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Sofia looked at him with cold eyes, the dagger held delicately in her hand. She moved slowly, stepping on either side of his legs where he was seated against the stone wall before lowering down to straddle him. If she’d been any other woman, the position would have boded well for some entertainment, but she didn’t look interested in that. Even still, the warmth of her body was a shock after days in his icy cell and his breath caught in his throat.

She leaned forward, brushing the blade across his cheek in a gentle caress.

“Where should I start? Pinky? Middle finger?” She glanced between his legs. “Or perhaps I should start lower—take something more precious?”

“I don’t know what your plan is, captor of mine, but even with that dagger between us, you won’t get a chance to take my finger. It’s not my fault you handed yours over.”

He looked pointedly down at the missing ring finger, obvious in its absence around the knife hilt.

“Screw you.”

“Not a chance.” He smiled, shifting his hips slightly, if only to remind her that she was the one straddling him.

She didn’t bother dropping the knife as she pulled her fist back and punched him again. He turned his head in time to send the hit wide, her knuckles skimming across his cheekbone, but the blade of the knife glinted inches from his eye. When she moved to take another swing, he ducked under her arm and bucked up his hips. She was already off-balance from her attempted punch and she fell sideways with a grunt as he stumbled to his feet. Hands still tied, he reached down for the knife clutched in her hand.

He just managed to grab the dagger, feeling her fingers begin to loosen on the hilt when her other hand jabbed forward, directly between his legs. He fell back with a groan, the knife dropping from both their hands as she lunged forward, tackling him.

“You feral b?—”

She shoved an elbow into his gut and the air left his lungs in a gasp. He hooked his leg around her ankle as she moved to get up and rolled to the side. She let out a squeak as she went flying, followed immediately by a crack and a curse.

For a moment, he thought she might have fallen onto the lantern, but the light remained, dim but steady. He pulled himself up, using the wall behind him for support and saw what had caused the crack. Perhaps he should have felt ashamed, but his smile was stretched wide as Sofia let out a string of curses and pushed herself away from the bent bucket and the pile of excrement that she’d fallen into.

“You look cleaner than when I first saw you,” he said, not hiding the glee in his voice.

She let out a growl and lunged at him, but before she could get her hands around his throat, two pairs of arms were on either side of her, pulling her back from him. It was Flor and the young man they’d been with. His mask wasn’t even in place and he looked like Flor had pulled him directly from sleep.

“Be careful with her,” Fox said, “she’s gone wild.”

“What in the gods’ scales is going on in here,” a voice said from behind them all. Even Fox froze with the others, smile dropping from his face. Sofia had gone rigid, Flor and the young man’s faces gray in the lantern light.

The older rebel Fox recognized by his voice alone, stepped forward, his own lantern held in his hand. He wore his mask, making it all the more obvious the others were standing with their faces uncovered. The extra light only highlighted the brown streaks across Sofia’s tunic and pants. He even thought he might have spied some in her wild curls.

“You three, out,” he said with the same authority Fox often heard from the chief commander. No longer needing to hold her back, Flor and the man scurried out of the room, followed by a slower and more reluctant Sofia. “You and I will being having a very long talk after this.”

The man closed the door in her face before she could retort and then turned back to Fox, examining the room slowly. Fox’s heart gave a small jerk when the man’s eyes fell on the dagger lying between them, but the man moved quickly to pick it up, frowning when he saw what it was covered in—what the ground was covered in.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, his scowl likely more a reflection of Sofia and her friends than Fox. He left the lantern and for a brief moment, Fox thought of breaking it and using the glass as a weapon. But before he could act on the plan, the man was back, holding a small pile of rags. He tossed them on the ground, and gave Fox a long look before moving forward. He had to resist flinching as the man took his dagger and sliced through the ropes binding his wrists.

“I’m sorry about that,” the man said, already turned toward the door. He picked up the second lantern without looking back. “She’ll be disciplined and won’t be a problem again. She doesn’t reflect our movement.”

“Your movement? Is that what you call mass murder?”

“It’s what we call our only chance at freedom,” he said, the door snapping closed a second later and leaving Fox in darkness, untied and smelling of his own shit.

CHAPTERNINE

SOFIA

Sofia had heard others talk about their body taking over when they were angry and she’d even experienced that herself before, but what had happened in the cell was different. She hadn’t felt a part of her body as she’d clawed at the Dereyan with his cocky smirk.

So when Javi and Flor finally dragged her away, fingers nearly bruising around her arms, she was almost happy. It was Flor who finally brought Sofia back to herself, pressing a kiss to her forehead before pushing her into the icy waters of the lake at the entrance to the cenote.

The water was a shock to her system and she slowly came back to herself, feeling Javi and Flor as they splashed her, cleaning away the shit and mud that was smeared across her body. They were standing in the water with her, both shivering with cold.

“Breathe, breathe,” Flor said. The words were murmured into her hair even as she realized she was hyperventilating. She wiped away the tears on her face and pulled back from Flor, looking over her shoulder to the pale Javi.

“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rasp, barely intelligible, but Javi looked relieved to even hear that. Flor squeezed her into a tight hug before pulling back, hands cupping Sofia’s face as she studied it.