Dragon Marked: Supernatural Prison #1

DRAGON MARKED

To my sister-in-law Laura, Aunty Coll and Marice. My
favourite betas and friends.

DRAGON MARKED

Supernatural Prison #1

Jaymin Eve

Dragon Marked: Supernatural Prison #1

Copyright © Jaymin Eve 2015

All rights reserved

First published in 2015

Eve, Jaymin

Dragon Marked: Supernatural Prison #1

1st edition

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition,
including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All
characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain
are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental

My head hit the desk with a loud clunk. I jerked upright, blinking
rapidly. What the hell had just happened?

“I’m sorry, Miss Lebron, am I boring you?” Tall, dark,
and deadly was my teacher as he loomed over my desk.

Shit, I’d fallen asleep in class again. Damn those
Compass brothers, keeping me out all night in the forest. We’d been searching for
the prison again. Another fruitless search.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, slinking lower in my seat. I
rubbed a hand across my mouth to make sure I didn’t have sleep-drool on my
face.

Like a lot of older vamps, our history teacher, Mr. Vendir
Vamissa, hadn’t forgotten the last supernatural war – when shifters and
vampires had fought on opposite sides – so I wasn’t surprised when he hissed
before dismissing me with a flick of his bald head. When he reached the front
of the class he leveled another dark look in my direction. I was too strong for
compulsion to roll me. Still, all vampires were scary when they locked you in
their gaze. Thankfully, he started lecturing again, picking up where he’d left
off about the origins of the Slothman. No wonder I’d fallen asleep.

Jacob Compass – one of the quadruplets who were my
best friends – nudged me. “Nice one, Jessa, pissing off the vamp before
dinnertime.”

I narrowed my eyebrows at him, a slight growl rumbling
my chest. “You’re an asshat. Why didn’t you wake me?”

The amusement in Jacob’s grass-green eyes was clear.
“Hey, I wanted to stay home last night, but everyone follows Tyson when he
reveals
his brilliant plans.” He flicked a small orange flame between his fingertips. Jacob
was fey, with power over the elements, although he was extra obsessed with
fire.

Tyson spun in his chair, pointing a long finger at
Jacob. “I’m sitting right here, dick.”

I knew the brothers as well as I knew myself, and
there was no doubt Tyson, who was a wizard, wanted to punch his brother. The
only thing stopping a fistfight was our current awkward seating arrangement.
Tyson was in the row in front of us.

Jacob, Tyson, Braxton and Maximus Compass had been my
best friends for most of my twenty-two years. They were quads who – through a
quirk in nature or genetics – somehow contained the souls of four different
supernatural races.

Our little pack had gone through early learning,
special training, and now attended a private supernatural, ‘supes’ college
together. Six thousand members of the supernatural community lived in our town
of Stratford, Connecticut. Witch magic protected our borders and repelled
humans from entering, and there was a very important reason for this. Our town
was a gateway, a guardian community, protecting those very fragile and innocent
humans from the darkness they never even knew existed. Stratford was a
supernatural prison community, the keepers of your worst nightmares.

Maximus, the vampire, was the daredevil of the group.
“So are we heading out tonight?”

Braxton growled from my other side. “No. Jessa’s
tired. And we have a council meeting after class.”

Our continued conversation had the teacher hissing in
our direction again. In a room this size, vampire hearing didn’t miss anything.
We shut our mouths and pretended to listen, but it was too late. Vendir’s
expression indicated that I needed to be taught a lesson in respect. Or fear.
Of course he didn’t try that shit with the Compasses. Sometimes I hated being
small and female. Although, to be underestimated … well, sometimes that was
deliciously ironic.

With super speed, Vendir was beside my desk again, the
eyes of our classmates following him.

“It’s in your best interest to stop interrupting my
lesson, Jessa. You don’t want to push me too far. I can make life very
difficult for you.”

Oh shit.

Reprimanding me was one thing, but threatening me in
front of the Compasses … bad idea. In a single movement the four of them were
on their feet. I followed because my alpha wolf didn’t like the men towering
over me, although most of them were a foot taller than my five feet four – yep,
I was small. My height was another thing which gave me an air of vulnerability,
right up until I opened my mouth.

