Prison Princess Read online

  Prison Princess

  CoraLee June

  Rebecca Royce

  Prison Princess

  Copyright © 2020 by June Publishing & RARE Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing by Helayna Trask with Polished Perfection & Heather Long

  Cover design by Christian Bentulan

  Created with Vellum

  To everyone looking for a second chance.

  Contents

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading!

  About the Author

  Also by CoraLee June

  About the Author

  Also By Rebecca Royce

  Paranormal Prison Series

  About the Book

  Imprisoned, tormented and forgotten...

  I’ve never seen the outside of these four walls. I was born in Nightmare Penitentiary, and I’ll probably die here too.

  Or so I thought.

  When an assassin captures me, I realize I’m far more powerful than anyone knows. I’m a princess. A Druid. The last of my kind. I command the earth and the moon speaks to me. There is royal blood running through these veins.

  Tasked with bringing me back to my family, my captor is stuck by my side. The more time we spend together, the more I learn about the birthright stolen from me and the enemy who stole it. And the longer I’m with my assassin, the more my heart softens.

  I never imagined that a harsh, lonely man would bring help. I never thought that leaving Nightmare would put me on a much different path. A path full of hope. Of freedom. Of love. A path that leads to accepting my birthright, with an assassin by my side.

  But the future is blurry. There are two roads. One leads to happiness—to love. The other leads to demise. And even I can’t see which one wins.

  Chapter One

  Thirty minutes.

  Thirty fucking minutes.

  The guard’s shift change had a thirty-minute window—just long enough for me to slip out of my magically bound cell of steel and explore the outdoor bathhouse. I silently waited for my moment, aching to reach out and rattle the barred door of my cage, even though I knew the pain wasn’t worth the momentary satisfaction. These walls were spelled to recognize disobedience. We were corralled like cattle waiting for slaughter, and one toe out of line would create a chasm of torture to burst through our bodies.

  I learned a long time ago to follow the rules, but every now and then, I couldn’t help myself.

  Thirty minutes wasn’t a lot of time, but it was better than nothing. I’d been looking forward to the illusion of freedom since I first noticed that there was a gap in the watchman’s schedule. After two days of observing the consistent disruption in routine, I decided that an unguided stroll was worth the risk. The desperation within me was an unfamiliar sensation. I was so used to the seclusion, control, and loneliness that I didn’t know what I was missing.

  But not anymore.

  Usually, there was always someone positioned outside my cell. I was never alone, always stuck under the watchful eye of the Nightmare’s finest guards. The men and women were always stationed exactly four feet from my door and rarely spoke to me. They simply stood there with their arms crossed over their chest and their beady eyes focused solely on my cell. I considered myself a boring subject and figured they spent their shift counting down the seconds until they could move along in their rotation. But unlike them, I was always stuck here.

  I’d heard at breakfast two days before that one of my least favorite guards—a gruff, huffing sort of man named Boo—was out with a cracked skull. Some gossiping goblins told me about Boo’s fight with a nine-foot troll on the more dangerous fourth level. Trolls were nasty creatures, and anything they touched became resistant to magic. Keeping them controlled here was exceptionally difficult, and their resistance to magic made the guard’s injury nearly impossible for the healers to fix.

  While Boo was out recovering, his spot on the schedule was left unattended. It was kismet. Divine intervention. This prison was a well-oiled machine, but occasionally things slipped through the cracks, which meant I’d have thirty entire minutes to explore. Thirty minutes alone. Thirty minutes to feel something outside of my mundane life here at Nightmare Penitentiary. I planned to use every damn second.

  Nightmare Penitentiary was both a mystery to me and a home. The vast, complex building housed supernaturals of every walk of life. It had various levels and wards, each with their own secrets and dangers. The air smelled like stunted, stale magic and blood. I didn’t grow up listening to lullabies and nursery rhymes. I was raised on the sounds of siren screams and tortured cries.

  These concrete walls were all I’d ever known. I was the pulse of the prison, a permanent resident kept buried in the heart of isolation. I didn’t understand my purpose or why I was here. I’d committed no crime. I’d done nothing wrong. I was born in this Nightmare, and I’d probably die here, too.

  I paced my cell while casually watching my current guard, Dolorian, out of the corner of my eye. He was a portly shifter with wispy hair on his cheeks and deep burgundy eyes. His black uniform was snug on his round body, and his hands looked big enough to crush my skull in his fist. He was busy digging his finger so far up his crooked, round nose that he was probably poking what few brain cells he had. It was entertaining to watch.

