Blindly Indicted

by Katie May

  I yearn to memorize her lips with my own. Trace the contours of her face. Test the weight of each of her heavy breasts. She has always been pretty, but over time, she has become gorgeous.

  I’m not the only one who has noticed.

  I see how the other men look at her. The guards. Their vile thoughts are depicted in every action they make. Etched into their leering smiles.

  Acid churns low in my stomach at the prospect of any of them touching her.

  “Kai!” She flicks a card at me, and I blink, coming back to the present. “You’re staring at me, and it’s weird.”

  “I’m always staring at you,” I admit with an easy-going smile. She giggles, taking my words as a joke, but it’s closer to the truth than she knows. When she’s gone, my heart cries out for her. I feel physical pain when I think about what she has—and will continue—to endure. I want nothing more than to break her out of this hellhole and give her the life of luxury she deserves. A life of fucking roses and chocolates and expensive jewelry.

  For now, I’ll just have to work on keeping her alive.

  Pounding footsteps alert me to the guard a moment before Nina’s cell is opened. I jump to my feet, rage burning a fire through my veins, and place my hands on the bars.

  Man steps into Nina’s cell. Broad-shouldered and dressed in a suit of black armor, Man is a scary motherfucker. He always wears a dark visor that obscures his features from view. Only Nina has seen him, and she describes him as monstrous. Evil.

  He grips Nina’s thin arm, propelling her to her feet, and my girl releases a helpless whimper. Anger like no other burns low in my gut like lava.

  “Let her go!” I growl, voice barely recognizable.

  Man laughs coldly, ignoring me, and proceeds to lead Nina down the hall to the torture room.

  No!

  Something breaks inside me—snaps in half—and the next thing I know, claws have ejected from my fingers. Brilliant red scales line the inside of my arms.

  My mom always told me stories about my heritage—dragons—but I had never been able to shift before. I was beginning to believe that her stories were fabricated.

  I suck in air and then release it with a deafening roar. Fire bursts from my mouth and sets the bars aflame. The metal begins to bend and contort under my assault, smoke filling the air. Both my lungs and throat burn, but I don’t let up.

  Nina.

  I need to get to Nina.

  “Hey! Watch it, kid!” a strident voice screams. The door to my cell is wrenched open, and I find myself on my back, a cattle prod electrocuting my stomach. Pain consumes me as a second and third one joins the first.

  Nina.

  “He’s getting stronger,” I dimly hear someone say.

  “We can’t contain him,” someone else agrees.

  The very next day, I’m shipped to Nightmare Penitentiary.

  Stomach muscles clenching, I storm into the throne room. The door clatters loudly as it closes, the sound almost an ominous warning.

  Rion lifts his bloody head, a coy grin playing on his chapped lips. Damien stands just off to the side, absently spinning a blade between his fingers without a care in the fucking world.

  Both men freeze at whatever expression they see on my face.

  Bronson, behind me, has shifted fully into his wolf. It’ll help both alleviate the ache of losing Nina and heal his extensive injuries. In any other circumstance, I’d check on my longtime friend, but I have more important things to focus on.

  “Where is she?” I hiss, slamming my fists into Rion’s shoulders. There’s an audible crack, and there’s no doubt they’re dislocated, but Rion doesn’t even blink.

  “What the bloody hell are you talking about?” he asks with genuine curiosity.

  “Nina!” I press my thumb into an open wound on his chest.

  “Nina?” Damien asks slowly, carefully. His eyes are wide with panic before he quickly schools his features. A muscle in his jaw twitches. The man looks as if he can take on a dozen different men and women...and win. The scary motherfucker grabs a second dagger from inside his sleeve and holds it at the ready. I’m worried he’ll kill Rion before I can get information out of him.

  “Your shifters took her!” I roar. My grip on my dragon is fragile, feeble almost. Trying to stop him is like trying to push the waves back into the ocean. Smoke flares from my nostrils, and I briefly close my eyes, attempting to rein my beast in. I can’t help Nina if I’m too fucking big to maneuver the hallways.

