Sticking the phone in her pocket to keep it safe, Lana followed Warden Bloom through some of the common areas. Since she only saw guards and other wardens during their walk, she figured they had kept the area clear for her visit. That made sense since she assumed the tour had been pre-planned to keep her occupied while Claudia interviewed the first prisoner.
“Each level has a recreational area and a gym, but there is a larger workout space here on this level for team sports and other activities. This is the dining hall where most of the meals are served. Some of the prisoners are served their meals in their cells, since they cannot be trusted around so many potential weapons.”
She noticed the dining hall was pretty basic, but it seemed clean and well-organized.
“Some people are never let out of their cells?”
“They are, but the access to the recreational areas, the training yards, and even the indoor garden on the lower levels islimited and strictly monitored. They are far too dangerous to be allowed anything resembling freedom.”
Those ominous words seemed to echo through the quiet room. Then, a thunderous boom shattered the silence. The sound struck with such force that it instantly made her head ache and her ears ring.
For a split second, everything seemed to freeze.
Then, the world exploded.
A violent blast shook the entire building. Glass shattered, and debris rained down around them. Lana threw up a protection shield just in time to save herself from being crushed by a large stone. It must have clashed with whatever protection spell Warden Bloom manifested because she was shoved hard across the room. Distracted, she failed to maintain the shield around her, so she hit the ground with enough force to rattle her bones.
Suddenly, the floor of the dining hall cracked and splintered, and she didn’t have time to do anything but scream as it completely collapsed beneath her. As she plunged downward into the dark void below, the only thing she could do was hope that she survived the fall.
Chapter Four
Time meant nothingto Mordecai Masters.
That was the inevitable consequence of being buried alive within stone walls for centuries. Days bled into years, years into lifetimes, until the passage of it all became utterly irrelevant. Time was simply something distant, abstract, and ultimately meaningless. When someone was stripped of freedom for that long, he didn’t just stop counting the hours.
He stopped caring about everything.
Because the truth was imprisonment was a fate worse than death. At least death offered an end, a release, a final breath of peace. This…this was endless. A slow, suffocating existence where each moment dragged on without purpose or mercy.
And yet, Mordecai endured it.
Not because he had hope that he would one day be free. He continued to endure because he was too fucking stubborn to let it break him.
But even that stubbornness was beginning to fade.
The weight of the years was almost unbearable. The isolation, the silence, the injustice, it all pressed down on him harder with every passing moment. It was getting more difficult to hold on, to keep that thin thread of defiance from snapping completely.
Especially when he knew that he had never deserved this fate.
Because he was fucking innocent.
And that truth, more than the centuries of confinement, was what threatened to destroy him.
Mordecai had never been what one would call a good male. He’d been a powerful demon who knew his place in the world, and that was always on top. The Masters were a powerful familywho had ruled their domain for as long as the Realm of Souls had existed, but all of that had come to an end the night his family had been slaughtered.
They claim he had been to blame. That he had orchestrated a coup, killing his father, mother, and the rest of his family to declare leadership over their domain. Rumors spread that he had been jealous of his older brothers because they were more talented than he was. That he had wanted to usurp their claim as the next ruler, even if it meant destroying everyone who shared his bloodline.
But who in hellfire wanted to reign over a kingdom made of ashes and bones?
Centuries ago, investigations weren’t as credible as they were today, but somehow, there had been enough evidence to convict him. Letters were forged. Testimony against him had stacked up. His personal guards, friends he had known from childhood, had all been tortured and killed, leaving behind signed confessions.
He had been damned.
And there hadn’t been a fucking thing he could do about it.
Not even given time to grieve, he had been shipped off to the Supernatural Prison to serve out his endless sentence. Why they hadn’t just executed him, he didn’t know. Maybe whoever was behind the murders had wanted to see him suffer in perpetuity. Or perhaps there was some other nefarious motive. Whatever the reason, it was a fate worse than death.
Fate really could be a capricious and cruel bitch.
