Pretty in Orange

by J B Trepagnier

  He didn’t get to finish that sentence. Skoll had already gone bounding down the hall and ripped his throat out with his teeth. Blood spurt across the walls, and the guard fell over dead. The other guard was a shifter and looked like he didn’t know if he wanted to take the time to shift or run away.

  They didn’t have standard weapons as they did at the topside prison I had been in before I got here. There, they had tasers, batons, and sidearms. Here, they relied on gas and drugs, so they didn’t need weapons. I’d never seen the guards when they had come for an inmate. Did they really walk through the prison with no guns to disappear someone, and no one fought them?

  I guess not. Roman snarled and lunged at him.

  “Not so hot without that little wand that shocks people, are you?” he growled, sinking his fangs in his neck.

  Roman drank deeply until the guard was dead, then ripped a massive chunk of his neck out when he dropped him. He spat the lump of flesh out and just grinned at us with blood all over his face and a look of menace in his eyes. God, I wanted to fuck him so badly right now.

  “We will have company soon,” Amduscias said. “Best kill the little worm and get out of here.”

  Amduscias kicked the door in. Rathmore jerked up in his bed and fumbled around for his glasses. I flipped the light on and strolled inside.

  “Hey, asshole. Remember me? I’m awake this time, and I brought some friends.”

  He didn’t look scared. He looked at me with total awe.

  “You are certainly the Sunshadow heir,” he whispered.

  “I’m Sunshadow nothing. I’m getting out of here. I destroyed your research, and I’m killing you. My father’s plot stops now.”

  Why wasn’t this man afraid of me? He wasn’t begging for his life. He wasn’t crying. He was just looking at me like I was a total child who didn’t know better.

  “You can kill me, and you might have destroyed my lab, but Eiltan won’t stop. He has copies of my research. I’m not the only warlock on his payroll. I’m not the only warlock in Scorchwood he’s got his eyes on either. He’ll just replace me. If you think he’ll replace any of you, then you have another thought coming. He knows who you are. He’ll find you. He won’t stop looking until you’re under his thumb again. Eiltan has worked too hard at this project, and you’re our best chance at success being a first-generation halfling.”

  “You have a halfling, but you know what you don’t have? My consent. And you both know you framed me to get me down here.”

  Rathmore just gave me this evil grin. “Yes, but who will believe a Scorchwood inmate when they say we framed them? Especially one that broke out with murderers, thieves, and a demon?”

  I plastered a psychopathic grin on my face. I knew he was right. No one would believe they had framed me. But this was my moment. I had a card Rathmore didn’t know about. I had something my father didn’t know about either, and it was time to play with my food.

  “Did Eiltan tell you all about Fae and halflings once you realized you had me? You had a ward up, but you didn’t even know you needed it. Meet my friend Fergus, Rathmore. Yeah, I know your proper name. I know all about you. Did Eiltan Sunshadow tell you halflings didn’t get Fae guardians? It’s funny because you didn’t ward this room for him or me. Fergus? Come out and play.”

  When Fergus appeared, he was big enough to be frightening but small enough not to burn the other men in the room if they backed away. Rathmore at least had the decency to look scared when he realized there was a fire dragon in the room. His pleas to spare his life were music to my ears. I’d replay those words in the days to come while we figured out how to stop my father for good.

  Fergus had only done this once before, and I knew why. It was super messy, and it would open an investigation on our little crime sprees if he did this to every bad person we went out to. Fergus started shrinking, and Rathmore thought I was sparing him. He looked like he would faint.

  “Oh, thank you. I can help you, you know. If you take me with you when you run, I can tell you everything I know about Eiltan—”

  When Rathmore opened his mouth to say Sunshadow, Fergus flew down his throat. Rathmore gasped and grabbed his throat. I knew Fergus was burning his way down to his stomach, and I knew what was coming next.

  “Back up if you don’t want to get a little Rathmore on you,” I warned.

