16. Chapter 16 #4
“I want to wake up and decide where I’m going that day. Walk outside without guards following me. Read whatever I want instead of whatever Father approves. Learn something simply because it interests me. I want to go somewhere I’ve never been and stay because I like it—or leave because I don’t.”
She lifted those pale blue eyes to mine.
“I want to find out who I am when no one owns me.”
Christ.
A princess’s daughter, and she wasn’t asking for castles, jewels, money, or revenge. She wanted to choose a fucking book, open her own door, and walk down a street because she felt like it—freedoms I’d never once thought to value because no one had ever taken them from me.
“You’ll have all of it.”
She studied me. “You can’t know that.”
“I know I’m getting you out of here. The rest will be yours to decide.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I am.”
“And if Father comes after me?”
“He will.”
That answer startled her.
I wasn’t going to insult her with a pretty lie.
“Ciro doesn’t strike me as a man who gives up something he thinks belongs to him. But wanting you back and getting you back are two very different things.”
“What if he offers your people something they want?”
“He doesn’t have anything worth more than my word.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“And you’ve already given me that,” she said.
“Aye.”
Something fragile moved across her face. Hope, maybe, but she still seemed afraid to trust it. She’d spent a lifetime learning that promises from powerful men usually came with locks attached.
Mine wouldn’t.
“My people will understand what you did here.”
“Because I freed you?”
“Because when Ciro ordered everyone in this compound to leave me chained, thirsty, and alone, you decided his orders didn’t mean shit.”
A surprised laugh slipped out of her.
I wanted to hear that sound again.
“In my world, that earns more than respect. It earns protection.”
Before either of us could say more, a door slammed somewhere down the corridor.
We both went still.
A man called out in Spanish. Another answered farther away.
Isabella turned toward the main door.
“I need to leave.”
“Aye.”
She moved quickly, gathering everything she’d brought.
I settled back against the chair.
Then she stopped.
Her attention dropped to my pants.
“I have to leave you exactly as she did.”
“I know.”
“I hate it.”
Her anger on my behalf fed the need already taking root in me to burn the world for her.
“So do I, Mouse.”
She turned without being asked.
I opened my pants again and arranged myself exactly as Isabeast had left me. The exposure didn’t bother me.
Isabeast had done it because she wanted to humiliate me. I did it because one wrong detail could get Isabella killed.
“You can turn around.”
She faced me and fixed her attention so determinedly on my face that I nearly laughed.
She crouched and secured the first ankle restraint.
“Too loose, tighter.”
Her head came up. “It’s already cut into you.”
“If a guard notices—”
“Okay, okay.”
She hated doing it, and that mattered more than the pain.
“Another notch, lass.”
Her mouth tightened, but she obeyed. Then she matched the second cuff to the first.
Footsteps passed outside.
Isabella froze beside me.
I reached down and laid my still-free hand on her shoulder.
“Easy.”
She went rigid beneath my palm.
We waited together until the footsteps faded.
Only then did she breathe again.
I held out my hand.
“Come here.”
She hesitated, then placed hers in mine and stood.
Her fingers disappeared inside my palm.
“I meant what I said.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.” My thumb passed over her knuckles. “When the time comes, I’ll take you with me.”
I released her hand and reached both arms behind the chair.
Every survival instinct I had rebelled against the movement.
I’d spent hours fighting those cuffs. Now I was voluntarily putting my wrists back inside them.
But Isabella had risked her life when she opened them.
It was my turn.
She moved behind me.
The first cuff clicked shut around my wrist. Then the second.
Her fingers lingered around my wrist for half a second before she pulled away.
“Too tight?”
“No. They’re fine.”
She checked both locks one last time, then came around in front of me and lifted the blindfold from where it hung on my chest.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth.
Mine went to hers.
I wanted to kiss her.
Not the barely-there touch she’d given me the first time she visited me. A real kiss. My hand in that long hair, her mouth open under mine, enough time to find out whether she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Her lips parted.
Damn.
If we’d had another five minutes, I might’ve forgotten every sensible thought in my head.
But men were moving through the corridor, and Isabella getting caught in here would give Ciro another prisoner.
I wasn’t letting that happen.
“Blindfold me, Mouse.”
She raised the cloth but paused before covering my eyes.
“Come back to me, Isabella.”
She nodded.
“I will.”
She drew the cloth over my eyes and tied it exactly as she’d found it.
Darkness swallowed the room again.
I listened as she lifted the basket, crossed behind me, and opened the hidden door.
Stone shifted softly, then settled back into place.
Ciro still had the cuffs.
But Isabella had the key.