Supernatural Prison World #1
Catch up on the Supernatural Prison World
There are magically hidden towns around the world which are entirely occupied by supernatural races. There are five races: Shifter, Vampire, Magic User (witch/wizard, sorceress/sorcerer), Fey (Faerie), and Demi-Fey (Ogres, trolls, harpies, gargoyles, mermaids, etc). They all live together in relative peace.
Bordering many of these towns are prisons which house supernatural criminals. These crims are contained there to keep the world, and humans especially, safe from them. Humans do not know about these races, except for the Guilds – specially chosen families who help the supernatural communities acquire things in the human world, and integrate if needed.
Stratford, Connecticut is the supernatural prison town in the USA, controlled by a council of five powerful supes, one from each of the races. Maximus Compass has just become the vampire leader. His brothers (quads) Braxton, Jacob, and Tyson, are the shifter, fey, and magic leaders also.
These quads are newly elected to their leadership role, after having defeated the dragon king in an epic throw-down battle. The king was trying to take over all of the councils around the world. He failed. But there has been much carnage left in his wake.
The quads are pack mates with Jessa Lebron, wolf shifter, and her twin sister, Mischa Lebron.
This is Mischa and Max's story.
Other terms
True Mate – A fated mateship. Mates will have a physical and mental connection. Only between supernaturals of the same species (i.e shifter and shifter).
Chosen Mate – A mateship which is chosen between supernaturals. Length of time is up to the couple involved. Can be between any of the races, and sometimes even with humans.
Half-Breed – The offspring of supernatural and human mating. They generally have nothing more than some advanced senses. Live normal human lives.
Hybrid – Offspring between two different supernatural races. Vampire and shifter offspring will be a hybrid of both races. Weaker in some ways than full blooded race members.
Dragon Mated – Dragon shifters are not genetic, and cannot be inherited. They are only born when a dragon soul chooses to bond with a supernatural. The two become dragon mated. Very rare, and very powerful beings are dragon shifters.
Maximus Compass
Each night the emptiness claims me and each morning I force myself to awake. Aimlessly, I wander the streets of the human world, feeding to survive. At times I briefly contemplate ending it all, but I refuse to leave my brothers or Jessa.
Speaking of my number one girl, a buzzing illumination indicated I had another text. She was relentless, never letting me wallow in my misery.
Jessa babe: Maximus Compass, where the fuck are you? Seriously, dude, I'm as fat as a house and my eyes are literally falling from my head I'm that tired. Mainly because two babies are kicking the shit out of me every night. I need you to come home. Braxton won't stop feeding me. I'm starting to waddle. WADDLE.
An actual smile forced its way across my face. She was the one light in my darkness, the reason I was heading in the direction of Stratford. Though I wasn't sure I could step into the community again. That was the place my mate had … died. I was able to say the word now, but it still burned like the hottest fires of hell. I needed to start accepting what had happened. Truth was, the guilt was killing me. Guilt and pain. I hadn't protected Cardia. I was too busy trying to save everyone else. My duty should have been to her first, and yet it never was.
I didn't deserve a true mate, and so the fates, those evil bitches, had taken her from me. I wanted to kill them. But, unfortunately, that was impossible.
My phone buzzed again.
Jessa babe: I'm serious, Max. You need to come home. There's stuff happening, the shifter bears are planning some sort of coup against Braxton. We need you. The council needs you.
She was pulling out the big guns now, reminding me of my responsibility, of my brothers. I missed those assholes. We had barely been apart since birth, and it was our birthday soon. Twenty-three. And yet I felt like I was a thousand years old. Old and completely done.
I hit her back with a brief text.
On my way.
That was all she needed to know.
Mischa Lebron
Curses were ringing out as I stepped through the front door of the Compass home.
"Are you goddamn kidding me? For shit's sake! Purple … who needs ten different shades of purple? And what the hell is magenta?"
