by Rhea Watson
“So, you going to sit anytime soon?” I gestured to one of the many empty metal stools around our table. “Or just continue to stare? I’m fine either way, but—”
Katja turned on her heel and left without a word. I snorted, watching her go, wondering if she could feel my gaze burning holes into her back—into the barely there sway of her ass beneath her slouchy purple jumpsuit.
“Elijah—”
“Shut up, Rafe.”
My teasing grin faltered. I hadn’t planned on giving him too much shit for what he’d done in the showers. Firstly, he couldn’t help himself. Defending his mate was a shifter’s prime objective, hardcoded into his DNA. Secondly, solitary had done a spectacular job of chewing him up and spitting him out already. I just… I wanted to poke fun at what had just happened like he always poked fun at me, but it seemed the tides had turned. Back to stabbing at his watery mash, Elijah had soured, and now I was the one waiting for his mood to lift.
Bizarre, being on the other side of our usual dynamic.
“Just… shut up,” he muttered, spearing a hand through his greasy locks, in desperate need of a wash—we had both been politely ignoring the solitary stank since he’d come back. The dragon then sighed, his shoulders unusually rounded. “I know what I did, and I’d do it again.” His weary eyes snapped to mine, a hint of fire shimmering like copper in his irises. “I don’t really have a choice anymore.”
And that might get you killed, old friend. I instantly softened, no longer in the mood to poke and prod. Instead, I set my blood vial aside, saving that little droplet until the very last moment before we had to go back to the block.
“I know,” I told him quietly. “I’ve got your back, Elijah… I’ve got both your backs.”
Our eyes locked, and he needn’t say a damn thing for me to know he was grateful for my support. After all, if Elijah ran to Katja’s defense every time someone heckled her in here, he’d spend the rest of his sentence in solitary. I, on the other hand, could smoothly interject as needed without causing a dramatic scene. He needed me—they both did.
My eyebrows crept up the longer we locked eyes. Honestly, shifters were so much effort sometimes. Unfettered eye contact was a sign of trust within the pack and a dangerous challenge to outsiders, but I’d had about enough with the subtle body language in lieu of actual conversation for the evening.
“So, we gonna kiss now, or—”
Elijah flicked a bit of potato at me, chuckling, and then went back to his food. I, meanwhile, wiped the smear of mash from my jumpsuit with a scowl, hating to have the smell linger longer than necessary. Out of the corner of my eye, as I scratched potato out of the fibers, a flash of red caught my attention again. Katja had found her little rabbit friend, and she sat with her back to us as the shifter chatted away.
I didn’t ask you to protect me.
I rather liked that—her setting the tone for their relationship, putting her foot down on Elijah’s over-the-top alpha protectiveness. Perhaps I’d misjudged her. Perhaps this gorgeous witch had a backbone after all…
And at the end of the day, maybe she wouldn’t need either of us to survive this place.
Only time would tell.
8
Katja
“Fox?”
I was off like a shot, leaping from my cot and sprinting all three strides to my open cell door. At noon on a weekday—not that it really seemed to matter, weekday or weekend—the block was quiet, almost everyone but Rafe and me dispersed around the grounds for their assigned prison jobs. I mean, that bird shifter Helen also had the day off from kitchen duty, but we hadn’t exchanged one word since I woke up in this hellhole—that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.
Out of habit, I glanced toward the vampire’s dark cell beside mine as soon as I stepped outside; I couldn’t even begin to fathom what torture each day was for him in here, sunlight crashing through all the other cells and spilling across the common area. Vampires literally burned to a crisp in sunshine, and his only protection during the daytime hours was the same dank cell we all despised.
And he was stuck in there, hiding.
Waiting for sunset—waiting for Elijah to come back so someone would help him through the shadows.
