He yanked his baton from his belt and raised it to strike Ethan as I yelled out to stop him.
“It wasn’t him!” I snarled. “He saved me.”
Cain looked between us for a long moment like that made no sense at all, then finally stowed his baton away. “Fuck off then, One, before I change my mind,” he snapped.
Ethan got to his feet and walked from the room without another word. He glanced back at me as he reached the door and I bared my teeth at him. I didn’t need his pitying looks. Especially when he was so ashamed of his bond to me that he’d hidden it. Fuck him. I didn’t want that kind of bond. I’d use him for what I needed then leave his ass here when I escaped. And the stars could go take a running jump with their mate bond bullshit.
Cain stood over me for a long moment then crouched down with a grunt of frustration. “I thought you were too tough to get beaten down in the showers, Twelve,” he murmured as he reached for my mangled hands.
“Well I took out six of them before they overwhelmed me,” I muttered. “I’d like to see you manage that.”
Cain hesitated and I shoved my hand at him, grunting in pain as he took my broken fingers in his. I gritted my teeth as I waited for him to heal me but instead of helping, he just asked me another question.
“Was that an official statement?” he growled. “Are you saying there were six of them?”
“Pfft, more like twenty,” I replied. “But no, Officer, if you want my official statement then I just slipped and fell in the shower.”
“Good girl,” he grunted, his hand closing over my broken fingers and sending a sharp jolt of pain spearing down my arm. Healing magic swept from his skin into mine and a relieved whimper escaped me as the pain slowly ebbed away. “I don’t imagine I need to tell you what happens to prisoners who snitch on other inmates in here, do I? And I’d rather not be clearing pieces of you off of the walls if I can avoid it.”
My lips twitched in surprise at that statement and I looked up from my shattered hands and into his stormy grey eyes.
“Be careful, Officer. It almost sounded like you gave a shit about me then.”
“I care about paperwork. And murders cause a bucket load of it,” he replied coldly.
“There’s the C.O. I know and hate,” I teased and I swear to the stars he damn near smirked. Like the tiniest twitch took place at the corner of his lips, but when I looked again, it was gone.
Cain concentrated on my destroyed hands for a few more minutes then cursed and withdrew his grip on me.
“I can’t heal these wounds. I’ve blocked off your pain receptors for now, but I’m going to have to take you to medical if you ever want to use your fingers properly again,” he announced, seeming pissed off that the work was beyond his talents.
He stood, dragging me with him and I stumbled a little at the sudden movement, bumping into him and trying to catch myself on his arms. But with my hands out of action, all that happened was me falling against him tit to shirt.
Cain grabbed my upper arms and pushed me back a step, holding me at arm’s length as he looked into my eyes and growled.
“Sorry,” I muttered, glancing down at my bare toes as embarrassment clawed at me. I didn’t like to been seen in a weakened state. I didn’t like to be in a weakened state. Hell, I was damn near spitting about the fact that I couldn’t just go and hunt those stronzos down right now and teach them all about the girl they’d just tried fucking with.
“It’s fine,” Cain muttered and as I looked up at him again, I found his eyes roaming over my features and his jaw locked tight.
A long moment passed and he failed to drag his eyes away from mine.
“What?” I taunted. “Haven’t you ever seen a naked girl covered in blood before?”
“Do you have any other injuries?” he asked in a low voice, ignoring my jibing for once.
I raised my chin as I realised what he was really asking and defiance flared through my body. “No,” I replied in a clipped tone. “Ethan walked in before…he evened the numbers. So I’m fine.”
“A Lunar helping out an Oscura?” Cain scoffed.
“It wasn’t about me.”
Cain eyed me for another moment like he was hunting down a lie, but he finally grunted in acceptance. “Get dressed and I’ll take you to medical.”
He shoved me away from him and I stumbled back a step before turning and heading back to where I’d left my clothes before my shower.
