“Really? This is legit?”
He nods. “And Mr. Williams has a matching set of documents.”
I launch myself at Dr. Palmore and throw my arms around his neck. “Thank you so much!”
To my surprise, he hugs me back. “I'm sorry we kept you here so long. I don’t know quite what happened, or how it happened, but I’m glad to remedy things for the two of you.” He steps back and gestures at my open door. “Go. Go to him.”
I don’t need to be told twice. With my discharge papers in hand, I run down the hall to Tiras’s room.
He's standing in the doorway with a satchel on his shoulder and a wide grin on his face. He's got an envelope in his hand, and I know what the papers inside say without even looking. Tiras wraps me in his arms, and I sink into his embrace.
“I can't believe this is happening…after all this time.” I tilt my head to gaze into his eyes. “But how? I didn't think mages could conjure other mages.”
With a smile he takes my chin in his hand. “No, they can't…but they can summon demons, and those demons can choose to give up their demonic powers and become human.”
“Summon demons…?” I think back on my life with Tiras, and it occurs to me that I never considered that I might not be a conjurer. Summoners are rare, cooperative demons more so, and I guess I never put two and two together. Tiras has an ancient, biblical name, he’s never aged in all the years I've known him, and those stunning amber eyes…I don’t know how I didn’t add it all up before.
Non-magic humans always talk about how evil and dangerous demons are, but to us mages, they’re just another race. A deadly race from another dimension, yes, but not inherently evil. Mages and demons interact all the time, just through spells and incantations for the most part. The mage community holds summoners in high regard, because they—we, I guess—can better facilitate deals with the demon realm. It’s strange that I got misclassified for so long, though. With how sought-after summoners are, one would think they’d come up with a way to differentiate us from conjurers.
“Can I summon other demons?”
“Do you want to?” He dazzles me with a crooked grin, and I realize I don’t care if I can summon anyone else. I have the demon—ex-demon—that I want, and he’s right here in my arms.
His lips meet mine in a fiery hot kiss, and I wonder if he's a pyro mage like the twins. It would make sense for a demon to get fire powers when he becomes human, but such a thing is so unheard of that I can only guess for now.
When we come up for air, he's got a tender smile on his face and tears of his own sliding down his cheeks. I've never seen him cry before. Maybe when he was a demon he couldn’t.
“I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you. It's harder than I thought it would be to convince the authorities that I'm crazy, so it took a few days to get committed here.” He winks. “I had to set three different fires and give an officer second degree burns before they’d bring me in.”
So I guessed right. “You burned a cop?”
“Only a little…and I made sure there was a healer nearby when I did it.”
Dr. Palmore taps me on the shoulder. I didn’t even hear him walk over to us. “Ahem. You two should probably get going, before I change my mind.” His smile gives him away, so I know he's just joking, but I take Tiras's hand and pull him towards the exit just in case.
We walk out the front door of the asylum hand-in-hand, our faces tilted up to the sun, the winds of freedom blowing through our hair.
I don’t know what we’ll do for a living now that we're both free, but I do know one thing: whatever we do, we’ll do it together.
The End
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About the Author
AJ Mullican lives on four acres in southern Arizona with her husband and two Maine coon mixes. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading, sewing, embroidering, or fencing. She participates in historical reenactment (pre-1600) and makes much of her own garb and embellishments.
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Read More of AJ’s Books
Whispers of Death
Abnormal
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection
Reporting For Duty
A Paranormal Prison Short Story
Set in the world of the upcoming Raven Sentries of Shadow Island series.
Bee Murray
About
Dalia Rowan hates surprises. She hates them more than she hates snakes, her lying ex-boyfriend Landon, and all the stupid superstitions her grandmother has. Born to Raven Royalty, Dalia prefers to focus on the life that has been planned for her a future elite Raven Bodyguard. When she finds herself plucked out of her own bedroom on her birthday by The Fates and abandoned on Shadow Island, she refuses to accept this as her new normal.
Jace and Gage Anders are trapped. When The Fates dropped them on this god-forsaken rock at age twenty-five, they assumed they would be allowed to leave when their term was up. The Fates had another plan. A plan that traps them as forever-guardians of the maximum security prison Shadow Island. The magic of the Island forces them to spend long days and nights in their shifted form, stuck as Raven Sentries. With all hope of escape long gone, the Anders Brothers hope only for a miracle to break up the monotony of their sentence.
Will Dalia be the hope the Anders Brothers have been waiting for or will she end up being their downfall? Introduce yourself to this Raven shifter trio in Reporting For Duty, a short story set in the world of the upcoming paranormal prison series: Raven Sentries of Shadow Island by emerging paranormal romance author Bee Murray.
Reporting For Duty
Jace Anders, Raven Sentry Badge #658
Patrol Grounds, Shadow Island SuperMax Prison
My back cracks painfully as I perch on my ledge. The shifts have been harder the last few days and I can feel the strain in my wings as I stretch them out, struggling to hold them steady against the gale force winds that continue to grow in ferocity.
