I Regret Nothing - JB Trepagnier Page 0,27

was a sneaky little bitch who could gut you in your cell and never get caught.

“We’ll fill the order, but how do you plan to kill that many witches and not get caught?”

“Well, so far, only one has officially joined Venus. I’m just faking it. Venus is setting out feelers and whispering. I already know her plan. She wants to kill Astrid and blame your fox. She’ll try to use the whole I told you so shit to insert herself as coven leader and send everyone after the fox. Once the fox is taken care of, she has her sights on the mailroom.”

Astrid and Wren better hurry up because it sounded like Venus decided to upgrade from thief to killer and had a huge body count planned. Astrid better handle this, or Rajack and I would.

This witch wasn’t just threatening my thief anymore. She’s threatened my friends, my business, and me too.

Chapter 19

Rei

F

aust must hate doing paperwork as much as I hated sitting here doing it for him. If no one could prove he was killing inmates, someone should have had a problem with these massive stacks of files. I still hadn’t gotten to my commissary yet, and I’d been working on them for two days.

I hated him, but I was bored, and I talked when I was bored. I tried chatting with him. I hoped if I could fake liking him and let him get to know me, he’d drop this stupid hunt and let me work in the mailroom with my friends. Apparently, the psycho wolf wasn’t very good at small talk. He grunted at me a few times, then told me to shut the fuck up. Asshole.

Faust escorted me back to the mess hall and then took a perch against the wall next to the witch table. I could easily find Venus in line because Faust was looking at her with murder in his eyes. It was pretty fucking rich. The wolf hunting me was looking to kill the witch who wanted to murder me so he could just kill me later. It was so fucked up.

Dakarys and Rajack met me at the back of the mess hall. They both slung an arm around my shoulders and led me to the front of the line. That was new. I didn’t think they were touchy-feely. They were cool and quite lovely to me, but I thought that was just because they needed me alive to steal for them.

“I don’t suppose we’re getting more of that pie tonight?” I asked.

Dakarys just chuckled.

“Don’t hold out hope for that one, Rei. There’s no rhyme or reason when we get it. It doesn’t come on the first of the month or the end of the month. It’s random, and there’s never enough. Be grateful they give us pudding on the days we don’t get it. Apparently, before the pudding, it was this nasty lime Jell-O. Silverhold changed contractors for the kitchen, and now we have pudding.”

I was bummed about the pie, but the pudding was decent, and I loathed lime Jell-O. They served it a lot in my elementary school. How fucked up that I got better desserts in prison than my school served me. Still, without the pie or peanut butter for lunch, I couldn’t load up on mac and cheese, and it was those weirdly gray peas again.

“Grab your food in a hurry so we can get back to the table. Your friend Venus is causing problems with the witches. It’s time to put our cards on the cable. Our cards and yours.”

Oh, shit. Faust knew I wasn’t a fox shifter because of his nose. Dakarys and Rajack probably had a million questions about why I had latched onto them instead of the other shifters. Everyone seemed to stick to their own kind in here. Dakarys, Rajack, and I were the only ones of our kind in this entire prison, but I was the only one pretending to be something I wasn’t.

They needed a thief for something, but I really needed them more than they needed me. They could find another thief, but I couldn’t exactly run to anyone else to help watch my back with the witches and Faust. This was Hauser’s rule, and I’d never broken it before. He told me to keep my heritage secret for a reason. Faust was already on to me, and Venus was trying to get the witches after me. Unless I wanted to draw a lot of attention in Silverhold, I’d have