  “My shifters,” Rion repeats, and my eyes snap open. For the first time since I’ve known him, there’s no manic insanity in his forbidding gaze. He twists on the cuffs restraining him, and they snap easily. He falls gracefully to his feet, long chains dragging behind him. Unperturbed, he grabs first one manacle and then the other and snaps them in half.

  Shit. The man wasn’t kidding. He really could’ve broken free whenever he fucking wanted to.

  “I’ll find her,” Rion announces darkly, already stalking past me. I move to follow, but Rion whirls on me before I can take more than a step. “They see you, and they’ll kill her. No question. If you want to get her out of this alive, you need to fucking trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “You need to,” he snaps. “Shifters or not, whoever took her will pay for what they did. And if they hurt her...” He trails off with a dark, raspy laugh. At that moment, I don’t see the crazy prisoner we’ve kept suspended from our ceiling. I see the ruthless, vicious gang member who created a following that rivaled my own.

  “I’ll go with him,” Damien says briskly. His voice leaves no room for argument...not that anyone would. The man’s eyes are devoid of any feeling, any warmth. The eyes of a psychopath.

  Rion nods once, already turning on his heel.

  I release a guttural roar, my final grip on sanity breaking. As my skin sizzles and expands, I eagerly give in to the shift. My dragon has to crouch to not hit his head on the ceiling.

  Bronson’s wolf whimpers, attempting to follow after Damien and Rion, but because of his disfigured leg, he’s unable to.

  Nina...

  If anyone has hurt her, they’ll get to experience the complete and unobstructed wrath of my dragon.

  And if Rion betrays me?

  Torture doesn’t even begin to encapsulate what he will endure.

  Chapter 30

  Nina

  I wrap my arms around my knees and sink further against the wall. A musty, coppery smell perfumes the air, though I can’t decipher if it’s from the lead pipes on the ceiling or the bloodstain on the ground.

  The woman—whose name I discover is Braelyn—had led me through a series of passageways and halls until we ended up in a large room. Dozens of shifters sat ramrod straight when she entered. Somehow, that tiny slip of a female was able to innately command respect from anyone and everyone who stared directly at her. It’s the type of power I yearn to have myself. When the shifters turned toward me, their expressions became leery and distrustful. More than one had growled at me.

  I was paraded through the throng of unruly men and women until I got to a cage in the corner. Through Braelyn’s eyes, I saw the cage wasn’t large enough for me to stand in. I doubted I could even sit upright. Rust was beginning to form on the bars, and a puddle of what I hoped wasn’t urine dripped over the sides.

  Not another cage...

  “Please,” I had begged desperately, dragging my feet. But my pleas had fallen on deaf ears as I was pushed unceremoniously into the minuscule cell.

  Now, I push my consciousness into the nearest shifter’s mind, sitting indolently on a cafeteria table. At least, that’s what I’m assuming the room is used for. Besides the cage in the corner, the rest of the room is filled with long wooden tables easily able to hold a dozen, the kind I’d expect in a cafeteria. Men and women laugh, have sex, and throw punches. For the most part, I’m left alone.

  I attempt to make myself as small as possible, placing my head between my knees.
Fear thunders through me, and my breathing is belabored. Cage after cage after cage. Is that all I’m good for? Being a prisoner? I inconspicuously brush a stray tear away. The last thing I need is to give in to the panic threatening to consume and swallow me whole.

  Deep breath.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  “What do you plan to do with Blade’s whore?” a masculine voice inquires. The rowdy cheers and laughter diminish like a flame being blown out until the room is utterly still and silent. All eyes focus on Braelyn.

  She’s sitting on one of the tables, her arm around a petite female. Her cold smile is a contrast to her elfin features and tiny stature. This woman is obviously not a stranger to killing. If the flames that enter her eyes are any indication, she revels in it.

  “We could kill her,” she suggests almost lazily, planting a kiss on her lover’s head. Untangling herself from the other woman, Braelyn stands and crosses the room.

