Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham
Ihit my back hard on the ground and cursed as I was almost trampled by the feet of all the inmates who swarmed around me, desperate to take their chance to sate their rage on the guards after years of being at their mercy in this place.
I rolled aside as a huge motherfucker almost crushed me and shoved myself upright again, casting a pillar of dirt beneath my feet to propel myself high enough to take note of what was going on around me and to hunt for my men in the crowd.
The roar of noise from the furious prisoners and the determined reply from the mass of guards made it hard to think, but the divide between the black uniforms and orange jumpsuits at least made it easy to tell the two sides of this thing apart.
I tipped my head back and howled in encouragement as I watched the sheer might of the prisoners turning the tide in our favour as our numbers forced the guards to start backing up.
My fingers crackled with expectant magic and I threw a hand out, casting a wall of dirt against the guards closest to us and gritting my teeth as I began to exert pressure on it, forcing them back.
They fought against my power with curses and their own magic flaring, but I set the ground at their feet vibrating to keep them off balance until a few of them fell.
With a whoop of triumph, I shoved the dirt wall forward, panting with the effort as I scooped the guards right back into the elevator.
The moment their line broke, the other guards lost the advantage they’d been clinging to and with a roar of fury, the inmates advanced, magic flaring violently as they forced the guards to back up.
“Don’t kill them!” I commanded, knowing any of my Wolves who could hear me would listen. I refused to let this thing become a blood bath. I had no interest in hurting the guards for doing their jobs even if a lot of them were bastardos who abused their positions of power over us.
Sin ran past me, hurling lemons at the guards at full strength and I laughed as one of them managed to breech their defences and hit one of the guards square in the face.
“Ahh the juice is in my eyes!” he yelled while Sin giggled like a kid and dove back into the crowd.
How the hell did he always have lemons to hand so star damned easily?
The guards fell even further back as the prisoners surged forward and with a roar of victory from the inmates, they were all forced to retreat into the elevator again.
The guards at the front of their group were gritting their teeth, battling to hold an air shield in place before them to hold the prisoners back. I watched as the guards behind started constructing a huge magical barrier in front of the elevator doors to keep them out.
They all continued to pour more and more magic into it, the wall glowing bronze as the combination of all their Elements formed an enormous barricade to keep us from entering the shaft.
My heart sank as I realised what they were doing. We might have forced them to retreat, but they were making absolutely certain that we wouldn’t be able to follow. They were blocking off the elevator shaft with every drop of magic they possessed, and no doubt were going to continue to put blockades in our path in the rest of the shaft too.
“Fuck,” I swore, dropping my hands as I lost sight of the guards behind their wall of magic and the rest of the prisoners began to celebrate enthusiastically like the only thing they dreamed of was owning the halls of this hell and ruling it for themselves.
But I had bigger dreams than that. Freer dreams. Dreams which were currently being crushed as I stared at the barrier blocking me off from them.
I tried not to let the fear that hit me then cripple me because that had been it, my very last chance to get us out of here. There were no other ways out. Nothing else that I could possibly pull off in the thirty-two hours we had left before the FIB busted their way in here and detained the lot of us.
And then my time really would be up. There was no way for me to cover up the evidence of everything I’d done in an attempt to get us out of here. They’d find the tunnels, the destroyed doors, all of it. And their interrogators were a lot more powerful than Quentin who’d they’d used to try and crack into our minds down here. They’d break through our mental shields and figure out exactly what I’d done and that would be it for me. I’d be locked away in the hole or worse and I’d be lucky if I ever saw the light of day again.
I was so caught up in the total desolation I felt at my failure that I didn’t even notice the blast of fire magic headed for me until it hit me in the side and sent me crashing down from my pillar of dirt to the floor with a cry of pain.
A snarl tore from my lips and I had to fight against the urge to shift as the scent of burning fabric from my jumpsuit mixed with the pain of burning flesh along my side and I clapped my hand down over the wound to heal it quickly.