  The guys didn’t even get a chance. Fergus grew to his full size, and Rathmore exploded into bloody, burned pieces all over the room. I peeled a chunk of burned flesh out of my hair and flung it against the wall. I shot an adoring gaze at my fire dragon.

  “Thank you for making that so memorable.”

  “And messy,” Amduscias said, picking bits of Rathmore off his shirt.

  “That was great and all, but we have company coming,” Roman said.

  I whirled around. Now that it was over, I could hear the pounding of boots down the hall. I guess the guards were out of their beds and coming for us. I’d gotten this far, and I wasn’t stopping now.

  We were getting out of this prison if we had to kill every last one of them.

  Chapter 17

  Serafina

  W

  ell, shit. I think every guard in Scorchwood knew we were breaking out now, and here we were standing in a room covered in exploded warlock. The only thing separating us and a bunch of supernatural prison guards with tasers was a busted door frame. We certainly would not go charging into that, and they were hesitant to come in seeing what we did to Rathmore.

  Amduscias just cleared his throat. He didn’t seem to care we were all covered in warlock. He walked over and grabbed Roman to give him a passionate kiss. When he let him go, he kissed me for longer.

  “This is a job for a demon. When I cut a way out, I’ll need you all out there fighting. We can’t leave anyone alive who has seen my demonic form. I’m trusting all of you with this.”

  Was it wrong I couldn’t wait to see this big, demonic secret? We were in the middle of some big shit and could die in here, and I was more curious about what Amduscias looked like when he went full demon than what it would be like to die. Honestly, even though we were outnumbered and didn’t have any weapons, we had a demon, a fire dragon, a vampire, a wolf, and my fire on our side. We weren’t dying today.

  Amduscias didn’t strip like Skoll did. I didn’t hear bones snapping. A red cloud started swirling around him, and I watched the cloud grow. Whatever his demonic form was, it wouldn’t fit through the door because he went walking out into the crowd of guards. They had no idea what he was doing either. Some braver guards tried to tase him and found their tasers exploding in their hands. Some tried to bum rush him and got flung back against the wall dead. Whatever that red cloud was, it was protecting him and was deadly to touch.

  The cloud got gigantic, and the guards couldn’t do a damned thing about it. We also couldn’t get out the door because we’d hit the swirling red cloud. I didn’t think it was any safer for us than it was for them, even if we were on the same side as Amduscias.

  When the cloud stopped swirling, I was looking at a fucking unicorn. His demonic form was a unicorn. This wasn’t some unicorn you’d see in a pack of stickers in a girly store. This was a majestic, fucking scary unicorn. This was a unicorn straight out of Hell. He was beautiful.

  He looked like a black stallion who had his muscular body groomed to be shiny. His eyes were glowing red, and his silver horn was curved into a deadly point. This was my kind of unicorn.

  Amduscias just went charging down the hall, stabbing people with his horn and trampling them under his hooves. Their tasers were meant for us and didn’t have enough of a charge to take him down, even if they could have got close. We had a path out the door, and now the hall was full of dead bodies.

  Skoll went running out, and his wolf started ripping the throats out of anyone Amduscias didn’t get. Roman grinned at me and charged out of the room. I stepped over a dead body delicately with fire crackling at my fingertips and Fergus sitting on my sh
oulder.

  Amduscias had cleared one side of the hall. The other was full of guards. They took one look at Skoll’s wolf, Roman covered in blood, and me with my fire and Fergus. They started backing away from us. I didn’t recognize any of them from the night they kidnapped me.

  “Please,” a warlock said, holding up his hands. “Please, don’t burn us. Just go back to your cells. We won’t tell anyone. If you get out after killing Doctor Graves and this many guards, they will catch you. They won’t bring you back here. They will kill you.”

  “We aren’t going back to our cells,” Roman snarled. “You have to know what they are doing to us in there if you know Doctor Graves.”