  I cower, pressing my body flush against the bars.

  Deep breaths.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  “She’s so fucking skittish and weak, it would be like killing a puppy,” a man protests.

  Braelyn clicks her tongue, kneeling until she’s level with me. Her tiny hands slip through the bars and capture both my cheeks, holding me steady. I blink rapidly, attempting to dislodge the tears building.

  I can barely hear over the pounding of my heart. Terror clamps down on the organ in an impenetrable iron vise.

  Cage after cage after cage.

  Always a prisoner.

  Always. A. Prisoner.

  “Or...” Braelyn touches the skin beneath my right eye. “We could cut out her pretty eyes and send them as a present to Blade.” She releases me suddenly, turning back toward the others with a deranged smile on her normally beautiful face.

  In the next second, the door to the cage swings open on squeaky hinges. I press myself as far as I can against the corner, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

  An unfamiliar man reaches for me. Instinctively, I kick my foot out, catching him in the kneecap. My momentary spurt of satisfaction dissipates when he grabs my ankle and drags me out of the cell. My beautiful silver dress pulls up, bunching around my thighs, and tears of mortification burn my eyes.

  “Let’s teach Blade’s bitch a lesson, shall we?” Braelyn says, standing over me with her hands on her hips.

  I begin to sob.

  I’ve learned to compartmentalize my pain. Group it into tiny boxes and bury said boxes at the bottom of the ocean.

  Experiencing pain doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. How you handle yourself after the fact is what makes or breaks you as a person. Do you give in to your instincts and cry? Do you scream and fight? Do you empty yourself so you’ll feel nothing at all?

  There’s a delicate balance between being brave and being stupid. Do you dare to fight when you know the outcome will only be worse for you? Is it strength to accept your fate...or is that weakness?

  I’ve learned to embrace my pain. It makes me feel human. It reminds me that I can still feel, still endure.

  As Man stands over me, a malicious smile on his lips, I give in to the sensations battering for attention in my head. Blood wells on my leg from his scalpel, eliciting a hiss from my lips, one I quickly smother.

  My hands are secured on either side of my body. A thick rope digs into my waist, restraining me.

  “Are you going to scream for me, Little Monster?” he asks, red eyes glimmering in the sunlight streaming through the glass windows. At first, I thought the red eyes were fake, but now, I’m beginning to believe that they’re very, very real.

  He’s a monster through and through.

  “Stop,” I say weakly. Tiredly. I poke my tongue out to lick my unbearably dry lips.

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” he tsks. “You’re mine, Little Monster. Mine. I created you. Made you. You. Are. Mine.”

  “I’m nobody’s,” I manage to stutter out before unconsciousness consumes me.

  Chapter 31

  Rion

  I am a storm.

  I’m the wind rustling the boughs of trees, the lightning striking a deserted plain, and the thunder cackling up above. I’m the rain pelting your face, blurring your vision, and I’m the mud prohibiting forward momentum.

  I am wrath. I am rage. I am vengeance personified.

  Pace brisk, I hurry down the familiar halls of the Labyrinth. Gray stone walls turn smoother and wetter the farther we venture. Metal and lead pipes line the ceiling, sprouting in all directions. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear a man laughing. A woman’s sated moan. Screams.

  Damien follows silently behind me, an unwavering shadow. Not my shadow, but Nina’s.

  “Stay behind me at all times,” I instruct curtly. The last thing I need is Blade’s lapdog in shifter territory, but I know arguing with the mage will be futile. Damien will not be deterred. “Don’t engage. Don’t talk. Just shut the hell up.”

  With a nonchalance I know he doesn’t feel, Damien says, “You know, shifter, that I will kill you if anything has happened to her.”

  My hands clench at the thought before I force myself to relax, my tight body loosening incrementally.

  “Don’t worry. If she’s hurt, I’ll help you.”

  We’re silent as we maneuver the maze-like basement. Shifter territory is opposite Blade’s. There’s an invisible line that no one dares to breach—a red rock that protrudes at an unnatural angle from the stone wall. Crossing said line is a declaration of war.

