Chapter Four
Time meant nothing to Mordecai Masters.
That was the inevitable consequence of being buried alive within stone walls for centuries.
Days bled into years, years into lifetimes, until the passage of it all became utterly irrelevant.
Time was simply something distant, abstract, and ultimately meaningless.
When someone was stripped of freedom for that long, he didn’t just stop counting the hours.
He stopped caring about everything.
Because the truth was imprisonment was a fate worse than death. At least death offered an end, a release, a final breath of peace. This…this was endless. A slow, suffocating existence where each moment dragged on without purpose or mercy.
And yet, Mordecai endured it.
Not because he had hope that he would one day be free. He continued to endure because he was too fucking stubborn to let it break him.
But even that stubbornness was beginning to fade.
The weight of the years was almost unbearable. The isolation, the silence, the injustice, it all pressed down on him harder with every passing moment. It was getting more difficult to hold on, to keep that thin thread of defiance from snapping completely.
Especially when he knew that he had never deserved this fate.
Because he was fucking innocent.
And that truth, more than the centuries of confinement, was what threatened to destroy him.
Mordecai had never been what one would call a good male.
He’d been a powerful demon who knew his place in the world, and that was always on top.
The Masters were a powerful family who had ruled their domain for as long as the Realm of Souls had existed, but all of that had come to an end the night his family had been slaughtered.
They claim he had been to blame. That he had orchestrated a coup, killing his father, mother, and the rest of his family to declare leadership over their domain.
Rumors spread that he had been jealous of his older brothers because they were more talented than he was.
That he had wanted to usurp their claim as the next ruler, even if it meant destroying everyone who shared his bloodline.
But who in hellfire wanted to reign over a kingdom made of ashes and bones?
Centuries ago, investigations weren’t as credible as they were today, but somehow, there had been enough evidence to convict him.
Letters were forged. Testimony against him had stacked up.
His personal guards, friends he had known from childhood, had all been tortured and killed, leaving behind signed confessions.
He had been damned.
And there hadn’t been a fucking thing he could do about it.
Not even given time to grieve, he had been shipped off to the Supernatural Prison to serve out his endless sentence.
Why they hadn’t just executed him, he didn’t know.
Maybe whoever was behind the murders had wanted to see him suffer in perpetuity.
Or perhaps there was some other nefarious motive.
Whatever the reason, it was a fate worse than death.
Fate really could be a capricious and cruel bitch.
Declared insane for what he had supposedly done, he was sent to reside in the bowels of the prison.
He’d been thrown into a cell carrying nothing but the weight of false accusations and the fragile hope that truth might still matter.
But once enclosed inside the walls of the prison, no one gave a damn if he was innocent or not.
Day by day, piece by piece, they stripped everything from him, leaving something far darker in its place.
He’d entered prison an innocent male, but they had turned him into a killer.
While the majority of the prison had a veneer of civility, the three lower levels were a whole different world. Even the guards didn’t give two shits about what went on below unless it was during feeding time or when they had to descend into the pits of hell to let the animals out for recess.
There was something about confinement that changed people down to their very core.
Being locked away didn’t just take away their freedom.
It destroyed identities. Who they were on the outside no longer mattered.
Their former selves simply didn’t exist any longer.
In a place where trust was dangerous and vulnerability was punished, transformation wasn’t a choice.
It was inevitable.
Morality was a luxury no one could afford if they wanted to keep breathing.
While Mordecai had always been a warrior, prison changed him into something far more dangerous.
He was forged into a sharp, unyielding weapon who didn’t mind getting bloody.
Those who had initially considered him nothing more than a pampered lord quickly found out just how wrong they were.
He met their assaults with a calculated kind of brutality, not from madness or cruelty, but from sheer determination and necessity.
The only thing anyone respected was pure strength, so he forced himself to become one of the strongest supernaturals inside the prison walls.
He became the sort of threat that made everyone else fear him.
One that struck back a thousand times harder if attacked.
Since he only retaliated if provoked first, most of the inmates were smart enough to give him space after learning how he operated.
Of course, a few newbies liked to try their luck on occasion, but they swiftly learned the error of their ways.
Those who rivaled him in power were cut from the same ruthless cloth.
They were predators who understood exactly what it cost to survive, and none of them wasted energy on pointless bloodshed unless they were forced to.
In the lower levels, open war between the strongest inmates didn’t just leave bodies behind.
It destabilized the fragile balance that kept everyone else in line.
Over the years, the strongest amongst them had fallen into a wary sort of alliance.
It wasn’t friendship in any true sense of the word.
There was no trust, no loyalty, and certainly no actual affection.
There was only mutual understanding that chaos served no one.
They did not share confidences or make promises.
They divided territories, shared boundaries, and exchanged information when necessary.
Usually, they didn’t give a shit what happened unless it upset the order of things.
If a riot threatened to spiral too far, one of them would step in.
If a newcomer grew reckless enough, they dealt with them swiftly and without remorse.
Each of them remained a loner in their own right, but they maintained the illusion of cooperation.
The wardens tried not to release more than a few members of the alliance at the same time, ensuring the different groups always included someone who could take charge and maintain order if necessary.
Since it made their jobs easier, the guards gave them enough autonomy to deal with things their own way.
Some would call it special privileges, but it was simply respecting the hierarchy.
Besides, fewer guards were hurt that way.
Mordecai was used to the way the others avoided him as he prowled around the indoor garden he was allowed to visit once a day.
Some of the inmates whittled away the time by working, harvesting vegetables, or picking fruit from the trees.
Others relaxed on the stone benches or sprawled out on the lawn, using the time to bask under the magically simulated sunlight.
There were even a few people writing letters to exchange with the next group of female inmates who would be in the garden during the next shift.
Occasionally, the messages found their intended recipients, passed along through chance and discreet consideration.
More often, the letters became unexpected gifts to strangers.
Some of the letters offered words of comfort, confession, or curiosity, while others included random tidbits of information that might help someone acclimate to the harsh environment.
With no other means of communication between units, the hidden letters formed a fragile, secret network of connection.
They were carefully concealed in corners, tucked beneath loose stones, or slipped into cracks in the common areas.
Of course, the wardens knew about the letters, but since they found no harm in them, they didn’t bother putting a stop to the exchanges.
Out of idle curiosity, Mordecai would sometimes read a few when he came across them.
He never lingered too long over the words, and he always returned each letter exactly where he had found it.
He knew someone else needed them far more than he did.
In a place where days blurred together, people clung to anything that broke the monotony.
For a while, survival itself had given Mordecai that sense of purpose.
The need to stay alert and to protect himself had kept his mind occupied and his body engaged at all times.
He’d lost count of the people who had tried to kill him over the years, but he remembered every life he had been forced to take.
And he blamed each and every one on the bastards who had framed him.
Focusing on survival had been a crude but effective way to combat boredom.
However, that outlet was all but gone now, leaving behind a hollow emptiness he couldn’t escape.
The only thing he could do anymore was enjoy the little slices of normalcy he could find throughout the long days and endless nights.
Patrolling the perimeter of the garden was a routine he had developed over time. He knew exactly how many steps it would take to complete the circuit without counting anymore, but he still enjoyed walking the familiar path.