I Regret Nothing - JB Trepagnier Page 0,29

something that has never been done before. We can’t bring you in until we know we can trust you. We know you are keeping something major from us. Why are you avoiding the shifters?” Rajack asked.

Rei just sighed and squared her shoulders.

“Are there cameras in here?”

“Yeah, but there’s a blind spot in the corner. The cameras don’t have sound. Why?”

“I’ll just show you. Can I trust you? Hauser told me to keep this secret no matter what. It’s pretty major I’m showing you this. Faust suspects. It’s why he’s so interested in me.”

Rajack let out a little growl. He wouldn’t trust her until she revealed this secret, but I knew he liked her too. We talked in the mailroom. We both desperately wanted her to be in on this. With all the people after her in Silverhold, we wanted her out of here before someone killed her. We liked her, and we didn’t want her dead.

“This Hauser must have had a good reason for telling you that, Rei. We’ll protect you.”

She must have trusted us just a little, or whatever reason she was hiding from the shifters must have been major because she floated off to the corner and turned to us. We saw this shimmery red cloud envelop her skin, and then she sprouted fox ears and a big bushy tail. But I was still looking at her human face. She didn’t even rip her jumpsuit like shifters always did.

What the fuck?

Did she already steal a cuff key? And shifters just could not half shift like that. Sometimes, their beast would take over, and their features would change. If they were well trained, they got control and stopped the shift. If they didn’t, they turned into an animal. They never sat there with ears, a tail, and a totally normal face.

Rajack and I both jumped back.

“I’m not a fox shifter, but I can turn into a fox. The lady who did my cuffs was lazy and didn’t take my blood.”

Well, we could use that, but what the fuck was she? No one turned into a fox unless they were a shifter. Rajack was staring at her like she was utterly fascinating.

“You only have one tail,” he said. “You’re clearly young and haven’t gotten up to enough trouble if you haven’t earned more. I read about your kind when I visited Japan. I’ve never actually met one before.”

Rei put her ears and tail away and joined us at the table.

“I’ve gotten into a lot of trouble, but I can’t seem to earn another tail.”

“What the fuck is going on? Because I don’t know the first thing about creatures who can half shift or get extra tails!” I exploded.

Rajack was grinning like a total fool.

“We’ve got ourselves a Kitsune, Dakarys. A trickster demon. She’s exactly what we need to break out of here, and the fact that her cuffs aren’t keyed right will play in our favor.”

Well, shit. There was a demon back in Scorchwood, but he just disappeared one day with his entire gang. He was the only demon there. Half the prison thought they all disappeared like people tended to do sometimes, and the other half thought since Scorchwood was in Hell, Amduscias figured out how to break out and got his people the fuck out of there.

I didn’t know what the fuck a Kitsune was, but I knew about demons. It would be a tremendous boon to have one on our side, especially if her whole demon thing involved playing tricks.

Rei was eyeing both of us.

“You need me to steal something to break out of Silverhold? That’s never been done before, and it sounds like fun.”

Just then, the bell rang for us to report to our cells for count. We didn’t get the chance to tell her our plan, but I was thanking my stars our thief thought breaking out of a magical maximum-security prison sounded like a grand old time.

Chapter 22

Rajack

I

could not stop grinning. The guard in my cell block was this really nasty warlock, but nowhere near as bad as Faust. Brody was a bully and liked to use his shock baton for no reason, but he didn’t have a body count. I was standing outside my cell waiting to be counted, and I had this big, stupid smile on my face.

Brody passed by my cell with his clicker in one and his baton in the other. I drew his attention, and he stopped in front of my cell. I didn’t give a shit about Brody.