The last thing he needed was his little Fairy deciding this was the time for him to fall in love. Jasper shook himself hard and hoped the Fae would rattle between his eyes. Unlikely, considering they shared a body, but a man could dream.
Clanging echoed down the lines of cages. Jasper frowned as he peered into the darkness. He hadn’t expected to hear metal hitting metal, but the thought of someone attempting to escape warmed his blood.
He leapt to his feet and pressed as close to the bars as he could without pain. There was movement at the far edge of the darkness, although he could not make out the shape. The shadows swirled as though stirred by multiple people.
“Sit back down.” Ella’s voice was urgent. “You don’t want them to know how strong you are.”
“Them?”
“Malachi’s men.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see Ella shiver. She had shuffled back into her corner and curled back into a ball.
“I fear no man,” he argued.
“You would be foolish to not fear them.”
“I have heard those words before, and I have never fallen prey to them.”
Nor would he ever. Jasper was not capable of fear, so he liked to tell himself. He was strong and he would never allow another person that kind of control over him.
No one other than Lyra, he corrected himself. He remembered all too well his panic when Wolfgang had used her as a human shield.
Dwelling on such memories would not help him now. He needed to focus.
Three figures emerged from the shadows. A thin, weaselly man to the right banged a metal pipe against the bars. Shapeshifter was Jasper’s best guess, considering the man’s form seemed to constantly warp. A tall, strong woman stood next to the Shapeshifter, her arms nearly as large as Jasper’s. Fangs poked out from her bottom lip and claws tipped her hands. But it was the hungry glint in her eyes that truly told him what she was. She was most certainly the Hellhound.
Behind them trailed a hulking Troll. Jasper was surprised that Malachi would bother to hire a Troll. They weren’t usually intelligent creatures, and were easily distracted. Strength was their only useful quality. Jasper would have used them for construction rather than as a guard.
Each of the guards wore matching scowls. There was an edge to them that spoke of violence. Jasper did not want to know how they had come about such darkness.
He watched as the Shapeshifter reached between the bars and yanked one of the prisoners towards him. The Mermaid yelped and failed to catch herself before the iron burned her skin. Jasper listened to her whimpers as he forced his muscles to relax and his mind to calm.
He knew the feeling well. Every time he fought, he willed his blood pressure down. He was not a Berserker. Smart men fought with everything they had, that included their smarts. Emotions had no place in battle.
A slow simmer of rage threatened to distract him, and honor made him want to cave in the Shapeshifter’s skull.
The three minions reached him. They seemed surprised that a prisoner was staring at them so boldly. Even more so since he was standing on his own two feet.
“This one’s still feisty.” The Shapeshifter had a nasally voice that grated the ears.
“Perhaps he needs to be reminded that he’s in a cage,” the Hellhound replied.
She reached for him, her first mistake. Her fingernails were caked with dried blood, her second mistake. But the third and final mistake was that she looked towards the Unicorn and smiled.
She had no right to terrorize the people here. He would make certain she learned that lesson.
Launching himself forward, he grabbed onto her hand and twisted the fingers back. Her doglike yelp was music to Jasper’s ears as he snapped the fragile bones in her hands. He pulled and pressed her ugly face against the heated bars.
Leaning close, he snarled, “Perhaps you need to be reminded who is in the cage.”
The woman screamed as her face sizzled. The reprieve was short-lived as the Troll reached above them, palmed Jasper’s head, and shoved hard.
Jasper’s shoulder took most of the impact as he struck the ground. The air rattled from his lungs in a great whoosh. He hated getting the wind knocked out of him. He hated all of this, but there was nothing he could do. In the end, the Hellhound was right.
He was the one in the cage.
Breathing heavily, he stared at the ground instead of the three laughing creatures on the other side of the bars.
Jasper heard the soft rustling sound of Ella pushing herself farther away from the trio. She made a quiet, distressed noise, and then they moved on. He heard them jangling the bar against the other cages and the animal like noises the sound caused.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” Bluebell murmured.
“It’s not your fault,” he replied as he tried to gather his dignity around himself like the edges of a tattered cape.
“I should have helped somehow. I don’t know how to help! I never know how to help.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Bluebell. You did what you could.”
It didn’t matter that what she’d done was next to nothing. She had helped him the only way she knew how. Words. At least that was something.
He rolled to his side to look towards Ella whose haunted gaze met his.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m alive.”
“As am I.”
There weren’t any other words to be shared between two captives seated at Death’s dinner table. He wished there was a way for him to help. He wished a lot of things. In the end, his wishes didn’t matter.
“Ella?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to get us out of here.”
“No one has ever managed that, Jasper.”
His knuckles cracked as he pressed his fists against the ground.
