Chapter 11
The cold of the cement floor had long since seeped through my clothes, numbing my legs and biting into my bones.
Dampness clung to the air like a second skin, laced with the stench of rust and mildew.
I sat on the unfinished floor with my wrists pinned behind my back, chained to a thick metal loop that hung from a support beam above me.
The loop looked like it was bolted deep into the wood.
My wrists ached where leather-covered iron shackles bit into the skin and every breath I took tasted of mould and regret.
The silence pressed in, broken only by the slow, deliberate drip of water echoing somewhere in the darkness. Shadows pooled in the corners of the room where metal cages sat empty.
Ace sat across from me, shackled the same way.
Though he had his knees drawn up and his head lowered slightly, nothing in his posture suggested surrender.
His dark hair clung to his forehead in damp strands, and his jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles ticked.
His dark gaze met mine through the dim light.
No words passed between us, but they didn’t need to.
His fury was a living thing, coiled beneath his skin and barely leashed. The flicker in his gaze wasn’t just anger—it was the quiet, simmering promise of violence.
I swallowed hard, forcing down the twist of fear rising in my chest. Not for myself—I could endure pain, imprisonment, death if it came to that. But Ace? Nala? I didn’t know where my familiar was. I didn’t know what they’d done with her. That silence, that not knowing. It was worse than any blade.
I shifted slightly, testing the give of the shackles. They didn’t budge. My shoulders screamed in protest, and a hiss slipped through my teeth.
Ace’s head snapped up fully, and for a heartbeat, the storm in his eyes softened. “We should’ve fought.”
“And then we would be dead.” I hesitated. “Or you would be dead, and I would be injured.”
“Better a quick death than what they have planned for us,” he snapped.
“You think they plan to torture us?”
“You don’t?”
I hadn’t really thought of that possibility, though I guess I should have. Torture didn’t make sense. “I don’t have any secret information worth torturing me for.”
Ace dropped his head back to rest on the wall. “Maybe not, but you did kill a bunch of hunters, and they might make you hurt just for retribution.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t thought of that either and my naivety was showing. I’d given those hunters a quick death and assumed I’d be treated with the same sense of honour.
“Phaan,” I whispered. Maybe we should’ve made a run for it. Maybe one of us could’ve made it. Ace shook his head.
“It was still the right play,” Ace said. “We now know where their base camp is, and we still have an opportunity to escape.”
“How?” I shook my arms to rattle the chains for emphasis.
Ace perked up and scooted closer to me. “They searched me for weapons, but they didn't find my lock picks.”
If my death stare had the ability to inflict harm, Ace would’ve keeled over where he sat. “And you’re just telling me this now?” If my hand had been free, I would’ve whacked him.
Ace shrugged. “You were too busy flirting. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Again, with the flirting.” I said. “If you actually think that was flirting, I'm a little sad for you. A woman can be cordial and nice to a man without it being an attempt to get him in bed.”
“Sad for me?”
I nodded. “Just proves you have no skills with the ladies. But I guess I already knew that.”
Instead of glowering at me, he smiled slowly and leaned forward. “Why don’t you reach into my pants, and I’ll show you just how many skills I have.”
I jerked back, but dammit if my heart rate didn’t pick up at the suggestion.
“Chicken?” He raised his eyebrows.
I shook my arms so the metal chains clanked. “I’m a little tied up right now.”
“If you turn around, you can wiggle backward until you’re sitting between my legs. You should be able to reach my zipper in that position.”
Unbelievable. “Are you seriously using our current circumstances to angle for a hand job?”
“I was angling for you to retrieve the lock picks in the seam of my pant zipper,” he said. “But if you’re offering a hand job…”
I scooched around and awkwardly wiggled back. The thick chain clanked above me. “I was not offering.”
“Are you sure? Your mind definitely seems to drop into the gutter when we’re talking.”
My ass bumped into his groin. “Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me.” I moved my hands to pat around the area. My fingers brushed over his groin and the definite bulge in his pants.
He leaned forward, his breath fanning my neck. “I’d like to turn you on, Mouse, not around, but we haven’t really had the chance.”
I ran my fingers along his groin, which most definitely twitched until I found the top of his zipper.
Ace sucked in a breath but held still.
“Shh. I’m trying to focus,” I whispered.
“And I’m trying not to get hard.”
“How’s that working for you?”
His dick twitched under my hand again. “Not well. Now all I can think about is your hand wrapped around my cock.”
