This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2020 JB Trepagnier. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or any means—by any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission.
Pretty in
Orange
JB Trepagnier
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Thank you to iwordynerdy for proof reading, my beta and alpha readers, and HBO for still having all seasons of Oz for me to watch while writing this book
What the Fae?
I’ve made a to-do list in prison.
Get my missing memories back, and find out precisely what Magnus Rathmore did to me.
Kill Magnus Rathmore.
Break out of Scorchwood Supernatural Penitentiary.
Find out what the Fae are up to and bring those bitches down.
Kill anyone who stops me from completing my list.
I’ve made allies in prison. I know the truth about my fire dragon, Fergus. All of us have been wronged in whatever this plot was that they’ve framed me for. I haven’t forgiven Rathmore for what he did to Roman. My kill list is growing, but luckily, I’ve made friends with a few psychos in prison. I’ve got a wolf, a demon, a Vampire, and Fergus perfectly happy to help me complete my list and kill anyone who gets in my way.
Don’t frame a psycho then kidnap them in prison. Psychos tend to react badly to that. It’s time to teach a few people some lessons.
Chapter 1
Fergus
I
was going insane. My Ena was behind a locked door with Magnus Rathmore, and there was a ward on the room, so I couldn’t get in there to protect her. I couldn’t break down the door and burn Rathmore alive for taking her away from me. I had to leave her to get more information about why she was framed and ended up in Scorchwood in the first place. Now that Rathmore knew she was of the Sunshadow line, it was only a matter of time before they took her. I thought I had more time to gather intel, then Amduscias could get us out of here.
My Ena wouldn’t leave knowing another elemental would take her place. It would be like Skoll’s previous cellmates all over again. They wouldn’t have Serafina’s constitution and would shut down. They would just disappear one day. Whatever the Fae had Rathmore experimenting on elementals down here for, they wouldn’t tolerate failures. Those women were probably long dead.
The only reason I left her was because there were three powerful men who had the motivation to protect her. Roman and Skoll were her fated mates, and Amduscias struck me as the type of demon who would want to get rid of Rathmore for everything he had done. He was fond of my Ena and Roman. He wouldn’t want Rathmore to get his hands on her like he did Roman. Rathmore turned Roman into his own personal killing machine. There was no telling what he was doing to Serafina.
I was still this incorporeal being. I could appear as a fire dragon, but I couldn’t speak to any of her men like that. The only people in the prison I could communicate with as my Ena’s guardian were Serafina and now Roman, since he’d started a blood bond with her. Or at least, that was my theory. I had no idea if it would work. I hadn’t exactly been a guardian to a Fae to had mated up to a Vampire or wolf before. Fae loved who they might, and they could only talk to their guardians telepathically.
Still, I had to try. I had to reach Roman because I couldn’t get into that room on my own. I re-memorized the hallways as I made my way back to the prison. I already knew Roman was sleeping in her cell. I could sense him in her head right along with me, and I could sense she was content that she was being held while she slept. Her mate was holding her, and I didn’t detect the wolf. He hadn’t bitten her yet.
I found Roman and Skoll passed out in the cell, breathing shallowly. They had gassed the fuck out of the prison. They didn’t want to risk anyone waking up. I could still taste it in the air. They gassed them just to the point that any more would have killed them.
I tried to slip into Roman’s dream. Ha! It worked. I found him just sitting against a tree in the moonlight with his eyes closed.
“Roman! We have problems.”
In my haste to rescue my Ena, I had forgotten what Roman had been through and that he probably wasn’t used to strange men showing up in his dreams. He jumped to his feet with his eyes glowing red, and his fangs bared. I don’t know who he thought I was, but he was ready to kill me.
I quickly shifted into a small fire dragon, like he saw when I needed to teach Jasmine a lesson for trying to drown my Ena. I shifted back and held up my hands.
“It’s me. It’s Fergus. We’re connected now through Serafina. She’s in trouble.”
“Impossible. Skoll and I would have woken up and killed them. She would have woken up and burned them.”
“Not if they gassed the entire prison to take her. You and Skoll are currently passed out in your beds.”
“So, you’re a fucking fire dragon. Why aren’t you getting her back?”
“Rathmore is working with the Fae. He’s got her locked in a room with an old guardian ward. Scorchwood used to be a Fae prison. This is where they rounded up and kept all the Fae that didn’t want to go back to the Fae realm when the portal closed. I can’t get in with that ward, and there will be a ward in there that makes Serafina helpless.”
“Well, do some Fae magic and wake us up so we can go get her.”
“They used Blood Morel, which is only grown in the Fae realm. The Fae are still heavily involved in Scorchwood. If there’s a remedy here in Scorchwood, I can’t exactly touch it and give it to you. This is Amduscias’s domain. If there’s something in Hell that counteracts a mushroom from the Fae realm, I wouldn’t know what it was even if I could touch it. The only thing I can think of to wake you up is to burn you a little, but I didn’t want to do that without your permission.”
