Layla’s shriek ripped through the air, snapping my focus back to her as the tornadoes of flames danced around her block. My heart froze, my lips parting. Only, the fire didn’t touch her. Instead, it formed a blazing wall around her.
Well, I’ll be… By some happenstance of fate, she’d found what appeared to be a safe zone.
I scanned the yard to see several other areas where Noir were clustering into small groups of two or three, their base seeming to be one of the few that didn’t go up in flames.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who seemed to have noticed these little fireproof havens.
Two burly Noir were headed right for Layla.
Novak took off toward them, his lithe form cutting a path I begrudgingly followed. He took down the first behemoth of a male with one solid punch to his throat, sending the angel backward into a sizzling spire of fire.
I winced at the bellow the male released, then threw my dagger into the eye of the second one.
Novak pulled it out in a swift move, then slid the blade across the male’s throat just as I arrived at his side.
He handed it to me without a backward glance, his focus already falling on the approaching horde of Noir who all clearly craved death.
I rolled my neck.
All right.
Survival of the fittest.
Yeah, I could do that.
I crouched.
Bring it.
6
Layla
My skin heated as another wall of fire danced around me, threatening to turn my feathers to ash.
I’m going to die here.
In this hell.
With black wings.
And I’ll never know what I did to deserve this!
Fury licked through my veins, burning a path right to my thudding heart. I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all and the complete madness of this situation.
Why would my father allow this?
Noir were dying. Screaming. Going up in flames.
This didn’t match any of the stories I’d been told about the reform process. Nora were kind creatures, our wings the same color as our souls. We were meant to help others, to guide them into the light, not fight each other to the death.
“Layla!” Auric shouted.
I peeked at him through my feathers, then gasped as I saw the razor wire heading right for his beautiful wings. “Duck!” I screamed.
But he couldn’t hear me.
And he couldn’t seem to see the approaching blades either, something the other Noir appeared too blind to notice as well.
My eyebrows shot up as he twisted in midair, his wings thrusting at his back to place him horizontal to the ground as he arched backward. The wire hummed across his torso, upward to his chin. His eyes narrowed as it nearly skimmed his nose, and I gulped.
He righted himself as a Noir with black hair handed him a dagger.
I frowned at the familiarity between them and the nod Auric gave the other man. Then they went wing-to-wing and began fighting off each approaching assailant.
They were a sight to behold, cutting down the others with precise punches, slashes, and kicks.
Hope blossomed inside me, only to die at the sight of a shiny net falling from the sky.
“Watch out!” I launched forward, only to be tossed back by the flames bursting up around me again. I let out a strangled cry, dancing away from the heat.
Auric looked up, then crouched as he sliced his blade through the air.
It wasn’t enough.
The silvery web whirled around him in a sickening display of madness, entangling with his limbs and molding to his thick combat pants and boots. He fell to the ground as the metallic strands ensnared his arms and wings, degrading him to that of a fly caught in a spider’s web.
A sick feeling rose up inside me.
I had to help him. I had to—
Tight fingers closed around my arm and jerked me backward into a circle of virile male Noir.
Oh gods...
A tall, muscular Noir with a scar bisecting his right eye leered down at me. “Look at you,” he hummed, his gaze roaming over my gauzy top—no one had provided me with anything else to wear. “All alone, aren’t you now, Princess?”
My stomach twisted as my heart fluttered like a frightened bird.
The man’s scent was all Noir—fetid and feral like a dangerous, wild animal.
I hadn’t realized that Noir smelled so different from Nora until I came here. In the castle, I’d hardly ever noticed anybody’s smell beyond Auric’s. Nora had a nice, muted scent that was almost calming in its steadfastness.
However, the Noir’s stench choked me. I could taste it in the back of my throat.
I yanked against his hold, but his fingers just tightened on my arm.
“Let go of me,” I snapped, going for a haughty, royal tone. Unfortunately, the words came out too shaky to land the way I wanted them to.
Gods, I hated this place. I hated the way it shredded my courage, how it turned my resolve into mush and my brain into that of a helpless female.
I wasn’t weak.
I was a royal.
He should be bowing to me, not manhandling me.
Three other inmates crowded around us, identical glints in their gazes. They looked just as rough and intimidating, covered in scars and healing wounds, their heads shaved and their skin sallow from so much time locked away.
I dreaded to think what they’d done in their lives to be here for so long that they no longer resembled Nora at all. Their descent into Noir life had gone well beyond their black wings, as if the evil inside them had manifested on the outside.
The one holding my arm sneered. “What do you think, boys? Should I let her go?”
His buddies laughed as though he’d said something uproariously funny.
“Let her go down on this cock,” one of them said, earning more maniacal laughter from the groupies.
All the hairs on my body stood on end. The low level of panic I’d managed to keep submissive until now threatened to overwhelm me.
Why had my father sent me to this awful place? How could he put me in this position? If Auric didn’t survive the razor wire, I’d be at the mercy of every man in this prison. I’d be meat, and they’d all take a bite until there was nothing left of me.
My captor gave a slow nod, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Been a long time since I felt the warmth of a cunt.”
His crudeness lit a fire of indignation under me. Baring my teeth at him, I hissed. “Release me, or lose your hand like the other Noir in the yard.”
He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. “Your guard dog’s a little busy, Princess. I don’t think he’d notice if I took you for a ride.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat. My arm was going numb beneath his bruising grip. And his stench was suffocating me. I longed for wintergreen to banish the stink.
But Auric wasn’t coming to my rescue.
So I’d just have to save myself.
“I don’t need a guard dog,” I said, then stepped forward, scraping my foot down the Noir’s bare shin with every bit of force I could muster.
The edges of my high-heeled sandals weren’t exactly soft. I tore off a layer of skin and followed through by slamming my three-inch heel right into the top of his foot. Unfortunately for him, he’d decided to wear slip-ons to the courtyard instead of boots. My ropy sandals weren’t appropriate for prison, but they were good for putting a two-inch hole in this idiot’s foot.