by Leia Stone
My heart pounded in my chest as I used my wolf’s hearing to listen to what the men said. Sage’s eyes were still closed, so I couldn’t see anything.
“She was ranting about crazy shit. Maybe she escaped from Psych? It’s only a few blocks away on 3rd Street,” one of the guards said, and I saw him point across the river to an area downtown from my hiding place in the bush.
“We don’t keep wolves in Psych on 3rd,” the other said, puzzled.
“Let’s get her inside and ask the warden what he wants to do about it,” another said.
“Rules state we shoot all violators on sight. This smells of an ambush to me,” a new cold male voice called out. I flinched, just as he kicked Sage in the ribs.
Sage’s eyes burst open and she started to sing at the top of her lungs. “They grow babies on watermelon treeeeees!” She thrust her arm upward, arching her back.
The men looked down at her in shock but she didn’t let up. “They rub tortilla juice in my eyeeeeees!”
The fey who had kicked her shook his head. “Okay, that’s just sad. Bring her into medical, but make her shut up!”
One of the fey stooped down and pulled a roll of duct tape from his cargo pants. In one quick motion he ripped a piece off and taped it over her mouth. Sage thrashed a little, but just enough to seem scared of the tape and not enough to be a threat. The guard then hauled her to her feet, pulled her hands behind her back, and walked her inside. Excitement thrummed through me. It was happening.
The prison break was a go.
‘Sawyer, I’m here,’ I pushed out to him. ‘Can you hear me?’
I paced the small grove tucked just inside the thick wall of bushes, but no response came.
Sage had been moved to a medical ward in the hospital. Marmal was still stalking a fey jogger.
When Sawyer didn’t say anything after a long moment, I snapped my attention back to Sage. They had her strapped to a medical bed, and she bucked against the restraints as a fey doctor walked in wearing a white lab coat. The room was on the bottom floor, and Sage’s bed was right in front of a window with pale yellow curtains. The room was actually nice, clean and modern. I was surprised.
“She was found swimming in the river, talking crazy,” a young male assistant said to the doctor, handing her a clipboard.
Sage snapped her head to the female doctor fey, who had long flowing red hair like hers. “The flies are in the universe to my pots and pans!” Sage said urgently.
The doctor frowned. “She may have recently had a stroke. This sounds like word salad.”
Word salad? Was that a medical term?
“Let’s sedate her for transport to 3rd Street Psych.” The doctor signed something on the clipboard and handed it back. Then she held out her hand and the assistant plopped a long syringe into her palm, the needle reflecting the light from the ceiling.
Fear spiked through Sage and I knew it was now or never with my wolf.
‘I won’t leave this place without you. I would die before that happened, you have to believe me,’ I told Sage.
‘I trust you,’ she whimpered.
My wolf leapt free of Sage’s chest then, but at the same time, she went invisible, activating whatever power Pearl also used, old magic.
“Don’t make the sleep come. Lizards are peonies,” Sage whimpered to the doctor, keeping up the act.
The doctor frowned. “Poor girl. I thought the wolves all died in the war or went underground or something?” she asked her assistant, a black-haired male fey with freckles.
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s a refugee.”
The doctor put the needle to Sage’s arm and I felt my bestie’s panic shoot through our pack bond. My wolf was hiding in the corner, waiting to see what would happen to Sage before she started trying to find Sawyer. If they were going to hurt her, we were out of here, and I’d have to find another way to get my man out.
“I like the wolves. They were once our strongest ally before Prime Minister Locke ruined that,” the doctor stated.
I nearly sagged with relief. They wouldn’t hurt Sage.
‘You’ll be okay. I’ll come right back for you,’ I told Sage.
‘Okay…’ was all she muttered, and then the doctor plunged the needle into her arm and the heaviness of drugged sleep took her quickly.
My wolf stayed, watching the doctor and waiting. She wouldn’t leave this room without knowing what was going to happen to my bestie, and I was grateful for that. I felt confident they wouldn’t hurt her after overhearing their conversation, but she wanted to wait one more minute.