I snorted and shifted a little to get a better angle that didn’t make my hands feel like they’d snap off. I tugged on the zipper, and it jerked down.
“Is this the right time to tell you I’m not wearing anything under my pants?”
My hand froze. “You’ve been commando this entire time?”
He nodded, his breath fanning my neck again as he spoke. “Does that matter to you?”
“Not really. I’m just imagining the terrible chafing you must’ve endured. No wonder you’re in a perpetually bad mood.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“I’m not right now.” As if to emphasize the point, his hard penis sprung out as I finished pulling down the zipper and whacked me on the hand.
“Seriously?”
“Sorry. This is the most action it’s seen for weeks.”
“I was really hoping I would’ve caught a hair in the zipper, not a hard on.”
“Beggers can’t be choosers,” he said. “Now, unless you want to get really cool about a lot of things very quickly, or at the very least avoid an incredibly awkward situation, try to remove the pins on the inside of the zipper without rubbing my cock.”
“I thought you wanted a hand job.”
Ace groaned. “Yeah, and as much as I would also like to blow my load all over that pretty ass of yours, call me a prude, but I just don’t think this is the right time.”
My cheeks burned and I squeezed my eyes shut on the visual in which only made things worse.
“Behave,” I warned.
“I’m not the one stroking my cock.”
I froze. His dick currently resting on the side of my hand. In my attempt to locate the pins in the seam, I had been running my fingers, up and down, giving him a lopsided hand job. Unintentionally, of course. I snatched my hand away and snarled.
“Oh, come on,” Ace said, tone dry and devoid of emotion. “Don’t stop now. You were almost there.”
“Don’t you mean you were almost there?”
“Hardly. It will take more than that,” he said. “Hey, did you see these carvings?”
Carvings? What was he going on about now?
I paused my efforts to retrieve the pins and looked around. I didn’t see anything. “I don’t know whether I should be flattered or offended you’re analyzing the rogues’ interior decorating while I’m touching your dick.”
“You should be honoured. I’m trying to distract myself from that precise thing. But seriously. Do you see them? They’re carved into the post.”
I turned to look at said post. Sure enough, there were carvings etched into the rough wood. A vertical line of circles and triangles crossed with slashes. They looked oddly familiar. “What are they?”
“They look like the ones you pointed out at the river.”
I narrowed my eyes at the symbols. “I thought those were old phaanon markers for magical stuff. Do you think some rogue phaanons ventured in here to warn us about the dangers of the post?”
“I don’t get the feeling these guys are pro-phaanons,” Ace said.
“What gave it away? The chains?”
“Shooting you with arrows.”
“They don’t know what I am,” I said.
“True, but regardless, I don’t think these symbols are phaanon anymore,” Ace said. “Not if they’re here and they’re fresh. Maybe the rogue hunters created their own language.”
“If the hunters are the ones who carved these here, it means they carved them into that post by the river too.”
“Which means they know about the properties of the river.” Aces shifted his position behind me.
“Or they were marking a path…” I mused.
“A path to what?” Ace snarled. “Their dungeon? Interesting theory.” He shifted again.
“Are you okay?”
“You’re literally cupping my balls and have the audacity to ask me that?”
Oh. While the symbols had distracted me, I had rested my hand on Ace’s crotch. I snatched my hand away. “Sorry.”
“Come on, Mouse. Get back to work. We need to escape this place.”
“Can you promise to be less of a dick about it?” I fumbled around until I found the seams of his pants again.
“Interesting choice of words,” Ace muttered.
I sighed dramatically. “Maybe if you stopped talking about your dick.”
“It’s kind of hard...”
“Seriously?”
“Sorry, it was just there.”
“Kind of like your dick.”
Ace snorted out a laugh and some of the tension left his body, an easy thing to notice when I was basically sitting on his lap. Running my finger along the inside seam of the zipper, and ignoring Ace’s shiver, I detected a ridge in the seam. I used my nails to tease out a long metal pin.
“Is there only one?” I asked.
“No. There’s one in the other seam.”
After another tense minute of groping and fumbling around, I located the other pin. Ace didn’t breathe the entire time.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
“I will be once you get these shackles off me. I’m lucky they’re covered in leather and not bare iron.” He drew his legs up and scooched back to turn around, so we sat back to back. “Now it’s time to test out your picking skills.”
“Please. I lived on the streets for years.”