by C. R. Jane
“It’s nothing.”
“Show me,” he demanded, his voice climbing.
Reluctantly, I raised my hand and unfurled my fingers, revealing the teal colored crystal. My throat dried, stealing my voice.
His eyes widened, and something new slid over his expression. One of curiosity...and wanting. “Where did you get that from?”
“It was a gift,” I admitted quickly, which technically was the truth.
His brows pulled together into one line, his gaze never leaving the crystal in my palm. “So, then you know the value of this piece and what exactly it means?”
I had no clue. “Of course, which is why it means so much to me.”
His midnight eyes met mine, a hardness glinting behind them. The corners of his mouth quirked. While the nerve under one eye twitched.
He wanted this crystal. Just like the rest of his collected treasures, he eyed the beautiful stone. He counted himself successful based on what items he’d obtained… it was written all over his face. But the Warden wanted to play games, and that gave me an idea.
“Would you like this crystal?” I asked, lifting my gaze and closing my hand around the pyramid, stealing it from his sight.
He scrunched up his nose while his sight followed my every movement, like those videos of cats who all move at the same time following a fluffy ball on a stick. I may not be able to influence him with my powers, but I’d just uncovered the Warden’s weakness.
“You’d part with something so precious?” he asked, his head tilting to the side.
I shrugged. “At a price, isn’t everything for sale?”
It didn’t take long for his demeanour to shift back to the hard-assed Warden, eyes narrowing at me. He didn’t say anything more.
“If you’re not interested, that’s okay.” I pushed the crystal back into the pocket of my jumpsuit. “I better head back to my room then.” I turned, while my skin pricked with goosebumps. Play hard to get, my mother always said. Men will never be able to resist a girl saying no to them. They are wired that way inside. Needing what they couldn't have before anyone else.
The Warden’s stare weighed heavily on my back as I crossed the room.
“You know I could just take it from you?” he muttered as I reached for the door handle.
“I don’t think you will though,” I answered him smugly.
There was a pause. And then... “What’s your price?”
Without turning around, I answered, “Change my job for the next year at Nightmare Penitentiary.” I couldn’t bear to look at his face and see it contort and twist with disapproval. I stared at the black door, which on my arrival to the prison hadn’t existed in his office. Must be an invisible door.
Waiting for his response was excruciating, but this had to work.
The rip of paper had me turning around. He was shredding my schedule, and my heart leapt. If I saw that mouse again, I was going to kiss him. He’d just saved my life by bringing me a random gift. Maybe fate had decided to throw me a bone after all and save my ass.
“Agreed,” he rapidly growled, tossing the ripped pieces of papers into the trash can. “This stays only between us. Julian is to never find out. Otherwise, the next task you will be appointed will be serving the monsters down in the lower pits of Nightmare. And if that happens, you will never be the same again. Understand?”
I nodded my agreement fast, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“Your job here for the next year will be to deliver meals to prisoners in their cells.” He rounded his desk and closed the distance between us in three long strides. Eagerness twisted his expression, reminding me of Golem from The Lord of The Rings.
I stood tall, lifting my chin to face him. “But aren’t meals served in the mess hall?”
“Not everyone is permitted to leave their cells, and we have many times when everyone is served food in their cells. I change the schedule a lot to keep everyone on their toes. Now, give it to me.”
I drew my hand out of my pocket and opened my fist. Then I rolled the beautiful stone onto his open palm. The moment it touched his skin, a moan slipped past his lips, and then he licked them.
Sickness churned in my gut to see the hunger with which he took the crystal. He swept away from me, his head low as he studied his new toy, and tossed over his shoulder, “You can leave now.”
I did just that, and hoped to the goddess that I wouldn’t regret giving him that stone. That Julian would never find out. I stepped out of his office, closed the door behind me, and made my way back to my cell followed by a guard that had been waiting outside.
I had a tiny little mouse to thank for saving my ass. Literally.
Chapter 7
“You’re in the maximum security section today,” said Alessia with a shiver.
Alessia was on the service staff with me. She had been sentenced to five years for killing a werewolf at a party when he wouldn’t listen to the word “no.” His pack had demanded retribution as the werewolf happened to be the Alpha’s nephew. So here she was.
Evidently, vampires weren’t the only assholes in the paranormal world.
“Is that bad?” I asked, nibbling on my bottom lip worriedly. It was my second day serving food and so far, it had been relatively easy despite the fact that the rest of the prisoners didn’t seem to have the same defense to my powers as the Warden did. It really was unfortunate that I didn’t have an off switch to the one ability I had left. It would have come in handy in a place like this. These were not the kind of men that I wanted to be attracting.
“Just don’t look any of them in the eye,” she said soothingly. “The guard will be standing next to you while you push the tray through the gate. There’s some kind of spell that allows for things to go into their cells but not to come out. The prisoners won’t be able to touch you.”
I shivered involuntarily and nodded. The last thing I wanted to do was to get the attention of the prisoners in that section. There were several maximum security areas in the prison. From what I’d heard around the kitchen, no one actually knew how large the prison was. There were several levels, and from what I gathered, there were some areas of the prison that made this one seem like Disneyland. Not that I really knew what that meant. My mother hadn’t been the type of woman to take me to Disneyland, even if Julian had allowed her to.