  “Doctor Graves is saving lives. All of you are criminals, and you will be here until you die. Why shouldn’t your life have a greater purpose than just rotting in prison? Doctor Graves could have a breakthrough at any moment, and you could have a greater legacy than just rape, theft, or murder. You murdered a brilliant man. Go back to your cells and don’t do any further damage. I know all of you were important to Doctor Grave’s research. Maybe not all is lost. Maybe they will spare your lives for this massacre and bring another doctor in to complete what he was doing if you were important to him.”

  I wasn’t listening to this nonsense anymore. These guards didn’t know we just killed notorious murderer Magnus Rathmore, but they knew we were all being gassed and experimented on, and they were totally okay with that. This prison might be full of criminals, but there was this paltry thing topside about consent being needed for medical trials, and they all knew that. That didn’t change just because you got arrested, and I knew this shit wouldn’t fly in a topside prison. I knew they knew that too, or they wouldn’t be trying to justify it so hard.

  These weren’t innocent prison guards. They might not have the full story, but they knew enough, and they took part willingly. I called my fire and sent a pulse. The first wave of guards went up in flames. Fergus jumped off my shoulder and got the ones in the back. After we were done, that section of the hall was just smoking bodies.

  One half of the hallways was full of scorch marks and charred bodies. When I turned around, the other half was full of dead bodies and blood. Amduscias and Skoll had shifted back, so I was looking at their human faces again. Roman was just grinning like a fool.

  “I have to say, it was way less eventful when I tried to break out.”

  “Remind me not to piss you off, killer.”

  “We need to get out of here. Those might not be the only guards here. They have to report to someone. Someone is going to eventually check what happened to the guards who went to stop the prison break. I should be able to open a portal out of here from this wing. It was added onto the prison later, but demons didn’t make it.”

  We did it. It was almost over. We just needed to get out of here and see if Amduscias’s demon friends would let us hide out in Hell. And I needed to wash warlock out of my hair.

  Chapter 18

  Skoll

  W

  ell, fuck. My wolf and I were coming to a huge realization. The instinct would always be there to protect Serafina, and we did while her back was turned, but she burned several guards alive with just a look. Damn, that was sexy. I could see us fighting together against her father. She would burn her enemies while my wolf protected her back from unseen attacks.

  We were so close. Amduscias opened a swirling red cloud and told us all to jump through. After seeing what the surrounding red did when he was changing into his demon, I think we were all a little wary, no matter what he said. It wasn’t like any of us were familiar with demon magic, and this was the first time Amduscias showed off all his powers.

  He looked a little impatient with us.

  “It’s just a portal. When you jump through, you will end up in the great hall of my castle.”

  Serafina just shrugged. “I could use a shower.”

  Before any of us could stop her, she just jumped into the red cloud and disappeared. Well, I was undoubtedly going after her. I trusted Amduscias, but he hadn’t been in his castle for hundreds of years. I had no idea if it was deserted or another demon had moved in and would have questions about all of us appearing in the great hall. It wouldn’t do to kill demons on our first day outside of Scorchwood because we were defending ourselves.

  Luckily, Roman and Amduscias jumped through with me. What kind of demon was Amduscias, anyway? This was a castle fit for royalty, and servants were bustling around. They recognized him on sight and started hugging him that he was finally home. A well-dressed demon started talking almost immediately like we weren’t all covered in blood, and I wasn’t standing there naked.

  “My lord, we’ve been awaiting your return. I’ve updated the castle with all the modern amenities Hell offers under Bael’s orders. He wanted you to have the best when you finally came home.”

  “I need to see Bael after I’ve cleaned up. These are honored guests in my castle. Serafina is a fire elemental, Roman is a Vampire, and Skoll is a wolf. I will claim them and ask permission for them to stay here. Can you get them some clothes befitting Hell so I can make introductions?”

  “Of course, my lord. We have updated the plumbing since you were last here. There are enough showers for everyone, but there are also soaking tubs should anyone wish to take a hot bath.”

  “You must show me everything, Tarnon. We didn’t have modern amenities in Scorchwood. Serafina has been telling us about the modern world. We didn’t have heat or hot showers there.”

