The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 1)

“Jannel,” she whispered aloud. As if maybe the syllables added up to something different if they were uttered instead of just translated from the inscription inside her brain.

Janelle. Her sister’s name was Janelle. So this had to be another prisoner, with a name close, but not exactly—

Closing her eyes, she sagged. She had gotten it right. The name was just spelled wrong, like a lot of them were. Maybe the carvers didn’t know the Old Language any better than she did. Or maybe they were just careless fuckers who didn’t seem to get that they were disrespecting the dead when they didn’t get it correct.

As she stood there, the soft breath of the lit wicks all around her, the dropping of wax from the three-foot-tall black candles loud as an off-key chorus in her ear, she was tempted to fall apart—but mostly she wanted to scream. Janelle. Jannel. For fuck’s sake, at least the guy with the chisel could have spelled the name right.

“Is it her?” Jack asked roughly.

The sound of his voice was a reminder of where they were. “Yes.”

But before she turned around, walked away, started the process of getting herself out of the prison, she went to touch the inscription with her fingertips one last time—

What the—?

Her cell phone was not only in her hand, she’d turned it on, and all she could do was stare down at the thing and wonder how the hell that had happened and what in the hell the thing was for.

Oh . . . right. Picture. She needed to get a picture.

She lifted the unit up and snapped a photograph of her sister’s name. Then she turned around and—

Froze where she was. Jack had a guard up against the wall, a hand locked on the front of the other male’s throat. Before Nyx could react, two shots went off, and she lunged forward, prepared to engage—except Jack was the shooter, not the other way around. And there was no loud, ringing echo of the discharges around all the stone. The bullets were muffled, sure as if the gun she’d given him had a suppressor on the end of the muzzle—except it did not. The guard’s own flesh, the body that the lead slugs had been driven into, was what had dampened the noise.

As Jack dropped his hold, the body fell in a slump. Then he looked over at her.

His fangs were bared and long as daggers, and his expression was nothing like anything she had seen on his face before.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he hissed. “Now.”

The following eve, as Rhage stepped out of his accommodations in Jabon’s very busy house, he was in a rather chipper mood. Closing the door, he smoothed the suit coat that adorned his chest, and regarded with a jaundiced eye the slacks that had been fitted to his enormous measurements. Jabon’s tailor had delivered the fine wool togs the hour before, and had insisted upon putting the set onto him—not something Rhage would have volunteered for under any other circumstance. However, given that all of his clothing had disappeared when the beast had come out of him in that meadow down by the river, he had indulged the textile intervention.

And it had perked him up some. Yet the true elevation of his mood had come from the elevation of his corporeal form, one that was occurring without dizziness or the need for aid.

Good news had finally presented itself, that which he had been anxiously awaiting at long last turning up upon his doorstep, the parcel materializing, the calling card obtained, the audience granted: For the first time since his infection had presented itself with red-rimmed fanfare about that bullet’s entry site, he had witnessed this nightfall a true turn in its course for the better. Indeed, when he had peeked under the bandage upon his awakening, he had seen a verifiable reduction in footprint and intensity. And that was not all. He could move so much better the now, the pain markers that had flared with every minute reorientation of his limbs or redistribution of his weight quieting down, even silencing, for a spell.

So, yes, there was a spring in his step as he descended the staircase unto the receiving area. On time. For First Meal.

The dining room was to the left, and there were guests already milling around the seats at the carved table, high-style hogs at the proverbial trough, but he did not proceed thereto. A familiar voice in the parlor drew his notice, and immediately thereafter, his footfalls.

Entering the room, he smiled. “Regard the two of you, still a-work, I see.”

His brother Darius and the Jackal looked up from their joint perusal of the plans spread yet again upon that cleared table. The pair of them were both perfectly attired, as usual, and the males smiled readily. It appeared that all were of good cheer this warm June eve.