“Baszni!” Warwick roared at the ceiling. His voice boomed through the cell, echoing down the hall to me as if I could hear his cry also coming from his cell far above.
Scorpion dropped his face in his hand, hissing and cursing under his breath. As my boys paced and swore in front of me in aggravated stomps, the two others in my cell were still.
“Just because we figured it out doesn’t mean Istvan will.” I tried to sound hopeful. “And who knows, maybe I’m wrong.”
“We don’t have that kind of luck, princess,” Warwick grumbled.
I let out a dry laugh, which probably sounded crazy to the two who didn’t see who I was responding to.
“Let us hope,” Killian said under his breath.
“I want to make sure I understand this.” Tracker’s chains clanked to my right, tipping my head in his direction. “The people who have taken these pills can just walk right onto his property and take this nectar? Same with those who had been in the tanks?”
“I think so.” I was pretty sure my theory was correct. “It’s not easy, mind you; Druid spells are still insanely powerful.” Before, I had thought I could “bend” Tad’s spells on this prison and get us out. I was wrong. I couldn’t break them, but it didn’t mean if I pushed hard enough, I couldn’t walk through them. Similar to the faux-fae, my magic seemed to still work down here. “I think it’s possible because his spells are part of nature, a balance. They don’t recognize artificial or anomalous magic... something that shouldn’t occur.”
Like me.
“Brexley Kovacs, the girl who defies nature.” The memory of the fae book’s voice repeated in my head. From the beginning, it knew I wasn’t right, that I shouldn’t exist. But I did. I wasn’t manufactured, but I wasn’t normal or accepted fully by fae magic either.
As usual, I sat in the in-between.
The Grey.
The power deep within me whispered up. It was something I feared because, also deep down, I could feel it bubbling and churning like a cauldron. Forging and building. My energy was enough on its own, which sent chills of fear and excitement down my spine, but I could also feel the nectar. The webs connecting us weaved tightly. The power we contained, and the violent beauty which hid within our skin, crept up from the depths, wrapping and weaving itself up my vertebrae. It felt beyond me. Powers of old were restricted inside my body’s limits.
What could we do once we were together?
“Brexley.” As if he could sense my thoughts, feel a shift in me, Warwick leaned over, his fingers gripping my jaw. My name on his lips was a trail of gravel across my skin, a nip behind my ear, a harsh grip on my soul. The brutal surge of pleasure built, the lick sliding through my legs.
Sucking in harshly, I blinked, my eyes coming even with Warwick’s. He didn’t say anything, his gaze locking me in place. To earth. To myself.
“Oh no... no! I’ve already watched you two fuck and felt it countless times. I have never-ending blue balls being connected to you two nymphos.” Scorpion tangled his fingers in his hair with an annoyed grunt. “My dick is raw from how much I jack off.”
Warwick’s aqua irises never left mine, his eyebrow hitching up in a smirk, creating heat to glide down my body.
Tracker shifted with a mutter under his breath.
“Ms. Kovacs...” Strain tugged at Killian’s vocals, the jangling of him adjusting. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, we’re all feeling it.” Scorpion huffed.
“Tell both your boyfriends they can fuck off.” Warwick rumbled in my ear.
I was so tempted.
“Go,” I whispered to him. “I’m fine. This is draining you. I need you at your full strength.”
Warwick didn’t budge.
“There’s nothing you can do right now.”
“I beg to differ. There is a lot I could do right now.”
Everything in me clenched with need. To experience that high, to feel my body heal, and to forget the horrors of life while we drowned this entire prison in blissful pleasure.
“Go,” I tried to say firmly, as my mouth twisted in a salacious smile.
Warwick stood up, his gaze on me about to make me change my mind.
“Go? Go where? Who are you talking to?” Tracker asked, perplexed.
“I’m assuming to a legendary asshole,” Killian scoffed.
“Actually, both are here.” I winked up at Scorpion. “But it kinda works for both of them.”