I scan the horizon for threats out of habit but it is just an exercise in futility. We haven’t seen another being in months. The magic of the island holds our residents in place and a successful escape has never been achieved. If we are being truly honest, it holds us in place too.
Everyone knows the grim reality: Shadow Island isn’t for rehabilitation, it’s a place to suffer for your sins until you die. It’s all part of the grand plan for justice, according to The Fates. If you ask my brother and I? We might as well be guarding an extra-haunted cemetery.
My brother and I have been the only Raven sentries assigned to the Shadow Island SuperMax for the last five years. We were dropped here by The Fates on our twenty-fifth birthday. Within two days, our mentors and former sentries had disappeared and we were stuck. The magic of the place holds us here and day after day, night after night, we stand watch.
Lately the magic has been stronger, forcing us to remain in our Raven forms longer and longer, our human sensitivities growing weaker and weaker. I still hold onto a small sliver of hope that The Fates will one day change their mind and either send us reinforcements or send us home. Gage has no such faith.
I shift on my bit of rock again, the electricity in the air tingling my senses, as I struggle to find a more comfortable resting spot. Clearly, a storm is coming in. Living out here, there are few things I hate more than storms. The wind makes it all but impossible to fly the perimeter and the constant rain splashing aga
inst the rocks ensures you are always wet, never warm.
The screams and calls of our prisoners rising in volume with the wind. Each battling the other for the last word in a never-ending screaming match at the end of the world. When you house the world’s most dangerous supernatural prisoners on a forsaken rock in the middle of the ocean, you really don’t want anyone getting more worked up than they already are. They are the only residents on this Island with nothing to lose.
An especially bright lightning strike illuminates the sky and my eyes widen as I catch a glimpse of a small shape falling through the storm, lit up in the sky with a trajectory that was clearly the Island. Our Island.
Traveling through lightning? Arriving in the middle of the night? Destined for the Outer Wall and not the Prison? That can only mean one thing: The Fates have sent us someone or something. Prisoners land in the center of the Island, but gifts from The Fates are always on the Outer Wall.
The pain in my back is forgotten as I strain to see through the rain and pinpoint the exact location where the stranger landed and excitement courses through my veins. For the first time, in a very, very long time, I could get to speak to another person other than by twin. For the first time, in a very, very, VERY long time, I have hope that maybe we won’t die here like everyone else.
With determination borne of desperation and the need to hear something, anything from the outside world, I launch my tired Raven through the storm and head towards the outer wall and the ever so small beacon of hope. A part of me smiles when I hear a small scream of rage float towards me on the wind, coming from the general direction.
Someone is definitely here.
Dalia Rowan, Raven Clan Rowan
The Ledge, Shadow Island SuperMax Prison Outer Wall
They say The Fates have a sense of humor. They conveniently forget to tell you that their sense of humor is twisted and sadistic. Twisted sadism can be the only rational explanation for why I am stuck on a freezing cold rock in the middle of an ocean, dressed only in my underwear.
Happy freaking birthday to me.
I shiver violently as the wind howls all around me and the mist from the waves below soaks me through. The heat generated from lightning travel has worn off and I am vividly aware that I am sitting exposed, in the middle of a hurricane, in nothing more than a bra and panties.
Somewhere behind me high-pitched wails mix with the sounds of the storm in an eerie song. I have no idea where the fuck I am, but from the looks and sound of it, it’s not a place people come on purpose. It’s certainly not a place that I have any desire to be. There is magic here. Dark magic. It pulls and pokes at me. The air is wild and sinister here and I fight the urge to hide in my Raven form. My instincts tell me that to shift now would be to give in to the magic. A Rowan doesn’t give in. We get even.
I scoot on my butt along the ledge and see that it continues to descend into the mist, like a spiral or a staircase of some kind. The mapping exercise distracts me long enough to resist the shift and I am thankful for the appearance of the Rowan stubbornness as I try to take inventory of the things I know:
I traveled by lightning, without warning, so The Fates have to be involved. Check.
I am in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s cold. There’s water. And wind. And rock. Check.
There are other creatures here, somewhere. Check.
I will die if I do not get inside and find shelter. Yikes. Check.
This ledge or staircase or whatever it is isn’t big enough for me to shift into my Raven fully yet the magic surrounding it really, really wants me to. Must resist. Check.
I am sitting here in my underwear. That’s...problematic. Check.
If this is where The Fates intend me to complete my service, they have another thing coming. They can check the hell out of that.
I may be cold. I may be terrified. I may even be in way, way over my head. But goddess-damn it all, I am a Rowan! We are the Ravens chosen by royalty. We watch over the world. We guard moments in history and the shadowy elite who orchestrate them. We do not….visit whatever strange hell this is.
