Chapter One

You were right.

Gah, Katrina’s handwriting was atrocious.

Those words were such a hard pill to swallow as she spelled them out carefully in cursive onto the notebook paper her cellmate had given her.

It had been easy enough to address the envelope to Silver of the Fastlander Crew in Laramie, Wyoming, but the insides of the letter had been much more difficult for her to write. Already, she’d erased everything three times and started over. The paper was wearing thin, and her eraser was nothing but a nub.

Silver had been her best friend, once upon a time.

She’d tried to warn her of what was happening in the Holland Pride, but hindsight was 20/20. Now, she could see so clearly what her King had been doing all along. The manipulation was easier to see when she was forced to be away from the Pride. Hell, they were all forced to be away from each other. Most of them had been picked up by the police when they’d been trying to flee the Fastlander War.

Her included.

She’d thought Rook had loved her, but as it turned out, Rook had only loved two things—himself, and revenge.

And now? She was in prison. Cold Foot Prison, to be specific, where everything had gone wrong.

This prison was one of the three big shifter prisons, but the outside world didn’t really know what was going on here. She hadn’t realized the dark secrets of this place until she’d been transported here.

She tried writing the next line again. You were right, and I didn’t listen. The deeper I got into being Queen, the more I realized what a show it was. It wasn’t real.

The alarm in the prison sounded, and Katrina looked up at the flashing red light above the bars of her cell.

“Is that normal?” she asked her cellmate, Raynah.

Raynah, a crocodile shifter, lowered the magazine to her chest from where she laid on the top bunk across the cell, and frowned up at the flashing red light positioned right above the door. “Someone must be trying to make a run for it.”

“Chh. Good luck,” she muttered under her breath. She’d seen the security as she’d been shipped in here on a bus full of other criminals. There were two fences spaced a hundred yards apart with electrified barbed wire around the top. Inside the prison walls were four lookout towers with armed men, who could flip a single switch and electrify the ground, freezing anyone who was walking, or running, across it.

No one would ever escape this hell.

Raynah rolled over on her side, troubled eyes on the flashing light. “I’ve been in here two years, and only seen that thing go off twice.”

Raynah was heavily pregnant, so when she moved to get off the bed, Katrina held her hand out to stop her. “I’ll look. You don’t have to get up.”

She stood and made her way to the door, wrapped her hands around the bars, and peered out of her cell. The cell doors were all closed at this time of day. It was right after mess hall, and the hall on this floor of the prison was eerily empty. “No guards,” she observed softly, knowing Raynah would hear her just fine. Crocodiles had all the senses. More senses even than the wild ones.

Raynah asked in a troubled tone, “Is there anyone in the hallway at all?”

“No one.” Shifters were starting to shout from cell to cell, asking what was happening.

Suddenly, the building shook, and a loud roar deafened Katrina. She knelt down and clapped her hands over her ears as the room shook, cement and dust falling from the walls and ceiling.

When the deafening sound stopped, she looked back at Raynah, fear building in her chest.

“I know that sound,” Raynah uttered, her pretty green eyes wide.

Katrina had never heard fear in the croc shifter’s voice since she’d come here six months ago. Pregnant or not, Raynah was tough as leather, and a boss around here.

“I do too,” Katrina whispered in terror. She’d heard it before.

She had the distinct tone of Damon Daye’s dragon memorized from the sheer trauma from the night of the Fastlander War.

The blue dragon was here.

The cell door swung open automatically, and Katrina gasped at the loud creak of the doors around them opening too.

As one, those doors had swung wide open, and now this entire floor had access to the hallway—with no guard supervision.

Shhhhit.

“Raynah,” Katrina gritted out.

“Yep.” Her cellmate scrambled off the top bunk and shoved the bed to the side with a screech of metal legs on concrete. With shaking hands, she started scrabbling to pry the loose cinderblock free.

Katrina guarded the door, because she knew what was coming. Raynah had a hyena problem, and because her cellmate had a problem with them, by association, so did Katrina. And they were lifers. These hyenas were as close to evil as a shifter could be. They had nothing to lose.

“Faster, Raynah,” Katrina urged as the shifters starting flooding out of their cells.

Was it just here? Or was the technical glitch happening on the male floors also?