  I silently counted in my head. There were no clocks here. They didn’t want us aware of powerful concepts like seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years. They kept us under their thumb by giving us as few allowances as possible. I learned how to pass the hours by memorizing the routines of this hellish place and by keeping a constant internal clock ticking in my mind. Every thirty minutes, the guards changed, and I had three more guard changes until bedtime. Every twenty-four guard changes, I was allowed to eat in the dining hall with the other women on my floor. Every six meals, I was allowed to bathe. Every fourteenth bath, I was allowed to go outside. And every seventh outside visit, the warden came to chat with me.

  Tally marks on the floor of my cell helped me to keep track of it all. It was mundane, but my mind welcomed having a task.

  I watched Dolorian in anticipation, waiting for him to check the time and disappear.

  Just a bit longer.

  Whistling down the hall caught my attention, and I smiled when Dolorian pulled out his pocket watch to check the time, gave me a stern look, then left his station outside my cell. I watched his back until the black uniform, stretched across his broad shifter shoulders, disappeared completely, then I let out a sigh of relief. I was alone. Alone. Afuckinglone.

  Not wanting to waste much time, I dug my fingers into the crack in the concrete of my cell, where I kept my few hidden treasures: a pencil, paper, chocolate I traded some blood to a witch for, and a key. A very, very special key. I’d swiped it from Louisia, the cafeteria director, the day before. The elderly demon had a soft spot for me. Hell, t
hat woman was the closest thing to a mother I’d ever known. We didn’t talk much, but she always slipped me extra food when the guards weren’t watching. It was a polite but cautious mercy. And since meals were every twenty-four guard changes, she was quite the constant in my life.

  Breakfast and dinner gave me the routine I craved. It was the only time I got to socialize with the others, and I was thankful for the little treats Louisia would sneak me. She’d probably be furious once she realized I stole it, but I had good reason. Well, I had a selfish reason. I couldn’t really explain my desire to feel the moon on my skin, but I was desperate for its glow.

  It started happening sixty meals ago—so about a month. There was a new guard assigned to this post. He was young and power hungry. I could feel the eagerness to please rolling off of him. Occasionally, we got guards like that, guards who wanted to kiss the warden’s ass and rise in the ranks. Almost all of them were too cocky for their own good. They took initiatives they weren’t supposed to. He fucked up the schedule and sent me to bath time at night instead of the morning. I was never allowed to bathe at night. The outdoor bathhouse was strictly forbidden to me after dark.

  I’d never been allowed outside at night. It was a rule that had been drilled into me for as long as I could remember. Don’t let Layne out at night. Give her a cell with no windows. I’d always wondered why but never fought them on it. Growing up in Nightmare, you learned to pick your battles.

  I tried desperately to warn him, but instead of listening, the guard slapped me clear across the cheek and told me to keep my mouth shut. I still remembered trembling as he walked me to the bathhouse, nervous about the change in routine. When you didn’t have time or freedoms, or even friends, you found comfort in the familiarity of your patterns.

  I didn’t know how old I was, but I counted years by the number of visits the warden gave me—twenty, by my memory. And in all my time here, not once had I been gifted with the beautiful view of the large, glowing orb hanging in the night sky.

  The moon was stunning. Ethereal. I was completely stunned the first moment I laid eyes on it.

  The moment I stepped outside, my skin buzzed with an unfamiliar energy. I couldn’t stop staring at it. The last thing I remembered was shouts and a bright light. Mysterious songs flowed in and out of my mind.

  And then, I woke up back in my cell.

  I’d wanted to feel the moon’s glow on my skin ever since. And tonight? I was determined to do just that.

  When I slipped past the threshold of my spelled cage, I went rigid in anticipation of the burning pain. Every damn cell in this place had wards and torture spells, but my firm grip on Louisia’s key protected me.

  With my back pressed against the wall, I traveled down the long hallway, listening to leaky pipes drip grimy water on the concrete. My layer of hell was quieter than some of the other divisions. Most of the people here were women locked up for minor misdemeanors. None of them stayed too long. Most were timid and quiet, consigned here for bullshit offenses. I wasn’t sure if the warden purposely kept me on this level because he didn’t want me making any connections or because he wanted to keep me with the less hardened criminals.

  When I was younger, a few of the prisoners were granted even shorter sentences in exchange for taking care of me. Some of them were nice. Most of them weren’t. None of them stayed. Either way, I was thankful for the calm. I’d heard screams from the other floors and had seen some of the torture that went down. My life might have been mundane and boring as fuck, but at least I was safe.

  I’d no sooner had that thought than someone grabbed me, a hand practically shooting out from the darkness to swing me around. A scream bubbled up my throat just as thick, long fingers wrapped around my mouth. I braced my hands against the chest of the person holding me and jerked my head so I could look up. I gasped in shock. A man. In the female ward! I slipped my gaze over his tall body, seeking the familiar guard uniform but finding nothing but black pants and a black shirt. He wasn’t a guard? What was going on? This never happened. Maybe he was an escapee?