  Tarnon gasped. “They are not providing heat in a prison in Gelida Desertum? Bael will want to know this. Why did you stay so long?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “I tried to visit you. Bael sent an ambassador to talk you into leaving. Several demons tried to find out why a Duke of Hell hadn’t just left. We didn’t tip them off you could just leave because we thought there had to be a reason you were staying, but they refused to let us inside. Even when the seven kings of Hell sent word they demanded their ambassador be let in to talk to you. They still refused. The only reason Bael didn’t send an army of demons to break you out was that he thought you had discovered something he needed to know.”

  Amduscias looked like he had just been given the best news ever. And what the fuck? He was demon royalty? He’d certainly told none of us that. He could have practically run Scorchwood if anyone there knew he was a Duke of Hell, and he used his knowledge of the various things growing in the prison. If people knew he could get out, they would have been kissing his ass. Hell, maybe that was why he didn’t even tell us.”

  Amduscias turned to us.

  “With all the updates to my castle, I’m sure it’s just as unfamiliar to me as it is for you. I’ll give you the grand tour later and see the changes with you. We should all get cleaned up. We will need all the allies we can get, and Bael is on our side. He must not trust the prison if he suspected I stayed because I was gathering intel. We need to bathe and dress so I can present you and claim you.”

  More servants scurried forward, and they led me off to a bedroom that was unlike anything I’d seen before. There was something like the computer Serafina showed us, but it was huge and mounted to the wall over a fireplace. They showed me a wholly strange bathroom. It had a shower like I was used to at Scorchwood, but this one was clean. There was also a bathtub, but it had faucets and knobs like the sinks in the prison.

  The woman who brought me to the bathroom was trying to avoid looking at my nakedness. It didn’t bother me. Honestly, I had so much blood and warlock bits on me, it was like wearing clothes, anyway.

  “You must want a hot shower to wash all that blood off.”

  How did one take a hot shower without a beautiful fire elemental in the shower with you to heat the water? I felt like an idiot for asking, but I had a feeling I would not fit in this modern world unless I started asking questions that made me look stupid.

  “We didn’t have hot showers in Scorchwood, and before they arrested me,
we had to draw well water and heat it on the stove for a bath. How do you make the water hot?”

  She didn’t look at me with pity, and she didn’t look at me like she thought I was a total dolt. She looked angry.

  “Oh, Bael will be furious that is going on in Hell. It’s the knobs, you see? The one on the left makes scalding water, and the one on the right makes icy water. You just fiddle with them until the water is the temperature you like. It’s the same with the bathtub.”

  “Is it magic?”

  “Science. It’s an electric heater. Did they not have electric lights in prison?”

  “Oh, they put those in a while ago, but I didn’t know it could make heat. The prison was always cold, and so was the water.”

  “Did they at least feed you well?”

  “They’ve been serving the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last sixty years.”

  “Then, we will prepare a feast for tonight so you can have proper food now that you are out of that horrible place. We need to show you not all of Hell is like that, and demons have nothing to do with that prison. I’ll leave you to your shower.”

  She didn’t ask what I had done to end up in Scorchwood. She didn’t care what my crime was. She didn’t ask what we had done to get out of that prison. I didn’t know if it was because Amduscias had vouched for us and brought us with him, or because she knew I had been there hundreds of years, and she thought I had paid for my crimes.

  It was nice being treated with kindness either way. I was so used to the kill or be killed mentality of Scorchwood. I was used to the cold and the awful food. It was strange being in a place where the temperature was pleasant and there were no peculiar smells in the air. Nothing was growing on the walls or up from the floor. This house was clean and furnished for royalty.

  After everything, it felt like I didn’t deserve to be here. It felt weird having people be friendly to me. I wanted to be here with Serafina and finally mark my mate, but I’d been in Scorchwood too long. I’d been in the darkness too long. That woman had been so nice to me, and she kept saying Bael would be angry about the prison conditions.