Someone knocked on the door and peeked their head in. “Transfer called. They can’t get here until six p.m. for the wolf.”
The doctor nodded. “She can sleep it off in here until they come. I can give her another dose at five if she wakes and is still delusional.”
Five.
I looked at the clock. It was already three-fifteen. I had less than two hours to get Sawyer out of here and come back for Sage before they drugged her again. As the doctor and nurse left, they locked the room and I took one last look at Sage’s sleeping form before my wolf slipped through the wall and into the hallway.
She scanned the hallway, looking for a stairwell, and then started in the direction of a glowing exit sign. I could sense her thoughts. She was thinking that she couldn’t get into a crowded area, because although she was invisible, someone with the right magic might see her. And fey had the right magic. They were even more elusive than the trolls. God only knew what they were truly capable of.
I felt Marmal tug at my consciousness and I pulled away from my wolf, trusting her to know how to get to the eightieth floor. When I opened my eyes, Marmal was running toward me, holding her side as blood soaked her shirt. I rushed forward in panic.
‘We need to get on Pearl and take to the skies,’ she told me. ‘I’m being chased, but I got the blade.’ She held up a bright silver fey blade and I nodded.
When she reached me, I stared down at her stomach.
‘How bad is it?’ It didn’t look like it was actively bleeding anymore, so that was a good sign.
“I’m fine. Let’s go!” she whisper-screamed, just as I heard shouts come from the main walking trail.
“I was attacked!” a woman screamed.
Shit.
We both ran straight for where Pearl was resting, and she lowered her shield so that we could step inside. We’d barely made it into the shield that rendered us invisible when a female fey and two armed security guards stepped into the meadow.
“I smell blood,” the woman seethed. Without another word, we slipped onto Pearl’s back and she kicked off the ground, beating her wings, which caused the bushes and tall grass around us to flatten.
“What was that!?” the woman shrieked, staring at the windstorm Pearl had created. The guards raised their weapons and I flinched, hoping they wouldn’t shoot randomly into the air. Pearl climbed higher until they were just a speck in the distance, then I relaxed a little.
“Let me see.” I peeled Marmal’s hand back and inspected a clean one-inch cut along her ribcage.
“That will need stitches, but it doesn’t seem to have hit any major organs,” I told her, the guilt of her injury weighing heavily on me. “Let me get the med-kit.”
She shooed my hand away. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse. How’s Sage? What’s going on inside?”
She handed the fey blade to me and I took it with gratitude. “Thanks for getting that.” I then quickly brought her up to speed about how things had gone with Sage as I dug around my pack for the med-kit to tend to her injury best I could while riding on a freaking flying dragon. After cleaning and bandaging her wound as Pearl circled the park area, I tuned into my wolf next.
She was on the forty-fourth floor, panting from going up all the stairs. She couldn’t use vampire speed because I had the cuffs on, and I was worried about taking them off. Somehow we were still connected, and even though she could go invisible, she couldn’t
use some of our other powers. Me wearing the cuffs was draining her it seemed like…
She was worried to try to sneak into an elevator and get stuck going down, or have someone notice her. The stairwell was relatively unmanned but for one janitor she’d passed on floor twenty-six.
It was nearly four p.m. She had fifteen minutes to get to the eightieth floor, but I didn’t tell her that. Workout hour was until five, but I needed to get Sage before they came in and gave her another dose of that medication. This was all going to hinge on me being able to actually break through this protection spell and into one of these windows.
Breathe, just breathe.
I reached into Sage’s pack and pulled out the sleek black phone she kept there. If anyone could tell me how to break through a fey magic protection, it would be my other bestie. I dialed Raven’s number by heart and prayed that her cell phone still worked. Technically, we were somewhere in Idaho hidden in the Magic Lands, and cell towers definitely worked in Idaho…
“Hello?” she answered tentatively.
“Thank God you still have a phone,” I told her.
