I shot up from the bed when someone kicked the wooden frame. Slamming my palms together, I landed in a crouch on the floor while sending a cloud of poison towards my attacker. Except, no poison cloud appeared. And it wasn’t an attacker.
Callan Blackwell watched me with an amused look on his face.
“Seriously?” I snapped at him as I threw my arms out while straightening again. “What did I say about knocking?”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “What did I say about following orders?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is the state of your cock when you watched me play with a bar of soap.”
“You…”
He trailed off as his gaze dipped down to my body. Since I didn’t have access to the rest of my pack, I had ended up sleeping in that large white shirt he had hurled at me last night. It was actually rather comfortable. And it smelled nice. Kind of like leather and a bit of sandalwood.
For a moment, something odd flickered across his face. Then he pulled his eyebrows down and snapped his fingers at someone outside the door. A man with curly blond hair hurried inside and placed a stack of clothes on the set of drawers. After giving Callan a respectful nod, he disappeared out the door again.
Callan closed the distance between us before crouching down in front of me. A soft click sounded as he unlocked the manacle around my ankle. I tried to see where he kept the key, but he put it in the same pocket that I had searched last time. Damn him for being clever enough to move it somewhere else afterwards.
I rolled my ankle while Callan straightened before me. For a second, his gaze drifted down my body again. Then he stepped back and jerked his chin towards the pile of clothes.
“Get dressed,” he ordered. “As long as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful.”
Surprise, and a hint of gratitude, bloomed inside me when I moved over to the pile of clothes and found that they were all mine. All of the clothes in my pack were waiting there in a neat stack, and they looked to have been washed and ironed too.
“In what way?” I asked as I slid my gaze back to Callan.
“You’re gonna help me break Lance.”
My eyebrows rose. However, before I could say anything else, he turned and strode out the door. It closed behind him with a soft click.
Amusement flickered through me. So, he wasn’t staying to watch me get changed this time? I hated to admit it, but I had actually quite enjoyed it when he had made me strip naked and take a shower in front of him last night. And especially when I realized how much I affected him too. How easy it still was for me to draw a reaction from him. I played the moment with the soap over in my head a few more times while I finished getting dressed.
As I brushed my hands down my dark green dress while striding towards the door, I let a sly smile spread across my lips. It was only a matter of time before I got another chance to find that key. And then, I would draw a completely different kind of reaction out of Callan Blackwell.
The force mage was standing right outside the door when I opened it. He flicked a glance up and down my body, as if to make sure that I had actually followed his orders and put on some real clothes, before he motioned for me to walk in front of him.
Even without my magic, he apparently didn’t want to risk having me unattended behind his exposed back. That drew a smug smirk from me.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
“The dungeon.”
I supposed that made sense. We would need to collect Lance before we could take him to whatever place Callan used when they tried to break him.
When Callan gave my shoulder a soft nudge, I started in the direction of the basement. While we walked, I swept my gaze over the mansion.
Everywhere I looked, there was a guard waiting. Watching. I wasn’t sure if it was for Lance’s sake or mine, but it made it impossible for me to use this opportunity to make a run for it.
The warm summer temperatures dropped considerably as we descended into the dungeon below the house. Torches still lined the walls, burning even though it was daylight outside since there were no windows down here.
As I reached the final step, I started towards the cell where I knew Callan kept Lance. But a hand on my arm stopped me. Twisting around, I glanced back at Callan.
He shook his head. “In here.”
I was just about to ask what he meant when he used his grip on my arm to pull me towards a room under the stairs. There was a metal door there that I hadn’t noticed on my previous visit to this unpleasant place. After yanking it open, Callan shoved me inside.
For a brief moment, I thought he might lock me in there. But then he followed me into the room and let the door swing shut behind us.
Straightening from his shove, I blinked in surprise as I took in the rest of the room.
In the middle of it was a sturdy wooden table that appeared to be bolted to the stone floor. Other, smaller, tables also lined the wall on my left while the other walls contained a variety of chains and other restraints. There even looked to be a stockade in the opposite corner. I studied the tools laid out across the tables by the wall before my gaze drifted to the cuffs that were set into the sturdy table in the middle.
“You have a torture room.” A huff of laughter escaped my throat as I shook my head. “Of course you do.”
Moving over so that he was standing next to me, he scowled down at me. “What dark mage doesn’t?”
“The efficient ones.” I threw him a mocking smile and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “But I suppose if you’re that bad at torturing people, you would need more time and a place like this to keep them in. I, on the other hand, just do it on the spot.”
He drew his hand gently over my throat before placing two fingers under my chin, tilting my head back so that I met his gaze fully. “Careful now. Or I might decide to bring you back down here later and show you just how much fun a torture room can be.”