I reached out for the orange jumpsuit but as my gaze caught on my mangled fingers, I quickly realised that there was no way I’d be able to put anything on. Though Cain had cut the pain off, none of them would move in reaction to my commands and just looking at the bent and broken angles they all hung at made my stomach turn.
“Umm…sir?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder at him.
“What?” he snapped.
“It’s just…I can’t get my clothes back on…without help…”
His eyes flared dangerously like he was about to start screaming or threatening me again but as he looked at my hands, he clenched his jaw and stalked towards me.
He snatched my clothes from the peg and yanked the horrible black, crop top bra over me before guiding my arms through the straps and then dragging it down over my chest. I could feel the heat of his skin against mine as his thumbs ran over the swell of my breasts and his jaw tightened further, like he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t give a shit about touching me. But if he wasn’t fooling me then he definitely wasn’t fooling himself.
I stayed silent as he dropped to his knees and held my panties out for me to step into, sliding them up over my thighs and ass in a swift motion before snatching my jumpsuit down and holding that out for me too.
“I guess this is playing out in reverse to the way you’ve been dreaming about, isn’t it?” I teased and he snarled angrily, tying the arms of my jumpsuit around my waist and cinching the knot tight in one, sharp jerk which almost made me fall into his arms.
I blinked up at him innocently as his jaw ticked with rage and what I was growing more and more sure was lust.
He dropped my white tank top over my head last and I kicked my own feet into my boots.
“Get moving,” he commanded instantly, gripping my upper arm as he drew me out of the room.
I trotted along at his pace and he led me to the stairwell where we headed down four levels until we made it to medical.
The guards could heal most wounds with basic magical techniques so they only had a couple of full time healers on staff for more difficult magic.
The strong scent of pine disinfectant washed over me as we headed through a set of locked doors. Cain marched me straight inside the white space lined with beds, leading me up to the healer who was filling out paperwork at her desk before thrusting me in front of her.
“This one had a nasty fall and I can’t re-set small bones like these,” he announced.
The healer gave me a sweeping look but when her gaze landed on my mangled hands she cried out in alarm and jumped to her feet, catching my fingers between hers as she inspected the damage.
“Sweet baby moonlight! Whatever happened here?” she gasped, her frizzy grey hair bobbing around her face as she alternated between looking at my two hands in horror.
“I fell in the shower,” I said with a shrug.
“Not by the light of a Pegasus’s assbeam you didn’t!” she replied, locking me in her beady gaze. “I want the truth.”
“My fingers got caught in the drain as I fell,” I said, offering her a hint more of a lie just to be a dick.
“If you won’t give me the truth, I’ll have to involve Warden Pike,” she exclaimed, dropping her grip on me and reaching for a phone which was bolted to the wall behind her.
“Pike will toss her in the hole for not blabbing,” Cain snapped. “Do you think she deserves that on top of her injuries?”
I glanced up at him in surprise as he weighed in on my side, but he didn’t return my look.
The healer pursed her lips then sighed dramatically and reached for my hands again. “This is exactly the kind of thing that shouldn’t be going on anymore. The prisoners know where all the CCTV blind spots are and they constantly take advantage of those holes. If I had an aura for every dramatically unbelievable accident that took place in this prison then I’d be a rich Fae living out my days in the Solarian sunshine!”
As she continued to prattle on about lying prisoners and incompetent guards, her grip slowly moved along my fingers one at a time as she concentrated on healing my injuries.
I watched in fascination as the bones straightened out and the damage Gustard had done was finally healed.
“And you wouldn’t believe the amount of times someone claims to have accidentally stabbed themselves either! Just last week, I had a Sphinx claiming she’d fallen on a pointy carrot at dinner while I removed the sharpened end of a toothbrush from her gut,” she went on as she finished healing my final finger and Cain grabbed my arm again.
“Perfect. I’ll be taking her back to her work detail now,” he growled, cutting off the healer’s rambling.
“Absolutely not!” she cried, leaping forward like she intended to drag me out of his arms. “I recommend a thorough examination of her entire body followed by a day and night of rest and confinement here in the ward where I can keep an eye on her.”