Warwick and Scorpion both shrugged in agreement.
“Ahh... of course they are.” Killian clicked his tongue. “You do have quite the harem, Ms. Kovacs.”
Warwick held out his arms in a “right?” expression.
I glared at him.
“Um, I was actually brought here against my will.” Scorpion lifted his hand.
My glower turned to Scorpion. He winked back at me before he broke the link, disappearing.
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Tracker’s aggravated tone snipped in the darkness.
I flicked my chin at Warwick, telling him to leave.
A low vibration came from his chest before he leaned forward, his fingers sliding through my hair as his mouth crashed into mine. His lips claimed mine with a fierceness, marking me, owning me, and then he was gone. Leaving me stumbling on solid ground.
“Asshole,” I muttered.
Bang. Bang. The hollow echo of pounding metal was followed by Tracker yelling. “Hey!” He kicked at the door again. “Hey! Open up! I have to piss.”
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Tracker replied like duh.
“Stop it!” I exclaimed. What the hell did he think? That’s how it worked down here? There would be no repercussions for this? Tracker was arrogant, but I never believed it outweighed his common sense. He was top tier in Povstat. You didn’t get that far being stupid.
His boot continued to kick at the door, and I heard commotion stir down the hallway.
“Hülye fasz!” Dumb fuck. Killian shot at him. “Shut. Up.”
It was too late. The lock on the door clanked over, and it swung open, making me flinch with the light from the passage. A handful of guards stepped in.
“What the fuck?” The lead one had a bald head and ripped arms. Again, I recognized none of them. What had happened to all the guards I knew?
“I have to piss, asshole.” Tracker lifted his head, glaring at them.
“Oh, do you? What’s wrong with right here” The guard shot a look at Killian and me, making sure we were watching before he reached down, clutching Tracker’s shirt, yanking him to his feet as far as the chains allowed him. “Maybe I’ll make it easier for you, get you to piss on yourself right here, or break your dick so you have to piss out of a tube?”
I saw no fear on Tracker’s face, his gaze centered on the guard. “I have to use the latrine. Now!”
I flinched, expecting the first hit.
The bald guy let go of him, hesitating longer than I thought he would before he struck Tracker, crashing him back down to the ground. The guard’s boot kicked him in the stomach. Spit sprayed from Tracker’s mouth. “You want the latrine so bad? Okay, we can do that. Little field trip, huh, Tracker?” Baldy stepped away, something in his tone dropping lead into my gut. “Uncuff him,” he ordered another. A young kid, all of about seventeen, jumped forward, unlatching Tracker’s chains. Three other guards gathered around him, grabbing his arms and hauling him to the door.
Fear seized my chest, understanding if Tracker was taken from this room, he wouldn’t come back.
“No!” I shouted, lunging forward, my cuffs cutting into my wrists and ankles. “No! Please!”
Tracker wiggled and yelled as they dragged him out, the door slamming back on us. His cries echoed and howled all the way down the hallway. Then he went quiet.
The sudden silence felt like a bomb. Shock rendered me still, taking in what had just happened.
Neither Killian nor I spoke. I couldn’t. A certainty in my gut told me he wasn’t going to return. Maybe I wasn’t close to Tracker, but it didn’t take away from the trauma of losing another person so mercilessly. Another to brush under the rug, to lock away in a box until the day I would have to face all the death, pain, and sorrow head-on.
It was building up, overflowing, and swelling. I feared the day everything would explode, raining down bloody bits of my soul.
“They might not kill him,” Killian finally spoke.
We both felt and heard the lie. This place didn’t give reprieves. Those were saved for the victims Istvan wanted to torture with even crueler deaths.
Tracker was nothing but a number.
Time ticked on and on. With each passing hour Tracker didn’t return, the heaviness of his fate burrowed down on me. Hunger, pain, boredom, and grief were sinking me further into myself.
“Brexley?” Killian had called my name several times now. “Talk to me.”