Imprisoned Mate of the Vampire King

Chapter 1

one

OPHELIA

I blew a puff of air at the strands of brown hair that hung in my eyes while I adjusted the straps of my stupidly heavy hiking backpack.

The pottery in my bag dug into my spine as I stared at the numbers that ticked by while I leaned against the elevator's wall.

The creaky metal box slowly descended deeper underground.

-5

-6

-7

-8

There was a sad-sounding ding as it stopped, nine floors under the sprawling magical city I lived in.

The nausea in my abdomen made my lunch threaten a reappearance.

My mission was simple, but I'd never done something that could qualify as a mission before, and I was shit with every form of planning.

The doors slid open slowly.

They revealed...

A hallway.

It was narrow, and bleak. Dark magic was gathered like purplish gray paint along every wall. If I'd looked closely, I could've seen every complex detail that made up that magic, but I didn't. Looking closely would've made the magic respond to me, and other prisoners could've felt that.

There were no windows. There was no art, either. The artificial lights were uncomfortably bright, even to my non-enhanced eyes. They would've been worse for most of the other prisoners.

Shadowside Penitentiary was made for immortal beings, after all.

There were no words to describe how much I did not want to be there, but all I had to do was get two people out. It wouldn't be that hard.

That's what I was telling myself, at least.

I didn't want to acknowledge the fact that all of the information I had about the place was a century old.

The elevator dinged again. Louder, and sadder.

I sighed, but stepped out of the box.

It wouldn't go back up until I was gone. The magic didn't recognize me as a prisoner, but it was spelled not to take anyone back up. I was going to have to fuck with the power around it when it was time to leave.

My backpack weighed a ton. The pottery inside clanked with every step I took, despite the paper I'd packed it with to prevent the pieces from breaking too early.

The space buns I'd tied my collarbone-length hair up in only flopped a little, so they were doing better than the pottery or the bangs hanging in my eyes. My worn, jean overalls and neon orange sports bra were definitely in better shape than the rest of me.

The sounds at the end of the hallway grew louder as I walked in that direction.

I could hear people. Prisoners. Mostly, they were immortals who were too powerful to be killed, straight-up insane, or people who had committed awful crimes for a good enough reason that our city's fae royals—who were basically the mafia—decided not to kill them for it.

Yes, the city's Cabinet technically made those calls, but we all knew the Cabinet only existed to make other types of immortals feel better about the fae being completely in charge.

One of those seats on the Cabinet was technically mine, but I threw the invitations away every time the fancy cardstock appeared at my house. Dealing with politics was the last way I wanted to spend my immortal life.

My hips and shoulders both hurt by the time I reached the end of the hallway. I'd underestimated how heavy my three pieces of pottery would be. They were necessary to getting back out of the prison, so I was just going to have to deal with it.

I stopped in the entryway, staring out at the large space in front of me.

It was a massive, open area with a cafeteria and tables on one side, and what looked like old, shitty sparring mats that were almost solely duct tape on the other. The space was three stories tall, with rows of cells on every one of those.

All of the cell doors were open, at the moment. There weren't nearly enough bodies there to fill the space, but that was intentional. A prison for immortals that never let anyone leave needed to have enough room to hold a lot of them.

Out in the main area, there were multiple pairs of enormous men in gray jumpsuits, grappling on the mats. The colors of the auras glowing around them were a wide variety of bright and dark, which made the show a little dizzying for me to watch.

More prisoners were sitting at the tables, a few women among the many men. Because of the way their auras radiated off their skin, the only way I could differentiate was through their size difference.

Immortal males' heights and builds were based on their power. Every one I could see was gigantic; at least six feet of pure muscle and magic.

There was a large staircase off to my left, and another one straight across the room, both leading up to the rows of cells.

I didn't dare look at the stairs.

Because every one of the immortals who weren't in the middle of a fight, were looking at me.

Their auras flickered around them like flames, contrasting vibrantly with the dark magic that ran along the walls, holding them captive.

Multiple people were already on their feet.

Instinct told me to run the other direction. Back to the elevator.

But I couldn't leave without the demon royals. They were the whole reason I was there.

I'd looked up pictures of them, and I'd assumed they would have some sort of power position in the penitentiary. They probably wouldn't be that hard to find.

…Assuming everyone else who was looking my way at the moment didn't try to kill me.