“I don’t need a thorough examination, thanks,” I replied before Cain could. “I’m good to go.” I had plans to go crawling through maintenance shafts tonight and the last thing I wanted was to spend the night here. Two Hundred might even think I’d gone into hiding and get ideas about taking my cell back and there was no fucking way I’d let that happen.
“You heard the girl,” Cain said. “She wants to get back to work.”
“I really must insist,” the healer snapped, her jovial tone forgotten and Cain sighed irritably.
“Great. I guess I’ll get started on the damn paperwork then,” he grumbled, moving away from me to grab a form from the healer’s desk as he dropped down into her seat to start filling it in.
“Come along, dear. My name’s Brenda Grus but you can call me Mother Brenda. You’ll have a nice rest here today,” the healer said kindly, turning back to me as I tried to come up with another excuse to escape her.
“But-”
“If you insist on arguing, I’ll have to involve the Warden. Is that what you want?” Mother Brenda demanded. I didn’t know why the hell she wanted me to call her Mother but I’d take a hard pass on that. I wasn’t some surrogate pup for this screw loose witch and I was beginning to think that she had been given this job for a reason. She seemed a few nuts short of a barrel full to me.
I gave in to her demands with a groan of frustration and kicked my boots off before sitting on the bed she directed me towards.
“There’s a good foal,” she cooed. “I’ll go get you some chocolate. Sweetness always helps to take the edge off of shock.”
Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
Mother Brenda bustled away and I was left with Cain as he continued to fill out his forms.
“At the risk of being a total pain in the ass-” I began.
“You’re always a pain in the ass, Twelve,” he growled, though his tone seemed to hold less bite than usual.
“Could you maybe give another inmate a message for me?”
“No.”
“It’s just that, I don’t want any lizard motherfuckers to think that I’m hiding out scared somewhere after…my fall. So if Roary knows that I’m here he’ll make sure that my cell stays mine until I’m back tomorrow and anyone who wants it can come at me like a real Fae. One on one. Not…” I trailed off without saying anything else about the fact that Two Hundred had come at me in a group but as Cain looked up at me, I could tell he understood.
“Prisoner politics hold no interest to me,” he said in a dark tone. “But I’m sure the members of your block will be aware that you’ll be back tomorrow one way or another.”
I gave him a wide smile as he said that. Not a taunting, teasing, mocking smile. Just a real one to convey my gratitude to him for helping me. I wouldn’t ever say the words aloud, but I could let him know with that much.
Cain eyed me suspiciously for a moment then dropped his gaze back to his paperwork, turning away and ending our conversation.
I slumped back onto my pillows with a huff of frustration. It looked like my escape plans would have to go on hold tonight and I could add a few more enemies to my list too. But tomorrow was another day. And I intended to get straight back to my plans just as soon as I could.
I marched toward the Mess Hall on a war path. Every muscle in my body was primed to kill and it was going to take a miracle of restraint to make sure I didn’t. I had to play this right. I couldn’t let anyone know what I knew. That I’d heard One fighting with The Watchers and come running. I should have been on duty outside the showers, but the Warden had swapped my shifts. If I’d come downstairs a few minutes earlier, I could have prevented this whole thing from happening. If I’d caught them in the act, I’d have had reason to punish them however I liked and send them all to the hole. Instead, I was late, which I vowed never to be again.
I stormed my way to the Mess Hall then slowed my pace, taking a breath to harness the beating of my heart. I was a hunter. An apex predator who knew how to stalk his prey. And nothing about my exterior would give away the plan I held on the inside. No crack could allow anyone to see how much I cared that Twelve had almost been raped. It was the most despicable act a Fae could commit. And I made it my personal mission to ensure anyone who fit that description in here had one miserable fucking experience.
I stepped into the Mess Hall on level three and I took in the inmates as they sat eating their dinner around the space. My gaze snagged on The Watchers sitting together at a table and I made a casual path around the hall to stand close enough to listen in on their conversation. Gustard was slicing up a cut of meat on his plate with delicate strokes of his knife and fork while he listened to the guffawing of his halfwit allies.
