The guards dragged Cobra across the room toward us.
Jax lifted his arms from over me and gently pushed me aside.
When the guards stepped close to us, Jax lunged at them in a blur of power and rage.
A loud crack echoed, and prisoners screamed as three guards slammed their batons into Jax’s back, and the big man writhed in pain as blue flames leaped against his dark skin.
A stick cracked against his skull, and Jax passed out on the ground next to the dead body of the guard he’d killed.
The guards hooked Cobra’s chain to the wall and stepped over their dead colleague like he wasn’t even there.
I scooted closer to Jax and ran my chained hand across his brow as his body convulsed horribly.
“Is he okay?” Cobra asked me.
“I think so,” I said as I wiped Jax’s braids off his sweaty face and checked his pulse. I looked up at Cobra to reassure him and almost vomited.
He no longer looked like an elegant Adonis. His massive frame was beaten and bloodied.
Not an inch of his skin was free of abuse. Blood coated his jewels, and he sagged forward like all his bones were broken.
A zing traveled across my lower back, and I realized it was the little shadow snake. Cobra still didn’t know that I had one of his snakes on my skin, and I was grateful for its presence.
It sent me another zing of happiness; the little guy was trying to reassure me that everything would be fine.
I smiled and sent warm thoughts back. At this point, the little snake was my entire support system. As it zinged and sent comfort straight to my heart, I focused on the bloody alpha beside me.
I asked Cobra, “Why did they do this to you? What can I do to help?”
Instead of answering, he stared at me intently. “Are you okay?”
“I’m literally fine. What happened to you?”
“They beat me because I wouldn’t be their sex slave again, and I threatened the queen in front of everyone. Is your head okay?” Cobra’s jade eyes, even puffy and covered in blood, were soft as he stared at me with concern.
He still smelled like icy snow, but his voice no longer had its cruel edge. I’d never seen him like this.
The bastard had been beaten within an inch of his life, and he was concerned because he’d barely tapped my head with his fist.
I wanted to cry.
All sexual problems aside, the bastard didn’t deserve this.
Cobra coughed up blood and wiped it away. At the same time, Jax dragged himself into a seated position as his large muscles spasmed.
We’d all had better days.
Jax looked back and forth between us, like he was afraid we would disappear.
Cobra coughed as he looked at the dead guard lying on the ground in front of us. “When the guards came to take you from me, I killed a couple and beat off the rest as best I could. I’m sorry I didn’t stop them.”
Annoyance sparked hot and heavy in my chest. “Stop. You don’t need to apologize for anything. I can handle myself.”
Both Jax and Cobra had fought guards on my behalf. At this rate, we would never survive the damn castle if they kept killing people.
Cobra sneered with his trademark scorn, and his voice was a frosty whip. “Oh yeah? Then how come you never told me about your scars? Doesn’t look like you can handle yourself.”
So much for him being uncharacteristically kind. He was clearly feeling like his old, aggressive self. “Excuse me, they are my scars and not yours to know about.”
“Everything about you is mine to know about,” Cobra scoffed, like the idea that I had bodily autonomy was laughable.
I wanted to stab him.
“Fine, you want to know, you piece of shit?” I asked.
Cobra’s emerald eyes flickered to snake eyes and back, and he nodded.
“A beta fucker named Dick raised me as his servant in a tavern, and as soon as I turned ten years old, he started beating the fuck out of me with his belt whenever he could. He said I talked too loudly, and he needed to ‘beat the sass out of me.’ Happy?”
“No, Kitten, I’m not happy,” Cobra said softly as Jax’s chest rumbled.
Two alphas stared at me, with glowing gray and emerald eyes.
“We are going to kill him,” Jax said calmly.
Cobra nodded and said, “He hurt my kitten. He will suffer forever.”
I snarled back, “Stop calling me Kitten, and stop killing people on my behalf. It’s annoying as shit. As I showed in the shifter realm, I can kill people myself if I want to!”
“But you are my kitten.” Cobra said softly, like I was being dumb.
I saw red.
The shadow snake zinged with comfort, but it did little to calm me.
“Did you say you were from the shifter realm?” the prisoner chained to the wall beside me asked in a shocked tone. “And that you are alphas?”
I turned away from Cobra because the man was infuriating beyond belief. I welcomed the distraction and said, “Yeah, why?”
The emaciated man stared at us with a stunned expression. “How did you escape?” Just like Cobra, a crystal collar was around his neck.
“What are you talking about?” Jax asked.
My skin buzzed with foreboding.
I never would have predicted what he said next.
He raised his eyebrows. “The shifter realm is where the beast realm sent all its prisoners centuries ago. Rumor has it they’ve abandoned the pack system and have stopped birthing ABOs. Their population is growing weak, so they’ve started kidnapping alphas.”
We all gaped at him.
After a long, awkward pause, he scoffed at our disbelieving faces and explained himself. “I’m Legolas and a treasurer for the High Court that oversees the realms. I’m stuck in this fucking dungeon because I discovered the queen was being paid by the shifter realm to kidnap alpha babies from the beast realm. She controls the portals to both realms.”
My brain exploded.
The shifter realm was a cold, brutal place; it wasn’t hard to imagine the wasteland as a punishment for criminals.
Also, parental abandonment versus kidnapping felt way different. Lucky for me, both came with massive amounts of emotional trauma.
The worst part was Legolas’s words made sense.
Lucinda and I had been told we were orphans, but I’d always thought it was weird that no shifter knew who our parents were.
The realm had a small population, births weren’t that common, and towns were spread out.
Holy sun god’s tits. I asked warily, “The relicta realm?”
Legolas jumped. “Yes, that was what the realm was called before the beast realm banished their prisoners there. So, you do know about it?”
“No, I just saw that label in a book of maps,” I said slowly as I examined Legolas. He didn’t have fae ears like everyone else in the prison, and even though he was emaciated, he was still taller and wider than everyone else.
It was hard to tell because he was so malnourished, but his sunken features appeared to be sharper and his eyes darker than any alpha’s or fae’s I’d ever seen.
It wasn’t hard to believe he was from a different place.
Jax grumbled, “That doesn’t make sense. The shifter realm is at war with the fae queen.”
Legolas shook his head. “The shifter leaders are dumb bastards. They think they’re paying a fae crime lord. Not the queen herself.”
Wow.
I’d never been the best student when it came to history, and this entire situation screamed “complex.”
A metaphorical candle lit in my brain.
The fae queen had called me a beast earlier. The map had shown a beast realm next to the fae realm. John had said he was saving me when he’d dragged me toward the portal.
Jax’s chest rumbled. “Why would you tell us this?”
Legolas’s sunken eyes stared sadly at Jax. “Because you’re the first prisoner I’ve ever seen take down a guard. If you somehow escape this realm, alert a council representative that Legolas from the High Court, position 4444, is imprisoned by the fae queen.”
We said nothing.
None of us were going to make a promise we couldn’t keep.
Still, I said his name and the number in my brain repeatedly, on the off chance we were actually the saviors he thought we were.
I summed up the situation, “So our entire lives have been a lie, and we’re completely fucked.”
Jax scooted over until his large body leaned against mine, and I melted into his warmth.
Cobra stared at both of us with snake eyes.
My intuition told me I was one second away from the biggest mental breakdown of my entire life.
It hadn’t been wrong yet.
