Jail 'Em (Jailbreak Book 3) Read online

  Jail ‘Em

  Sam Hall

  Jail ‘Em

  Jail ‘Em © Sam Hall 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for in the case of brief quotations for the use in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover art and design by Mibl Art

  Edited by Bookish Dreams Editing

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Stalk me!

  Author Note

  Preface

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  What next?

  Stalk me!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Stalk me!

  Stalk me!

  Facebook author group: Sam’s Hall of Heroines

  Facebook page here

  Newsletter sign up here

  Instagram here

  Book Bub here

  Author Note

  This book is written in Australian English, which is a weird lovechild of British and American English. We tend to spell things the way the Brits do (expect a lot more u’s), yet also use American slang and swear more than both combined.

  While many people have gone over this book, trying to find all the typos and other mistakes, they just keep on popping up like bloody rabbits. If you spot one, don’t report it to Amazon, drop me an email at the below address so I can fix the issue.

  [email protected]

  Preface

  So one of the things I hate most about reading and watching TV as an Australian is the way people try to represent Australians (I’m looking at you, weird lawyer on the TV show, JAG) as it rarely comes off realistically. As a result, I tend to situate my books in Oz, because I have similar blind spots when it comes to other countries.

  I try not to use existing mythology for the same reason. People have these beautiful cultural traditions and then some author comes tramping all over them with their big bloody feet.

  Friends from Ireland (the Republic and Northern Ireland) I did you wrong in this book. I hesitantly added Maeve in as a shadowy figure in Book 2, figuring my brain could work out a way to integrate a hugely fascinating figure in Irish mythology into my book and it would all be fine.

  Yeah, that didn’t work.

  My Maeve is not Maeve, Queen of Connacht, from the Ulster Cycle. I might have stolen her name and one of her titles, but the character she evolved into is absolutely not that woman. Initially I thought it’d be fantastic having such a powerful woman in my book, yet the stupid story called for something else.

  So unfortunately I ended up doing what every other member of the British diaspora with a fascination with the Celts does, and mangled the myths into something else altogether. Ballypitmave is a real place, but that aint what’s shown in this book. It’s based on bits and pieces I could glean from research from different areas, but is not accurate at all.

  Forgive me? If I ever get to your beautiful country, I owe you all a pint.

  Yes, all of you ;)

  Chapter 1

  I dreamed.

  I was asleep when she came, slinking into my dreams like a stray cat, bringing with her more than dead rats though. The long fair hair bound back into plaits, the armour. She stood before me, the two of us facing off like mirror images, because now, up close, I could see the similarities—the same shade of blonde in our hair, the same shape of our eyes, that weird little snub of a nose. We were similar enough in appearance to be sisters, but she was Maeve, wolf queen, a figure from ancient legends, and I was…?

  “My daughter, my sister,” she replied, because in this form, she seemed to be able to hear everything that I thought. And wasn’t that a worry? She snorted, then smiled in response to that.

  “I always have, each and every one of you. I heard your mother’s thoughts and her mother’s before her. I heard their pride in your development, in the woman you were becoming. I heard your grandmother’s fears like screams in the night. I heard your mother’s mind as it was twisted by him.”

  The smile faded at that, her expression growing sadder, angrier, and in me rose an answering feeling.

  “Your father, my father,” she said through barely gritted teeth. “All we’ve ever been are broodmares.”

  Her hand glowed like the stone as she reached out, ready to touch my still mostly flat stomach, and everything in my body wanted to recoil, but like so often happened in dreams, I was frozen, passive, unable to do a damn thing. Something twisted inside me as her fingers touched my skin, making my body suddenly come back under my control. I jerked myself back from her touch with a speed I’d never have in my waking moments and was treated to the sight of her distress.

  “Shannon, you have my stone, now come and find me. If you’re to have any chance of bearing those children, you’ll need to. Come, find me, my daughter.”

  Her command bit deep into my subconscious, but as my eyes flicked open, all I felt was a trembling sense of disquiet, something that roused Jai.

  “Hey…” he said, his voice croaky, but his eyes, they were sharp enough, his hands stroking back my hair in long soothing strokes. “You OK?”

  “Just a nightmare.”

  The words came out too fast to feel real, and as I considered them, that explanation seemed flimsier and flimsier. But even as my heart rattled in my chest, as I searched my mind for the truth, I came up with nothing else.

