Siren Awakened - C.R. Jane

Chapter 1

Keon

Blood.

I wanted it.

It was all I could think about.

Everything around me looked crimson through the eyes of the beast.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew they were still my eyes, but when he took over, it literally felt like I was staring through the eyes of a stranger.

I lifted my claw up to my mouth, licking the salty blood that coated them.

Something gnawed at me. I was supposed to be paying attention to something…something other than blood.

A high-pitched whine filled my senses, like an animal was in pain.

The beast chuckled, the idea of a wounded animal had him salivating.

The scream grew louder, and I turned to see where it was coming from.

A hellhound shifter was curled up by a body, great sobs racking its body as the creature continued its mournful whine.

Intrigued, I took a step forward, shocked when the hellhound dared to jump up and growl at me, baring almost all of its razor sharp teeth.

The beast growled low in its chest as we prepared to lunge at it.

Until I saw her.

The hellhound’s movement had revealed the body it had been wrapped around.

Everything came rushing at me at once. It felt like someone was taking a hammer to my skull as the last few hours burst their way through the bloody haze of the beast’s mind, clearing the way for me to take my body back over.

I rushed to go to her, when the hellhound’s teeth sank into my shoulder. I roared, and it took everything in me to keep the beast at bay.

“I’m not going to hurt her. Let me go!” I snarled through clenched teeth as I tried to shake him off. His teeth ripped at my sinew and muscle as I yanked at him.

I finally used my left fist to crack his skull, knocking him out and giving me blessed relief from his knife-like teeth as his jaw released my shoulder. He sank to the floor, and I shook out my arm. It hurt like a motherfucker, and I knew my whole right side wouldn’t be useable for several hours as my healing powers kicked in.

The agonizing pain in my shoulder faded away as I sank by Selena’s side, horror breaching every cell in my body as I realized that she wasn’t just unconscious. She had no pulse.

But that fact should have been obvious to me as I’d ripped out her fucking throat. Blood seeped from the wound. Her blue tipped hair was a macabre purple and pink color, stained from all the blood she’d lost.

My whole body shook as I stared at her. Flashbacks of every time I’d touched her perfect skin, every time I’d felt her perfect lips. The way she sighed as she said my name.

This girl was my fucking everything. Her mark was on my soul, the same as my mark was on her skin.

My head sank back as I roared at the flickering lights in the ceiling above me. My mind raced as I tried to think of something that could be done. I’d do anything…give anything to save her.

Alaric. The mob asshole’s face filled my mind.

He would know what to do. He had to know what to do. Everyone knew he had power that others didn’t. The rumors were that he’d wanted to come to Nightmare Penitentiary, he hadn’t been forced to.

I was afraid to move Selena, in case my jostling did more internal damage, but I was more afraid of leaving her here with the hellhound unconscious and who knows what lurking around the walls. The appearance of the beast had scared off all of the bystanders I could faintly recall at the start of the fight. But still…

This prison was aptly named.

And how much more damage could I do dragging her around if she was dead?

I gently picked her up with my left arm, draping her legs over my right arm, even though it was still in bad shape. I raced through the hallways, the familiar paths seeming like labyrinths in my panicked state.

“Hold on, sweetheart,” I whispered into her hair, the tang of blood hiding her usual smell. When I was a child, my grandmother had talked about a waiting place that immortals went to after they died, a place where they were judged before being sent to Heaven or Hell.

I didn’t know if I believed in Heaven. And I was pretty sure that Nightmare Penitentiary was at least a part of Hell. But I was desperate to believe there was a waiting place. Because