“Holy shit, Demi,” Raven breathed. “I almost didn’t pick up. I’m surprised this thing is still connected after a year underground.”
I grinned. “It’s good to hear from you. I have a problem that needs a magical solution.”
“I’m here with Star. Putting you on speaker,” Raven announced.
That was good, I would need all hands on deck.
“The Magic City Prison is surrounded by some … bluish electrocuting protection spell. It smells fey in origin. I need to bring it down so I can get close enough to break a window to get the guys out.”
“Fey protections are very complex. What do you have to work with?” Star sounded skeptical and it made me nervous.
“Well we got a fey blade,” I told her.
“That’s great!” she and Raven said at the same time.
“And I have a dragon.”
The phone went silent and I pulled it back to make sure it hadn’t died. Nope, still running.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Did you say you have a dragon?” Raven shrieked.
“Alive or dead?” Star whispered.
Wow.
“Alive, flying on her back at this moment. Can she help?”
“Can she help?” Star sounded offended by my suggestion. “Dragons are the mothers of magic. Holy shit. Can I meet her? Like once this is all over?” I could hear the excitement in Star’s voice.
“Focus,” Raven chastised her.
“Sorry. Right. Will she let you peel off one of her scales? If so, I can give you an incantation to coat the fey blade in and it will cut through the protection magic like butter,” Star told me.
I looked to Marmal, who was listening intently as I’d also put the phone on speaker. My troll friend was quiet a moment before nodding. “She said you may have one scale so long as the magic it’s used for does not hurt another,” Marmal translated.
“Ohhh, you have someone who can communicate with her!” Star screeched in exhilaration.
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “My troll fr—pack member,” I amended and Marmal smiled.
“Okay, here’s what you need to do.” Star then proceeded to tell me the incantation that would break the spell, and after thanking her and Raven, I hung up.
I checked in with my wolf then. She was on the seventy-sixth floor and had stopped, panting against the brick wall. She was tired, thirsty, and ready for a nap. It was all made that much harder by the fact that we weren’t together. We drew strength from one another.
‘You got this,’ I told her, trying to give her the encouragement she needed to run up those last three floors.
‘Demi? I feel you near!’ Sawyer’s voice boomed through our bond and the sudden joy of it knocked into my chest.
My wolf pushed off the wall, inspired by hearing our mate. His voice coursed through her, giving her the final momentum she needed. When I tried too hard to think of her, or I, or us, it hurt my brain. We were one and she felt what I felt, and I felt what she felt. We both wanted Sawyer, and we wanted to see him right now!
Bursting up the stairs, her legs shook with fatigue and I thought she might collapse as she panted and her lungs burned. Two more floors left.
‘My wolf is on the seventy-eighth floor. Get ready,’ I told Sawyer, peering at the map I’d spread out before me as Marmal pulled the scale from Pearl’s flank. It was one that seemed already loose and Pearl didn’t flinch, so I felt less bad about taking it.
I instructed Pearl which window to fly over to, which I hoped was the workout room based on what the maps said.
‘I’m walking into the gym room now,’ Sawyer told me. ‘Walsh is here. How many of us can you get out? I can’t leave without my crew.’
His crew?
‘How many are in your crew?’
‘There are five of us, including me and Walsh.’
Well, that wasn’t fucking planned. ‘And this vampire friend is one of them?’ I asked sourly.
‘Yes, Luka is family to me. I know it’s hard for you to understand, Demi, but—’
I didn’t want to argue right now. ‘It’s fine. We can take all five.’
Pearl said she could carry twenty grown men. We’d have to make it work.
My wolf walked up the last step and her back legs started to shake. She was so fatigued, so tired, and yet she pushed on. Using what little magic she had left, she pushed through the wall and into the eightieth floor cellblock.