Another dragon roar shook the walls, and this was bad. It was really bad! Damon was here to finish what he’d started.

“Raynah, leave it! We have to go!”

“Easy for you to say. I can’t Change, remember?”

Katrina could see the hyenas gathering. The three main ringleaders were talking in the middle of the chaos, and looked over to meet Katrina’s eyes. They had to go!

“Raynah!”

“I’ve got it!” Raynah tossed the cinderblock to the side and pulled out a pair of homemade shivs they’d carved from the ends of toothbrushes.

Katrina hadn’t had access to her lioness since she’d come to Cold Foot, so when Raynah offered her one of the sharp objects, she accepted it. She also grabbed the pencil off the small writing desk and shoved it into the back of her beige, elastic-waist pants.

The hyenas were here, and she knew how they hunted. Their Cackles hunted like lion Prides, so when she only saw two of them filing toward them, she knew there would be a third, or even possibly a fourth, waiting to ambush wherever they herded Raynah.

“This ain’t your fight,” Marble said, her eyes bright gold. “Get out of the way.”

“Mmm, go fuck yourself,” Katrina told her, blocking the doorway. “She’s got a baby in her. Move.”

Marble’s eyebrows arched up high, and she huffed a laugh to her Second, Raquel. “This one is a spicy kitty.”

“Ain’t no spicy kitties here,” Katrina ground out, gripping the shiv. “None of us have animals in these walls.”

Marble’s slow smile turned evil. “Speak for yourself.”

And now she could smell it—the scent of fur, and the musk of her animal.

“Just go,” Raynah said from behind her. “I can take care of myself.”

“No doubt,” Katrina gritted out, grabbing her cellmate’s hand in an iron grip and dragging her out the door with her.

She shoulder-checked Marble, and when Raynah grunted in pain behind her, Katrina turned and slashed upward with her shiv, cutting Marble up the side of her neck.

Marble had grabbed Raynah by the hair, but shrieked in shocked pain and released her to hold her gushing neck.

“I might not have my animal, but I’m fast,” Katrina gritted out, holding out her blade to the two hyenas. “And I’m trained. You want to live? Get out of the way.”

She just needed them to give her a direction, to tell her which way they wanted her to go.

Raquel’s eyes flashed to something behind her and she stepped forward, herding her and Raynah. Yep, that’s exactly what she needed.

A glance behind her and she didn’t see the rest of the hyenas, but they would be there—either around the corner, or down the long corridor the others were filing into.

No thank you.

She shoved straight into Raquel and ducked the punch that came flying from her left side from Marble. She turned quick and grabbed her arm, snapped it across her knee like a stick, and moved fast to grab Raquel by the throat, shoved her straight back and pinned her against the wall. She placed the tip of her shiv at the tripping pulse in Raquel’s neck. “I wonder if you can reach your animal before you bleed out?” she gritted out.

Raquel stood there, hatred in her eyes, frozen for a three-count before she slowly lifted her hands in the air in surrender.

Katrina threw her to the side and grabbed Raynah’s hand, pulled her in the opposite direction of the corridor. “This way,” she murmured under her breath.

“Oh my gosh!” Raynah exclaimed. “Who are you?”

She ignored her cellmate and fought the crowd rushing past them. They were the only ones going this way. A quick glance behind her, and she could see the hyenas getting pushed along with the crowd toward the corridor. Marble was yelling some order Katrina couldn’t make out over the yelling of the shifters trying to escape, but she knew it wasn’t good. A kill order, probably.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Raynah said.

“The hyenas are waiting for you back there.”

“They’ll be long gone before we get there.”

Raynah was a crocodile shifter. She was a loner. She didn’t understand the hunt-instinct, or the way the hyenas would work together. It was okay, Katrina didn’t expect her to understand, but she didn’t have time to explain the danger right now. “Just trust me. Hurry.”

“If you’re trying to escape, this is the wrong way! You don’t know this prison yet—”

“I do—”

“You don’t!” Raynah yanked her hand out of Katrina’s grasp. There wasn’t anyone left in this part of the hallway, right above the stairwell. “I’m not going downstairs with you. You think the hyenas are bad?” She jammed her finger down the stairwell. “The monsters are on level two, and the males are on level one.”