“Do it. You don’t have to get into Skoll and Amduscias’s head either. They will want to be woken up too. We all have our ways to heal.”
I knew I could count on Roman. He’d die for her, just like I would. I slipped out of his dream and just became a small flame. I had forgotten about the hidden microphones in Scorchwood and us not having Amduscias here to silence them.
Roman sure woke up when I burned him. He woke up clutching his hand and screaming curses. I’d made a fatal error, but it
was the only thing I knew to do to wake him up from a Blood Morel gas here in Scorchwood.
They were listening. They were always listening. They didn’t want anyone to know they had taken Serafina. Why didn’t the guards come for her like Skoll said they had done his other cellmates? The only thing I could think of was that if they had been listening, they would have known she would burn them. Jasmine would have been giving reports on her that she made friends, and she was a fighter. They were cowards. They gassed the entire prison because they feared her. They should be.
Almost as soon as Roman was awake and screaming again, another round of gas filled the prison. He fought his way to the cell door, but Blood Morel was strong. He collapsed in the doorway.
Why did they gas the prison again because Roman was awake? They already had what they wanted. Serafina was where I couldn’t get to her, and unless Jasmine got over her ego and blabbed about me, they didn’t know Serafina had a Fae guardian. Why did they want the entire prison asleep now that they had their prize?
I was stuck. I’d failed my Ena. There was no way to get through that ward, and there was no way to wake anyone else up without burning them and having them alert whoever listened that they were awake. I couldn’t even burn the demon, but I couldn’t get inside his head either.
I howled in rage. I flew through the prison back to that door I couldn’t get into. I reached out, and she was sleeping. I had to think. I wasn’t totally useless, and I had other senses. I tried to listen. I could hear Rathmore’s weaselly voice.
“How did the Vampire manage to wake up? We can’t gas the prison again without killing everyone. They gave us specific instructions about the gas. It’s one thing if one or two people die, but an entire prison? Some of those inmates have a purpose. I’m done with her. Take her back to her cell, and for fuck’s sake, don’t gas them again. This girl is precious cargo. Do you know who her father is? If she even breaks a nail in here, we’re all dead.”
So, Eiltan knew she was his, and he didn’t want her dead. He had another purpose for her. Still, now that he knew she was alive, breaking out of here would be hard. It wasn’t like we could go back topside. If Eiltan had an entire network able to frame her and was running things in Scorchwood, it was only a matter of time before they caught us. Would the demons let us hide in Hell?
Magnus Rathmore’s life was mine if my Ena didn’t want it. I didn’t know what he did behind that door, but he wouldn’t have put up wards if it wasn’t bad.
I didn’t burn them then. I would let them take her back to her cell, and I would find out what they had done to her. Then, I would kill every last person responsible for hurting her.
Chapter 2
Amduscias
I
awoke to a pounding headache, and Jasmine wasn’t screaming anymore. In fact, she was missing from our cell. I was back in my bed, but something wasn’t adding up. I vaguely remembered the events of last night. I got into Jasmine’s head and found out she had been tasked with getting pregnant. Someone wanted a mixed baby. A baby with elemental powers, but Vampire strength or the ability to shift. Her being in my cell was making sense now. An elemental demon hybrid would be something they thought they could use as a weapon because they didn’t understand demons were all different. There was no demon in Hell with my gifts.
What exactly happened, and how did I miss her being taken from our cell? The guards would have woken me, and they usually made a lot of noise when they came for someone. If Jasmine was working for Rathmore and he sent guards, she would have thought she was being betrayed and fought back.
That was when I remembered. I was probably the only person in Scorchwood still awake, and it was because I was inflicting a little payback on Jasmine. They would have heard her screaming, and if they had a problem with it and thought I was hurting her, they would have sent guards to try to beat me or make me disappear.
No, they gassed the entire prison to knock us out and there was only one person in Scorchwood I could think of that they would do that for. It wasn’t Jasmine either. Serafina had a much more destructive element. They wanted her, and they wanted her without a fight. That was the only way they would get it.
My head was pounding, but I took off running towards Serafina and Skoll’s cell. Fuck, they could have been back for Roman too and known Serafina would burn them if they took him. I ran the entire way there and threw myself through the cell door.
What the fuck? They were all there. Skoll was snoring in his bed, and Serafina and Roman were sleeping in her bed. Serafina and Roman looked awkward, like they had been positioned that way and weren’t snuggling naturally. That position couldn’t have been comfortable for any of them.
I walked over a shook Roman. That gas had to be wearing off by now if I was awake. Roman bolted awake and Serafina didn’t budge. When Roman realized she was lying next to him, I thought he would cry.
