I moved closer, my bare feet silent on the cold floor, they'd stopped providing shoes with the ridiculous harem costumes weeks ago. "Hey. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." His voice was flat.
"Bullshit." I stopped a few feet behind him, close enough to see the way his muscles were coiled tight beneath his skin. "What happened?"
"I won. That's what happened."
"That's not what I'm asking."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then, finally, he turned to face me.
The bruises looked worse from the front. A split lip. A cut above his left eye that someone had cleaned but not stitched. And in his eyes—gold irises set against that striking cobalt blue sclera—I saw something I hadn't seen before.
Fear.
"Persico came to see me again," he said quietly. "After the fight."
My stomach dropped. "What did he want?"
"To remind me what happens to prizes that aren't properly used." His jaw clenched.
"What did he say?" I whispered, my stomach bottoming out.
"That if after tonight he doesn't see that I'm treating you like a proper prize, he'll give you back to Hewes." Ahrick's voice was rough, barely controlled.
Bile rose in my throat. "And you told Persico what?"
"That you're mine." He took a step toward me, his eyes searching my face.
I thought about the danger we were in. About how our restraint—Ahrick's refusal to hurt me, to use me—was making us both targets.
We were running out of time.
"I found something today," I said quietly.
Ahrick's expression sharpened. "What?"
"Hewes has an office two levels down. I heard him on a comm, giving orders about shipments. He's still running his operation from here, still selling people." I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold. "I was trying to figure out how to get to him. How to get close enough to—"
"No." The word was sharp, immediate. "Merrilee, no. You can't—"
"I know." I cut him off. "I heard the guards coming and had to leave.."
Ahrick closed the distance between us in two strides, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders. "Then why were you down there? Why were you taking that risk?"
"Because I thought I could end this!" The words burst out of me, raw and desperate. "I thought if I could just get to Hewes, if I could just kill him, then we could both get out of here. You could stop fighting. Stop getting hurt. We could—"
"We would both die." His grip tightened. "That's what would happen, Merrilee. You'd die, and I'd die trying to save you, and Hewes would still be alive."
"I know." I took a breath, steadying myself. "So we need to give Persico what he wants."
Ahrick went still. "What?"
"You heard me." I held his gaze, refusing to look away. "Persico thinks you're not using me. So let's give him what he's demanding."
"Merrilee—"
"We need to do this, Ahrick. You know we do." My voice was steady now, certain. "If we don't, Persico is going to give me to Hewes. And then everything we've done, everything we've risked, will be for nothing."