Katrina growled and glanced at the crowd, second-guessing this idea. Slow down. Explain it to her so she understands . “Raynah, the breeding rooms are on level two, right? The monsters they keep there are on a separate electrical system. The doors have to be manually opened. This?” She waved her hand around the mass open doors. “This won’t happen to the monster-doors. There is an exit on level two, by way of a vent that is big enough for you to get through. Those shifters are headed right for the front door and the electrified ground, and if that doesn’t get them, there is a fucking dragon in the air.”

“How…how do you know all this?” she whispered.

“I’m a watcher. Let’s go.”

“Why are you helping me?” Raynah asked as she jogged down the stairs behind her.

“Because you’ve got a baby. You could be a hyena and I would help you. None of this is that baby’s fault.”

“Well, we could just stay here,” she whisper-screamed as they reached the second level. It was darker on this floor, and the alarms weren’t sounding. The red lights above the doors were flashing, but there wasn’t the deafening, ear-grinding noise.

Something ran across the hallway behind them, and Katrina hunched, gripped her shiv harder, ready.

Was it a guard? Was it an escaped shifter?

“We could just stay here.” Raynah’s voice was shaking, and the stink of fear filled Katrina’s senses. “The guards are probably securing the outsides, and we will probably be rewarded for not being a part of the problem.”

“That’s the fear talking,” Katrina whispered, senses on the heartbeat she could hear somewhere behind them. Nothing made sense. Where had the guards gone? Why was the blue dragon here in Alaska causing destruction? Why was the entire female level allowed to walk out of their cells unchecked?

The cell doors were still closed here, and on the ground up ahead, there was a guard, laying perfectly still. The scent of blood was thick in the air. Chills rippled up her arms as she moved past him. Something enormous slammed up against the first cell, and she startled hard as Raynah screamed.

Katrina gripped her hand hard and avoided meeting the monster’s eyes. “Let me out!” he roared in an inhuman voice. The smell of dominance and fur was overwhelming.

She avoided looking in the next two cells, and tried to block out the crude things they were screaming at her.

The fourth though…that fourth cell…

She couldn’t help it. She knew who was in that cell. Didn’t know his name, but she knew his body. They had shared something awful. Shared something beautiful in ways she couldn’t ever process, even if she lived to see a hundred.

Something intense that made no sense, and all the sense in the world at the same time.

She had to look, because she thought she would never see him again.

He was her terror. He was her nightmare.

He was the one who had known her in ways that had altered her animal.

In her mind, she had just called him King, because that was the name on the tag next to his cell.

He wasn’t standing. Instead, he sat in the shadows of his dark cell, glowing gold eyes steady on her.

Chills, chills, chills.

She hadn’t seen his animal’s eye color before.

She huffed a shaking breath, standing there by the bars of his cell, frozen.

“The Jackal’s out,” he said in a deep voice.

“Jackal?” Raynah asked in a terrified voice.

His eyes stayed trained on her, unblinking. “They didn’t give us our meds today.”

Shit. That would explain the glowing gold eyes. If he couldn’t Change already, he would be able to soon. The animal-suppressing medicines the prison required them to take only lasted about a day, give or take.

“Why that one?” he asked, his deep, gravelly voice echoing through the dim hallway.

“She has a baby,” Katrina answered softly.

“Why?” he asked again.

“You know why.”

His eyes narrowed, and he stood slowly. “You remember where the vent is?”

“Yes.” A wave of emotions took over her as he stepped out of the shadows.

He straightened his spine and stood to his full height, towering over her and Raynah. His enormous fists gripped the cell bars. “Run run, scurry scurry, little mouse. The Jackal’s out.”

“I can take a jackal,” she gritted out.

A slow smile took his dangerously handsome face. “Oh, I’m depending on it.”

“I know the Jackal,” Raynah whispered, eyes down the hallway where there was movement again. “He goes by Jack, but I know what he is.”

“Jackals are fast,” he pointed out.

“I’m faster,” Katrina said.

“Truth.” He cocked his head, released the bars, and backed away. “The dragon will be watching the exits. Stay low. Get to the woods.” His eyes snapped to Raynah. “Better keep up.”

