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Sypher flinches and moves from the wall to his spot on the bottom step.

Eli seals his lips, failing to hold back a sly smile. “I suppose that’s an option.”

Great, now I’m giving him ideas. “It’s not. I don’t want an unfulfilling life of letdown.”

He pulls down on his ear, a flicker in the corner of his shifty eyes. “I guarantee you’d be fulfilled…and filled. Repeatedly.”

Fuck. My face flushes. “What do you want with me?”

He looks behind him then snaps his fingers, hard and sharp, the same edginess in his voice. “Out, Sypher.”

Shit, now I’ve done it.

“See you in the courtyard,” Sypher grumbles, heading out the hatchway.

Eli sets his glossy gaze on me, suddenly heavy with emotion, but I can’t tell which. He takes an eternity to speak. “I need you.”

Dammit. Sex it is. “I bite. You’ll regret it.”

He leans against the junk-covered counter a few feet from the cell with his arms crossed. “I don’t doubt that. You’re a feisty little thing in the dark.”

I give him my most vicious glare. Searching his pocket so I could escape was perfectly acceptable behavior. And I’ll do anything I can to find a way out of here…but the metal and stone are so damn solid.

“That’s not what I need you for though,” he says.

Something keeps me talking—that warmth and lightness I can’t explain. It makes me feel like I should trust him, even though I can’t. “What then? You carried me through the woods with your hand on my mouth and—”

“I didn’t want to be followed. You’re loud.”

“Loud?” I yell, stung by the insult, then clamp my mouth shut. So I’m loud. I need some way to dampen my thoughts. “That’s what you get when you lock me up in a cage.”

“It’s not a cage.” He gives me a wounded look. “It’s a containment nook.”

I stick a knuckle in my mouth to keep from laughing in his face despite the red hot blood careening through my veins. He’s dead serious. And completely fucking mad. And so gorgeous. It’s a terribly intoxicating combination. “Tell me what you want.”

“If I told you now, it wouldn’t be any fun for me.”

“You have to tell mesomething.”

His shoulders fall with his deep sigh. “Okay.” He steps up to the cell, hooking one finger to beckon me closer. I take the tiniest steps until only the bars separate us, his whisper warming my ear. “I bite too.”

Then he balls up a fist and rams it into the side of his jaw and lands another two punches to one eye, finishing with a bash of his forehead into the metal with a sickclang. The bars vibrate.

“What the bloody fuck?” I want to look away, but I can’t. He’s in worse shape than I thought.

He staggers sideways, catches himself and runs a hand through his hair, his light brown skin already turning red.

“Now sit your tempting ass down and be a good little prisoner for your guard while I go fake unconsciousness outside that empty room of yours, then scour the realm for the traitor who took you from it.” He gives me a swollen smirk before climbing the stone steps and disappearing through the hatchway.

The cold returns with the slam of the door.

Chapter

Fourteen

After being gone all day for his shift, Eli emerges from the third door off the main room of the basement, showered, curls dripping. He’s in all black, his shirt tight against every mound and depression down his torso, pants loose with more pockets than his jumpsuit. I’m stuck staring, never having seen him in anything else. The outline of a knife shows through a narrow pocket on the side of his thigh. He musses up his curls, sending drops flying, and vanishes behind the first door. Ten minutes later he reappears and approaches the cell, his eyes glazed.

A clove-scented breeze whisks over my face as I breathe in the lightness around him. My defenses slip—my hatred too. I’m pulled toward him, but I push back against the sensation, reminding my brain of every dark detail about this man.