Page 24 of Imprisoned with the Vampire King

We walked slowly toward the hallway that held the solitary confinement rooms. He wanted to bite me over there, so we had more privacy.

Dante's gaze was moving critically over the staircase as we passed it. He gave it a lot more space than I would've.

Luckily, nothing jumped out at us when we passed the stairs.

We'd almost made it to the solitary confinement room when we had to turn a corner.

He had me tucked behind his tense shoulders in a heartbeat, with one of his arms around my waist, pinning me to him, while our fingers were still intertwined.

I had no idea who was there, but it seemed safe to assume someone was.

"What do you want, Reaper?" Dante asked in a low voice.

Shit.

Reaper was supposed to be River's arch nemesis. They ran the two biggest gangs, with River having and enforcing rules about treating people fairly. Reaper just wanted to rule the whole place.

"Everyone's talking about your pixie. We just want a chance to meet her," a slick, male voice said.

"No." Dante left no room for argument. Or tried not to, anyway. His obvious weakness made his refusal a lot less emphatic.

Reaper chuckled. "It's cute that you think you have a choice."

I squeezed Dante's hand and released it, stepping out from behind him. He had my back pressed up against his chest immediately, with his arm around my abdomen, holding me tightly.

I recognized Reaper from when Dante had pointed him out quietly in the cafeteria. I had met him on the first day I arrived, too.

He had olive skin and long, black hair. His aura was so dark and murky, I nearly flinched away from it.

I'd seen the news when he was sent to prison. He'd killed an assload of people, but he had some form of twisted fae magic on his side, and he was a hybrid. The fae mafia had either decided against killing him, or failed to do so.

The grin Reaper gave me was gorgeous, but wicked. If his aura hadn't been so sickening, maybe his smile would've been charming.

"Hey, Beautiful," he said lightly.

My stomach tightened.

The man was powerful. No way around that. Really fucking powerful.

Reaper's aura moved in a way that made me really hope his power wasn't like Callum Frost's, the winter fae king. Callum could torture people without even touching them. It was a little terrifying.

I lifted a hand in greeting, as if I wasn't scared shitless by the bastard in front of me. "Hi."

His grin widened.

"What do you want?" Dante repeated.

The other man's aura flared, and I barely managed to stop myself from throwing my hands up defensively in response.

"Is that any way to speak to the leader of a gang that has you cornered?" Reaper drawled.

"Cut the bullshit. You know we've only got a few minutes until the cells lock down. Get on with it."

"Easy, Inferno. We've been playing nice, but you have something we all want. Shiv shouldn't be the only one with creature comforts in this hellhole," Reaper said.

"If you want my pixie's help, you can ask her yourself."

"Why do you think I'm here?" His gaze flicked back to me, and his smile returned. "We'd like you to spend your day tomorrow with our gang. Without the vampiric babysitter. We have the best food, and we can share in exchange; the only nymph in this place is part of our crew."