Katrina grabbed Raynah’s hand and led her away, senses on the movement behind them. Stupid Jackal was playing with them. She tossed a look back at the still form of the guard, his key card hanging from the rubber coil clipped to his pocket. She could release King. She could run back and grab the card and release him.

“Do you want me to free you?” she asked.

“No.”

She frowned, confused. “I really hate you, you know.”

He nodded, eyes cool. “I hate you too.”

Those words felt loaded. That admission felt like it held weight. Did he hate her for the same reasons she hated him?

“Swear you won’t hurt us,” she said.

He stayed silent, and this was the part where she was supposed to leave. She was supposed to escape, and never look back, and never think of him again.

But…

He’d done her a kindness once, in his own way, when he didn’t have to.

She bolted for the guard, and she knew that’s what the Jackal had been waiting on. He was one of the breeders. If Raynah knew of him, he was probably her breeder. He was fast, as King had said, but she was ready. She’d been listening to him move his way closer.

She flew through the air and caught his neck with her legs, swung around and twisted, slammed him to the ground, tightened the grip of her thighs and pulled his arm up, threatened to snap it.

“I won’t feel a thing,” she assured him.

The Jackal struggled. Granted, he was strong, but Katrina knew what she was doing with leverage. He muttered a curse, and she said, “Leave us alone.”

“Fine. Ack!” he choked out. “Fine!”

She shoved him away from her and stood quick, then crouched, shiv and pencil ready. The Jackal was tall and built. He rubbed his throat, eyes bright blue and full of fury. “Who taught you that trick, little kitty?”

“A big kitty,” she gritted out, moving backward slowly.

A deep chuckle came from King’s cell.

“Shut up!” The Jackal yelled.

The booming laugh that emanated from King filled the hallway.

The alarms had started ringing down here now, and the noise grated on her instincts, making her want to flee.

She yanked the key card off the guard and ran to King’s cell, ignoring the yelling of the other monsters to release them.

“You don’t have to,” King rushed out.

Before she could change her mind, Katrina clapped the key card onto the reader by his door, waited until it turned green, and then yanked open the cell door.

She backed away fast as he ducked under the frame and into the hallway. He was an enormous man, and seemed to take up every molecule of space. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he growled.

But she had to trust her instincts. She gave him her back and walked away, following Raynah, who was also scrambling away.

“You ruin everything,” she heard the Jackal murmur as he retreated the other way.

One glance back, and King wasn’t following them. Instead, he was leaned against the wall right across from his cell, blocking the Jackal’s access to them, just…watching them leave.

She didn’t understand. Did he not want to escape?

You know what? It wasn’t her problem. He was a confusing situation for her that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Day one of forgetting him started right now.

She used the key card to open the breeding room, but Raynah locked her legs against any forward momentum just inside the door.

“Come on,” Katrina murmured, pushing her gently at the small of her back. “The faster we get up to the vent, the faster we can leave this shithole behind.”

“I…I…” Raynah’s face had gone pale, and her eyes had tracked to the corner in front of the two-way glass.

Katrina knew what she was looking at, and a pang of ache washed through her.

She stepped in front of her cellmate and cupped her face, dragged her eyes to her. “Focus. The vent is above the bed. You’re tough. We will deal with this stuff when we’re free of here. Give me five more minutes of focus.”

Raynah’s eyes were wide, and a sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead. She nodded slightly, then allowed Katrina to drag her to the bed.

She stepped up onto it, leapt up, and punched open the vent. It had been bolted down, and the thin grate cut her knuckles, but it gave. She was strong, even when she wasn’t Changed into her lioness.

She jumped up again and pulled herself up into the vent shaft to make sure she had the correct information about it. Thankfully, it was tall and wide enough for Raynah to fit through.

She dropped down and linked her hands, braced herself. “Climb up, facing that way.” She tilted her head to the right. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The alarms were blaring and a red light was flashing through the room, and now they could hear yelling in the hallway. “Shhhit. Hurry,” Katrina said.

Raynah glanced back at the open door quick, then placed her hand on Katrina’s shoulder to steady herself, then pushed up off her hand and reached for the edge of the vent. Katrina had to fully extend her arms to help, and it took some effort because of Raynah’s swollen belly. They had to be careful. A few seconds later, and Katrina was up in the vent and settling the dented cover back into place.

“Straight ahead,” she whispered.