  But it’s a line I’ll cross a million times if it means being with my fated mate.

  I still remember the first time I saw her, despondently leaning against the wall. Her beautiful, heart-shaped face had been downcast, but her milky eyes held a fierce determination. For a moment, I merely watched her. I balanced my human body precariously on one of the pipes, peering down at the beautiful female. Something in my chest tightened the longer I looked at her. A knot, almost, with the remainder of the rope connected to her. The longer I stared, the more persistent the tug became before I couldn’t resist the urge to crawl toward her.

  If my own people had hurt her...

  I don’t know what I’ll do.

  They better fucking hope they can run fast enough.

  Whistling beneath my breath, I shove my hands into my pockets and hesitate at a fork in the wall.

  “Left or right?” I ask Damien, and the scary man scoffs.

  “You don’t fucking know?” he roars. I hold my hands up placatingly.

  “Calm your titties, magic boy. No one knows where to go in the Labyrinth,” I say, staring down one direction and then the other. Both seemed to go on forever—an endless black abyss you could get lost in.

  Is Nina down one of them, scared to death? Is she hurt?

  My thoughts begin to swirl like a damn whirlpool, and I know they will only be settled by her magnetic presence.

  “Let’s go,” Damien growls, shoving past me and walking down the right tunnel. I follow behind, my claws digging into the stone and leaving behind a trail.

  After a few more right turns, we enter a cavernous room that serves as our cafeteria. Or, at least, one of them. We have three on our side of the prison, and Blade has two. It was the smaller one I had taken Nina to so many days ago.

  Long, wooden tables are evenly distributed in the center of the room, all of them occupied. There’s a hole in the right wall leading to a makeshift kitchen. While the cafeteria itself is powered by magic, capable of creating food whenever anyone enters their walls hungry, most of my shifters prefer to make their own. Only a year ago, we had torn a hole in the wall and bribed the guards to provide us with stoves, microwaves, and other stainless steel appliances.

  Rowdy shifters talk amongst each other. Some are in human form, fighting and fucking, while others are animals. I spot a monkey hanging from t
he pipes, and an alligator resting in the corner.

  A single cage is against the wall at the front of the room, the door hanging open on its hinges. It was my idea to have it in plain view of everyone. A way to shame and demean the person in question. Normally, we reserve it for out of control shifters or murderous assholes.

  If they shoved Nina in that fucking cage, I’ll kill them all.

  The shifters go deathly silent as I stalk forward, bending down to stare into the cage. Tapping into my enhanced senses, I inhale deeply. Piss, blood, and mold permeate the air. Underneath it all, subdued, is the familiar floral scent of my precious mate.

  Fucking hell. Murder spree it is, I suppose.

  Growls reverberate behind me, low and threatening. No doubt, Damien has entered the room as well. I glance over my shoulder as the tall, slender man moves forward with a grace and elegance that belies his predatory nature. He doesn’t seem at all perturbed that he has basically entered the lion’s den. Those cold, dead eyes of his survey each and every face with unwavering intensity. More than one shifter blanches, lowering their heads.

  Maybe Blade did something right keeping Damien on hand. I can see how appealing it can be to have my very own psychopath at my beck and call.

  At that moment, he’s not the prey, but the apex predator.

  “The prisoner who was here...” I nod toward the empty cage. “Where is she?” My voice is low and quiet, but it carries in the room as if I’ve been screaming. The dominance I exude is capable of bringing grown-assed men to their knees. Shifters, like all animals, follow a certain hierarchy. Power is key. You’re a predator...or you’re prey. There is no fucking in between.

  I have always, and will always, be the predator. The tiger pursuing the tasty selection of morsels spread out before him. The hunter. The monster.

  Her monster.

  One of the men, an avian shifter, points toward the far hallway leading to the cells.

  Without another word, I storm in that direction, not bothering to check if Damien is following behind me. For all I know, he was feeling cute and decided to get stabby.