing to you, we’ll just execute her now.”

  One of the guards pulled out a gun and held it to my head. He eased the slack out of the trigger. The barrel seemed so large in my face, the only thing I could see, and then I caught a glimpse of the familiar face behind it.

  I’d seen this guard in my vision. Stupid mustache and all.

  “Okay, okay,” Bane said. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t hurt the girl.”

  As Bane talked to the warden, the rest of the world faded as another of my visions washed over me.

  I could see Bane and I fighting these guys for control--although the odds of six-against-two seemed terrible. In some visions we won in others we lost, or I lost Bane, or something similar. There were many options for our future, it all depended on how Bane and I reacted in the next few minutes.

  As the visions continued I could see their weaknesses. I could see how the whole fight would unfold if it played out the way I wanted it to.

  I snapped back into reality, my stomach wobbly and nauseous, my head aching. Distantly, I heard the warden talking about how he always knew that other Black Guard factions wanted control of the prison. I frowned at Bane, wondering if that was true or if he’d found a way to spin what the warden wanted to hear.

  “After all, the head of Nightstone provides the Karma that keeps Nightstone going,” he said. “And now a new witch will have to take charge of the prison.”

  He cocked his head to one side, studying me. “I really thought Nightstone was going to tip into all-out war after Nana died. That the vamps and shifters would kill each other and we’d be left with a vacuum for yet another witch to step into. But it seems you and Ambrose and Christian have managed to keep some degree of peace in Nightstone. Incredible.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. The warden had always wanted war in Nightstone.

  Because he wanted to make sure he never lost his supply of karma.

  “Purge Ambrose and Christian’s cells, and bury both these two,” he told the guards. “It’s time for a new era in Nightstone.”

  Bane was already moving, lunging for one of the guard’s guns. He was impossibly fast, but I’d seen this scenario play out in my vision.

  I dropped low and lashed out my foot to trip the guard, who stumbled into Bane. That meant the other guard who had been out to shoot Bane fired his shots harmlessly into his friend’s body armor. The rounds ricocheted through the yard, shattering the tranquility of the morning.

  The guard gripping me had a bum knee, and I slammed my elbow into it as hard as I could before I rose to my feet. He dropped his gun, and I caught it, rising to my feet and aiming at the guard who had just shot his friend. I shot him in the face then whirled to shoot the other guard.

  Bane tossed the body away and grabbed the warden, who had been too shocked to move Bane still had the other guard’s gun, and he pressed it to the warden’s forehead.

  “You’re right,” I said, aiming my gun at the last surviving guard. “It is time for a new era in Nightstone.”

  Ready for the final chapter in Nasima’s story?

  Preorder Book Three, Curses and Convicts, here!

  Hi! May Dawson here.

  Thank you so much for reading!

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  Best,

  May

  Also by May Dawson

  The True and the Crown series:

  One Kind of Wicked

  Two Kinds of Damned

  Three Kinds of Lost

  Four Kinds of Cursed

  Five Kinds of Love

  Their Shifter Princess:

  Their Shifter Princess

  Their Shifter Princess 2: Pack War

  Their Shifter Princess 3: Coven’s Reven
ge

  Their Shifter Academy:

  Their Shifter Academy: A Prequel Novella

  Their Shifter Academy 1: Unwanted

  Their Shifter Academy 2: Unclaimed

  Their Shifter Academy 3: Undone

  Their Shifter Academy 4: Unforgivable

  Their Shifter Academy 5: Unwinnable

  The Wild Angels & Hunters Series:

  Wild Angels

  Fierce Angels

  Dirty Angels

  Chosen Angels

  Academy of the Supernatural

  Her Kind of Magic

  His Dangerous Ways

  Their Dark Imaginings

  Ashley Landon, Bad Medium

  Dead Girls Club

  About the Author

  May Dawson’s first crush was Indiana Jones, and it wasn’t just for Harrison Ford’s rugged good looks. She’s always been drawn to adventure, and she found it in Bali and the Antarctic, traveling widely before she settled down to raise two red-haired munchkins/hooligans. These days you can find her embracing a very different kind of adventure: love. Living it. Writing it.

  https://BookHip.com/LPGGRR

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/321534541670061

  May@MayDawson.com

  Also By Helen Scott

  Don’t forget to check out Helen’s other series.

  Immortal Hunters MC (Cowritten with Lacey Carter Andersen)

  Van Helsing Rising

  Van Helsing Damned - Coming Soon

  Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow (Cowritten with Lacey Carter Andersen and LA Boruff)