Hearing a whole lot of swearing was not unusual when popping into the home my twin, Jessa, shared with her dragon shifter mate, Braxton. The first few times it happened I'd taken off at a run, convinced that for anyone to be shouting like that they were either being murdered or going into early labor. She was expecting twins and no one could be sure when they were going to arrive. But now I knew better. Lately, the usual culprit of her ire was when someone ate the last piece of cake.
Never touch a pregnant shifter's cake. This mantra was now drilled into me, and I was not likely to forget. Of course, this time it was clearly something else. The color purple had her all a tizzy.
I hurried as fast as I could down the hall, but with my own impending pregnancy I wasn't exactly in running shape. Yep, my twin and I had decided we should do everything together, including having our first babies.
"Jess," I yelled, to let her know I was on my way, before remembering that was pretty much redundant. Bad habit from my human days. She was a wolf shifter, and would have heard me before I even made it across the front porch.
"I'm in the dining room, Misch," she bellowed back. And then: "What the actual freaking hell? Screw this."
There was a crash, followed by multiple clatters of small objects as they were seemingly flung across the room. I laughed then, and it was weird to hear something so light and carefree fall from my lips. Lately I had been channeling sad sack in the worst kind of way. I wanted to blame pregnancy hormones, and they definitely had something to do with it, but mostly it was … other stuff.
Trying my best to minimize the waddle, I strode along the small hall and through the living area, which was deserted, and into the next room. Jessa was at her usual spot behind the absolutely breathtaking dining table, a hand-carved masterpiece that should be in a museum or something.
Seriously, I wasn't sure anyone else in Stratford understood how unique a design and shape it was. In the human world it would go for tens of thousands of dollars, easily. No human could have made it by hand. Only a supernatural would have the strength and fine dexterity skills to do what Braxton Compass had done. My twin's mate was not only a scary-as-heck dragon shifter, lethal and godlike gorgeous, but he was also an artist. Deep down. You couldn't make something so beautiful and not have artistry in your soul.
Long, inky black hair – the exact replica of my own – shot everywhere as Jessa's head flung up. She locked eyes with me. The color was a deep blue that reminded me of a perfectly-cut sapphire. One of the few differences between us was our eyes. Mine were turquoise, closer to green than blue. I made my way around to her side of the table, noticing now that she had a poor book clutched tightly in both of her hands.
She lifted it up and waved it in my face. "This is all your fault. Seriously … " She started mimicking me in a high pitched voice: "‘You need to do something to calm yourself, Jessa.' So I decided to try something new."
I finally caught sight of the book cover and a torrent of laughter burst from me. Side-splitting, belly-aching laughter. I tried to catch my breath as I sank down next to her, easing my girth in behind the table. Even as the laughter died off, a huge, beaming smile never left my face. My cheeks were actually hurting.
My twin was pure comedic gold, even when she wasn't trying to be.
"Where did you get this from?" I asked, prying it out of her iron grip. Smoothing the white cover down on the adult coloring book, I flicked through the pages. Jessa had made an attempt on half a dozen of the pictures but hadn't gotten more than a few strokes of color into each one.
The title caught my attention again. "Of course you would buy a coloring book titled The Eff Bomb Coloring Book – For adults who need to release some anger."
Each page contained one large curse word, with some sort of artsy or flowery design around it. I paused on an image in the middle, one which Jessa had started to outline with the now-hated color purple.
"What's a cockswabbler?" I asked, wrinkling my brow as I tried to work out if that was a real thing or made up.
As the word left my lips, I found myself looking over my shoulder, expecting my mother to magically appear and smack me up the side of the head. Lienda Lebron did not like us ladies cursing, which made life very interesting when she was around Jessa.
My sister laughed. "Dude! I think you need this book more than me. We have to update your vocab. I don't want to hear ‘gosh golly gee' out of your mouth one more time."
I swatted her with the book. "I've never said golly gee in my life."
"Whatever," Jessa said. "I'm still saying this book is your fault. The coloring made you all Zen and stuff, even with a baby taking up what feels like permanent residence in your uterus and kicking the crap out of you, so I ordered one through the Guilds. I, of course, went for something more interesting than Nature's Beauty."