His fangs emerged again. His fingers gripped the bars tightly—he wished his fingers were around this dreamwalker’s neck instead.

“What the hell did you do to him?”

The dreamwalker tilted his head and the sides of his mouth curled into a creepy smile. His eyes turned a dark red color. Kristian blinked his eyes, his second mistake of the night besides charging the dreamwalker when he knew he was too weak to fight. When he focused his eyes again the dreamwalker was no longer in front of him. Kristian felt his body being turned around. Strong fingers caught him in a deadly grip around his throat as his body was slammed against the bars, knocking the breath from his body.

“Don’t ever charge me, vampire. I could snap your neck like a twig. Your friend fell asleep and did not move when the shutters opened. You know the rules. No vampires are allowed to sleep during the day.”

The dreamwalker smiled again. “You wanna know something vampire? His flesh looked like charcoal when I last saw him. Just like you are going to look one day. Deep fried.”

The dreamwalker tightened his grip around Kristian’s throat. Kristian didn’t have enough energy to fight. He only wished for a quick death. He didn’t need to breathe as often as humans but he knew that if the dreamwalker kept applying pressure his neck would snap soon.

“Etan, let him go,” Jasmine, his angel of light, ordered.

Etan gazed past Kristian but did not let go of Kristian’s throat.

“Now, Etan, it’s an order.”

“He charged me.”

“I don’t care. He could not do any harm to you. This vampire is too weak to do anything but bare his fangs. Now don’t make me say it again.”

Etan growled before releasing him. Kristian’s legs collapsed under him and he went down to the ground hard.

“You are babying them all too much, Jasmine. They are here because they are hard core killers. They murdered humans. The worst crime that any creature could commit. Don’t let them think they deserve better.”

“That’s why I’m here to rehabilitate them—to have them know right from wrong, so they will go out in the world and not kill again.”

“Vampires will never learn, and you are crazy to believe that they will never kill again. They are animals! They only know about blood. They don’t care if they kill humans to get it. In fact, I heard that some say they enjoy killing the humans because the last drop of blood is the best.”

“Shut up, Etan! Why would you say that in front of him?”

“Why should I be quiet? If you are rehabilitating them, then they should be able to hear about killing and blood without going crazy with need. You are helping them remember. If you are so good at helping, then this vampire should be able to handle a little blood talk. Don’t you think?”

A wind passed through Kristian, making him shiver. He opened his eyes to see Jasmine push Etan in the chest. He went flying back through the air. To anyone it would seem it took little or no effort for her to push him. In reality it didn’t. Jasmine was more powerful and stronger than Etan. She was older by at least two thousand years giving her leadership over Etan in the dreamwalker’s laws and here at the prison.

Etan smiled. His body faded before going through the wall.

“Damn it, he knows I hate when he does that.”

Jasmine swept her golden hair away from her face then turned to Kristian. She sighed at him. He had not moved from his spot on the floor. He looked at her, then down to himself. His once blue inmate’s uniform was torn and tattered. Dirt and grime lined every inch of it. Jasmine, on the other hand, stood there with a white t-shirt on and a pair of jeans looking like she did every day. Beautiful.

Kristian could handle the showering whenever the guards felt like letting him shower. He could handle the minor torture of letting them have blood once every two weeks. But stopping vampires from sleeping during the day was the worse punishment of all. Sleep was how they recovered. They healed quicker when they slept. What could take two months for a bruised eye on a human could take a couple of hours of sleep with a vampire. But if you deprived sleep when vampires naturally slept, then the healing process took longer than usual.

The reason why no sleeping was a rule was to keep them tired so when night came, they slept. Which worked in the long run. It kept down the escape ratio. Arcadia had a magical force field around it that was supposed to keep all inmates in unless they had been freed. But sometimes the barrier got weak. He noticed it—everyone did. It got weak mostly on his side of the prison around two in the morning and that’s when he felt that someone could escape.

“Sorry vampire, I did not mean to be gone for so long. I sense that you are very weak,” Jasmine whispered before walking up to him, grasping his arm and lifting him as if he weighed next to nothing.

They faded through the bars as she moved. This dreamwalker looked to be a nineteen year old female that couldn’t lift a twenty pound weight. And here she just lifted him and was carrying him with one arm down the hallway as if he weighed lighter than a feather.

As he passed by the cells, he observed many of the vampires and other demons. Most were in corners hiding from the sun. Others paced back and forward talking and growling to themselves. Pain went through him knowing that his brothers were suffering like this, but most of them deserved it. They killed humans for fun. They did not live by the Council’s law. Those who were killers he didn’t feel pain for, only those who were trapped in here and innocent like him.

The need for sleep hit Kristian hard and he could not keep his eyes open. He knew he could sleep now and would be safe with Jasmine. He needed to try again to open up his mate’s mind, to make her know who he was. If he could then he knew that his days in this prison would end.