Page 17 of Broken Fate
“A chance to do what?”
“Better.” She continued to look down at me. “To fight back if you want.”
I glanced at my roommate, who was very clearly awake, but just as clearly pretending not to be as she stayed prone, staring at the far wall. But I could see her trembling slightly under the blankets. Whoever the strange in my cell was, she was known to the others.
“To fight back?” I echoed. “I just wanted to put off being mated for a bit. Look where that got me. Prison, most likely with a death sentence over my head.”
“You’re wrong,” she said more gently. “It got you to open your eyes. I see the way you looked around earlier. The blindfold was off. You see our society, ourtruesociety. You want change.”
I did?
“I think you’ve got the wrong impression,” I said. “The wrongperson. I’m not a fighter.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, gesturing for me to get up. “You just don’t know it yet. Come on. It’s time to go.”
“To go? Go where?”
A second figure moved in the darkness behind her. I lifted a hand in warning, fearing it to be one of the guards, but the woman just shifted the candle to her other hand before passing it off to the newcomer as he ducked to fit inside the cell, his shoulders almost too broad to fit through the opening.
He walked inside with a smooth ease of movement that screamed of power and raw sexuality. His scent rolled in like fog on an unusually warm late winter evening, filling my nose with reminders of pine needles and fresh leather.
I came alive, every nerve ending in my body—including the ones in my ripped and torn back—lighting up as he raised his head, gray-blue eyes locking onto mine.
“Enough talk,” he growled from underneath a short, thick beard that covered his cheeks and jaw, his voice like granite. “We have to move.Now.”
Chapter Nine
“We’ve already wasted enough time,” he continued. “Get her up and moving.”
My ears worked in that I heard him speaking. I couldn’t stop staring, however, watching how his lips twisted and moved as he spoke, noting the almost eerie calm, despite our clandestine meeting.
He had a powerful jaw, and his angular-shaped face was set with a sort of coldness that I couldn’t help but feel didn’t belong. The man, whoever he was, had a face meant to smile. It should be full of laughter and joy. Not the hardness that now occupied the corners of his eyes and set his mouth in a flat line.
“Movingwhere?” I asked, despite the fact I was now rising from bed anyway. He was a man who expected to be obeyed when he spoke a command, and my body was doing just that, with or without my input. “Could one of you please speak plainly, and not in riddles so that I know what the hell is going on?”
“Keep your voice down,” the man growled, giving me a warning look. “We’re getting out of here. We’re almost out of time as is. Now, move it, and stay quiet.”
I found myself following him out of the cell, my nostrils drinking in breath after breath of his sweet scent. It trailed him, thick like mist. The woman didn’t seem bothered by it, but I was getting drunk on pheromones without even trying. It was heavenly …
Exiting the cell, I skidded to a halt as the dim candlelight illuminated another face. A face Iknew.
“Quiet,” the woman hissed, slapping a hand over my mouth as I nearly shouted in surprise at seeing Clive.
“What are youdoing here?” I hissed, pulling her hand away as I hugged Clive, my face pressed firmly to his chest.
He was conscious not to squeeze my back, instead grabbing my head and holding it as I rested between his pecs, stunned beyond belief at his presence in my prison break.
“I’m with them,” Clive said quietly in a tone I’d never heard from him before, pointing at the leader and the woman, who stood nearby with a handful of others, all of whom faced outward. Keeping watch.
I glanced up at Clive as we were ushered into motion once more, and the tall woman guided us toward what had to be the exit. There was something different about Clive. He’d changed since the other night. His response wasn’t rude or cold. But it had been … grown-up. Confident.
I stole another look, noting the set of his jaw and how his eyes prowled the darkness around us for danger as we moved through the prison. It wasn’t his first time. He was too calm, too experienced.
Something happened then between us. I didn’t know what. My brain was still too shocked to figure it out. But at that moment, I started to—
“Go!” one of the others suddenly hissed, raising the alarm as they spotted or heard something.
We rushed forward, breaking into a run as we hurried down the wide pathway between rows of cell blocks before reaching an open sewer grate. Another shape materialized from the shadows nearby, greeting the hulking man who seemed to be the leader.