Raynah started moving, but the vent shaft dented in with a loud clanging sound.

“Careful,” Katrina whispered. The shouting had reached the room, and it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed the damaged vent cover over the bed.

It was dark and dusty, and this place felt freaking haunted. She wouldn’t be surprised if it actually was. So much bad had happened here.

A roar shook the building hard enough that it flung both her and Raynah to the side. Smoke filled the vent shaft from behind them.

“Oh my gosh, go!” Katrina uttered, panicking.

She could feel the heat on her legs as she scrambled forward after Raynah.

She coughed as the thick smoke filled her lungs. Raynah was going fast now, and Katrina was doing her best to keep up.

“Which way?” Raynah asked from up ahead.

Katrina stopped behind her and looked around. The vent shaft forked. What had he said? What had he said? Think!

Straight, and then…left? Or straight still?

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine the conversation, but she had been distracted by…by…

“Katrina, which way?” Raynah choked out.

“Left.” She hoped.

On hands and knees, Raynah scrambled into the left shaft and pushed forward fast, allowing room for Katrina to follow. The smoke was getting so bad. Were they headed into the fire? And who was stupid enough to set the fire? The prisoners? The dragon? It felt like the prison was burning from the inside out.

Raynah shrieked in pain and flinched back. She clutched her hand, and Katrina could clearly see the blisters. “Oh my gosh. The fire must be under us.”

“What do we do?” Raynah asked, panicked.

“We have to go back.”

Katrina moved backward, but her knee hit burning-hot metal and she yelped. “Fire’s behind us too!” Her eyes were burning so bad, and it was getting difficult to breathe.

Frantic, she angled herself to the side and kicked at a vent. Kick, kick. Shoot, the metal was thicker here. Kick. Kick.

Raynah was kicking too. “Help!” she screamed.

The entire shaft jerked down, and Katrina screamed as they fell. She hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of her. She wheezed desperately, trying to inhale oxygen into her shocked lungs, but smoke was all that existed here.

She didn’t understand. There was movement through the smoke, and Raynah was holding her shiv out, screaming something Katrina couldn’t understand.

And then she saw it—the massive hand that rested on its knuckles near her face. Struggling to breathe, she looked up slowly to see his face.

King had Changed.

As he leaned down slowly, exposing his sharp canines, she froze in terror.

“Run,” he said in that inhuman, gravelly voice of his. “Run or die.”

There was fire in this room. It was some kind of science lab, with clear cylinders full of things she didn’t understand. They were abominations. Tiny mixtures of different shifter animals.

She rolled over and coughed, then pushed upward as King disappeared into the smoke. Raynah was staring in horror at one of the tall, water-filled cylinders. There was a creature with a tail like a crocodile, but it looked half-human.

“Run!” she shrieked, hooking her arm around Raynah and dragging her toward a clear part of the room. There was a door, if they could get through the flames.

Cold Foot Prison was burning.

At the door, she tried to open it, but it had one of the keypads. Fingers fumbling, she reached into her pocket for the key card, but it wasn’t there. She checked her other pocket, and the hem of her pants. She searched the floor around her, panicking.

“Move,” the evil-sounding voice of King gritted out. It echoed around the room and dragged chills up from her skin.

Katrina looked up, and his massive silverback gorilla was coming at them like a torpedo.

She yelped, grabbed Raynah, and shielded her as the gorilla went straight through the door, taking half the damn wall with him.

She glanced back at the room and tossed up a little prayer for the little souls in here. Whatever evil had been done here, it hadn’t been their fault.

Cold Foot Prison burning was a good thing.

She grabbed Raynah’s hand and dragged her over the rubble, ducking out from under falling debris. King had taken the next three doors, and the fire hadn’t reached this path yet. She didn’t trust him one tiny bit, but what choice did they have?

She bolted through the destruction he’d created and at the end of it, there was an enormous pair of metal doors. Automatic metal bars held them locked, and King was slamming himself against them.

The smoke was drifting in here. Feeling trapped, Katrina jogged along the walls, looking for any way out. The walls were thicker here.

King slammed himself against the cinderblock walls, but they were only crumbling a little, not giving.

“Look!” Katrina yelled, pointing at a vent cover twenty feet above the door.

