The last part was muttered, his voice low and strained. I had caused them a lot of stress with my little stunt. No doubts they’d try to exact some form of punishment at a later date.
Kristoff edged his way forward to speak. “Jessa and Mischa of the Lebron wolf shifters.”
My mom and my twin had dropped Jackson and went by Lebron now. They were officially part of the family.
“You are charged with infiltrating Vanguard, the American supernatural prison. You will be escorted to the prison now and there will be a trial in seven days.”
I stepped forward, nudging my way through the Compasses. Braxton reached out and captured my arm, preventing me moving further forward than that. Actually, he was trying to shift me behind his back, but I wasn’t budging.
“Mischa only came in to stop me,” I said. No reason we both had to go down. “She is innocent of this charge.”
“Jessa!” my father’s bellow was loud and filled with power. “Do not say one more thing.”
I shut my mouth because I knew when he meant business.
Jonathon faced his fellow council members. “Lienda and I need a minute with our daughters before anything is decided. You’ve outvoted me on their imprisonment, but I would like to ask a few questions before they’re taken.”
No one but Kristoff objected to this, so our parents crossed the space between us. When he reached my side Jonathon enclosed me in a hug. We stepped back behind the Compass line of men. He then pulled Lienda and Mischa in with his other arm. We were a Lebron puppy pile.
“What happened?” Jonathon’s voice was so low I could barely hear him.
I swallowed my angry tears. “There’s a secret room in Vanguard filled with … babies … kids, every age and race. It was disgusting.” I spat the last part. “We were going back in to save them.”
“Are they dragon marked?” he asked, close to my face.
I shook out my hair. “I don’t know, I didn’t see any marks, but we were only in there for a moment.”
Lienda had her face clenched so hard, her nails were cutting into her cheeks. “We can’t let them go into the prison, Jon. They will be targeted.”
Mischa paled. “Kristoff said the same thing … why are we going to be targeted?”
Our parents seemed to be doing some loud, rapid breathing exercise, so I answered for her. “Dad was the wolf-pack alpha long before he became council leader. He’s been instrumental in imprisoning a lot of criminals that are in Vanguard. It won’t take long before the shifters scent us and know we are Lebrons. Then they’re going to find us and exact their revenge.”
I’d already resigned myself to this fate, but poor Mischa looked as if I’d punched her in the face.
“We’re dead,” she murmured.
“I won’t let that happen,” Jonathon said. “I have some pull with the guards, I’ll make sure they look after you.”
We all knew they couldn’t stay on our asses all day and night. Eventually they’d have to step away, or lose concentration for a few minutes, and that’s when we’d be hit. We might only be in there for seven days – I had no doubts they’d make the charges disappear at the trial – but seven full days could be an awful long time.
Braxton got right into my personal space then. “I won’t let this happen. I will be dead and buried before you end up in that prison.”
I reached out and rested my head against his right biceps. I could feel the strength beneath my cheek, and the vibration of his anger as it trilled through him.
“I have no choice, Brax. I don’t want to run like a criminal for the rest of my life. I need you all to focus on the trial, and bring Louis in to help. Make sure these charges disappear, figure out a way so the book can’t convict us. Pretend like we accidentally stumbled into Vanguard and got lost or something.”
That’s if we were alive long enough to make it to trial.
Braxton’s blue eyes were like a blaze of light, a beam that would cut through anything that ended up in his path. I could sense his struggle to hold his form, to not let the dragon free, to not plunder and pillage as the old cliché goes. But his strength as a man was unsurpassed. No one controlled Braxton, not even his dragon.
“A compromise then,” he finally said, his words hard through his locked jaw. “I’ll take Mischa’s place in the prison, a life for a life. The old rules still exist, even though most don’t remember them.”
I furrowed my brow as I attempted to recollect this information from our supernatural history class. I couldn’t remember hearing of such a law.
“Yes,” Maximus said. “You step in for Mischa and I will for Jessa. Neither of the girls will have to go in there.”