Prisoner of Fae by Abbie Lyons

Author:Abbie Lyons [Lyons, Abbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abbie Lyons
Published: 2020-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

THE NEXT MORNING, I awoke to an unfamiliar face at the bars of my cell.

“Inmate. Breakfast is in five.”

I snapped to sitting, alarm pounding my chest. I clutched the blanket around me, feeling uncharacteristically naked in my prison-issued sleepwear with some stranger peering in at me.

“Who’s there?” I called back, my voice scratchy and stupidly weak. Ugh.

“Guardsman. Your assigned detail is in disciplinary review, so I’ve been assigned as interim.”

Ooookay then. Whoever this guy was, he was not messing around. I got up and did my usual morning routine as best I could, keeping one eye towards the silhouetted figure at the entrance to my cell as much as I could. I was starting to get used to the steps in my daily preparations: the rough feeling of the gritty paper towels, the terrible, pungent, institutional smell of the soap, the freakin’ hopeless battle that was attempting to do my hair. Did they even let us get haircuts in prison? Or was I going to be released from here in ten years with a mullet and horrific split ends?

Smoothing the flyaways on the crown of my head with a few drops of putrid water from the sink, I tentatively approached the front of my cell. “Ready,” I squeaked.

To my surprise, the guardsman at the door wasn’t a stranger at all. It was Cobalt, Gage’s friend and fellow Azelorian.

“Oh,” I said, not able to stop myself. “It’s you. Cobalt?”

If he heard me say his name, he didn’t acknowledge it except for a subtle, almost imperceptible twitch of the lips. I took the brief pause to study him a bit closer: his face was much more angular than Gage’s was above the collar of the standard-issue uniform, although his hard gaze was equal to Gage’s most serious looks. He was quite a bit shorter than Gage, but what he lacked in height he made up in wiry build, looking as sleek and capable as a fox. Something told me he’d be good in a quick-moving combat situation, but not much else. He definitely had a weak chin. If it weren’t presumably against regulation, I’d tell him to try out some stubble or even a full beard to conceal it.

“Inmate,” he repeated, barely flicking a gaze at me. His eyes were a nondescript brown, muddy and nervous. His voice was also curiously high, more so than I’d realized earlier. “Are you fully prepared for your first meal of the day?”

“Uh, I guess?” Was this the way Azelorian guardsmen were supposed to talk? Because he sounded like a robot in a bad human sci-fi movie. “I mean, yes.”

With a jerk of his small head and a wave of his hand, Cobalt released me from my cage, and watched closely as I marched myself out into the hallway in the direction of the cafeteria.

The quiet between Cobalt and me was different than the quiet that fell when Gage was at my side. It was uncomfortable, almost awkward, and not in a way that I felt could be smoothed over.

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