Braxton sounded casual. “You might want to back the
hell off of Jessa.” But his dark blue eyes were flashing. “I’d hate to get vamp
on my clothes.”

“Brax.” I laid a hand on his arm, hoping to calm him. Braxton
was a dragon shifter, and if he lost control, more than a few supes would die.
“Forget it. I’m okay, and more importantly my wolf is fine.”

It might have been a different story if the vampire
had pissed off my inner animal, but her energy had barely even swirled inside.
We considered the weaker vamp teacher to be nothing more than an annoyance. If
it came down to it, I didn’t need the quads to take on Vendir.

The vampire knew when he was out-powered, and lowering
his head, he backed to the front of the room. His features were expressionless,
but his narrowed eyes flashed fury, fang was showing and his hands had formed
claws that he couldn’t seem to straighten. The brothers stood for a few extra
moments just to reiterate their point, before retaking their seats. The tension
that had descended over the thirty students around us started to dissipate.
Most of them looked disappointed. They’d been hoping for a throw-down. What can
I say, many of us were predators, and we had a predisposition for the enjoyment
of bloody warfare.

Glancing to the side, I noticed how motionless Braxton
was in his chair. His face was perfectly calm but I knew him better than that.
He was pissed.

Braxton was the most protective of the group. Maybe it
was the fact we were both shifters, but he had my back even more than his
brothers. Although all of them could be annoyingly over-protective. Luckily, my
wolf thought of them as pack, although as an alpha it still annoyed her when
they tried to control me. I was a dominant shifter through my father’s
bloodline: Jonathon Lebron, alpha of the wolf shifters, high council leader of
all shifting races, and all around badass. He was training me to take over the
pack. I was powerful, one of the most powerful wolf shifters born in the United
States.

This was probably the reason the Compass quads and I
were so tight; they were powerful too, set to be the next American high council
members. In three years’ time they would take over from the current council
members.

Maximus was vampire, Braxton was shifter, Jacob was
fey, and Tyson was a magic user, a wizard. So they would hold four of the
positions on the council. The fifth race was the demi-fey: mermaid, gargoyles,
trolls, boggarts, pixies, imps, centaurs and the like. Basically any group who
would never be able to blend into the human world. The demi-fey were the only
supernatural race that the Compasses didn’t have a representative in.

My attention was drawn back to the head of the class
and a sudden subject change to a myriad of famous wolf shifter deaths through
history, with particular and detailed attention spent on our weaknesses. I
silently chuckled; the vampire could not be more obvious. He was probably
plotting my murder while he lectured, but was too weak to ever do more than
play it out in his head.

Next to me Jacob started mumbling under his breath,
singing. The fey love to belt out a ballad. His voice was sweet as; I could
listen to him sing for days. All four brothers stared off in different
directions around the room. The lucky asses were geniuses and never paid
attention in class. Truth be told, they were a mystery in the supernatural
community. Being the children of two rare hybrids – a vampire-sorceress mother
and shifter-fey father – was unusual enough. Hybrids producing offspring, it
was pretty much unheard of. But no one had a freaking clue how the quadruplets had
come to possess four different supernatural abilities. And in pureblood form,
no less.

Vendir finished summing up the six strike-points for a
kill on a wolf–dumbass–before waving his hand and turning his back on us.
“Class is dismissed early today. Make your way to the town hall.”

I moved aside as a short, broad troll barged down the
aisle. Don’t get in the way of trolls, they’re like steam trains. Our class was
a mix of supernatural creatures. We attended college until twenty-five and
after that we had to choose a career. There were a wide variety of jobs,
including many that had reference to the prison. Vanguard was the United States’
supernatural prison, hidden, secret, and protected somewhere deep in the forest
which bordered Stratford. No one knew the location unless they were initiated
into the council. Or if your career was within the walls. The boys and I spent
a lot of time searching for it, but so far, nada. That’s where we’d been last
night; Tyson thought he had a lead. As future council leaders it pissed them
right off that they were excluded from information on the prison. This was
their way of taking things into their own hands.

