by C. R. Jane
He tilted his head to the side. “Who gave the instruction?”
My mouth dried with the lies. “My boss said it came from the warden.” I shrugged. “I don’t want to get in trouble, so I don’t question my orders.”
He scrutinized me for a long moment, and I made sure to pay attention to his badge name. John Welks.
He suddenly stiffened and tapped his earpiece, listening, then responded. “Fuck, how many? I’m on my way.” The way he glanced back at me said he’d forgotten I stood there.
“The guard at the security pass around the corner will take down your details and accompany you to where you need to go.” Without waiting for my response, he spun and darted down the hall, tapping his ear again. “Trevor, we need back up in Sector D, east wing. Now!”
Perfect timing, so I pushed my trolley until I reached barred doors and a guard inside a glass booth-like room off to the side.
He glanced up at me, sneering. “You’re not permitted in here alone.”
“John Welks confirmed I am to go through as I have to clean up the warden’s meeting room before he returns.”
When he said nothing but picked up the phone, I waited. I couldn’t hear the conversation as he must have switched off the microphone, but he was nodding his head.
Sweat rolled down my back. Maybe I’d gone too far, and my own lie would end up being a noose around my neck.
Seconds later, the metal door slid open, and I pushed forward without asking another question. But several guards rushed past me and vanished the way I came. I had no idea what was going on back in the prison, but maybe it was a sign the universe was helping my cause.
When the tall, lofty guard with a crooked grin stepped out of his booth, he said, “Follow me.” He stormed down the narrow hallway with no windows or doors, and only our footsteps hitting concrete flooring resonated around us. The doors shut immediately behind us.
The guard fiddled with keys and opened up a door, then pushed it open. But his gaze was back on his booth, and that’s when I spotted his badge. Christopher Smith.
“Go, and get this done quickly. Yell once you’re done,” he instructed.
I wasted no time and went inside as he rushed back to his post when his phone rang.
Inside, the meeting room had a round table, eight chairs, and not a mess in sight. The windows were barred, and when I went to look outside, I was greeted by a brick wall maybe a few feet away. Below, I couldn’t see a thing.
I hurried back to the door and peered out, noting the guard was on the phone, his arm waving madly as he spoke, so I hoped that meant he wasn’t accurately checking monitors either. I slid out of the room and darted in the opposite direction, knowing this was exactly where the warden’s office lay.
My skin crawled at remembering his aggression, and he’d make my life hell if he found me. So I had to be fast—in and out.
Around the next bend, I swung left and didn’t stop until I reached the huge black doors that lead into his office.
There were cameras around, the kind that swiveled across the hallway, so the moment it swung away, I tried the handle. Locked, of course. I grabbed the hair pins from my pocket and hastily leaned toward the handle, pushing them inside the lock, wiggling them. I’d never done this before, but watched movies and read enough to know this had to work.
I dropped my hands as the camera came this way once again. Half a dozen tries, and still the door remained locked.
My arms shook, and now I was plastered in sweat, because someone was bound to have seen me standing here long enough to raise suspicion. My saving grace had been whatever fight was happening back in the main prison section.
When someone cleared their throat behind me, I almost died. I couldn’t move at first, and all I could picture was the warden standing over me, about to destroy my world.
I trembled ferociously as I took in a shaky breath and turned around with a bravery I didn’t possess.
Brown eyes. That was what I saw first… The deepest, mud-colored eyes, and nothing looked familiar in them. Studying the round face, the short clipped hair, the ears sticking outward, it hit me quickly it was the same guard from the booth out front. Christopher.
“I-I’m--” My words flatlined, making me sound so suspicious. God, get it together. “I’m looking for the broom closet.” That time, my voice steadied and I held his gaze.
His hand struck out, and he snatched my forearm, squeezing so hard I grimaced.
“You’re with me,” he growled, and hauled me down the hallway, past the passage that took me back to the meeting room and to a small hollowed alcove that seemed to be used for storage. He shoved me in there until my back slammed into the wall, and he towered over me, moving in closer… closer… closer.
Alarm bells exploded in my head, and the way he leered at me left my skin crawling.
“Get away from me,” I snapped, and shoved my hand into his chest. He wasn’t a big man, but he was tall and solid like most of the guards. I couldn’t tell if he was of any supernatural kind, yet he kept me pinned in the corner.
“Why were you trying to break into the warden’s office? He will make you hurt when he finds out. You’ll be seeing a lot more of these walls, and he’ll make every day a living hell. He has no mercy.”
I swallowed hard, my entire body trembling, even if I kept telling myself he was trying to freak me out.
“You’re mistaken,” I explained, and lifted my chin high. “I dropped something and it slipped under the door, so I simply tried to see if I could retrieve it.”
He barked a laugh in my face, sounding more like a hyena, and I loathed the way he studied me like I was the prey he was ready to tear apart.
“Listen, right now I have a video recording of everything you were doing.” He reached over to push a strand of hair behind my ear, and I flinched against him. “Or I can easily go in there and delete the footage. Would you like that?”