More magic was aimed my way as I took a moment to recover, sharpened sticks and vines with hooked ends shooting out of the ground at my feet and making a snarl fall from my lips as I fought back against it.
The earth magic being used against me was clever and vicious, but I was more of a fan of brutal and unstoppable so with a flash of my power, I threw my will out into the plants that had been formed to attack me and took command of them.
The second the magic fell into my grasp, I closed my eyes and sent my awareness into it, feeling for the location of the Fae who had sent them after me and locking down their magical signature near the destroyed doors which led down here.
I propelled myself up into the air on a column of earth and the moment my gaze fixed on my attacker, I knew the entire prison was about to descend into chaos.
Gustard smirked as he spotted me and fury pounded through my limbs as I noticed The Watchers pouring into the space at his command, attacking my Wolves and turning the fight we’d just been waging against the guards into a civil war. Not that there had ever been anything particularly civil about the animosity between the different gangs who ruled this place. But for a while there we’d been united as one.
My muscles bunched as I hefted my arm back, a metal tipped spear forming in my grasp just before I hurled it forward with all my strength, aiming it right for the spot between Gustard’s mocking eyes.
A crash resounded around the corridor as my spear struck an air shield which four of his unFae followers were holding in place surrounding him and I cursed him loudly for all the prison to hear.
“Fight me like a Fae, you cowardly bastardo! Stop hiding behind others and come at me yourself,” I challenged.
Gustard’s smile only grew and as he called back to me, his words were amplified so that each and every Fae surrounding us could hear them.
“Rosalie Oscura is a manipulative bitch and a liar. She has tricked everyone in this prison for far too long. How do you think the doors here were destroyed? Who do you think enraged the guards and made them come down here to attack us? She’s trying to escape. Her and her little posse of pussy whipped followers. She wasn’t going to offer the chance of freedom to any of us...not even her own loyal Wolf pack. She was just planning to use the distraction of the riot to break out of here and run away into the night.”
Silence rang out for an endless beat as countless eyes turned my way and when I didn’t say a word to deny it, it was broken by a mournful howl from Banjo who was looking at me like I’d just ripped his heart clean from his chest.
My mind whirled with some way I could explain this, some reason I could give which would stop the looks of hurt and betrayal I was getting from my pack. But I couldn’t come up with one. I couldn’t lie and pretend I’d been intending to take them all with me. That would be insanity, not to mention the fact that a lot of them very much deserved this fate.
And as the adoring gazes of my pack surrounding me turned murderous, a lump of solid lead seemed to fall into my gut. I may not have been a perfect leader, but I’d always aimed to do the best by my pack. I’d always wanted them to have as much as possible. But in here the rules weren’t the same as they were outside. I couldn’t be a selfless leader. I wouldn’t have survived if I was. And there were some things which were worth making those kinds of sacrifices for.
I braced for an attack, my muscles tensing as I sensed it coming, but before anyone could strike at me, a solid weight collided with my chest and I was heaved off of my feet in the blink of an eye.
I was thrown over a broad shoulder and before I could fully comprehend what was happening, we were shooting out of the corridor so fast that everything around us became a blur.
“What the hell are you doing, stronzo?” I snarled as Cain gripped me tightly, racing away from the fight and heading deeper into the prison.
“Saving your damn life,” he growled in reply. “Unless being ripped apart by an angry mob was a part of your escape plans?”
“No!” I screamed, fighting against his hold as my heart tugged me back into that corridor. My mates were there, Sin was there. I couldn’t just leave them behind to face the wrath of the entire prison alone. “Let me go back,” I roared. “Let me go back to them!”
But Cain ignored me, tearing further from the danger, further from my men and further from the desperate call of my heart.
I cursed him out, punching him in the kidney to try and force him to release me but he just grunted and kept running, ignoring my opinion on the matter and saving my damn life whether I liked it or not.