  “Come here then,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tight. That erased my lingering sense of disquiet better than anything. Jai… my heart sighed. “Let’s see if we can get some more sleep.”

  So we did.

  Chapter 2

  I didn’t want to be here.

  As I walked inside the house I’d spent my life in, I felt like I was walking into the past instead of into the future, where I wanted to be. I saw the awkward way Janey was holding her body, the way the dogs were shying away from my men and clustering around her, and I caught glimpses of their fear and pain. I wanted to turn on my heel and just run away from everything this place represented, which hurt. I loved Nan, Janey, my dogs, but instead, something inside me bared its teeth and hissed at what I was seeing.

  “You OK?”

  The other guys looked my way when Zane sidled up, catching the slight jump I made when my jaguar put his hand to my shoulder. Janey rushed into the lounge room, where the coffee table was groaning with N
an’s books and journals. I just shook my head slightly.

  “You know her? This is your house, isn’t it?” Nero asked in a low voice.

  “She was my housemate, and this was my grandmother’s house. It has every scrap of wisdom she put to paper here.”

  “And Janey’s been reading it. We need to listen, love,” Jai said.

  “I’ll contact Outpost, let them know we’re gonna be delayed. Mongrel will be devastated,” Caleb said with a wry grin. “You know he’s crushing on you bad.”

  But the grin dropped when a series of low growls went through the group.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “I’ve more than got my hands full here.”

  That was supposed to have been a cute little comment to diffuse the tension, but it failed. My soft-eyed lovers turned into a pack of hungry beasts in just a split second.

  “There’s no one else for me,” I said, my eyes taking in each one of them, but jerking away when they met Gaden’s. I didn’t feel like I had the right to be sharing soul stares with him yet.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Janey said, obviously tired of waiting for us. “I need to show you. Get your phone out and make sure it’s charged.”

  The careless way Nan’s books were all piled on top of each other set my teeth on edge, but I didn’t say anything as I took a seat on the couch. My friend, my colleague, my housemate sat down in a messy tangle on the floor beside it all.

  “She knew, your nan.” A page full of hand-drawn illustrations was pushed my way, and when we all turned to look, there it was—the stone. I frowned, peering closer, starting to read the spidery writing, but that was quickly yanked away. “That you’d take the stone. The child of Dain and Maeve. See, it says here.” Another book was shoved at me, displaying a lengthy family tree outlined on it. Her finger dragged hard over the soft paper, underlining the final culmination of this line, an involuntary cry building in my chest when I saw the fibres start to ball under it.

  “Janey.” I reached out and grabbed her hand to pull it off, to stop them from reaching for another book and another, and then I felt it.

  I never wanted to go back to that fucking place, ever, but I’d had to when we rescued Jai and now I was wrenched back there by the connection with Janey. She had the psychic impact of a punch to the face, everything that was teeming inside her overflowing and flooding into me. I saw the little room she’d been locked into, the dark figures in the doorway that advanced on her, my own muscles tightening in sympathy with hers as they approached, hands slapping down on her, going to her clothes and—

  I disconnected from her mind abruptly, just blinking for a second. Zane’s hand went to my shoulder, rubbing circles as the nausea rose and rose. Janey had been raped many times while she’d been locked up. Those men, they—

  “They died screaming,” I told her, interrupting the unruly burble spilling from her lips and finally silencing her. “Those men that touched you. They killed each other brutally, and those that didn’t…” I looked across the lounge room where my mates were clustered, a silent, deadly presence.

  “You did it?” Her voice was warbly, wavering, but she firmed her jaw and met my gaze head-on. “Thank you. They were psychotic fucks. Stuart went down too?” I nodded. “Good. He sold us out for fuck all, but that’s not what’s important. Your phone is charged? Full battery?”

  I watched her click her fingers, the dogs coming to settle beside her, albeit stiffly. They made a tightknit little tableau, but it was weird to see it, them on one side, my friend and my pets, with us on the other.

  I drew out the phone Mongrel had given me, navigated to the voice memo app, and set it to record. She straightened at that, all the fidgety skittishness settling as soon as she saw the line showing the noise levels stretch out.

  “You’re having twins—one boy, one girl. Maeve’s line isn’t supposed to have boys. If you’d have been a boy, your Nan planned to give your mum a special tea, make her think she was having a miscarriage when it would have been an abortion.” Janey’s eyes filled with tears as she said the words, but she charged on. “Sounds hard and cold, but there was a reason for it. The girl, she’s you, your line—another wolf queen, born of wolves, destined to lead them to greatness. She’ll come into the light, let the world see her brilliance.”

