I’ll be honest, gods above, the next few days went by so smoothly I started to wonder if I’d accidentally died during training and was now drifting through so private version of heaven—albeit one with more knives, narcotics, and sweaty n than the hymns ever promised.
Our little empire, stitched together from scraps and lunacy, was thriving. Yes, thriving! n I once wouldn’t trust to carry a piss bucket without tripping were now striding through the courtyard and beyond with smug little smirks, pockets bulging with coin, and eyes gleaming with the sort of reckless hope that made both proud and terrified in equal asure.
Our product had spread like a plague of rats carrying the world’s most profitable disease. It slithered into every crevice of the prison: from the mud-sared drudges lapping it up behind latrines, to the makeshift courtesans whispering its na into their noble clients’ ears, to the guards who thought nobody noticed the slight glitter of substance coating their breath.
I didn’t even have to lift a finger anymore. Not really. No, I had graduated—if you could call it that—to a life of dignified supervision. I beca what every bratty femboy succubus dreams of becoming: a manager.
I drifted through the courtyard, rotating between duties, pretending to check for efficiency while actually focusing on whether the lighting made my cheekbones look sharp enough for the job.
Keep a low profile, that was the goal—or so I told myself. And yet sohow I always ended up perched on crates or leaning against railings like so tavern diva awaiting her cue. Subtlety was never my gift.
Still, I liked to think I played the part of shadow-queen rather well. I’d wink at the guards who glanced my way, blowing kisses if I was feeling particularly brave, which always ended with Brutus groaning into his fist like a man being force-fed vinegar.
But in the back of my skull, sothing buzzed. Too easy, I kept telling myself. Too quiet. Rival gangs don’t just roll over and play dead while you build a pretty little castle from beneath their feet.
And yet, no knives ca in the night. No whispers reached our ears. No sudden fires burned our supplies. Saints, it was suspiciously clean—like the calm in a brothel just before soone realizes the wine’s been poisoned.
Still, I brushed it aside for now, instead focusing on maintaining my image for the ti being.
So ti passed until one day I was trudging toward the mining caverns for our morning shift, part of Section Twelve’s daily shuffle of bodies. The line dragged along in its usual miserable slump, n and won coughing dust from their lungs, guards snapping whips for the joy of hearing soone squeal.
I’d been half-dreaming, half-humming to myself about whether I should invent a uniform for our n, sothing daring, sothing that scread "yes, we sell drugs, but with style."
And then I saw him.
The sight sent my heart plumting straight into my ass.
At the very bottom floor of the prison, where the shadows pooled thickest, stood Yolar, the Sectional Warden. His presence alone was enough to still the air: tall, rigid, hands clasped behind his back with all the patience of a saint sculpted from iron.
He didn’t so much glance around the chamber. He didn’t need to. Instead, his gaze was pinned directly on the central cage.
And saints preserve , that cage. The sa one I’d once been thrown into like a toy tossed in a pit, left to be pawed at by beasts. My skin prickled with old sha and hunger all at once.
But that wasn’t all.
Six n strained at six separate chains, dragging along a creature that was barely contained by the tal throttling its throat.
The Warden’s pet.
Gods, I rembered it well. A hulking slab of flesh and fury, muscles knotted like ropes beneath a loincloth that shimred with sweat, twitching wolf’s ears flicking at every sound.
His eyes burned red in the torchlight, cutting through that ragged mask of his, wild with unchained rage, as he thrashed against his captors. They dug their heels in, faces purple with the effort, and still the beast lunged forward, nearly tearing them off their feet with each savage jerk.
He roared. A sound that shook to my core. My knees wobbled. My lungs forgot how to breathe. Gods, I swear it wasn’t just noise—it was the promise of death rattling through my bones.
They dragged him, inch by inch, toward the cage. The chains clanged like funeral bells. And Yolar—oh, Yolar didn’t even flinch. He watched it all with that calm, carved expression of his, like a man counting coins rather than wrangling a monster that could tear the world apart with its jaws.
He never once looked my way. Which, if I’m being honest, was worse. Because if he had, I could’ve read sothing in his eyes. Pity, malice, curiosity. Anything. But no—his gaze was a locked door, and I was too afraid to even knock.
