Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“Juniper.” Joaquin stiffened at the sight of her, not to mention the stern tone in her voice.
“How dare you!” She snapped at him as she glared at him from about three feet away. “How dare you put my Riviana through all of that. And all those kids! Do you know how upset they were.” She was angry and I didn’t really know why. It’s not like he tried to die. “I swear, Joaquin Gray, you need someone to watch over you all the time to make sure that you don’t do something so stupid.” She was laying into him.
…..
“I am sorry, Juniper. I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He looked repentant. She was reminding him of all the sadness from the night before. I was about to step in, but then her angry voice started again and even I flinched.
“I can’t have you doing that, Joaquin. I can’t have you hurting people like that. If I have to look after you and protect your bacon, and your Joaquin’s pieces, then I will, dammit. You can’t die on us.”
“Huh?” That was a sentiment that was echoed by Joaquin and I, and some others in the group as well.
“Dammit Joaquin, I was so fucking worried about you.” At that, my best friend threw herself into Joaquin’s arms and hugged him tightly. She was crying as well. She really had been scared, hadn’t she?
“I’m sorry, Juniper.” Joaquin hugged her back. “I really am OK though. I promise.”
“You better be.” She pulled away from him and threw herself at Paul who looked just as bewildered as the rest of us. He didn’t say anything though. He just picked her up into his arms and carried her over to a seat where he settled her onto his lap.
Others came to shake Joaquin’s hand as well. Reef and Analise Rivers, two of the water shifting council members. Daciana, Athair m贸r’s wife and mate. Jackson and Rawlynne. Carter and Noah, though Noah added a hug and Carter didn’t. Gabriel, Bryce, Riley, Trevor, and Landon, even if the majority of that group had seen him last night, they still hugged him and shook his hand today as well.
After the greetings with Joaquin were over, and everyone was settled into their seats, it was time to start the meeting. Rawlynne, who was the one that had insisted on this meeting right away, was the one to stand up and start speaking first.
“As we all know, there are a lot of the Jaegan in the dungeons. We know that some of them are the ones that had murdered our people, as well as committed other crimes against them.” She was referring to Claud and what he had done to Andrea. “Now we must discuss what we are going to do with them. Shall we kill them outright? Or should we send them to prison for their crimes. And if they are going to prison, how are we going to be sure that they are not going to spill the beans to everyone that they meet? How are we going to make sure that they don’t tell other people about us and what we really are?”
I thought about this for a little bit. She had a point. If there were Jaegan in a normal prison, they would try to tell others that there were werewolves, vampires, werecats, werebears, Faeries, and other magical creatures living in the world.
“This won’t be easy.” I said as I looked at them all. “We run the risk of being found out if we don’t do this properly. However, killing them isn’t an answer. That is what they would do to themselves if they had the opportunity. If their runes hadn’t been disabled, then they would not be here right now. They would all sacrifice themselves. We shouldn’t give them that opportunity. We shouldn’t let them have that easy way out.”
“Their runes don’t work anymore at all.” Gabriel, who had been standing silently behind me, spoke up. “Most of them tried to commit suicide last night after the Ancient Ones turned to dust, but they wouldn’t work. It was like the Ancient magic was literally fueling them. With the connection severed, they were rendered powerless. We wouldn’t have gotten hardly any of them at all last night if it hadn’t been for their runes losing power.”
“Well, that is a good thing. We won’t have to worry about them getting out of their trials like that.” Joaquin seemed oddly satisfied about what he had just heard. “I agree with Riviana, they need to pay like the humans that they are. And that means that they need to go to prison.”
“It’s not just them.” I looked up and into the eyes of everyone. “We can’t kill anymore at all. We need to live lives that we can be proud of. Lives that won’t make anyone call us monsters. Battles notwithstanding, we need to be virtuous and good. And that means that we will need a place for our own criminals to be stored.”
“What do you have in mind?” Trevor asked as he smirked at me. “What should we do with them all?”
“I say that we should build a prison. I know that it won’t be legal, but we can forge some documents to make it look like it was something that has been worked on for a while. If you don’t mind, Aunt Glory, we can build it within your area. Not in the land of faerie, but out on the outskirts. That will satisfy two different things for me. One being that we can’t have the humans asking how a building popped up out of nowhere.” I explained my thoughts to all of them.
“And what is the other?” Aunt Glory asked in her soft voice.
“The other is that it is near the ley lines, and that will help to fuel the magic of the building. We can bind people’s magic, take away their shifting, and block any power that they might have. And the building won’t ever need to be charged if it is sitting on a natural battery.”
“Hmm. I like it. I think that this is a wonderful idea. And we can make it so that the prison has actually been completed for a little while.” Aunt Glory winked at me. “I really do have a lot more land than we need outside of Faerie, but we had needed to keep it protected. This, though, is an important necessity. Not to mention, it would give a lot of my people a job as well. Not to mention your own, Riviana.” She smiled at me. “We will get started on it right away.”
“And I will get started on binding cuffs.” Athair m贸r grinned a little evilly. “We will need something to lock away their powers.”
“Good. Thank you both for that.” I nodded at them.
“Riviana?” David called out, a question shining in his eyes.
“Yeah?” I prompted him to continue.
“How are we going to get a judge to send them there?”
“Well, that is easy as well.” I had already thought this far ahead when I was setting the plan for the prison. “We just make sure that the judge in their case is a supernatural like us. Then we tell them where to send the evil murdering assholes.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense. But is that really fair?” David wondered. “We’re not giving them a fair trial.”
“They admitted their guilt, David. In the course of a real trial, giving a guilty plea would waive the need for a trial and they would go straight to sentencing. So, it’s not like we’re setting them up. They are guilty. They admitted to it. And now we’re sentencing them. It’s just that we need to make sure that the humans see them sentenced.”
“Alright. I understand.” He nodded and looked at Rawlynne. I knew that speaking up about this was not easy for him, not against something that his own wife was passionate about. However, David was a kindhearted person, so it didn’t seem that odd to me that he wanted to have some clarity about it all. He would want to make sure that people weren’t mistreated or anything like that. He was a good man.
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Riviana
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There were more things discussed after what to do with the Jaegan, but most of that was to do with the Prison. And, more specifically, it was Athair m贸r, Aunt Glory and I talking about how it should be made. We knew that we wanted to make sure that anyone that was sent there, be they supernatural or human, they wouldn’t be able to do anything that was magical. The Jaegan would never be able to use runes, and shifters or one of the other beings, could never use their powers inside of the prison. Though that wasn’t all. We needed to make sure that, just in case, the guards could still use their abilities.
My solution here was to have Athair m贸r, the man that was a specialist at making tools to lock away spells, build the prison so that the very foundation blocked the magic. And then, instead of making magical bracelets that would stop magic from working, Athair m贸r could make anti blocking bracelets. These would then be worn by the staff of the prison and allow them to use their abilities.
It was a complicated system that I was working out in my head, but I thought that it was doable. And I knew that Athair m贸r was more than capable of making this vision of mine come true. Not to mention, there was a giant smile on his face while we discussed all of these things. He was looking forward to making this building a reality. And he was more than excited to get to work on those new magic items that I asked for.
“I have never made an anti blocking tool before, but I am looking forward to trying.” His smile was literally from ear to ear as he looked up from the blueprints that we had on the table.