Page 54 of Broken Pregnant Mate
I say nothing, centering myself the way Dorian taught me, preparing for the fight that will either make me alpha of the Grayhides—or just another head displayed out in front of the Blacklock mansion.
Chapter 24 - Emaline
After the woman eats the jam, three things happen—first, she sits up, her eyes brightening, then meeting mine with a glint. Time slows down as we share a look—maybe the result of two women who are more than tired of being locked up.
Her gaze manages to say more than words could—to communicate thanks and to wish me luck with whatever I’m doing next. I feel something of a tether snap into place between us, the shared connection of this experience.
Second, the woman raises her hands, flexing them, and the guard across the room lets out a strangled, half-formed scream. I look up to catch sight of him dropping from his chair, his body hitting the ground with a sickening, emptythud. From here, he looks like a petrified corpse, and I realize he must be dead, because he doesn’t move.
And third, the woman closes her eyes for a moment, and the shackles around my wrists pop open.
It’s instantaneous.
The room fills with the sound of a hundred tiny little pops—wrist cuffs coming open that have likely been locked shut for weeks, or months. Little surprised sounds go off around the room, tiny shrieks, confused moans.
Just like that, everyone here is free. The brains, let loose.
I’ve seen magic before, obviously. Shifters have casters, those capable of using magic, imbuing stones, but their magic often takes some time to conjure. Often, several of them have to work together to make their spells powerful.
But this is something else. Something I’ve never seen before, and it leaves me stunned, turning in a circle and lookingaround the room, surveying the change she was able to make with a single motion of her hand.
“Thank you—” I start, turning to look at her. Questions are already floating through my head—I want to ask her what her name is, if she’s serious about being from Hysopp, and how in the world she managed to land herself here.
If the books were right, nobody had seen a Hysopp witch in decades. Did the Grayhide realize who she was when they locked her up? They just saw any sort of power and brought her in, thinking she must be psychic, or thinking her just like any other shifting caster?
But I can’t ask her, can’t get any more information from her. Because the space that she occupied just a second ago is empty, nothing but a slight divot in the mattress remains. I stare at it for a moment, wondering if it’s possible that I imagined the whole thing.
No—across the space, the door stands wide open, like someone stalked through and threw it to the side. She was here, and she used magic to kill the guard, let everyone loose.
Standing on shaky legs, I move through the space, gesturing to the others.
“Come on,” I try to keep my voice low, to make sure any guards outside the room don’t hear. If they notice the door that’s open now, our escape plot will effectively be finished. But none of them are listening to me—they’re so high, or so used to being stuck, that they don’t even notice the shackles around their wrists are open.
“She’s a cheater!” someone shouts from the other side of the room. “She’s messing with the stones!”
“You’re free,” I say, stopping and waving to a little girl. “Come on, honey, get up.”
She just looks up at me, expression vacant. There are kids scattered all throughout this room, I realize. And I won’t be able to get them all out.
Two mattresses down is a woman with a messy brown bun, her chin resting on her knees, her body curled up as she sits on the mattress.
“Ash!” I hiss, getting to my friend and deciding we’ll have to come back later for the others. All I can think about right now is Aidan, and what might happen if he doesn’t know the truth about Jerrod Blacklock. “Ash.”
She looks up at me, face flat, empty of feeling. When she speaks, her tone is just as flat, “What?”
“Come on.” I give her wide eyes, pointing to her shackles. “I’ll have to tell you about how those opened later, but the guard is dead. Right now, we have to go—”
“What’s the point?” she asks, dropping her gaze back to the floor. She is not the same woman who got in the car with me this morning, and when she speaks again, her voice is choked. “I wasn’t good enough.”
There’s no time. No time for Ash to even entertain the thought that she isn’t good enough. I drop to a crouch and take her face in my hands. It’s forward, considering how new our friendship is, but I push through the awkwardness.
Ash has been there for me. It’s my turn to be there for her.
“Ash,” I say, looking right into her eyes and thinking about what she said to me earlier. “You have tofight.Your brother is here, Aidan is here, and they need our help.”
“How am I going to help?” Ash asks, and I realize there are tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t even protect you earlier.”
“You did,” I argue. “You got me here. Imagine what might have happened if I came on my own. And now we can help the guys.”
