I stared at it for a few extra beats, but finally I couldn’t resist any longer. I lifted the sugary goodness up and placed a corner to my lips. Moans fell from my mouth as the smooth, buttery lemon taste coated my tongue. When I finally finished the cake I noticed Braxton was just staring at me, his sandwich halfway to his mouth.
“What?” I mumbled.
“You almost died and this … this is what moves you to tears and moans.”
I widened my eyes, and bit my lip. What was he saying? I was shallow? How dare he, asshole … okay, maybe I was a little.
But then he exhaled, and a flicker of his dimple appeared. He seemed to wrench his eyes away from me. “Don’t ever change,” he said in a low tone. “Ever.”
Hmmm, maybe shallow was not the word he was thinking then.
The rest of the afternoon was peaceful, which is strange considering I did almost die today. The bruises on my neck came out in spectacular fashion by the time dinner trays were delivered. Shifter healing was extra slow with all of this silver around. The trays held no cake this time, but that was okay, I’d already had my fill for the day. The next few days followed in the same routine, and like good supernaturals, most of the prisoners were taking Braxton’s warning very seriously. But for some reason I felt like something big was coming my way.
Two days until the trial, we were sitting in the gym area. Braxton was lifting like a thousand ton weight or something ridiculous. I was doing sit-ups.
His voice startled me. “Jessa, I haven’t heard any more numbers after eight.” Shit … I’d fallen asleep on the blue mat.
I struggled into another sit-up. “I did like fifty, I just didn’t count them all.” I smoothed back a few tendrils that had escaped my ponytail and wiped off the trail of drool from my mouth.
I flicked my head around at an increase in the already impressive noise level. I stood to try to find the source. The multitude of guards that were usually camped out around the perimeter started going crazy, sprinting from their stations toward the front gate. As an alarm began to wail, Braxton pulled me closer to him. This siren was really different to the short burst which announced the end of mingling time.
“What’s going on?” I wondered if Braxton had a better view.
He shook his head, using a towel to mop up sweat. “No idea, but something is definitely up. Let’s move closer.” He was all business as he dropped the white cloth and gripped my hand, pulling me through the masses.
As we moved through the crowd I recognized one of the guards dashing past us. I reached out and grabbed his arm. He glared down at me, before shaking himself free.
“You might be my council leader’s daughter,” the wolf shifter growled at me. “But in here you’re a prisoner, and you don’t get to touch me.”
I ignored his words. “What’s going on? What’s the alarm for?”
The siren was loud enough to make talking difficult, but I knew he heard my questions. He hesitated. I didn’t think he would answer, but then with a sigh he said, “I’m not totally sure, we haven’t been briefed yet, but that alarm generally means there’s been a breakout.”
He took off then, leaving Braxton and I staring around the room.
“I heard it was more dragon marked,” a female said from close by.
My head spun to find a witch, with very short pixie hair, watching the room. She continued to speak. “It was from a secret room. Two women, alone, staged the breakout.”
Braxton and I exchanged a glance. Could they have freed them from that room we got Nash from? How the hell were these women doing this? Just two of them, it would be impossible if they didn’t have inside information. I tried to contain my excitement that those poor imprisoned supernaturals might be freed now, especially the children. They had not been far from my mind, even with all the prison drama.
The chaos continued for hours, only quieting down when we were finally back in our cells. The information spreading around was exactly what the witch had said. Prisoners freed from a separate section of the prison. What the hell was going on?
The day before we were due to stand trial, I’d just finished in the shower and was stepping out to get dressed. For the first time, all week, Braxton wasn’t waiting there with clothes. That was odd. He was so diligent in his protection of me that even in our cell he seemed to always be on my ass. And not in a good way. I scrunched my towel a little tighter, tucking in the lip to stop it from falling down. Looking left and right there were lots of shifters around, but no massive dragon man to be seen.
I was worried, but knew I needed to get dressed before I started searching. With my eyes darting around, paying attention to my surroundings, I crossed the freezing tiled floor in the direction of the shelves. I reached the women’s section and moved down to find something in my size. I’d just turned my face to see what was in the next row when something hit me hard in the side of the head.