But I still understood the expression.
A guard was waiting for me right outside the kitchens as I pushed my cart out into the hall. Somehow, the carts never ran out, and I never had to come back to the kitchens to refill-—just another of the magical mysteries of Nightmare Penitentiary.
I couldn’t see the guard’s face, thanks to the hood that covered most of it, but he seemed familiar to me. Maybe I’d been assigned to this guard before.
“Hello,” I said politely, hoping that he would respond if he’d seen me before.
I was met with silence.
Okay then…
I followed him down the hall. He stopped in front of a bare, grey stone wall. We waited for at least a minute before I opened my mouth to ask him what we were doing. Before I could get a word out, the wall disappeared in front of us, and my mouth opened in shock as a drawbridge over what appeared to be a flaming sea of lava was stretched out before us.
The smell of sulfur grew thick in the air, and I could feel the heat of the lava threatening me.
The guard began to stride across the bridge. He didn’t look back to see if I was following him.
I was frozen in place. There was no way I was going across that bridge. It was swinging as he walked across it. Knowing my luck, I would either send the cart or myself, spiraling down to its fiery depths if I tried to cross it.
He finally realized that I wasn’t following him, because he stopped and turned around. I could practically feel the weight of his disgruntled glare, even though I couldn’t see his eyes.
I took a hesitant step onto the bridge, after he strode back towards me, a little afraid he was going to t
hrow me in the lava anyway if I didn’t start moving. I drew in a hiccuped breath when the bridge swayed as I began to walk across it. Mercifully, the guard stood still, watching me from his vantage point halfway across.
I couldn’t look at the lava below me, or even watch the bridge underneath my feet. Everytime I tried to do that, I was once again paralyzed in place. Instead, I kept my eyes on the guard, whose face I still couldn’t see. Step by step, I made my way towards him. As I got closer to him, he began to walk backwards, not turning to look where he was going. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I know they were on mine. In that moment, it felt like we were on the same side, no longer guard and prisoner. I wasn’t alone.
Before I knew it, I was suddenly across. I ignored the strange urge I had to throw myself in the guard’s arms in thankfulness. I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate that.
He surprised me by giving me a few minutes to recover from crossing the bridge, which I needed since my insides felt like jello after the adrenaline rush. Taking a few deep breaths, I gave him a small nod, and he turned and began to walk away.
We stood in front of another seemingly blank wall. This time, he took out a small knife and made a slash on his hand. Squeezing his hand so some of the blood dribbled out, he wiped it on the wall. The wall absorbed the blood, and then it opened with a loud groan.
I gasped and jumped back. Hadn’t these people heard of a thumbprint reader? Was a sacrifice of blood really necessary? I shuddered, even knowing that most likely, the guard’s supernatural abilities would allow him to heal quickly.
I hurried after him through the entryway, afraid that I would be trapped in this room forever if I strayed too far away from him. I heard that Nightmare Penitentiary acted like a sentient being, constantly changing its rooms as it saw fit. It’s what made it impossible to escape from it.
After walking through a dark tunnel, one that creeped me out since I swore I could feel eyes watching me the entire time, we emerged into another long hallway, lined with cells. I was surprised after the dramatics of the journey that it didn’t look too different from my section of the prison.
Nightmare Penitentiary wouldn’t need anything too outwardly fancy though. I learned that every cell was spelled to provide the maximum amount of security needed to imprison that specific supernatural prisoner. Since every supernatural was different, security needed to be different as well. While silver bars might keep a werewolf contained, it would have absolutely no effect on a vampire. I wondered what kind of special features the cells in this maximum security area held.
I had a feeling I didn’t really want to find out.
I was expecting hideous monsters in these cells, so when the first cell we stopped in front of revealed a seemingly normal looking young woman with orange and yellow ombré hair cascading over her shoulders, I was a little shocked. She reclined on a chair that balanced on two back feet, her legs propped up on the table, crossed at the ankle.
Her attention fell on me, and her eyes widened with a happy surprise. “Oh, we have a new delivery person. Took them fucking long enough to give the job to a female.”
Dropping her feet to the floor, she stood. Dressed in bright pink prison pants that reminded me of scrubs and a black tee, she looked surprisingly glad to be here. It made me wonder if she’d given in and accepted her fate. Maybe that was the trick when facing a place like this.
“Please tell me you’ve got meatloaf?” She strolled closer, her hips swinging widely.
I glanced down to the cart and collected her tray before sliding it into her cell through the narrow gap that the guard opened up for me.
“Not today, but I can put in a good word with the chef for you.”
Her smile was contagious, and something about her made me like her. “While you’re at it,” she whispered, even though the guard next to me could easily hear her. “I’m a huge,” she waved her hands in a circular motion to emphasize the word, “huge fan of pop rock candy. Just saying, if you see any, do a girl a favor.” She winked and reached for her food tray.
