Darkmore Penitentiary 2 - Caroline Peckham Page 0,186

nodding his head like he was taking this all in and giving it real consideration.

"Maybe we could arrange for you to get a bit of reading material in your room? It might help to curb your appetite for entertainment. I know we don't generally allow the inmates to take more than one book from the library at once, but with your love for reading-"

"What love for reading?" Cain interrupted. "She told me she hates old books."

"Then why did you agree to set her work assignment for the library?" Hastings asked in confusion and I leaned back in my chair, laughing like this was all some big joke while Cain narrowed his suspicious gaze on me again. Fuck it.

"Some books in my room would be great, ragazzo del coro," I said with a warm smile for Hastings, circling my foot on Cain's junk so that he was thoroughly distracted from this point. One more day and I'd be long gone anyway.

"Did you just tell me you hated books because you wanted a job in the library?" Cain asked, his stare penetrating.

"If I'd told you I loved them you would have given me something else out of spite," I replied with a shrug, hoping he assumed my heart was racing because of what I was doing to him beneath the table rather than getting any real suspicions about why I'd wanted to be given work down in the library.

"That's because you're not here to enjoy yourself. You're here to be punished," Cain growled.

"Noted," I replied. “I’m a bad girl. I’ll make an effort to remember that.”

"Well...no harm done," Hastings chipped in, offering me a little smile that said he was on my side with this.

Cain grunted like he didn't agree, but he didn't push on with the subject either.

"Why don't you tell us something real now then?" Cain asked. "Prove that you're capable of it."

I pursed my lips as I considered that and a crazy, foolish, quite probably insane thought occurred to me. After today I was never going to see Mason Cain again. I'd cursed him with my gifts, and I was going to take off into the night and leave him to suffer whatever fate that entailed. But what if I didn't have to? What if I could tell him where he could find me once I was out of here so that he could come looking if he wanted to when I was gone? I mean, I still hated him, but I had to admit something had changed between us and as strange as it was, I didn’t like the idea of never seeing him again.

"I miss spending the full moon with my family," I said honestly, sliding my foot back out of Cain's lap as I leaned back in my chair. I wanted him to hear every word of this just in case and he didn’t need me distracting him. "Every single month we would all gather and race around the Oscura stronghold together. There’s a mountain there called Mount Lupa and we would race up the steep paths in our Wolf forms with the Storm Dragon flying overhead and make it to this beautiful lake about half way up where the moonlight would reflect in a perfect sheet of silver across the surface of the water. When I get out of here, that will be the first thing I do as soon as the moon is full again. Race up that mountain with a thousand Oscura Wolves at my back while they all howl for the return of their queen."

I grinned as the two of them took my story in and Cain offered me something that was about as close to a smile as I'd ever gotten from him.

That was the best I could do for him. It wouldn't even matter if he told the FIB that story. That entire mountain and the land surrounding it for miles all around was owned by the Oscuras. They couldn't come onto the land without a warrant and if they got a warrant, our spies within their midst would warn us about it well before they ever got close to me.

So if Cain ever wanted to come find me there, he was going to have to come alone and offer himself up to the mercy of the Oscura Clan. But at least he knew where to look. That was all I could offer him and probably more than I should have.

The bell rang to mark the start of lunch and