The smoke was being sucked into it so clearly. It had to lead outside, or at the very least to some kind of ventilation system that filtered the air.

King leapt off the ground and reached for the rafters, and she was mesmerized by how powerful he was. How graceful, as he swung to the vent and yanked it off. He gripped the edges and tried to rip the vent shaft opening wider. It didn’t budge.

He roared so loud, it scared Katrina, and she hunched. King released the rafter of the ceiling completely and held on with all of his body weight to the edge of the vent, leveraged his feet against the wall, and pulled as hard as he could.

The damn thing didn’t budge.

“Fuck,” he gritted out, dropping to the floor hard. He stood on his legs, to his full height. She had never seen a shifter like King. His animal had to be twelve feet tall, at least. He was barrel-chested and had powerful arms, and enormous fists for pummeling. “This room is for a dragon,” he gritted out. “I would bet money on it. It’s reinforced.”

“We’re trapped?” Raynah asked, cradling her belly.

King’s nostrils flared, and he slid a golden-eyed glance to her. “No. We’re not trapped. I am.”

He rushed forward so fast, he blurred. Katrina gasped as she reached for Raynah, and missed by a mile. He had her up near the vent shockingly fast. He held onto it with one powerful hand and eased her into it. When she disappeared, King dropped down on all fours and eased himself toward Katrina.

A flashback took her. She dropped her gaze and backed up, still struggling to breathe.

“I won’t hurt you now,” he uttered.

“Get away from me. I’ll get up there myself.”

He stopped immediately, and lifted his chin higher into the air. His eyes cooled. “Get to the woods.”

“I know. You told me that already.”

“The dragon will be scanning for motion. Hide as fast as you can. Go still until he’s farther away, and then run again. He’ll be circling the prison. He’ll be flying in a pattern.”

She wanted to ask how he knew so much about dragons. She wanted to ask him so many questions, but the fire was getting closer and Raynah was yelling for her to hurry.

“Can you Change? You might fit if you Change.”

“Can’t. Been trying this whole time.”

Shoot. Maybe it was the meds messing with his system still? Or if his animal had been suppressed too long, he wouldn’t be able to get his human form back for a while. It worked like that for some shifters. “Can you find another way out?”

“Sure,” he said in a dead tone. It was a lie, but he didn’t seem to care that she could sense that. “Hurry now.”

“I’m…” She frowned. She didn’t know what to say. She hated him, but she was grateful to him. “I’m sorry,” she said, but her complicated feelings were swirling like a tornado inside of her. She didn’t know why she was saying she was sorry. None of what had happened here had been her fault. She shouldn’t be sorry for anything, but she was.

“Me too,” he said, his glowing eyes steady on hers.

He meant it. He’d told the truth. He was sorry. Katrina could hear it clear as a bell tone in his voice.

Her eyes prickled and burned, and she didn’t know if it was from the smoke, or from the mass of emotions undulating inside of her.

She bunched her muscles and leapt up, grabbed the lip of the vent easily, and pulled herself into it. She hesitated though. She turned and looked into the room. King was standing there, looking up at her. “How many?” She had to know.

“How many what?”

“Don’t act stupid. How many?”

He paced away, and back. “Leave.”

“How many?”

He paced away again, and a low rumble emanated from him. The fine hairs on her body electrified.

“I have to know! How. Many!”

“One!” he roared. “One! One! One, fucking one! You!”

Whatever she’d expected the answer to be, it wasn’t that. No, the breeders each had a roster. They went through them. It was their awful job. One? Just one? Just her?

“Come on,” Raynah yelled from behind her, tugging on her shirt.

She would never forget this. She would never forget the rage in his eyes as she left him there to burn.

There were still so many unanswered questions. Half of her wanted to stay and ask them, and half of her wanted to run as far away from this place as she could get and never think about it, or him, again.

She ripped her gaze away from her personal nightmare and forced herself to follow Raynah. King’s roar of anguish followed her, echoing through the twenty feet of vent shaft. Up ahead, Raynah had kicked out the thick cover, and Katrina could see daylight.

Gah, how long had it been since she’d seen the sky? Six months? Yeah. She had been buried under the frozen tundra of Alaska in this heartless prison system, where so much more happened than anyone on the outside realized for six months. Kept separate from her animal for six months. Half a year only being half of herself.

