I refuse to look away from the wall. He lifts my chin with a single finger, tilting my head sideways so I meet his gaze.
“So I know if someone else touches you.”
Andoh, how the possessiveness in his voice sends another jolt through me. I wish I were repulsed by it. But I’m definitely not.
“Turn around,” he orders, dropping my chin.
Gritting my teeth, I follow his instruction. It’s just as I thought—his eyes flick straight downwards, lingering on my hardening cock.
“That’s not a bruise,” I tell him.
“It certainly isn’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to look at it, though.”
I laugh bitterly. The audacity of this man. “En serio… no te puedo creer,” I murmur.Seriously… I can’t believe you.
Something flashes in his expression, and he steps back, putting space between us.
“One word of advice, baby bird.” His voice is now cold, distant. “Be careful making friends here. You need allies, yes. But getting too close to someone? That’s dangerous.”
I know he’s talking about Cas. One of the only good things about this hellhole.
“When it comes to the killing blow, a single moment of hesitation is suicide.”
I open my mouth for some snarky reply, some way to cut back at him. But then I see it—the sadness lurking behind those dark eyes. The weight of whatever he’s carrying.
Fuck.How many friends of his own has he bludgeoned to death?
Marco has been here five years. Fiveyearsof this. How much blood has stained his hands? How many faces haunt his dreams at night?
I try to picture it—Marco at nineteen, twenty, probably scared shitless just like me. Maybe he had a friend like Cas. Maybe he had to choose between his own life and someone he cared about. Maybe he’s killed a dozen people who mattered to him, piece by piece, until there was nothing leftbut this—this cruel champion who wins every fight, who lives in luxury, and has everything except the thing that matters most.
His freedom.
Silence engulfs us. I watch the muscle in his jaw twitch, see how his shoulders hold all that tension. He’s not the untouchable god everyone thinks he is. He’s just a man who’s survived too much, lost too much.
A man who’s probably a hundred times more broken than any of us.
I find his name slipping from my lips. “Marco…”
Marco’s face shuts down completely. The sadness disappears behind a mask of cool indifference.
He turns on his heel and stalks toward the door.
By the time I’ve dried off, composed myself, and headed into the dining area, everyone else is seated around the long wooden table. It’s only my third dinner here, but the air hums with something different from yesterday. An odd, vibrant energy.
Tonight feels like a celebration.
Marco sits at the head of the table, in his pristine tunic, looking like he belongs in that Emperor’s palace instead of our underground prison. It’s almost jarring to see him there. Does he dine often with the peasants, rather than eat in the luxury of his villa? The others all look toward him, hanging on his every word. Jason is to his left—I suspect this was somehow by Jason’s design.
When Marco sees me arrive, he smiles at me, and for a moment, I falter in my steps, so blinded by the unexpected strength of it. There’s a space open next to Cas—he must have saved it for me.
But there is also a space on Marco’s right.
Marco’s eyes burn into me until I take my place beside him, feeling the collective gaze of the group on me and hating every second of it.
Then Marco shouts, “Guards! The bottles of sparkling wine I ordered?”
My mouth falls open when one brings forward numerous dark glass bottles, condensation beading on their sides.