  He was tall, dark-haired, with a neatly cut beard on his strong jaw. His eyes were as black as his hair. They were intense, piercing and angry. Though he held me, there was a cockiness about him, as if he held the world in his hand and willed it to spin on his terms. His grip on me was cocksure and hard. A light shiver rocked my body as he stared at me. We exchanged a silent standoff. He challenged me with his eyes to fight—to scream for my life. And when he removed his hand from my mouth cautiously, questions immediately spewed from my lips.

  “What are you…”

  The stranger brought up his hand and slapped it against my lips once more, effectively stopping me from speaking. “Quiet.” His voice held command. He wasn’t a person used to being disobeyed. “You’re out of your cell. You’re not supposed to be right now.”

  I struggled in his hold, effectively pushing him away. “You’re no guard,” I whispered while giving him a look up and down once more. He wasn’t wearing the traditional prisoner’s garb, either. “Who are you?”

  I’d grown up in this prison, but I’d been relatively safe the whole time. The warden kept people away from me, almost as if the idea that I could be hurt was a problem for him. I lived with people who committed crimes, and mine seemed to be that I’d been born at all. I learned long ago that the punishment for asking questions wasn’t worth the blank stares that always answered me.

  “Quit struggling. You’re Layne Montgomery, correct?”

  I opened and closed my mouth in surprise. Layne Montgomery. Layne Montgomery. I rolled that name around my tongue, trying to feel a sense of familiarity within the syllables. Momentarily shocked by this information, I blurted out my answer. “Montgomery?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t know my last name. I’ve never had one. Who are you?” I looked up at him defiantly.

  “But you are Layne, right?” he asked, this time with more intensity.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good,” he cut me off, like what I said made him pleased. At the very least, some of the nasty intensity in his gaze lessened. “Your last name is Montgomery. You can call me Cypress. I’ve been sent here to get you.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Who sent you?”

  “Your parents.”

  My what? “I don’t have parents. Get your hand off of me before I…”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Before you what?”

  Was that amusement in his tone? I stomped hard on his foot, but he didn’t even seem to notice. “Before I scream. How’s that? I can have every guard in here arriving in seconds. I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but you’ll get your hands off me immediately.”

  He shook his head before speaking under his breath. “Doesn’t know who she is and still speaks with a tone of authority. Must be in her DNA.” I didn’t know what that meant, but he had me curious. “You’re not going to scream,” he then added while tightening his hold on my arm. “Because you’re out of your cell, and we both know the punishment for escaping isn’t worth it. Why are you out, anyway?”

  He wasn’t wrong. If I was caught with Louisia’s key and out at night, they’d put me in solitary.

  I didn’t owe this strange man—Cypress—any explanation, but the words conjured on my tongue against my will. Was he a witch? Did he have the ability to pull the truth out of me? “I wanted to touch the moon,” I sang in a dreamy voice before slapping my hand over my mouth and staring at him incredulously. Truth conjurer. I’d only heard of them, never seen them in person much less met one. “What do you want?” I asked with a cough.

  Cypress looked me up and down as if trying to understand me. I waited with my breath trapped in my chest for his answer. “Go back to your cell. Tonight, you’re getting out of here with me. I have to wait until the witching hour to perform the spells. Don’t do anything stupid. I’d hate to have to knock you out, Princess.”

  Princess? That didn’t sound like a compliment coming from his mouth. His t
hreat stuck out in my mind as my mouth worked to form another question. But as quickly as he’d arrived, he vanished. My arm burned where he’d held me still, the only indication he’d been there at all and that I hadn’t made him up. As I oriented myself and processed what had just happened, my chest tightened. I stood there completely dumbfounded. I began my night risking my life for thirty minutes of freedom, and now a strange man offered me an eternity of it. Could I trust him? My throat closed up from the panic.

  That internal clock I’d come to rely on ticked by without rhyme or reason, and I cursed this Cypress person for ruining my rhythm. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left or if I could even make it back to my cell before the next guard shift change. My breathing continued to constrict from the stress of it all as if barbed wire was wrapped around my chest. I couldn’t walk to the bathhouses, even if I wanted to, in this condition. “Fuck,” I rasped before scurrying back to my cell. The moment after I slammed the barred cell door and turned the lock, I collapsed on my ass in the middle of my concrete bedroom.

  Tears filled my eyes as I looked around the windowless tomb. One of the guards had once taken pity on me and given me some charcoal to color on the walls. I’d never seen a flower but had heard about them from a fairy that was locked up for stealing. I tried to imitate the stemmed beauty she described on my four corners of concrete. Roses, daffodils, and lilies covered every inch of space, making my home feel a little less dismal—a little less hopeless. I stared at the sketched hope while trying to calm my breathing. In and out. In and out. I held the stale oxygen in my chest before blowing at the dust collecting on the floor.