She scrambled out of the opening and scanned their surroundings. The cover was just above the frozen ground. The top of the prison only stood above the ground by about five feet on this side of the prison. She imagined the door King couldn’t get open. It must’ve led down a hallway to more of the building, positioned underground.

She stood up and glanced over the edge of the roofline, to see the dragon. Damon Daye was really here. His blue scales were three shades darker than the sky, and he was blowing fire on the other side of the prison. They had to go while he was busy over there.

The dragon was supposed to be an advocate for shifter rights, but here he was, burning a shifter prison and all its inhabitants to the ground. If the world knew how awful Damon really was, everything would be turned upside down.

She pointed to the fence. “Look!” There was a huge cut in the chain link, like someone had made it out before them, and had already cut it. Great. Now she wouldn’t have to figure out a way to get Raynah over the razor wire that was positioned in loose spirals above the fencing. “Stay low to the ground.”

She and Raynah bolted for the hole in the fence. King could’ve made it out with them, if only he’d been able to Change back into his human form. Or if he could’ve ripped the vent open wider for his gorilla to escape. She glanced back, but she couldn’t see him through the vent. The wall was too thick, and the other side was in shadow. Was he hanging there still? Was he watching her escape? Was he feeling hopeless?

“What’s wrong?” Raynah huffed out, circling back to her and tugging her hand.

Katrina hadn’t realized she had slowed down. She kicked up to a run again, but a few steps later, she came to a stop.

“Shit,” she whispered, looking back at the open vent. What if he was at war with the other shifters inside? What if he burned alive?

She hated him. She hated what they had done. She hated what had been expected of them. She hated him for not figuring out a way to stop what had happened.

She hated how angry he’d been. Hated how he’d made her feel. Hated that he’d made her like something she had been trying so hard to reject. She hated the confusion that consumed her when she thought of him, or looked at him.

No one would ever know what had happened between them if he disappeared. She should be able to run away and never look back, but she stood frozen. Why? Because her animal was waking up and forcing her to question everything. Sometimes she thought the lioness was nicer than her human side. She should probably be ashamed of that, but she wasn’t.

Katrina was what she was. She’d been built into this, and she understood how to be cold. So why was she struggling so badly to follow her cellmate out into those woods and to freedom? She was right there!

Damon was flying away, burning lines of fire and lava into the woods on the other side of the prison.

“Go without me,” she said to Raynah.

“What? No! Let’s go. There’s nothing you can do for him.”

“I have to try,” she murmured, jogging back toward the prison.

“Kat!” Raynah called, but she ignored her.

There was a door fifty yards to the right of the vent. She checked the dragon’s position. He still hadn’t seen her. Bright side, the phoenix wasn’t here. Wreck Itall would’ve had this place burned to the ground already with his agonizing fire. He was destruction. She’d died by his fire before, and she still didn’t understand how she’d come back from the dead.

The dragon’s fire was awful, but it was straightforward—get burned and die. The phoenix’s fire could drag you to hell, let you burn there, and drag you screaming back out, traumatizing the animal completely.

Wreck was the biggest monster in the world. She would take that blue dragon in the air any day over him.

She pushed her legs harder, sprinting for the door. It was only half-height—an emergency exit, perhaps. It had a handle though, and a keypad that said she could get into it if she was strong enough, or if the fires were shorting out the locking mechanisms.

A growl rattled her throat. She gasped and clutched her hand to where the sound had come from. She’d taken her medicine this morning, so there wasn’t a reason for her animal to be accessible. She hadn’t heard a growl in months.

A wave of terror washed over her as she realized Damon’s dragon was circling the prison. She reached the door and yanked the handle as hard as she could. Grunting, she pulled again, bracing her foot against the wall beside it. A bloodcurdling scream sounded behind her, and the terror in Raynah’s voice dragged chills up her spine. Katrina turned to see a huge armored Hummer plowing through the fence. The sound of gunfire shocked her. The guards had backup. Raynah went to her knees just inside of the fence. Why was she still here? She should’ve been to the woods by now!

“Raynah!” Katrina screamed as her cellmate swayed on her knees. She was holding her stomach protectively.

There were people in ski masks filing out of the Hummer, weapons aimed at Raynah, and two were headed toward Katrina.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” she roared, her blood boiling.

