Braxton was the first to recover. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” His eyes flashed as he straightened in his chair. “You do that and I’ll follow you around with a goddamn steak … day and night.” His voice lowered on the last of his threat.
“And ice cream,” Maximus added. They knew I loved dessert of any description. Sugar was my weakness. “You lose one inch off that delectable ass and we can’t be friends any longer.” He crossed his arms over his chest, which at least freed up some space on his side.
I internally rolled my eyes. Braxton and Maximus’ responses were not a surprise. The predator supes were pretty earthy and sexual.
I stared at the three Compasses. Their unwavering attention was locked on me, their faces scrunched-up and all of them frowning. The morons looked really worried. Then I couldn’t hold a straight face any longer. My lips curved up as laughter burst from me. I flipped them off.
“Like I would give up food for any man.” I followed the middle finger with another rude gesture that shifters were fond of.
Their retaliation was cut off as the council members stood, ready to start our meeting. Braxton leaned in closer to me. “Just for that, no sharing of my dessert tonight.”
Ouch, that was mean. He always got extra for me, I could never fit enough on my plate. I turned sad eyes on him, but he just shook his head. Damn, the girly-act wouldn’t work twice on him tonight. Problem was, it wasn’t really an act, I was genuinely sad without cake.
Kristoff was center stage, where he liked to be. “Quiet now,” he said, and the room fell silent. We all knew disobeying your council leaders was bad news, no matter your own personal power levels. “Thank you to all that take the time to attend our monthly meetings. We have much to discuss. You will remain patient until we finish explaining all the details to you. There is some news that you will find shocking, but rest assured you will understand … mostly everything.”
Yeah, everything they wanted us to understand. Our council operated the same way as all powerful groups. Control worked best when the rest of us were kept in the dark about things. Like where the prison was that we were supposed to be laying down our lives to guard. And speaking of the prison system, it seemed there was some news.
Julianna started us off with a bang. “Prisons in Romania, Greece, Japan and Scotland have been infiltrated in the last month.” Her beautiful face did not change expression despite the symphony of gasps that blasted through the hall. “There were numbers of prisoners broken out. The filtered down information we’re receiving seems to indicate this is a worldwide strike against our system.”
I shifted forward to the edge of my seat. There was an entire network of secret supernatural prisons around the world, at least one in every continent. Supernatural numbers were much less than humans, which is why despite the size of America we only needed one prison. And like Stratford’s hidden Vanguard, we knew very little about the different prisons. I had never heard of a mass break-out like this.
“Sounds like an inside job,” I heard Braxton mutter.
I turned and met his gaze, the fine skin around my eyes tightened as his words penetrated my brain. I agreed with him, and surely that would narrow the pool of suspects considerably.
Jonathon spoke then. “We don’t want you to panic, we’ve had no word that Vanguard is to be hit, and our hold is strong.” He sent out some calming vibes, which for an alpha of his power worked on everyone, even those not shifter. “We’ve tightened up security, and we urge no one to run by themselves in the forest for a little while.”
He leveled his warm gaze on me. I kept my expression calm, eyes wide as if I were innocent. Nothing escaped my father’s attention, he knew what the Compasses and I had been doing. He’d turned a blind eye but there was a subtle warning in his tone now. No more night runs searching for the prison, which would rankle the boys. Something about being denied their rights to view it really pissed them off.
Jonathon finished his speech. “We’ll keep you appraised of what happens. Our belief is that we’ll soon bring those involved to justice and they’ll join our prison system in a different manner.”
The next lot of news came from Galiani. “The body of one of my brethren was discovered on the edge of the forest this morning.”
Gasps and curses rang out again. Shit, they were hitting us with the serious news this afternoon. A dead fey. The element wielders were damn hard to kill, so what had happened? I glanced at Jacob. It was always terrible to lose a member of your supernatural race. I could see his chest vibrating, his anger palatable. He sat rigidly next to Braxton.