Which didn't seem like a safe assumption.

The prison's magic separated violent immortals from nonviolent ones, but that didn't necessarily mean I was safe. Or that I would make it out of this shitty situation without a problem.

Three men jogged toward me.

My gaze flicked over each of them, but I had a hard time seeing facial features when people weren't right in front of me. The auras I could see constantly were just too bright. They hid everything else unless I really focused.

One of the auras was electric blue, a fairly normal variety.

One was a deep, murky green that made me nervous.

The other was... colorful.

Colorful people were rare. Interesting. Powerful, and complex.

This man in particular was made up of shades of red and gold and purple that shifted around him, twisting and tangling with the shadowy magic that clung to his body, marking him as a demon.

Demons of all kinds were born with shadow magic, and it mostly lingered around their body, like an aura that they could control.

I gripped the straps of my backpack. A long time ago, I would've tried to tap into my magic to protect myself. Now, I barely had any.

When the men approached me, I could see them better. My gaze flicked between the three of them. They were all gigantic, made purely of muscle and power, and wearing the gray prison jumpsuits as pants with the sleeve part tied around their waists.

All three guys were bare chested, revealing a lot more abs than I had seen in a long time.

Blue aura had pale skin and white-blond hair that stuck up wildly. He was covered in magical tattoos from toes to hairline, including his face.

I vaguely recognized him as a psychopathic hybrid of some kind who had been all over the news a few decades earlier. I had no idea why the fae hadn't killed him, but I figured there was probably a reason.

Murky green aura had olive skin and dark hair that flowed down to his shoulders, looking way too soft considering he had been in prison for who knew how long. He looked... calculating.

And his aura was so strong and dark, it made me slightly sick. That was concerning.

The guy with the colorful aura had dark brown skin, and black hair done in thick locs. His locs were tied in a bun that was so large, I figured they must've been long enough to hit his lower back when he took the bun down.

Unlike the other two guys, I wasn't terrified of the man with the colorful aura.

I knew him. Or I knew of him, at least.

His name was Dante, and he was the vampire king who had been imprisoned by people who wanted to take his throne twelve years earlier. Vampires were one of the city's four classes of demons.

"What are you?" the nausea-inducing green aura guy asked, studying me.

The blue-aura guy stopped him with an arm in front of his chest. "You took the last woman. Shiv's gang gets this one if they want her."

Shiv.

Fabulous name.

Very confidence-inducing.

Hopefully, Dante was Shiv, because I definitely needed to go with him.

The green aura guy looked at Dante. "I want this one."

"You say that every time, asshole." Blue-aura psycho looked at me, and pointed toward crimson aura. "Do you want to go with him?"

"No." I tried to take a step back.

Green-aura stopped me with an arm behind my back, and I stepped away from him quickly.

"What are you?" the blue-aura psycho asked again, sounding impatient.

I'd known that question was coming.

Telling them the truth was absolutely out of the question, and most lies could be easily proven when it came to the nature of an immortal.

Demons could shift forms. So could shifters, obviously. Nature-related beings could grow plants. Fae could make bargains.

I could... enchant pottery.

Yeah.

There was a decent chance that I was fucked.

I could pass as a pixie, as long as they didn't want to see my wings. It was the only real alternative explanation that I could sell, so I was going with that.

"I'm a pixie," I said, and all three of their body positions changed instantly.

Pixie magic could do many small, comfort-related things. In prison, that would be valuable.

Not as valuable as the truth, though.

"Prove it," Green-aura ordered.

It was relatively effortless to make sparks appear from my fingers. Only someone like me would've felt the difference between my magic and theirs, when I used it like that.

There was a moment of silence as what I'd said and done registered for all of them.

Then, chaos erupted.

Three men lunged for me.

Dante reached me first, taking me to the ground, and a set of fangs sank into my jugular.

That was unexpected.

I was too shocked to react.

Vaguely, I heard an alarm blaring around us, and the intense feeling of my own dark magic flooded the air.

I grabbed Dante's shoulders, wrapping my legs around his waist so he couldn't get away from me. I'd just found him—and been bitten by him, not that I was ready to process it. I wasn't letting him escape. He was half the reason I was in the prison at all.

The penitentiary's magic couldn't affect me, but if I let go of the vampire king, I had no idea if I would find him again.

I had created the prison… but that didn't mean I could control it.