And holy shit was it intimidating. The walls were lined with barred cells, men paced inside, two to a cell. She passed a fey, a troll, a warlock, wolf, Ithaki. They didn’t discriminate here; every type of creature was present and locked up. My wolf stared at a fey man who stood behind the bars of his cell. His ankles were bound with silver cuffs similar to the ones I grew up with, scars and angry red skin peeking out just above them, showcasing how many times he’d tried to use his power.
Swiveling her head, my wolf looked out into the open space outside of the cells. The room was a long rectangle and the cells ran to the left, right, and back side of the wall. My wolf peered over her shoulder to see a guard sitting at a desk and scrolling through a tablet. My wolf had zero issues walking through the walls here so far, so that was good. She wouldn’t need the handprint of a guard to open the workout room door, but she would need the keys to unlock the cuffs from the guys or they’d all be crispy fried bacon when they tried to leave.
My wolf padded over to the tall, lithe fey guard sitting hunched over his tablet, his ankles crossed, finger poised over the screen as he scrolled through some website. My wolf scanned his body, looking for a set of clunky keys that would hang from his belt like in the movies. There was no such set of keys.
‘Sawyer,’ my wolf whispered through the bond. ‘What do the cuff keys look like?’
My cuffs had always been magically taken off, but that wouldn’t work here with so many inmates and the prison run by mostly fey, not witches. They’d need an easier way to remove them when they were damaged and needed to be replaced or whatever.
Sawyer’s response was immediate. ‘It’s a square magnet that hangs from a black cord on their necks. The clasp only releases if the guard touches it. It’s some kind of new smart technology that matches their fingerprint.’
Okay, that sounded complicated, especially for my wolf to manage without hands…
“Wolf!” The guard looked up from his tablet suddenly and hissed. His eyes locked right on my wolf and she froze.
Shit. He saw me. Her. Us.
Some fey had that magic, and of course it had to be this guard! One second my wolf was transparent and the next she solidified, lunging at his neck. His arms came up immediately and latched on to her neck as a shock ran through my wolf. She quivered as his magic rushed through her, trying to weaken her.
No.
Back on Pearl, in my human body, I ripped off the
cuffs, power surging from me to my wolf. She yanked out of the guard’s grasp with surprising force, dropping to the ground. He reached for a red button on the desk, and that’s when she lunged for his crotch, sinking her teeth into the meat between his legs. An inhuman wail cut through the space and the men in the caged cells started to cheer and beat on the bars as they watched it all go down.
The fey dropped to the ground, and a shockwave burst from his body, but my wolf was ready. She saw the change in the air, and as it came for her she used her vampire-like speed and strength to push through it. With the cuffs off of me now, it was no holds barred. No limit to our power.
His protective force field snapped against her skin with the strength of a bullet and I knew that was going to hurt tomorrow. Wasting no time, she lunged again for his neck, pouncing first on his chest to pin him down. Power pulsed through me to her and she wasted no time lunging at his jugular with her teeth.
His arms came up to yank her off, but it was too late. His throat came out in one swift jerk; muscle and tendons tore away cleanly. She spit the meat onto the ground as he went limp underneath her. The men in the cells went wild, yelling and banging loudly.
‘Guards coming to see what that noise is all about,’ Sawyer told my wolf and me.
Shit.
Pouncing off of the dead guard, my wolf went ghostly as she reached over and pulled his wrist gently into her mouth. She stepped awkwardly over his chest and tried to maneuver his limp hand in a way that would press his finger to the clasp around the necklace at his now mangled throat.
Gross.
Using her muzzle, she dug under his neck, rolling his head to the side while his hand was still firmly clenched in her mouth.
‘We’re going to need therapy after this,’ I told my wolf as his blood splashed over her muzzle. I was pleased to see that even invisible, she could still maneuver him.
“HEY!” a guard yelled behind her and my wolf froze. “What’s all that racket?” he shouted. My wolf’s gaze flicked to the side to see two fey guards had just come out into the main room and were facing the prisoners, who were banging wildly on their cell bars with cups and fists. The guards hadn’t looked my way yet, they were too preoccupied with the wild prisoners.