Nearly two weeks into my miserable forced stay in what I assumed was the world’s first supernatural prison, I had decided to let him be during the day. Yeah, it was kind of awkward, both of us acutely aware of each other on opposite sides of the same wall, but vampires were nocturnal by nature. If he needed to sleep—because they sure weren’t feeding vamps enough to sustain themselves—then I didn’t want to keep him up with small talk or nervous babbling.
Today was no different. He’d been in his cell since the others left for work, silent in the pitch-black cavern, and I’d been in mine, sitting in the sunshine, picking at my nails, trying to read one of the books I’d nabbed from the library cart but completely and utterly unable to focus on the words. You know. Just business as usual until two hours before dinner when the rest of the block returned.
Only now there was Thompson, calling my name.
“You ready for something different?” he asked, the one guard in that scary black uniform who wasn’t a complete asshole. Sure, he was guilty of joining in on the snide conversations if the other guards were around. I had seen him take an inmate’s food away for mouthing off, then dump the food on the ground seconds later and make the shifter in question lick it up. So, yes, he had the capacity to be a dick, but in my limited experience, he sucked the least of the six guards on Cellblock C’s rotation. Tall, square-jawed, freckled, olive-skinned—a good-looking warlock with a wedding ring tan who had the decency to turn his back on me in the shower.
And that made him kind of okay in my books.
“What do you mean?” I asked, mindful to keep my tone subdued—docile. Don’t make waves. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Survive. Three rules that I was still trying to live by, because as far as I could tell, there was no escape from Xargi.
Especially with this collar on.
“You’ve got a work assignment,” he told me, the edges of his mouth quirking when my eyes widened. “Warden opened an in-house bakery a few months back, and it’s finally staffed. You want to roll out dough for a few hours?”
“Oh, gods, yes.” I started toward him, then immediately planted my feet when his hand twitched for the wand on his belt. Six inches, white-washed cedar—curved handle with ornate carvings on the grip. Ugh. I missed my wand so much.
I missed Tully more.
Did Thompson have a familiar?
I’d been desperate to ask, desperate to try to form a connection with the warlocks running this place, but nothing about their demeanor screamed friendly. Not the black uniform or the steel-toed boots or the grim expressions—and definitely not the way they indiscriminately tormented inmates. In here, it didn’t matter that we were both from the same supernatural community. I was lesser because I was, supposedly, a criminal, and Thompson would reach for his wand every time I made the mistake of moving too fast—of forgetting myself.
“Sorry,” I muttered, hands twined behind my back, palms sweaty. “Sorry, I… Yes, I’d love to knead dough.”
Anything was better than here, than a cellblock with a demon who looked at me like he wanted to hurt me. Hell, he’d probably enjoy it. Elijah had cemented Deimos’s interest in me that first day by making a scene, and the demon hadn’t let me forget it. Always watching, always smirking, always making lewd gestures to his crotch and seductive—by his definition only—flicks of his tongue in my direction…
Ugh.
“You’ll make ten cents an hour,” Thompson remarked as we drifted toward the cellblock door, and I brightened at the thought.
“Does that mean my commissary account is open?”
“You think you can buy anything with today’s whopping forty cents?”
“I mean, no, but—”
“Yeah,” he said, throwing a grin over his shoulder as he
unbolted the door and motioned for me to walk through, “your account is officially active. Congrats, Fox.”
“Thanks.” I ducked my chin and peered up at him through my lashes in passing. While I wasn’t about to let any guard touch me, some seemed to get off on the submissive female thing—and I could at least play the part a little if it meant they wouldn’t see me as a threat.
As soon as Thompson sealed the door tight behind us with a fastening charm, I followed him down familiar corridors, surrounded by cinder blocks and artificial light, until finally we ventured into hallways I’d never seen before. This place was a maze; built like an old stone fort, you’d think it would be straightforward, but nope. It was all winding and weaving and up and down, dead silence except for the odd scream or cackle from behind another magically sealed door.
We ended up one floor underground, and I smelled the bread long before we reached the bakery, fresh and crisp, a hint of normalcy as I still struggled to find my sea legs fourteen days after I had woken up in the interrogation room. No lawyer had come calling. I’d never had a trial. I was just—here.
