I stepped closer, scenting the air beyond the stale scent wafting off my clothes. My nerves settled some when I caught the distinct scent of a cat shifter. No: a lion, if I wasn’t mistaken.
Knowing that he was one of us was a relief.
My relief was short-lived, though, as he tilted his head towards the door and grimaced. “I hate to say it, but he’s not wrong. The evidence against you is…not ideal.”
I fought a wave of despair and nodded. Clearing my throat, because it suddenly felt tight, I managed a croaky, “Yeah.”
Warwick set his briefcase down on the ground and snapped open the clasps. He reached in and pulled out a manila folder, and stood straight again, resting the folder on his forearm as he flipped it open and started turning pages. “Your brothers explained the circumstances under which you found yourself alone on the premises, but I’d like to hear it in your own words.”
Shoulders sagging, I nodded and told him the whole story, starting with why we were looking for the person supplying the town with illegal blockers and finishing with being thrown into the cell. My cheeks burned when I admitted that I’d been too distracted to hear the real dealer leaving, or the sheriff’s officers pulling up outside, but Warwick assured me that there was nothing to be ashamed of.
I scoffed at him anyway. I had plenty to be ashamed of. The way I had left things with my mates…
“How are, um, how is everyone in the pack?” I asked him once I’d finished telling my story of woe. “Nobody else has come to see me, and…”
Well, I didn’t want to admit how muchthathurt. I could understand why Brandt couldn’t come, what with the babies and barely having recovered from giving birth, but I’d hoped that maybe Dex would rush to me. Or Eric, at the very least.
Warwick’s expression softened into sympathy and chagrin. “It was enough of a fight to get access for myself,” he explained. “Your brothers and mates are desperate to see you, but the humans are making things difficult. The risk of our kind —particularly dragons or other predators— shifting and bringing the building down to break you out terrifies them, so they petitioned the judge to hold you here with fewer rights than human criminals receive.”
It rankled a little that he seemed to be lumping me in as a criminal, but I let it go.
“You’re a predator, too,” I pointed out, though. “How did you get around that?”
“You have a right to legal counsel. However,” he grimaced and tugged his tie loose, revealing a band of silver glinting off his dark brown skin. I gasped as he nodded. “I had to agree to wearing the collar. While it can’t prevent me from shifting, it has enough of the same spell as your cell imbued into it that it won’t break if I shift, and then they can shock me into submission with it.”
Nausea rolled through me at how awful that sounded, but I managed to keep it contained. “That’s awful,” I replied, lookingat my feet as I registered how much it was costing him to do this for me.
Putting himself at the humans’ mercy must be terrifying, even if he was on the other side of my cage. What was preventing these cops from using the collar to subdue him anyway? There weren’t any cameras; they could claim that he had tried to attack them and the only proof would be my word against theirs.
I knew I was probably just being paranoid, but panic lanced through me as I realized all the things that could go wrong. I didn’t want to be responsible for another shifter being mistreated, especially not when his only crime was trying to help me.
“You should go,” I urged, my heart beating rapidly. “That isn’t…thisisn’t safe. They could frame you like I’ve been framed. Lock you up in a matching cell, just for being a shifter. Please don’t put yourself at risk for me.”
Shaking his head, Warwick held up his phone for me to see. “I’m recording our session. I should have declared that to begin with, I’m sorry. But this is going straight to the cloud. If anything should happen, that’s my safety net. If nothing happens, I will delete the recording as soon as I leave here.”
I blinked.
“They let you bring your phone down here?” I wasn’t completely up to date with how these things worked, but I was under the impression (from tv shows and movies) that all visitors to jails were searched and had to hand over their phones and things before being allowed to visit with the detainees.
Now my lawyer smirked in a decidedly feline way and shrugged. “They must have missed it when they searched my briefcase. This is an older facility, and they aren’t reallyset up upstairs with an x-ray or proper screening facilities. Additionally, they didn’t ask me if I had any additional phones or devices when they confiscated my main phone, and it just…slipped my mind that it was there, I suppose.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that they’ve gone to all the trouble of finding a magic-resistant cell and whatever the fuck that collar is, but they haven’t made the effort to upgrade their security?”
Call me paranoid, but that wasn’t adding up for me.
“I think they’ve put a lot more faith in the security the magic provides them,” Warwick seemed confident in his assessment of the situation and I had to acknowledge that he might be right.
“It’s ironic that they trustthatmagic,” I couldn’t help but grumble.
“Unfortunately, there are plenty of people —human and shifter— who cherry pick from ideologies and concepts to suit their own agenda. Sadly,” he sighed, “you’ve been caught in the middle of a prime example.”
I let a beat pass, then a second. Eventually, I licked my lips and asked, “So…what’s the plan, then?”
Warwick’s expression turned solemn. “I think you may need to consider a plea deal.”
My stomach churned with anxiety, and I shook my head. “No. No, I can’t. I—”
“Sage. With the evidence they’ve got against you, and nothing but your word and your pack’s word to back you up, they could throw the book at you and hit you with the full forty-year sentence for a first offender. More if they decide to go for manufacturing charges on top of trafficking. And that’s onlyif they don’t petition to change the laws based on your life expectancy.”