The door behind us creaked open. I turned to watch as Henry dragged Lance Carmichael across the threshold. The hero of Eldar looked dirty and exhausted, but there was a determined set to his jaw as he glared at Callan. When his blue eyes found mine, he shot me a look of righteous hatred as well.
Taking a step back, I tracked every move Callan made as he approached the table. If I was lucky, I would get to see where he kept the keys to Lance’s handcuffs. Henry hoisted Lance up onto the tabletop and then began locking his ankles to the manacles already set into the table. My pulse sped up when Callan moved towards the Binder’s hands.
Disappointment fluttered its cold wings in my chest as Callan simply grabbed Lance’s handcuffs and hooked the stiff metal rod between his hands to the chain on the other end of the table. Though I supposed it made sense. Unlocking Lance’s hands even for a second was beyond dangerous.
Metallic rattling echoed against the stone walls as Lance pulled on his restraints. They didn’t budge. Staring up at the ceiling, he clenched his jaw stubbornly while remaining silent.
Once Callan was satisfied that the Binder was secured firmly, he turned to me while motioning towards his captive. “Go ahead then. Break him.”
I scowled back at him and pushed up the sleeve of my dress, showing him the five black circles on my forearm that blocked my magic. “With what?”
Torturing someone with no restrictions was all well and good, but the problem was that we needed Lance to be in a relatively unharmed state if we wanted to use him against other people. So that meant that I couldn’t cut anything off or do something lethal like stabbing him. If I’d had my magic, torturing Lance without killing or damaging him would have been easy. Without it… I didn’t even know how to torture someone without it.
“With whatever you like,” Callan answered while sweeping a hand to indicate the tools on the tables.
I drifted over to the closest table and inspected the items there. They were made of metal, that much I could tell, but most of them were things that I had no idea how to use. While walking the length of the tables, I drew my fingers over a few tools.
Hope sparkled inside me as I spotted some that would be incredibly useful. Not for breaking Lance. But for me. I could feel Callan’s eyes on me, though, so I would have to be incredibly sneaky.
As I reached the spot I wanted to be in, I turned around and leaned back on my hands against the table. Or at least, I made it look as though I did. My hands were occupied with something else.
While my fingers worked frantically behind my back, I met Callan’s gaze and shot him a challenging look. “Give me back my magic and I can have him compliant within a day.”
Callan chuckled. “Nice try, sweetheart.”
“Then what do you expect me to do?” Since I was now finished with my mission, I threw my arms out in an exasperated gesture. “I have no idea how to torture people with stuff like this. If you want my help, give me my magic back.”
“I have to say, I am disappointed. But unsurprised.” He twitched his fingers at me. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
“I figured it was worth a shot, but I guess I’ll just let Henry get back to work then.”
“No. Wait.”
Callan advanced on me. There was a smirk lurking on his lips as he grabbed my arm and shoved me towards the door. “Sorry, sweetheart, you just lost your chance.”
“You didn’t even give me a chance,” I muttered with what I thought was very convincing bitterness.
I didn’t want to stay here. Quite the opposite. I wanted him to take me back to my room before he realized what I had stolen.
My hand had only managed to brush the handle of the door when I felt something pressing into the small of my back. Glancing over my shoulder, I found Callan standing there. A force blade vibrated in his hand.
“And, Audrey?” he began, a sharp smile on his lips. “I’ll take that knife.”
“What knife?”
He pushed the force blade harder against my spine, making me arch my back to avoid it cutting through both clothes and flesh. I let out an angry snarl.
“Fine,” I snapped.
Shifting my wrist, I grabbed the knife that I had stolen from the table and pulled it out of my sleeve. Then I paused. Callan waited two more seconds before speaking up again, and when he did, his voice was like rolling thunder.
“Swing that knife at me right now, and I’ll sever your spine.”
I kept my grip on the blade for another moment before forcing out a breath. Shifting my fingers so that I held the knife in a nonthreatening way, I raised my hand and positioned it over my shoulder. Callan reached out and plucked it from my grip.
The force blade stayed at my spine for another few seconds, as if he wanted to make sure that I truly understood that he held all the power here, before he let it disappear.
Once he had returned the knife to the table, he stalked back to me and all but hauled me out of the room. Since I was once more walking in front of him, he couldn’t see the expression on my face. And that was incredibly fortunate for me.
A wicked grin shone on my lips as Callan marched me back to my room.
The knife had never been my target. It had been the distraction while I smuggled out my real prize. A thin pair of metal needles. In other words, a set of makeshift lockpicks.
Now, all I had to do was figure out how to pick locks.
