Capture (Elite Supernatural Trackers #2) - Heather Renee

Chapter 1

There had been brief moments during the last several weeks when I thought things couldn’t get worse, but as tension continued to rise within the prison, I realized how wrong I had been.

More than a month had passed since I arrived at Mandora Supernatural Prison, a place for magical beings who may or may not have broken a law or two. I, for example, had only broken the rules by accident, but the warden didn’t care. From the moment he found out I could manipulate others, he’d stopped at nothing to make me his prisoner.

Warden Gillian was a Grade A douche, but for some unknown reason, I was still trying to help the psycho get his son back. Correction, I knew exactly why I was helping the warden—I wanted my freedom back, and that didn’t include being on the run for the rest of my life.

When—not if—I got out of prison, it was going to be for all the right reasons, not because I escaped, which would have been quite easy to do considering I left the prison almost weekly with the Fabled Four. My guys who were complete assholes to everyone else and only jerks to me as of recently.

I’d apparently grown on them like fungus and they hadn’t been able to get rid of me.

The threats from my feisty fairy sidekick Nixie helped with that, too. She kept them from manhandling me like they had when I first arrived in the prison. Instead of Jaxon attempting to choke me when I pissed him off now, he merely glared and yelled. Most of the time, anyway. It was a daily battle with him as we fought through our sexual tension.

The pent-up emotions between me and Jaxon had gotten so bad that poor Blake, the empath of our misfit group, could barely stand to be in the same room with us. I assumed it was like watching a porno without actually seeing the goods, and Blake couldn’t handle the sexual feelings being tossed around. That made me grin. A lot.

During the last few weeks, I’d healed up from our vampire run-in with the help of Mason, the fae of our group who had moderate healing abilities, before letting each of the guys and Nixie turn me into a battle-worthy witch. I’d had street training from spending most of my teen years in a group home, and being scrappy already helped considerably when it came to defending myself. But precision went a long way and I needed more concise moves if I planned to stay alive.

Our training took place daily in the prison gym when the other inmates were forced outside or stuck doing menial jobs. Since then, I’d built muscle in places I didn’t know could even get muscles.

Most of that wasn’t so bad. It was the tension between everyone that was slowly drowning me. Oddly enough, I missed the days when they all took turns yelling at me or hazing me in front of the other prisoners. Instead, it seemed like everyone was walking on eggshells, and I had no clue which of us was going to explode first.

“If that furball doesn’t stop staring every time we see him, I’m going to cut his eyes out,” Mason droned, complaining about Owen, the lion shifter, as we entered our lair.

We’d passed by him on our way back to the room, and he’d waved at me while appraising each of the guys without putting off any of the fear most inmates did.

“I vote you send him through a portal to Siberia. A lot less effort than dealing with him around here, if you ask me,” Spencer added.

“Well, nobody asked you,” I snapped.

Owen had been nothing but respectful since I declined his offer to help get me out of the prison. While it had seemed enticing at the time, he was a bigger risk than I was willing to take. I cared too much about my Fabled Fuckers to say yes to the unknown shifter.

Though, I had no problem being my defiant self and standing up for him, either. Some habits were harder to break than others.

Jaxon snarled at me and I glared back. “What?”

He shook his head and didn’t respond. Since I’d told him I needed space, the infuriating demon only talked to me when he was demanding something during training. My rejection of his efforts to have something more between us had put the biggest damper on our group vibe.

Blake rubbed his temples and paced around. “I’m going to my