Most of them were swearing and cursing Shadowbrook and though number One was a fucking asshole with a girlish amount of blonde in his hair, I had to quietly admit I was glad he’d found Twelve before anything worse had happened.
“If you’d all held her down sooner, I could have broken her quicker,” the Dragon asshole, Two Hundred, said and my hands tightened into fists. He had two bloody tissues stuffed up his nose and I was glad no guard had healed his injury. I especially took satisfaction in knowing no one was going to heal it anytime soon. I was going to make sure of it.
“You’ll have another chance, Christopher,” Forty Seven purred, her eyes bright like she actually admired the asshole for laying his filthy, worthless hands on Twelve.
“The fighters always take longer to break, but once I’m inside them they learn to bow to the power of a real Fae.“
I ground my jaw so loud it was all I could hear for a few seconds. A cold darkness was descending on me. The kind that preceded a hunt. But that kind of mental state could end up in me killing someone. And I had to play this right.
Two Hundred rose from his seat, walking toward a table of Pegasuses who were sitting together and eyeing up their food. I moved after him at a slow pace as he snatched fruit pots and puddings from the Pegasus herd and they cowered beneath him. As he balanced a glass of orange juice on his tray, I stepped up behind him, close enough to smell the scent of Twelve on him. The darkness intensified until I was nothing but an animal in the body of a man. My fangs extended and pricked my tongue so my own blood washed through my mouth.
Two Hundred turned sharply with his mountain of a haul and I stood firm as the tray crashed into my chest and the juice toppled over, spilling down my uniform along with a few puddings that popped open and left chocolate smears across my shirt.
“Two Hundred!” I barked, whipping out my baton and slamming it into the backs of his knees. He
toppled like a fucking mountain, his face twisted in confusion as he hit the floor. I pointed the baton down at his meaty face with a snarl, “Stealing food from other inmates, are you? And throwing food at an officer…that’s an infraction.”
“What – no! I didn’t steal it from them, they gave it to me as a gift, ain’t that right?” he called to them.
They all nodded instantly, but I ignored them, snarling down at the Dragon beneath me.
“And I didn’t throw the food, it was an accident,” he blurted and I was glad to see him almost pissing himself.
“Are you questioning my own fucking sanity, Two Hundred?!” I roared, gathering the attention of the whole hall.
“No, sir!” he gasped.
“I saw you steal food and if you won’t admit it, maybe Dr Quentin can get it out of you,” I snarled, snatching his collar in my fist and hauling him to his feet.
“Wait,” he balked, turning a satisfying shade of green. “You’re sending me to interrogation?”
“That’s where liars go, Two Hundred. You know the rules.” I shoved him along and I swear the guy actually quivered.
A smile bit into my cheeks, but I didn’t let it show as I guided him from the room and led him downstairs to level nine. Gratification filled me as I dragged him past the door into isolation and along a corridor toward Quentin’s room. My heart thumped solidly in my chest as I knocked on the door and Two Hundred cowered like a child instead of a Fae.
“Please, I’ll do anything else,” he begged of me, but I ignored him. “Whatever punishment you want.”
I clenched my jaw, turning to him with a slow smile spreading across my face. “Well the way I see it, the punishment fit for such an infraction is spending an evening with Dr Quentin.”
Two Hundred paled, looking at me as if I was a psycho. And maybe was. Maybe I should have shed my uniform and stepped into an orange jumpsuit and joined the masses. But the difference between me and them was I’d never been caught.
The door wrenched open and Dr Quentin’s small frame came into view. He wore a white overcoat that hung almost to his shiny black shoes. He had a slight hunch on his back, teeth that were sharpened to points and two dark red eyes. He’d altered all of his features via some twisted spells. He wasn’t that ugly by nature, he chose to look this way. Which made him all the more creepy.
Darkmore Penitentiary (Supernatural Prison for Dark Fae Book 1) Page 22