I was too scared to answer, because everything about him reminded me of Julian. Everything he did required a payment. Men like them always took and stepped over everyone else.
“I’m not for sale,” I retorted, and shoved to move past him.
But he moved too fast and grabbed me by the hair, shoving me back into place in front of him. He kept shaking, his eyes blinking too fast. Something was wrong with him.
“I can feel you inside me,” he muttered. “It’s playing with my head, and all I can think about is you.” He stared at me with an infatuation I recognized from when my mother would use her power to captivate men. Except my power shouldn’t be affecting him this intensely while my power was suppressed in the prison. But that didn’t stop my rational mind from yelling that I had to get away from this psycho.
Instinct kicked in, and I shoved my fists into his gut, but he gave no response, as though my hits were nothing.
Fear squeezed around my chest. “Get the fuck off me, before I scream.”
“And then what? Your word against mine, when there is footage of you breaking the rules.” He tsked at me, clicking his tongue, then shoved his face against mine.
A slobbery tongue poked out of his mouth and swept over my lips. Bile hit the back of my throat, and there was no stopping the sickness hurling forward. I spewed, and my meal came rushing out, right over the dickhead’s chin and chest.
He jerked backward, screeching, his face twisting with disgust. “You fucking bitch,” he shouted.
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and shuffled sideways past him, my heart jackhammering against my chest.
He lashed out, and the back of his hand struck my face, the knuckles feeling like stone.
I stumbled backward and crashed into a wall, but hooray for me, I didn’t fall over. My face flared up with a burning ache from where the bastard hit me. The pain pulsed, and it hurt so bad. But I took that moment to get out of there and darted back toward the hallway.
“You will pay for saying no to me. I’ll make you my bitch, you wait and see!”
“Fuck you. You’ll never touch me again.” The power of a siren was double edged. Addiction and obsession were horrible traits that drove people to insanity. And I didn’t have time to deal with his damaged mind.
I turned and sprinted away, but slammed into someone else around the corner. Bouncing backward, I cringed when I noticed it was John. The other guard I’d bumped into earlier.
“What’s going on?” he barked.
“I just want to go back to my cell, please. Can you let me through?” I spoke quickly and glanced over my shoulder to where Christopher, the dickhead guard sneered.
“You alright?” he asked his friend. Of course he’d care about that asshole instead of me.
When Christopher simply nodded while giving me the death glare, John commanded, “Go clean yourself up, man.” Then he looked at me with what I could only describe as a sliver of sympathy. Or maybe I was misinterpreting annoyance for understanding. “Let’s get you back to where you belong.”
I nodded and made sure to grab the trolley from the meeting room, while his words kept whirling around in my mind. Where I belonged.
This was how I was perceived. Not a person or a female or a siren…but just an object that needed to be put back into her box where I belonged.
My chest burned with those thoughts, just as much as it did that I’d failed to retrieve the crystal for Seth. Worst yet, now I had to worry about the guard reporting me to the warden.
Chapter 10
Keon
Not much changed in this joint.
Chaos broke out in the communal area over a goddamn card game. Give the inmates any reason to battle, and we’d have a world war within these walls. Not that I cared, because if it was up to me, I’d let them all tear each other apart. Well, nearly all… Not my sweet Selena. She was different and didn’t belong here. So that meant protecting her with everything.
She was mine, I knew it from the first time I met her in the bar. From the moment I fucked her, something inside me changed. And it had grown into an obsession… Now she played on my mind constantly, and my cock twitched just remembering her sugary scent and taste.
Fuck, she was going to be my undoing. I felt it in the damn stone in my chest that never beat for anyone before. That was why I knew Selena was special. Oh so fucking special.
Security had swept in and taken the inmates who were fighting into maximum security, while most returned to normal after their daily entertainment had ended.
Now, I searched for Selena, weaving past inmates standing around and made my way to her cell.
Just then, I spotted her running toward her cell, her face ashen, head low, and if I’d ever seen someone running with fear, that was it.
I quickened my pace, my pulse spiking, and I stepped into her cell behind her.
“Angel, is everything alright?”
She spun toward me, surprised by my presence. Her eyes were glazed over while the side of her face blushed with a bright bruise forming just under an eye.
“What the hell happened?” I cupped her face, studying her trembling chin and the dread behind those beautiful eyes.
“I think I fucked up.” Her voice held strong, despite looking like she might cry. But she kept herself together, and I was so proud of her for not falling apart.
“Tell me what happened.”
She hesitated at first, but I drew her closer so she knew she could tell me anything and she’d be safe. Whoever the fuck touched her would wish they were never born. But that wasn’t something she needed to know.
“I was trying to break into the warden’s office, since he’s away, and someone caught me.” She licked her dry lips and glanced down at her feet.
“Then what happened, Selena?” I didn’t care that she wanted to break the rules and probably try to collect her orb from the warden. All I worried about was making sure she stayed safe.
“The guard who found me threatened to show the footage of me breaking into the office if I didn’t sleep with him. Then, I kinda of threw up on him and he hit me.” She grimaced when she met my gaze. “I don’t want to stay in here forever.”
