He seemed to look around the entire room, slowly, allowing everyone to meet his eyes. Power was bleeding off him, along with the commanding presence which he was born with.
“I know you think you can best us with numbers. But I promise you, anything you deliver I will return, and it will be a thousand times worse. I will never stop, I will come at you for the rest of your days.”
I could feel the winds of death in his voice. In that moment I didn’t even recognize Braxton. If I didn’t know him as well as I knew myself, well, I’d be afraid. Very afraid. And judging by the lowering of the eyes, I wasn’t the only one.
Braxton scooped me up in his arms and strode from the room. I hadn’t even noticed him leave the table; clearly my attention was still a little scattered. I wasn’t sure what signal he gave, but when I looked up again we were back in our cell and the door was secured behind us.
“I thought…” I had to clear my throat again to get the rest out. “I thought we couldn’t stay in here during mingling time.”
He sat me on the bed, his hands more gentle than the fierce expression he still wore. “Let’s call this exceptional circumstances, and a friend who owed me a favor.”
It must have been a pretty big favor, food was delivered to our room and everything. And it was freaking edible food.
“Almost worth dying for,” I said around my sandwich, my chicken-bacon-ranch-dressing-deliciousness sandwich. My throat had healed just enough that there was not too much discomfort in swallowing.
“I just can’t find the will to laugh at you right now, Jessa.” Braxton wasn’t eating, his tray untouched in front of him. “You have no idea what it was like to see you in trouble and not be able to reach you.” He stood as if his anger needed an outlet. “Twice in the past week you have taken ten years off my life, and I’m thinking of a way to collect.”
I narrowed my eyebrows at him. “Not my fault, and you better get used to it. I’m sure to get worse with age.”
“I don’t think I’ll survive it.” His voice was honest, no joke in his tone.
I licked a bit of sauce off my index finger. “Are you going to eat that?” I was on my feet and halfway across the room when he snatched the tray up and held it above his head.
“Yes!” he growled.
My face fell and he shook his head a few times before staring at the ceiling. With a sigh he reached up and grabbed something off the tray. The smallest smile finally graced his face as he handed me a paper plate. Nestled in the center was a slice of lemon cake.
I stared at it for a moment before a tear escaped the corner of my eye.
Braxton laughed. “You are still the only supe I know to cry about cake.”
I sucked down my sob. “There are very few things in this world which can move me to tears.” I hugged the plate close to my chest. “This is just beautiful.”
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.