Page 26 of Real

If you were mine, I’d cherish you. I’d satisfy you every night. I swear.

And…

Your ass feels perfect. So tight, so wet. You’re everything an alpha could want.

And…

When we get back to the beach house, I’ll make love to you properly.

Will he? Dorian could wait just a few more hours, right? The lawyers still need to negotiate and Candlewick will have to be released. We could go back to the beach house one more time.

Then I remember Timothy went to see Candlewick.

When Candlewick got drunk with me three months ago, he told me he could charm any alpha in the world.

“Not because I’m pretty, even though I am. Obviously.” He shot me a smug smile that definitely proved his point. Even the omegas on TV weren’t as pretty as Candlewick. “It’s in my blood. Alphas can’t help themselves.”

He’d shown me dozens of photos of him with different alphas who he claimed were even richer than Dorian. In the photos, they were all staring at Candlewick with obvious lust. He was right. They couldn’t help themselves.

Timothy probably won’t be able to help himself either. In just a few minutes, he’d forget all about me.

12

H

I get lost trying to find the visitors’ entrance to the jail, even though I’ve been here many times before. Images of Buddy keep running through my head. He wasn’t disgusted by me at all. There was an intense longing in his eyes, even after it was over.

I bring my fingers up to my nose and inhale deeply. They still smell of Buddy’s slick. The alpha inside me rises to the surface. Buddy’s wearing my bite now. It’s what I’ve always wanted—an omega who is mine. Or who was, for just a few minutes.

Now I need to make sure he’s safe.

Transmuto Correctional Facility is where most shifters in the tri-county area are sent. There are exceptions, of course. Some polar bear shifters are shipped off to Anchorage, and most water-based shifters serve their time in a partially submerged facility in Florida. There is also a correctional facility in Nevada that can accommodate bird shifters who need air space to stay healthy. The guild of each shifter species decides how to incarcerate convicts of their shifter type. In some ways, that’s good. They’re educated on what those convicts need to stay healthy and contained. But it does create a disparity amongst incarcerated shifters. For instance, dragon shifters are served healthy, organic meals and given ample space to shift and fly. They each have their own apartment and plenty of privacy.

Red wolf shifters have very little compassion for people who break the law. The living conditions for inmates of our species are horrifying. They’re all crowded together in the same cell and forced to subsist on a diet of hard tack and oranges.

The US government insisted on the oranges because the inmates kept getting scurvy.

Every time I’ve visited Transmuto, or The Cell as red wolf shifter inmates call it, I’ve been with a kid who has a parent inside. The sanctuary funds a program that allows kids to spend a handful of hours with their incarcerated parents once a year. We get the inmates cleaned up, give them a decent meal, and provide the security necessary for the state to allow the kids to be there. My role is to prepare the kids to see their parents after months of separation. Most of the time their parents look and act a lot different after life in The Cell. They often lose an alarming amount of weight and a few of their teeth because of malnutrition. That can be hard for a kid to see, but it’s a lot harder for them to never see their parent at all.

A knot twists in my gut as I realize that if I get caught helping Buddy escape, I’ll end up in The Cell too.

The visitors’ area is in the back of the building. The waiting room is nice enough. There are windows and chairs with cushions. I fill out a form with the full name and ID number Felicity texted me. Candlewick isn’t his legal name, it’s Isaiah. My brother’s name is Isaiah too. It’s a popular name in the red wolf shifter community.

When the guards finally call me back, I’m led through a few security checkpoints where I’m scanned and patted down before two guards take me to a big cement room with a dozen metal picnic tables bolted to the floor. There are only three inmates chatting with their friends or family right now. They each have a jumpsuit with a black silhouette of an animal on the back. The first is a small male omega with the silhouette of a rabbit, and the second is a muscular female alpha with the silhouette of a tiger. The third guy is facing me, so it’s harder to see his silhouette. It’s on his breast pocket on the right side of his chest, but he has biceps the size of tree trunks and enormous shoulders, so that narrows things down. This facility is one of only two jails in the country equipped to deal with grizzly bear shifters. Grizzlies have enough upper body strength to bend thick rods of metal with their paws. I guess polar bear shifters can do that with the help of magic, but a grizzly doesn’t need magic to bend the bars of a jail cell, they have enough brute strength.

The guards lead me to a table that’s labeled with a four on the top.

“Wait here.”

I sit down at the metal table. There are no windows in this room. The light is bright and harsh. They say the lights never go out in The Cell. It helps the guards keep order. The inmates claim that’s the worst part. Time stretches on endlessly in the bright light.

I could spend twenty years of my life in a room like that if I’m not careful.

A door opens in the corner of the visitor’s room, and a slender man with auburn hair and bright green eyes is escorted inside by a guard. I know immediately that he’s Candlewick. He’s one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen. Almost too pretty. He has high cheekbones, full lips, and long, lean limbs that move gracefully, even in handcuffs.

As he sits down, I feel a vaguely familiar draw to him. If I hadn’t grown up in a red wolf shifter community, I wouldn’t recognize it as anything but attraction. But the attraction has a kick to it.

Candlewick is a red wolf shifter. Not a pure red wolf shifter, of course. His thrall isn’t strong enough. But there is definitely red wolf shifter blood running through his veins. I’d bet my life on it.

---