White lights popped behind my eyes as fury rose through me like a tidal wave, crashing into me, ripping everything away.
Sheer anger trumped every other emotion. “Which guard?” I growled.
My little angel blinked up at me, and I saw the resistance on her face, not wanting to tell me at first.
“Babe, if you want me to fix this, I need a name.”
She gave a small nod. “Christopher.”
I ground my back teeth, as I’d always hated that douche after hearing he forced himself on inmates, then hurt them, leaving them broken, and sometimes, beaten severely. I’d always told myself other people’s shit wasn’t my business, and the scum in this place deserved punishment. Except, when it comes to Selena, everything changes.
A dominance blazed over me for her, and I trembled with pure rage seething within me.
“Stay here,” I instructed her. “You’ll be safe. I’ll return later.” Today was a good day for payback.
She grasped my arm. “Please don’t get in trouble for me.”
“Oh, Selena, for you, I would bring the world to its knees.”
I adored the way she looked at me when I said that, her admiration awakening my own inner beast. And it drove my pulse and an unstoppable need to make Christopher suffer in a way that he would never forget.
I watched her sit on her bed, hands in her lap, and my heart shattered to see her in pain. I whipped out of the room like a raging storm. Every step slapped the ground, and people darted out of my way.
By the time I left behind the prison sector and found Christopher wasn’t in the booth room, I kept going and searched all his usual hang out areas, including the kitchen and sleeping quarters offered to guards who worked two shifts in a row. Even the empty rooms I’d heard he took his victims. Nothing.
But when I stepped into the bathroom, I found him leaning over the sink, cleaning his guard’s uniform with a wet paper towel.
I scanned the room. The doors to the toilet cubicles and two showers lay open. We were alone, so I shut the door and locked it from the inside. There were no cameras here, and I smiled to myself as I stepped deeper inside. The clock on the wall stated it was exactly one-thirty p.m.
Christopher’s head jerked in my direction, his upper lip curled into a snarl. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
“What happened to you?” I kept my voice steady, though my hands already curled tight.
“Some bitch, that’s what happened. I’m going to fuck her up royally.”
Holding back was useless because I only saw red, and I stormed across the room toward him like a wolf.
He jerked backward from me. “Whoa, man, what the fuck!”
I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him back up against the wall. “YOU fucked up! Selena is mine! And you laid a hand on her, you piece of shit.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” he spat, throwing a fist at my face in the same breath.
I felt nothing but the burning rage consuming me. A growl rumbled in my chest, and while I always fought to hold back the monster inside me, this time, I threw open the flood gates.
Christopher’s expression was like granite, not showing a thread of fear, but then again, psychopaths rarely had emotions to show.
My skin pricked with the oncoming change… lashing over my body like barbed wire. A screeching growl tore past my throat, and I stumbled back, releasing Christopher.
He held himself still, staring at me with gaping huge eyes, and there it was, the trickle of fear I’d been waiting on. I could smell it on him like perspiration. So I wasted no time, and quickly unbuttoned my uniform shirt, removing it along with my pants, shoes, and socks, and placed them on the bench at the back of the room and as far from the action as possible.
“The fuck, man, I’m not into dudes. You touch me with that dick, and I’ll fuck you up,” Christopher threatened. Oh, if only that
was the least of his problems.
A shudder rolled through me as my monster pushed forward, faster and faster, while I slid back into the recesses of my mind. He loved to take over, and I’d been keeping him on a damn tight leash lately.
Time to play.
The change struck me instantly, and with it came the feeling of fire scorching every inch of me. When I opened my mouth, wisps of black smoke curled upward.
Christopher flinched backward. “You’re a fucking demon! The fuck! It’s illegal for your kind to work here.”
I shrugged, a huge belch spilling from my mouth, throwing out more smoke. I took a fast glance over to the mirror to my right for a split second to admire just how glorious this form was. Sure, it was forced upon me when I stupidly made a deal with the devil at a crossroad, but I’d embraced who I was long ago.
Black horns arched back from my temples, my eyes black as an onyx stone, and fangs sitting over my lower lip. I stood on all fours, but my hands were clawed, my feet hooves.
A tremendous roar surged through me, and I was shoved back into my mind, the beast taking over.
Then everything moved at lightning speed.
Christopher ducked to run past me, but the beast snatched him by the top and shoved him into a shower cubicle. The guy cried out as he fell over his feet and hit the ground hard.
He stood no chance, and my beast lunged at him.
Tearing.
Slurping.
Scratching.
Screams… Oh so many glorious screams filled my ears. My vision blurred, taking me with it.
Arms and legs and teeth, Christopher fought, the poor sucker. They were the last things I saw before my beast took me over completely.
I flipped open my eyes to the bathroom ceiling. I exhaled, and a puff of black smoke expelled, emptying from my lungs. The last remnants of the demonic beast I’d lived with for years faded away, having sated himself.
Shoving myself to my ass, I sat in the middle of the bathroom, my hands bloody, and a metallic tang coating my tongue. I’d gotten used to the taste of blood, even if it left my teeth feeling furry.
