“Screw it,” Braxton growled. “I’m coming in with you. We can just turn our backs on each other.”
I knew what had gotten him so upset again. A lot of stares were being leveled in our direction and there was a distinctive dark nature to most of them. Surprisingly enough, the majority of venom was coming from the women. Which I was used to, especially since I was always with the Compasses. The female supernaturals wanted the biggest, baddest boy in their race. It was a sign of our own female strength, power, and attractiveness to snag an alpha. Pathetic, I know. But Braxton, Maximus, Jacob, and Tyson were the best of the best. I was the number one blame for the fact that they wouldn’t settle down with anyone. Which was bullshit, no one controlled those men, and that was mostly the reason they were forever single. That, and the fact they believed in finding their mates, and they were yet to.
Whips in hand, the guards spread out around the room. I wanted to flinch at the silver glinting in the leather but I forced myself to stay calm.
“You have forty minutes to clean yourselves up,” a stocky mage yelled out into the room. “Move it now.”
Forty minutes was longer than I’d expected.
Braxton and I strode to the shower right on the very end. I knew why he would want this stall. If we were attacked, there were only two sides they could come at us, instead of three. We stepped into the tight space, the curtain sliding across to block out the world. I reached down to lift off my shirt.
“You know what, I’ll go in the one next to you.” Braxton’s voice went low. “No one can attack you from the side and I’ll see them pass mine to get to your stall.”
Just like that he was gone. I stood there for a moment, staring at my bare feet which rested on the tiled floor. Thankfully this place looked to be cleaned with magic, so it was sparkling. No foot fungus here. Okay, what was Braxton’s deal? It’d better be that my body turned him on and not that he found me repulsive, because I was totally not cool with that. Best friend or not, I thought he was the yummiest thing since chocolate cake, and it hurt somewhere deep in my chest that maybe … maybe he didn’t see me the same way.
Did this mean I wanted to date him? Hell no. It just meant I wasn’t blind or stupid.
Shit, I was acting like a silly girl. We had more important things to worry about. I quickly stripped off my clothes and hung them on one of the pegs. The water was automatically running in each stall, so I stepped under. I expected it to be cold, some sort of prison torture, but instead it was deliciously warm. Since it had been pretty cool outside in the stone and tile room, my limbs relaxed under the warmth. There were soap dispensers attached to the tiles. The entire time I kept my back to the wall and my eyes locked on the thin curtain. No one was getting the drop on me, and I was so not thinking about Braxton’s naked body just inches from my own. No freaking way.
“Don’t drop the soap, Brax,” I teased through the thin layer. We needed to get back to our usual selves. Something was changing and I wasn’t sure I was okay with it.
I heard his groan. “Jessa, you’re going to be the death of me.”
I snorted, no idea what that even meant.
When I was finished I reluctantly stepped back from the water. There was a towel hanging on a hook, and I knew the clothes were out on the shelves that lined the walls.
I slipped past the curtain, the white cotton sheet wrapped tightly around me. Braxton was already there, waiting, dressed and watching for me to emerge.
“I got you some cottons,” he said, holding out a lump of gray material.
“Thanks.” I took them and slipped behind the curtains to throw them on.
Gah, I was already sick of this color. Even the underwear matched. Oh well, guess I should be grateful to even have clothes. I’d heard that one of the prisons in Europe had to mandate a full nudity policy. They were having incidents with concealed weapons and smuggling of goods. There was no screwing around in these prisons. If things needed to be done, it happened … immediately. Although, one would have thought that the nudity thing would lead to problems of another nature. It would have been a full-on-disaster in human prisons. Luckily supes were naked a lot so it didn’t end up being a huge deal and it worked, their incidents of concealed goods and weapons dropped dramatically.
Stepping out of the stall again, I moved to my guard-dragon’s side. The shifters were congregating now, forming a line to get back out of the shower area. We were a little in front, our hands linked.
“Don’t come to the mingling room at lunchtime.” The voice was female, low and whispered directly into my ear. I spun around to find a small, red-haired woman ducking back down through the line.