But if I could spend the day in a bakery, kneading and baking and blending dry ingredients like I was back home over my own cauldron making my own potions, that might help a little.
Help my mental health, anyway.
Fleetingly.
Thompson motioned me through an open doorway with a toss of his head, and once inside, I found myself in a much more cramped workspace than I’d anticipated. What hit me first was the heat, six old-school ovens burning to my left. Sweat gathered at the nape of my neck, made worse by the fact that I hadn’t had anything to tie my hair back with in almost two weeks. What I wouldn’t do for a hair elastic and a pair of underwear; maybe commissary had something utilitarian I could spring for once I had enough money.
Illuminated by more dull artificial lighting and the tiniest of slits open to the outside world, the bakery was hot and claustrophobic, the ceiling low. Haphazardly built, almost like a badger burrow, the familiar stonework didn’t extend to the dirt ceiling, from which thin roots hung, reaching for us. Huge metal towers on wheels cloistered together dead ahead, square with slots to fit baking trays into. Every table in sight—wood, for the first time, not metal—had a dusting of flour over its top.
Small and tight and dusty and earthly and hot as balls…
But comforting. In a way, it reminded me of the back of the café on a summer’s day.
My eyes prickled with tears I refused to let fall; I had shed enough sorrow in this place already and I wasn’t even through the first month yet.
“Greystone.” Thompson’s bark made me flinch, and I all but wilted beside him when a familiar face emerged from behind the ovens. Elijah Greystone, towering dragon shifter—overprotective hottie who made me feel… things.
His rugged face glistened with sweat, which he wiped dry on his sleeve, and his yellowing apron had seen better days, splashed with flour and whatever made those damp, dark smears.
“New recruit,” Thompson announced, nudging me deeper into the bakery with a stabby finger between my shoulder blades. “Show her the ropes.”
“The ropes I learned this morning?” Elijah growled back, his arms folded, biceps deliciously prominent, the dragon very obviously not looking at me, refusing to meet my eye. We hadn’t spoken since our encounter in the cafeteria last week; I wasn’t proud of my behavior, not after what he had probably been through in solitary, but it had happened. No taking it back.
“Yeah, you should be a goddamn bread master by now.” Thompson took a sharper tone with the shifter than he ever did me, scowling, his hand resting loose over his wand. No surprise there: Elijah had been on every guard’s shit-list since that day in the shower.
All because of me.
Because of what he did for me.
Pummeling those pervs—it had been satisfying and terrifying and totally unnecessary.
And I’d been going out of my way to avoid him since. Anytime we were around each other, something happened. Gross men acted like gross men. Elijah would react. Inmates would stare—and someone would take an interest in me, probably just to rile him up.
That couldn’t become our thing.
I refused to be on anyone else’s radar because of a dragon shifter who lacked self-control.
A dragon shifter who, whenever he did lock eyes with me, made me taste… fire.
Not that I’d ever tasted fire before, but heat burned in my chest, scorched up my throat. Distinct, the scent of campfire smoke tickling my nostrils, reminiscent of days spent at our old family cottage, the nostalgia both comforting and heartbreaking. Still, it coaxed me to be brave, to spit those flames at every pushy jerk who made eyes at me and watch while they burned.
Especially when it sparked between my thighs, insistent and brilliant and strong. Almost impossible to ignore and getting worse with every encounter.
I’d never met a dragon shifter before, but they couldn’t all make me feel like a walking inferno.
Right?
Either way, I wasn’t thrilled about the fact that anyone at Xargi could physically influence me, and, in no mood to spend the day with him, I quickly scanned the space for another jumpsuit.
Only to come up empty. Nobody here but us and Thompson—then another guard seated next to the door, on his phone, wand on his lap. I’d never seen him before, but he waved distractedly when Thompson nodded on the way out, and seconds later, it was just me and Elijah and this baby-faced warlock swiping through that supernatural dating app feed…
What was it again?
