“Eugene! Look, Nial’s awake.”
I had opened my eyes when I heard and understood the last few words this guy Eugene was saying and met the gaze of Sallyann. She had stopped Eugene from finishing his thoughts, but I very much wanted to know what he was about to say.
“Ze found his what?” I asked in a raspy voice I didn’t recognize. I moved my gaze away from Sallyann and recognized the room I had been in the first day. The exam room. I had no idea how I got here or what was going on, but the answer to my question seemed the most important. I wanted to know the answer, but I wasn’t getting my wish tonight.
“Don’t you worry about anything, Nial. You’re going to be okay. Ze let us know you needed help and we brought you here to get you taken care of. We had no idea it was going to get that cold in the cells tonight. The guards have turned on the heat and the lights. They’re resuming the regular schedule in the morning. The warden had left right after talking to the new inmates and had no idea what had happened, but there are a few guards who are going to lose their jobs. He likes to take advantage of the inmates, but he doesn’t want to cause the kind of scrutiny your death would cause. Your story is all over the Allusian news every day as an example of the rogue injustice of this Province. If you died, the entire system would crumble under the weight of the investigation.”
A shuffling to my right had me cutting my gaze that way to see a slight and beautiful man standing by my side. He was obviously the owner of the other voice I had heard. From his words, he had to be the vampire, Eugene. He looked pale as death with skin like alabaster, and his hair flowed around his face and neck in a gorgeous, almost unreal, waterfall of blond waves. I expected his eyes to be blue or green, but when they met mine, they were black as the deepest shadows of night. There was a darkness in those eyes I had never experienced before, but the beauty of the man made the darkness seem inviting. I stared into his eyes for a moment, but when I blinked and looked back again, those eyes were now blue as the summer sky, the hair was a dull dishwater blond, and his skin was muted to a plain complexion that would never draw a second glance. It had to be a glamour he used for everyone else, but he had let me see the real Eugene before he pulled the veil back into place. I felt honored somehow.
“What’s going on?”
This encompassed all the questions I had in this moment, from Ze, why and how I got here, why there was a vampire and Fae working in the infirmary of a shifter prison. Or any other number of things I was unsure about. I was doomed to be disappointed though.
“We can’t answer any questions for you, honey, but we can tell you that you’ll be okay as long as you stick with Ze. Just trust that it’ll be okay in the long run. Now, I’ve done some changes to your internal system that will help release your powers. There’s no excuse for you to have been so vulnerable when you had the power to help yourself. All you need to do is embrace who you are instead of pushing it down every time it’s trying to help you. Become who you’re meant to be, Nial. I’m going to give you something to make you sleep, so you can recover. Just rest and everything will be different when you wake. You’ll finally be able to feel your power and know your destiny. Ze won’t know what hit him.” She giggled, and the sound of the bells in her laugh soothed all my nerves. The possibilities of my magic might finally be in my hands. What would that feel like?
Sallyann motioned to Eugene, and they both flashed their hands in a swishing motion over my chest and face. Eugene was once again a stunning fallen angel with all the darkness of night in his eyes. Sallyann was her Fae self, stunning smooth skin, larger swirling eyes and petit tips to her ears. They were both otherworldly, thus the name for the Others. I wanted to stare at their beauty for decades, but I felt the unavoidable pull of sleep come over me. I had to protest. I needed answers from them.
“But I don’t want to sleep. I want to find out what’s going on. Ze doesn’t care about me. He alma…almo…almost let…me die.”
As sleep dragged me under, yet again, I heard Eugene’s voice speaking softly.
“Ze cares, and he would never let anything else happen to you. You’re mates after all.”
I must have heard wrong, the spell causing me to hear things I wanted to hear instead of what was really said. My self-loathing mind chose the moment before sleep to replay Ze’s words from the day before.You don’t find your mate in a fucking prison. It just doesn’t happen.
* * *
Opening my eyes, I was back in the cell, on my bunk, and wrapped in my blanket. I felt stiff and so tired, but I was alive. Had it all been a dream? Had I just gotten chilled during the night and dreamed I had almost frozen to death? I must have said this out loud because I was startled when Ze’s deep voice answered.
“You didn’t dream it, Nial. You almost died, and it’s all my fault.”
It was Ze, but his voice sounded strained, not the same confident timbre I was used to hearing from him. I didn’t move my body, just my head, to turn and look at him as he stood by my bunk. His eyes were red-rimmed, deep smudges underneath. His hair was all over the place and looked like he hadn’t slept in days. How long had I been asleep?
“How long have I been asleep?”
“You’ve been in here for a few hours, but you were asleep in the infirmary for a few days.”
Ze leaned over the bunk, putting his hands on either side of my face, insisting I turn to look him in the eye. He was intent, and he seemed to need me to hear what he was about to say.
“Nial, I’m so sorry for this. I should have been more careful and checked on you. I didn’t think about the cold affecting you like this. I promised to take care of you, and then you almost froze the first day. I don’t deserve to watch over you. Maybe I should let someone else do it.”
He let go when he finished and turned away from me to lean his side against the bunk. Ze wouldn’t look me in the eye. He kept looking at my chest where my hands were folded. It reminded me too much of the way dead bodies were laid out, so I slowly moved my hands down to my sides. The effort was tremendous, like moving through water. I knew if I tried to stand I wouldn’t be able to do it without help.
My brain finally caught up in the conversation to comprehend what Ze had just said, and I had a physical reaction to the possibility of being around anyone else in here. My energy surged through me, flowing through every muscle and bone. All of a sudden, I felt…amazing. I had no more aches, no more fatigue. I fisted my hands slowly into the blanket, and the effort was minimal now. By letting the energy flow, instead of keeping it shoved down, it was healing me. I suddenly remembered what Sallyann had told me about releasing the block I had put on my power. If this is what it could do, I had been denying myself the greatest gift I could ever have been given. I had never known that my powers could do anything for me but make me vulnerable. Now I was learning that there were advantages to having this power flowing through me, and I wondered what else it could do for me.
“What did you just do?”
Ze had finally looked up at me when my power surged. Could he see it? Sense it? I would never ask, but he was looking confused now like he was trying to solve a puzzle. I wouldn’t lie to him now. After his heartfelt apology, I respected him more than that. I felt his remorse like a physical touch. Apparently another advantage of letting my magic flow freely.
I didn’t trust him completely, so I deflected instead.
“When I was calling out to you to help me, you never answered. Why? You have shifter hearing. You should have heard me call your name.”
Ze dropped his head and turned away from the side of the bed. He waited so long to answer that I didn’t think he ever would. Then he heaved a heavy breath and seemed to come to a decision. He was turning back to me with his mouth open to answer, when the lights flicked on, the cell doors opened, and the school bell began to ring so loud that I had to throw my hands over my ears to keep from going deaf. It hadn’t seemed that loud before. Maybe the bell was closer to this cell. Or maybe I was going a little crazy. I thought it could be both.
I wanted Ze to keep going with what he was about to say, but, yet again, I was denied answers. He came over to the bedside again and reached his hands out to help me sit up.
“That’s the bell for morning showers. We go in the second wave, so we have a few minutes. Go try to use the bathroom, and I’ll gather your clothes for you. You’ll have to stay with me the whole time we’re gone and especially in the showers. We’ll use the same showerhead, and I’ll need to be very hands-on with you. I wish you felt better, but it can’t be helped. We’re going to have to put on a good show since this is the first time the whole population will see us together. Think you can do it?”