My little pep talk does nothing to alleviate any of my concerns but the quick image of my Grandmother sweeping into The Council and demanding an explanation in all of her Old World regal glory gave me a small measure of hope. Grandmother would never let me languish here. This isn’t part of our plan.
I was supposed to do my service with minor royalty somewhere in Europe before being elevated to a personal bodyguard to the elite where I would live out my life in the state of luxury and privilege I am accustomed to. Clearly, The Fates got it wrong.
The thought was barely out of my head when an especially large wave suddenly crashed against the rock and drenched me from head to toe in frigid sea water, seaweed and sand.
The Fates are salty, vindictive bitches. I roar back at the ocean, my scream full of rage and fear. They may have put me here, but I am not done fighting. I am a daughter of Raven Clan Rowan. I will write my own fate.
I duck, anticipating another wave of retribution to head towards me but none come. Instead, on the horizon, I see a dark object battling the wind and headed my way. Crap. This Island has guards.
Gage Anders, Raven Sentry Badge #657
The Nest, Shadow Island SuperMax Prison
I woke up suddenly because something in the air changed and then the magic of the Island shifted. It was subtle, but there was something--a new undercurrent that I couldn’t put my finger on. Whatever it was, it made my shift out of Raven and back into Gage painless for the first time in months. I sent a silent prayer of thanks to The Fates for granting me that small mercy.
The storm raging outside rattled the windows in our shack and the chill seeped in through the wide cracks in the walls. Jace would still be out on patrol. Of the two of us, he’s more of the Boy Scout. No matter the weather, he’s out there doing his perimeter checks and patrolling.
I gave up on that kind of dedication years ago. The magic here is oppressive and it eats away at your soul. It’s calculated, as if it knows if we are constantly walking a tightrope between hope and despair, we won’t realize how much time has gone by. It’s been five years since I have spoken to anyone other than my brother.
Five long years since I have seen another of my kind. I am done with giving my all for nothing in return. Throwing my finger to the storm outside, I decide to ignore the disturbance in favor of my favorite activity: sleep.
With a brother like Jace there really wasn’t any point in getting worked up anyway. He’s a natural and will do it for you without even asking. I mute the mental link with my twin and climb back into bed. Dreary days call for immediate naps. It’s not like anything happens here anyway.
Jace
The Outer Wall is finally in range and I can’t help myself, I start scanning it obsessively, anxious to see our gift from The Fates. Gliding above the mist, I can see up and down the wall and but it is as blank as it always is. I glide further and doubleback, too stubborn to entertain the notion that maybe this was a trick of the light and I imagined the whole episode.
On my third pass, I saw movement and dove to get closer. Standing on the ledge in only her underwear was a woman brandishing a clump of seaweed at me with the fierceness of a Valkyrie.
Holy Goddess of Heaven and Hell.
I approach slowly and see that the woman, despite her fierceness, is clearly freezing. She is shaking, her long wet hair falling limply by her face, water dripping off her and pooling at her feet.
She is screaming out at me, gesturing with her clump of seaweed and stomping her feet. Her eyes are wild and a curious combination of fear and anger radiates off her. There’s something else about her. Something strangely familiar. I cock my head at her, taking her in. A gust of wind blows her forward a few steps and the smell hits me like a ton of bricks.
Shifter. Raven Shifter. Female Raven Shifter.
My eyes widen in recognition and I do what any normal sentry would do when suddenly face t
o face with another of their kind after many long years: I dive off the ledge in a panic.
Swooping down, I fly the wall until I find the beginning of the stairs. Gage! They sent us a woman! I scream the words into our twin mental link as I circle the small stair alcove and take cover from the storm to collect myself.
Gage is not great at being a Raven Sentry. He doesn’t do protocols, perimeter checks, or even contingency planning. The rigid and lonely life of a guard was never his dream. But one thing Gage always knows how to do: talk to women. Where I get tongue tied and stare awkwardly, Gage is able to make actual conversation. He sets people at ease and they just,trust him. He would know what to do with the woman on our Wall. He wouldn’t just leave her there all by herself on a perilous ledge.
GAGE! WAKE. UP!
The link remains silent and I sigh. Without Gage’s help, I have no idea how to convince her that I mean her no harm. I turn to face the storm again and the feathers on the back of my neck raise up in alarm. Perched just out of reach, she is there watching me. Her feathers are slick with rain and she hops from one foot to the other, as if preparing to take off and fly away if I so much as look at her wrong.
Shit.
Before I could awkwardly bungle this situation any more, the perimeter alarm blares--startling us both and sending me into Sentry mode. All awkwardness is gone as I hurry her out of the alcove and nip her wings, urging her to follow me. We glide together, wings flapping hard against the storm as I race to The Nest, eager to get her safe before we investigate which of our residents got a little out of hand. She is silent, refusing to engage or communicate, but she stays close.
Hexes and Handcuffs: A Limited Edition Collection of Supernatural Prison Stories Page 42