Oh. Right. Cinder.
Fantastic.
Better than spending the day in my cell, I guess, but that wasn’t exactly a high threshold to beat.
For all my tough-girl inner monologues, standing in front of Elijah now made me feel awkward and small. I only made it up to his shoulders, and when he sighed, I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t thrilled about having me in here either.
“Come on…” He breezed by, bringing with him the scent of brimstone and raw, untamed masculinity. My belly looped and my pussy pulsed with interest. Not good. Not good at all. The dragon cast me a sidelong glance as he passed, headed away from the ovens and toward a cluster of flour-dusted tables. “We have a million rolls to prep.”
Swallowing thickly, I padded after him, my shoes silent to me but probably swishing along like cannon fire to a shifter. I wasn’t sure where the nondescript white slip-ons had come from, but one evening they were just there, waiting for me at the end of my bed. Although a touch too big, anything was better than navigating the prison barefoot, and days later, with my roughened feet practically singing, I still had no clue who to thank for the gift.
Which bothered me.
Because—now I was in someone’s debt.
And I hoped to all that was good in this world that it wasn’t Deimos.
Elijah stopped at one of the larger prep tables, a mountain of dough piled high in front of him, along with a stack of metal baking trays. He grabbed the top one and set it down slightly off to the left of him, and I positioned myself around the table’s corner, cheeks hot, unsure where to look.
I’d seen gorgeous men in the supernatural world for years, but Elijah exceeded them tenfold. This shifter had to be Apollo—he was everything the legends promised, a golden god, youthful and handsome and dripping with vitality.
“So, you just roll them out to about yea big,” he told me, snatching a clump from Dough Mountain and rolling it between his palms. Fifteen seconds later, he had a perfectly round little sphere roughly the size of a golf ball, made even smaller by the sheer heft of his hand. “Twenty to a tray. Full trays go in the pantry over there.” He pointed to a metal door embedded in the wall, shrouded in shadow. “They’ll proof overnight, then tomorrow we bake them.” His chocolate-brown gaze slid my way, and he arched a golden brow. “Questions?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to talk around him yet—not with my every
cell utterly drawn to him.
Not when he set me on fire with nothing at all.
Definitely getting worse. Worse every day, and I feared the more I fought it, the worse it would get.
Would I spontaneously combust? Was he doing this to me, even with that leather band around his neck?
Was I cursed?
Would I—
“I swear I’m not stalking you,” Elijah muttered, placing his ball on the baking tray between us before going for the doughy mountain again. “I didn’t know you’d be assigned here.”
Obviously he knew I’d been avoiding him; I hadn’t exactly been subtle. With a quick glance his way, I went for the massive pile myself, ripping off a substantial enough chunk of soft, sticky dough to make a few balls before needing to go back for more.
“This is Rafe’s detail anyway,” he carried on as he set his second perfect sphere on the tray, “but vamps can’t work during the day because no one fucking accommodates for them here now that the weather’s turned, so someone else has to pick up the slack…” His jaw gritted, muscles briefly dancing. “Otherwise the vampire gets punished. So, I… I… Normally I’m in the metal shop.”
Guilt’s icy cold fingers plucked at my heartstrings, and I swallowed thickly, unsure why I felt like this—because I shouldn’t. It shouldn’t matter that I’d been purposefully and obviously distancing myself from a dragon who, from what I’d seen, was a good guy. It shouldn’t matter that we shared some weird connection, that he set me on fire just by standing close. I didn’t owe him anything. I didn’t owe him my feelings. Elijah Greystone was a stranger. Fact.
So… Why the guilt?
I shook my head, more at myself than anything, and peeled off a hunk of dough from my little pile. Maybe I felt shitty because I’d misjudged him; who else would voluntarily take on another work assignment in prison? It was sweet that he stood in Rafe’s place—kind, really.
And apparently, he was better at making dough balls than me.