Her head jerked up suddenly, like she sensed the real me for the first time. The corners of her mouth curled upward. “Oooh, I see what you are. You work it, girl… it’s getting hot in here,” she purred, teasing me as she offered me the sexiest look any girl had ever given me.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her compliment. I could see myself getting along well with her if she was in the main compound with me. “I’m Selena,” I said.
“Amazing to meet you. I’m Sinclair. Now, you come back to visit me, okay?”
I nodded, liking her a lot. What would she be in maximum security for?
Maybe next time, I would work up enough courage to ask.
We moved along to serve more inmates. I was almost done with my round of dinner deliveries and was contemplating how bored I was going to be tonight in my cell, when I happened to glance at the last prisoner that I was about to serve. A hulking beast of a man stood up as I approached, and holy shit… My brain short-circuited.
My body was instantly awake and at full attention. He was huge. Tall, broad shoulders, and cut—like a Greek statue. His movements were a graceful stalk, like a predator in the wild, a rolling glide of muscles. Whoa… Before my brain could process anything else, I felt myself responding to him on a primitive level, turned on in a way I had never experienced before. My heartbeat sped up, my breathing turned shallow as images of him touching me intimately raced through my mind, graphic images of this mountain of cut muscle defiling me.
What the hell? What kind of supernatural was he? Because I had never felt like this before.
He had to be doing something to me. Right?
There was a crazy surge of hormones and chemicals telling me I belonged to this man. I was shocked by my body’s near-violent response and the man I was seeing before me, too shocked to do anything but watch him. His well-defined traps, pectorals, and biceps, rolling and shifting under his thin, deep orange uniform, gave hints at what else lay beneath.
Outlines of thick, muscled thighs were displayed inside his prison issued pants, which were hanging low on his hips. His outfit was complete with the scuffed black boots he hadn’t bothered to lace that all the prisoners were forced to wear in this section of the prison.
Crime had never looked so sexy. My insides clenched as my eyes slowly traveled back up that body to those muscle-rounded shoulders and his defined neck, imagining everything a body like that could do. Crap.
He was beautiful. His hair was a little overgrown, but it looked good on him. Really good. His black tresses fell into his eyes as dark brows and dark stubble accentuated his chiseled face. He had that I-look-this-sexy-naturally look. And I had a feeling he did… First thing in the morning, without having to do anything. If ever there was male perfection, it was him.
That body combined with his sculpted face was overkill. Completely unnecessary. He was the living embodiment of primal, raw masculinity. He put my fantasy guy—the perfect man I had assembled in my mind, the one who just the thought of made my blood pressure spike, the one who didn’t have a chance of actually existing—to shame. And he was no more than five feet away from me now.
Tall, muscular, and beautiful, with just enough ruggedness… He paused in his stride, his focus landing on me. My breath caught as my heartbeat picked up. His eyes, a gorgeous steel grey color, were penetrating. They narrowed slightly and slowly raked over me, pausing here and there in their perusal. His attention was blatant and intense and paralyzing, and I felt self conscious as I nervously adjusted my uniform.
His expression was fierce, and the energy he threw off was impossible to ignore. Magnetic. Pulling me in. Something low inside me tightened in response. He took a step toward me, his predatory eyes jumping between my face and body. It was like being confronted by a large, wild animal, and it was the most intense experience of my life, terrifying and arousing beyond belief. A nervous excitement built inside me. Goosebumps ran along my flesh. My heart beat wildly as my chest
tightened. I tried to control my breathing—aware a heaving chest might be a little too obvious, and also aware of the prison guard that was watching closely to make sure that I did my job just a few feet away.
My body was heating up everywhere his gaze lingered. I felt… Exposed. Vulnerable. Out of control. And I didn’t like it. Finally, his eyes met mine. Wow… Those eyes were piercing through me. Mesmerizing me. I was aware that I needed to look away, that I should, but his heated gaze drew me in deeper. Something clenched hard in my chest as those grey eyes bore into mine. I felt a dangerously strong pull to him, like a moth to a flame. Instinctively, I wanted to run away from it. From him. I had never seen a more attractive man in person. Definitely never had such a strong physical reaction to one, not even the guy from the bar. He was nothing like any of the paranormal creatures that I had ever seen before. He was tall and beautiful and manly. He had to be six three or six four in height. And those muscles. He had enough muscles to make me feel petite and delicate and feminine.
I had met many attractive men, the vampires unfortunately all had that quality about them, but none held a candle to him, and it wasn’t just physical. He had a raw, intense energy; a savageness rolled off him, only magnified by his beauty. He was unlike any man I had ever met. Anywhere. Tearing my eyes away, I focused on preparing his tray, placing the napkin and spoon beside it while I tried to calm my racing heart and raging libido.
I could feel his eyes on me like a possessive hand. I couldn’t even hide behind the veil of my hair, having been required to pull it into a ponytail earlier so my hair didn’t get into the food. I tried to block out his intense gaze, which was quickly making me feel trapped, but I couldn’t ignore it when he walked slowly up to the front of his cell so that he was standing right in front of me.
The heat from his body caressed mine. It was intimidating and arousing.
What I was feeling felt almost primal. It felt deeper, like some primitive mating instinct.