But since I’d ended up with mud in unmentionable
places and a tick on my ass, the wizard had clearly missed the mark. It wasn’t
the first time the Compass brothers had led me astray and it wouldn’t be the
last.

After class I wandered along with the hundreds who were heading toward
the town hall. The boys would catch up with me soon, they all had
things
to do. Things I probably did not want to know about. The town meeting was due
to start in about thirty minutes, so they’d have to haul ass to make it in
time.

Stratford wasn’t huge, and it was set out in a
circular pattern, everything revolving out from the large,
towering-into-the-air fountain at the center. The town hall was a stone and
brick building with old-style architecture that included a pair of large
hand-carved stone statues out front, and heavy window frames. The building sat
off to the right of the fountain, taking up a pretty decent section of land.

My father caught up with me just before I entered the
huge double doors and draped an arm across my shoulders, leading me back to the
grassy area off to the side. I smiled as I stared into his dark blue eyes; they
were the same color as mine. His hair was blond though, whereas mine was so
black it almost looked blue in the sunlight. My father didn’t look much older
than me. Supernaturals age very slowly. Most live a good eight hundred years or
more.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Jonathon leaned down to give me a
hug. He wasn’t tall for a shifter, but height wasn’t important when his power
followed him around ready to deliver a swift boot in the ass. My father ruled
our pack with an iron fist, but toward me he was a fluffy puppy … with claws.
He placed both hands on my biceps. “I need to tell you something before the
meeting. We have some new and disturbing information.” 

I opened my mouth, but was interrupted by a shout.

“Jessa!”

I spun my head to see Jacob wave. He was with his
brothers and they were making their way across the paved center arcade. The
vamp and shifter girls around me started giggling like morons. For some reason
these men turned cold-blooded predators into silly human females. It was quite
amusing to watch as the quads brushed them off. Most of them were just looking
to snare the future leaders of the council. We were a bit superficial like
that. And while the Compasses were not exactly picky, groupies were not their
thing.

I growled at a very blond wolf shifter. “Get some
pride.” Damn, she was like three seconds from drooling.

The blonde lowered her eyes, not dominant enough to
meet my glare for too long. I turned away with a shake of my head. Silky
strands of my straight inky hair brushed against my bare shoulders. In true
shifter style I was only wearing a tank and short shorts, clothes easy to shed
if my wolf needed to run.

“Try and remember, Jess,” Jonathon said, drawing my
attention again. “You don’t see the guys the same way as the other females.”

Narrowing my eyes, I spun my head to observe the four
of them as the crowd parted to let them through. I had no idea what my father
was talking about, I saw them perfectly fine. I had outstanding vision, almost
as good as the eagle shifters.

The brothers stood heads above everyone else. All of
them looked alike and yet were all so different. They were exceptionally
beautiful, with olive skin, chiseled jaws, straight perfect noses, and dimples
in their cheeks. Yes, the smug bastards had dimples too. But in no way were
they cute; they were gorgeous and hard, and you knew they could destroy you if
you crossed them the wrong way.

Braxton was a little in front. At six and a half feet
he was a massive shifter, which made sense for a dragon. His skin was a few
shades darker than his brothers’ and his hair was as black as night, contrasting
beautifully to his eyes, which were as blue as a flawless spring sky. Tyson,
the wizard, had brown hair with that hint of auburn threaded through. He wore
it a little longer than his brothers, but still only brushing the bottom of his
ears. His eyes were a honeysuckle brown, soft and sweet, except when he was
using his magic. Then they turned gold and you knew it was time to haul ass.
Jacob, the fey, was a little shorter, and finer than his massive brothers, but
was still big. He had green eyes, like a newly-turned leaf in spring, and hair
so blond it was pretty much white. Bringing up the rear was Maximus, the
vampire, the hugest of the four. His hair was dirty blond, falling into his
dark brown eyes. You knew when he was vamped out, fangs descended and his eyes turned
black.