“I’m not letting him draw another breath after what he did to you!”
“If you want to impress me, try listening to my good sense!” she snapped. “We have dozens of guards to get past, and the moment they call an alarm, more will descend. We can use him to get through—they won’t risk us killing him.”
“No!”
Carlo’s heels had ceased drumming, which meant he was unconscious or near enough to it.
“Quit letting emotions make decisions for you.” She pulled on James’s wrist, trying to ease the deadly press of his arm on Carlo’s throat. “You’re very thickheaded when you’re mad.”
James let out a string of curses, but then eased his grip on Carlo’s neck. In one quick move, he rolled the Beast onto his stomach and wrenched his arms behind his back.
“You’ll have to tie him. I can’t do it tight enough with one hand.”
She fumbled around in the dark and the rubble, finding the knife that Carlo dropped. While James bound Carlo’s wrists, she pressed the blade to the Beast’s throat. She could hear him breathing. Knew that he’d rouse in seconds. “Gag him.”
Fabric tore, but before James could shove it in Carlo’s mouth, the prince began to chuckle. “You never disappoint, James. This is a wonderful turn of events.”
“You’re insane.”
“Possibly.” Carlo’s voice was dreamy, and if she hadn’t known better, Ahnna would have thought he’d taken a blow to his head. “But I—”
His words cut off as James shoved the gag into his mouth. Morefabric ripped, and leaving James to ensure the Beast was secure, Ahnna looked up.
The hole was not overly large, but it was big enough to allow a blissfully cool wind to blow in, and she tasted her first mouthful of fresh air in what felt like an eternity.
“Unless you have a good idea of how to get him out, I’m going to kill him now.”
A thud filled the cell as James’s foot connected hard with Carlo’s trussed form, but the Beast only laughed around his gag. Yet she knew that for all he delighted in what he saw as a game, Carlo would be looking for ways to win it. The most dangerous hostage imaginable.
“We’ll make a rope out of his clothes and lift him up. What does he have for weapons?”
“Just the knife.”
They set to tearing up Carlo’s clothes, forming a rope of fabric that they fastened to his arms. Holding on to the end of it, Ahnna allowed James to lift her again onto his shoulders. Balancing carefully, she rose to her feet and took hold of the lip of the opening. James gripped her ankles, and with shocking strength, lifted her higher. High enough that she rose out of the hole and rolled onto the ground.
She was immediately assaulted with the shrieks and cries of the other prisoners, the noise seeming to be coming from every direction in the darkness. Ignoring them, Ahnna took in the lights from the main prison that surrounded this hellhole of a courtyard. The roof glowed with torchlight, guards patrolling around and around. Yet in their desire to make these cells as horrifying as possible, they’d eliminated their ability to see the center of the courtyard in the darkness. Or perhaps they were just that confident that no one could escape.
Going back to the edge of the hole, she whispered. “Give me a minute to brace and then climb up.”
She planted her feet in the slit in the ceiling of her cell, wrapped the rope around her good arm, and anchored herself.
Her body shuddered as James began to climb, it taking every ounceof strength and willpower to hold up his weight. He rolled over the edge, took the chain of fabric, and heaved. Hand over hand, he dragged the struggling Carlo up and over the edge.
The Beast thrashed wildly and tried to shout through his gag, and Ahnna gave him a sharp kick in his remaining testicle. Not because it would do any good but because it was goddamned satisfying.
“Now what?” James muttered, his shadow rotating as he took in the fortified prison around them. “The moment we approach the walls, we’ll lose the cover of darkness and the guards will see us.”
“If they kill us, Katarina loses her insurance against Alexandra, and they definitely won’t risk her son,” she whispered back. “We are at the advantage, but only if we are quick.”
She took in the smooth walls of the prison surrounding the square of furnace cells. Even without a broken arm, there was no way to climb them, which meant the only way out was the singular gate into the square. The soldiers might open the gate at the threat of Carlo’s life, might even let them out of the prison, but as the alarm was sounded, more soldiers would come. With them would be those skilled enough with narcotic darts to take both her and James down.
“We need to get up the walls onto the roof,” James muttered. “Escape into the moat.”
The moat had stakes, so to jump would be madness. She’d also noticed crocodiles in it.
“No,” she whispered, then clamped her hands on Carlo’s ears so he couldn’t hear her. “We go down.”
Carlo jerked from side to side, trying to escape her grip as James asked, “What?”