“Wake Skoll and do your demon thing. We have a monumental problem.”
I did my demon thing with the mics wherever I went in Scorchwood. I didn’t even think about it anymore. I sensed the mics as soon as someone had installed them and had been using my demon powers on them since then.
Skoll sat up and tried to punch me when I shook him awake. I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly gentle, and the man had just been gassed. He probably had no idea what was going on, but something happened last night, and Roman seemed to know something about it. Did Roman remember anything about last night?
“Calm your wolf,” I snapped. “They gassed the entire prison last night. Jasmine is missing, and Roman knows something. Get up and hear him out.”
Skoll bolted out of bed. I wish that man would sleep with some clothes on. It wasn’t just the women who got raped in Scorchwood, though someone would have to be fucking stupid to come at Skoll.
“Is Serafina safe?”
“She is now, but they took her while everyone was out,” Roman said. “The room was warded, so she was powerless, and Fergus couldn’t get to her. He tried to wake me, but the only way was to burn me. I woke up yelling, and they just gassed the entire prison again to put me out. I can talk to Fergus like Serafina does now. He said whatever they did to her in that room, they want her back here with us. Her father knows she’s here, and Rathmore can’t hurt her without pissing him off. No one here can hurt her without disappearing because of her father. Apparently, he’s okay with experimenting on her, but not anyone hurting her.”
“They want her pregnant,” I said. “That was Jasmine’s ticket out of here. She gets pregnant, gets her freedom, and Rathmore keeps the baby.”
“Prison is a horrible place for a cute little baby,” Roman growled.
“What does Rathmore want with mixed babies? Elementals have never mixed outside their own kind. We don’t even know if they can. That might be the entire reason Jasmine hasn’t been able to get pregnant. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying,” Skoll said.
Roman kept shaking his head and tapping it with the palm of his hand.
“I swear, I don’t know how Serafina deals with having conversations with him and conversations with us at the same time. Fergus said Scorchwood used to be a Fae prison. It was where they held the Fae that refused to return home. The only reason Hell let them set up a secret prison here was because the merpeople were sick, and the Fae agreed to try to treat them.”
I wasn’t paying attention when a random jail showed up in the northern portion of Hell. That was during my more playboyish days, but I remembered the merpeople getting sick. It was a horrible time in Hell. All of our waters had some sort of water demon that lived there. They were all very friendly, and well loved by all of Hell. When they got sick and started dying, we all started looking for remedies, even me, who was more interested in drinking and fucking at the time. I had some good water demon friends.
So, that was how the water demons lived through that plague. And how Scorchwood ended up in Hell. I knew Bael had to have a moral reason for allowing a jail here. If I hadn’
t been so wrapped up in myself I would have asked him about it. I regretted that portion of my life, and I was even more ashamed of it now. If I had cared for anything more than pleasure then, I might know something now that could help us.
“Serafina’s grandfather is still the majority stockholder in Scorchwood, but Fergus could hear through the wall. It’s her father, Eiltan, who is pulling the strings here. Fergus doesn’t think her grandfather knows and would be appalled at what was going on here.”
“Bael would be too. He might have agreed to a prison because the merpeople plague was a serious thing, but Bael would want to torture Rathmore personally.”
“Why isn’t Serafina waking?” Skoll demanded. “We are all awake. She should be awake and telling us what they did to her.”
Roman pounded on the side of his head like he could physically knock Fergus out of his head with a little pressure.
“Fergus said they gave her something different. We were gassed, and they injected her. We were given Blood Morel, and she was given something else. Fergus said the Blood Morel is used in small doses by the Fae to help them sleep, but too much is fatal. He says they have injected Serafina with a Fae sedative called Mundu. It’s used in surgery. Rathmore wanted her totally out, even with the ward.”
“Is it hurting her?” Skoll demanded.
Roman shook his head. “I just feel she is sleeping. She’s not dreaming, she’s just totally out. Fergus feels the same thing from her. He said she will wake up when the sedative wears off. He can’t burn her like he did me because she’s immune to fire, and he can’t get the herbs he needs to wake her in Hell.”
“Maybe I can. What does she need?” I said.
“We need a stimulant.”
I knew exactly what to do to wake Serafina from her slumber. I started barking orders.
“Grab your water cup and tell Fergus to heat the water. I’ll be right back.”
Everyone here was so focused on smoking the weeds growing up from the cracks in the floor, they totally ignored what was growing on the walls of this prison. For instance, there was a powerful hallucinogen growing in the East wing and by my cell, there was a moss growing on the wall that demons typically brewed into a tea when they needed a little boost. It was like an instant jolt of energy, and it tasted like vanilla tea.
Pretty in Orange Page 1