For half a heartbeat, instinct told to call out. To shout sothing—anything—just to break the silence pounding in my ears. But before I could, the correctional officer yanked my hair from behind, dragging along like a misbehaving pup.
"Keep walking," he hissed, his breath sour through is tal jaw.
And so I did.
Not yet, I thought to myself. I stumbled forward, casting one last glance at the beast as the cage slamd shut around him. My skin crawled, my heart hadn’t quite climbed back from my bottom, and for the rest of our shift, every clang of soone’s pickaxe in the caverns sounded like the chains being rattled in that godsforsaken cage.
The days passed again, slower this ti, heavier. I laughed when I had to, smiled when needed, but inside I felt the weight of those eyes staring even when they weren’t.
And then—because fate enjoys her little performances—Mia returned.
It was late, the warehouse humming with the low murmur of n tallying their coin and supplies. She slipped inside like a shadow, cloak drawn, steps quick. Her face was different this ti. Gone was the trembling girl we’d mocked and dismissed.
In her place was soone sharper, steadier. Her chin lifted higher. Her gaze no longer darted to the ground but t ours square. A survivor’s eyes.
I arched a brow, lounging lazily across a crate. "Well, well. Look who’s co back from her little sleepover. Did you bring us sweets, darling? Or just so more bad news?"
She didn’t flinch at my tone. Instead, she nodded once before reaching beneath her cloak. When her hand erged, it clutched a scrap of parchnt, yellowed and fraying at the edges.
Brutus stepped forward imdiately, snatching it from her hand with all the delicacy of a man grabbing bread after a famine. His eyes scanned the page, lips moving silently as he read. Then ca the curse—low, heavy, the kind of curse that drags out of a man’s gut when he realizes the mountain he’s about to climb is taller than he once thought.
"Well," he sighed, rolling his shoulders as though the weight of the world had just settled there. "That’s all of them."
My head tilted, lips already curled into a smirk. "Oh, saints, let guess. It’s a list of ex-lovers who want dead. Happens more often than you’d think."
Atticus took the parchnt from Brutus, adjusting his spectacles with that maddening little ritual of his before reading aloud.
One by one, the nas rolled off his tongue. Each one heavy, sharp, dripping with history I only half-understood. And with every na, the room shifted. Freya’s jaw tightened. Dregan grunted under his breath. Even Brutus’s eyes darkened, like ghosts had climbed out of the parchnt to leer at him.
I didn’t know all the details between them, but I knew enough to understand that these weren’t so random thugs. These were leaders. It had to be them, the top dogs of the other sections. Ten in total. A coalition promising pain.
Hah, exactly as I’d expected.
I leaned back, hands folded behind my head, and let a little laugh slip through my lips. "Oh, lovely. A rogues’ gallery. Should we send them flowers now, or wait until they’re at our throats?"
Brutus’s gaze cut to Mia, hard and searching. "You’re sure?" he asked, his voice like a boulder grinding against stone. "That they’re working together?"
Mia’s chin lifted higher. "I’m sure. My boss, Victor, he told himself."
Her voice didn’t waver. Not once. And then, slowly, deliberately, she began to recount the night with her boss. The words. The whispers. The promises.
Mia’s voice faltered as she finished her recount, words slipping into silence like embers dying on stone. The warehouse felt heavier then, thicker, as if her revelation had stolen the air from our lungs and locked it up in a chest we couldn’t pry open.
Freya, arms crossed, eyes sharp as blades, was the first to slice through the stillness.
"That’s it?" she demanded, tone flat but dangerous in its presence. "You sneak back in here, cloak full of secrets, and all you’ve got is a list of nas? You’ve got to have more than just that."
Her eyes bored into Mia like golden drills, and for a mont I half-wondered if Freya ant to wring more nas out of her by force, which would’ve been quite the show but also terribly inefficient.
Mia didn’t so much as blink. Instead, she gave a small nod, slow and coaxing, as though bracing herself before stepping into deeper water.
"I do," she said simply. "I know how they plan to strike."