  My fingers tightened as I saw a golden-eyed girl standing tall, her long dark blonde hair whipping behind her, wolf shifters of every description dropping to their knees.

  “But the boy? He’s his grandfather’s son—bringer of darkness, the smiter, he of the evil eye. The last son was one of light, Aodhan…” She frowned, then scrubbed at her face. “The balance must be restored. Light child, dark child, light child, dark child.”

  My friend, my dogs, grew agitated. Janey’s body collapsed down on itself, her limbs tucked in as tightly as they could go, Max snarling as a result. At us, my dog snarled at us.

  “The tea, the recipe is there. It shows you how. I thought of just giving it to you when you got here, but I couldn’t…” She shook her head over and over again. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

  The tears flowed freely now, her voice taking on a pleading tone.

  “He’ll blot out the sun, the seas will run red, the birds will fall from the sky, and he, he will rise.”

  “Who will rise?” I asked, irritation seeping into my voice, the dogs’ teeth baring at that. Jai jerked forward, growling back, which sent them scuttling behind Janey. She was scaring the ever loving shit out of me, but I needed more than vague prognostications and claims she wasn’t going to forcibly abort my children.

  “Him…he…” I watched her try to make the words come, but they wouldn’t, which should have warned me. “Dain…”

  The dogs scrambled to their feet, sniffing at her, pushing their muzzles at her, desperately trying to stop her from saying it, what she’d learned.

  I slid to the floor, feeling the stone in my hand, despite the fact I’d tucked it into the inside pocket of my denim jacket. My other hand reached for Janey, and when I touched her, time stopped and the vision started.

  Maeve stared back at me, her hand clasped over the hilt of her sword, nodding in my direction for just a moment before she stepped backwards. We shot through the air, our disembodied spirits tugged before him, sitting on a throne of blackened stone. Reddish cracks in it revealed something that looked suspiciously like lava, but he reclined on the seat like it was the softest of Italian leather. He leant back, hands forming a steeple as he looked up at me, a golden signet ring with an eye embossed on its surface on his finger.

  Only now did I realise that Maeve and thousands like her were lying face down on the ground before him. He surveyed the crowd with a cool eye, then grinned, all bright brilliance, looking perfectly pleased with himself. The joy there was oddly contagious, so that when I pulled away from Janey, I smiled too, despite the furious racket of my heartbeat.

  As the house, the dogs, and my mates came back into focus, I knew what I needed to do.

  “I can help you and the dogs,” I said, rubbing her hands.

  “Yes, you can,” she said earnestly. “You won’t want to, but you can’t have those children. They made you, raped you, forced you to breed—”

  “Shh…” It was a gentle sound, and my push on her mind was featherlight. She fell silent, going quiet and still, the dogs hunkering down on the ground in response.

  They were the true victims here—Janey and the dogs both. The dogs had been kicked aside, then neglected when I’d been captured, left to fend for themselves. Janey had… I swallowed, knowing what I had to do and not wanting to. I smiled, forcing my face to form the expression, took her hands in mine, and rubbed them hard.

  Neither Janey nor the dogs had asked for this, they just had the bad luck to be associated with me and that had made them collateral damage in a war I hadn’t even known I was fighting. I took a deep breath and then did what was needed. I pulled it—the rapes, the capture, the institute, Jai and me being darted. I spooled it
all out of them and into me, taking every painful memory, every blow inflicted, and then left just this…

  Janey had lived in this house with me for some time, working together at the vets. I’d moved out, going with Jai to the States, leaving her with the house and the dogs. She was starting to look for another job now, or maybe leave the valley altogether. She hadn’t been hurt, abused, left to moulder here amongst all these books. She had the house for as long as she wanted it, and if she wanted to move, she’d give the keys back to Rob.

  When I turned to the dogs, the tears that had already filled my eyes started to fall freely. I took it from them, the fear and uncertainty left when I’d been captured, then the mistreatment and neglect, even Janey’s attempts to make up for it. I reset them back to before I’d been kidnapped, with a crucial change—they were Janey’s dogs now, she was the leader they looked to. It took a little bit to make them accept that, but their canine brains didn’t like carrying the pain. My tears dripped onto the floor when I got to my feet, sliding the stone back into my pocket.