The shorter attacker fired at Katrina, and piercing pain took her arm. The fury dragged her lioness to the surface, but it wasn’t enough yet! She couldn’t Change.

Another shot. Same arm. They were either bad at aiming, or they were trying to take her alive.

She pushed her legs harder in a burst of speed, and leapt through the air, caught the assailant’s neck between her legs, flung them around, and slammed them onto the ground.

“What the hell?” someone—a man—yelled from behind his mask.

There was a snarl in his voice. Shifter. Katrina had hit the ground hard, but sprung to her feet and bolted for him.

“Stop!” he ordered.

She did not stop. Couldn’t, at this point. Too mad. Too bloodthirsty.

“Shoot her!” one of the other attackers yelled, striding for them. The voice was familiar.

“It’ll be her third tranq!” the other said.

Almost there.

“Now!” the man ordered. That voice. That familiar voice!

The trigger was pulled, and another slash of pain drove through her upper arm.

Tranqs. Tranquilizers. Katrina’s legs stopped working like someone had flipped a switch. She hit the ground hard and slid the last ten feet to the shooter.

A strange tingling sensation prickled through her arms, and her body froze. She had no control!

The man knelt, gripped her hair in the back, pulled her face up, and examined it. “Lucia said she’ll have the traitor scar now. She saw Rook do it. This is her. This is Katrina.”

“Who the fuck is this?” a woman asked.

Raynah couldn’t answer. She was staring straight back at Katrina, her pupils blown.

“She has a baby,” Katrina whispered, slurring. “Don’t hurt her. Take me.”

“You don’t get to choose who we take,” the woman barked out. “Who is she?”

“Raynah F…f…”

The guy slapped her cheek a couple times. “Name!”

“Raynah Furrow. Croc shhhh…”

“Crocodile shifter?” the man asked.

Someone was on a radio, asking questions about Raynah Furrow, when a deafening roar rattled the earth under her.

“Oh my God,” the man said, standing slowly and lifting his tranquilizer gun. “Did Lucia say anything about him?”

“She just said Katrina would be at this exit. Nothing about these two,” a woman answered.

“He’s going to get out of that vent. Take the croc, let’s go!”

The sound of destruction was so loud, but she couldn’t turn her head far enough to see what King was doing.

“What is he to you?” the man asked, dragging her body upward.

“Mmmm…” Her vocal cords weren’t working right. If she could get it out, she could save him. These people seemed to care. About what, she didn’t know, but they weren’t trying to kill her.

“Tell us fast. The dragon’s coming.”

“Mmmmm.” Shoot, she couldn’t get it out!

Her body was jostled roughly, and she was thrown in the back of the Hummer next to Raynah, who was still staring at nothing. Her eyes weren’t green anymore. They were black from her dilated pupils.

“He’s coming! Wreck! Don’t!”

Wreck? Oh my God! Wreck?

“Who is he?” a woman asked from beside her. She was looking out the back window.

Just lie. Say it so they don’t kill him.

“Mmm…mate.”

“Fuck.” She pulled the radio up to her lips. “Katrina is dragging a gorilla.”

The radio crackled, and then a voice came over the other side. “Which one?”

“K…k…”

“Don’t say King,” the woman uttered.

“King.”

“Fuck!” she yelled. “Turn it around. We have to stop Wreck!”

“There is no stopping Wreck!” the driver yelled.

“I can.” The woman pulled her ski mask off and shoved her tranquilizer gun onto the floor of the Hummer. Katrina cast her eyes upward, and her heart rate kicked up to a gallop.

She knew that woman.

She knew that shifter.

Timber, the mate of the phoenix, was shoving the back door open and sliding out. “Love!” she screamed into the air. “We need him alive! Wreck, don’t!”

The edges of her vision were collapsing inward. Katrina tried to hang on to consciousness. She tried so hard, but everything was getting dark.

Everyone was yelling. She looked to Raynah, desperate to see something familiar before she slipped away. Raynah blinked slowly.

And then she felt it. She felt it, and couldn’t do a single thing to get away from it.

She felt the heat of the phoenix’s fire, and drifted into oblivion to the screams of the Fastlanders and the enraged roaring of the silverback.