And oh, my darling, let tell you—those words lit a fire straight under my ribs. My head snapped up, every ounce of lazy arrogance evaporating in an instant. If there’s one thing I adore more than being adored, it’s being handed the script to a play before anyone else knows their lines.
I leaned forward, chin in my palm, lips curling into a grin I couldn’t suppress. "Oh, do go on, lovely. Tell more. Spare not a single dramatic flourish."
She hesitated, just a flicker, before delivering the dagger’s edge. "My boss plans to approach you as a potential ally. He’ll offer a trade, giving up one of his most guarded secrets: a way to disable the gutterbrand."
For a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. The gutterbrand—the collar shackled around my neck, burning its filth into my skin, whispering in every mont that I was still Gutterat, still nothing but scraps to the higher world.
Impossible, my mind spat imdiately. And yet—my pulse quickened, a traitor to reason. What if? Just maybe, what if? My eyes flicked back to Mia, narrowing, searching.
Could Victor have gotten to Yolar first? Could he have bribed the Sectional Warden into spilling his secrets before ? The thought sent a shiver crawling up my spine like a spider drunk on sacrantal wine.
I scoffed aloud, shattering my own mont of weakness before anyone else could see it. "Well, look at him," I sneered, waving my hand dramatically in the air. "Seems like he realizes why we’re building our stash in the first place. Clever. Almost enough to make proud."
I let the silence hang for just a beat before tilting my head, letting a dagger-sharp smile slice through the air. "But tell , darling, why in the nine hells would I risk my empire on the word of such an unreliable source?"
For the first ti, Mia’s lips twitched—not into a smile, no, but into sothing deeper, laced with a quiet sense of resolve. "Because he was going to offer you sothing else as well," she said softly. "Another secret. One he and the other drug lords have been building together. A way out of this prison."
Saints help , my heart stopped. Just for a mont, just for one precious beat, the world went quiet and I stared into the space between her words. A way out.
The one dream I never dared speak too loudly. Not just surviving, not just thriving in this pit, but gone. Free. Past the walls, past the chains, past the endless cycle of blood and lust. A path toward ascension. The words glimred in my skull like jewels dangling just out of reach.
My lips parted, but the only thing that fell out was a whisper. "What does he want in return?"
Mia’s eyes hardened. "Everything. Your current earnings. Your n. All of it."
I sat back, letting a low chuckle tumble from my throat. "Smart. Very smart indeed." Victor’s cunning was undeniable—he’d dressed the bait perfectly. He dangled not what I already had, but what I truly wanted.
My goal was never to rot here atop a pile of silver, never to rule this broken cage like so petty king. My goal had always been to escape, to climb higher, to turn this entire prison into nothing more than a forgotten stepping stone beneath my heel. Oh yes, Victor had understood that much about . And yet—he’d made one fatal mistake.
I tilted my head, eyes glittering as I t Mia’s steady gaze. "But none of this is true, is it?"
She hesitated. Just for a fraction of a breath, but it was there. Then she shook her head, slowly. "His plan to escape might be true, I’ve heard the whispers. But the offer to work with you? That was never true, no. His proposal is a lie. His plan is to lure you into a eting, ambush you, and take your coin. From then, they would use it to carry out your original goal—to bribe the Sectional Warden into given them a way to banish the brand."
"Of course," I sighed, dragging a hand down my face as though exhausted by the sheer predictability of it all.
Dregan’s laughter split the heavy air, loud and crude, bouncing off the warehouse walls like thrown knives. "Hah! So what now, eh? What’s our darling little Loona gonna do, knowing every shark in this pit’s got his teeth aid right at his pretty throat?" His grin glead, wild and toothy, like a wolf savoring the promise of blood.
I smirked, leaning back on the crate until it groaned beneath , my fingers drumming thoughtfully against the wood. My mind wandered—unbidden—back to days prior. To the cage. To the beast waiting there. To his ghosting breath, his twitching ears, and the way Yolar’s gaze hadn’t so much as wavered. My skin prickled all over again, the phantom of that roar rattling through my chest.
I let the grin widen, slow and wicked, until even Freya’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Oh, no need to worry, darling," I purred, voice dripping with mischief. "I’ve got a plan."
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