Page 51 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

Joan kept her hand pressed to Nick’s chest as color returned slowly to his face. She needed to feel the continuing beat of

his heart; needed the proof that he was alive.

He groaned, the sound pained and confused, and Joan’s own chest tightened.

“Nick?” she whispered.

Under her hand, his heart sped up. Joan. Her name was on his lips as he found her gaze.

His fogged expression bloomed to fear as he spotted the lions and bears behind her, poised to strike. He reached for her—to

pull her behind him, Joan guessed. His breath quickened as he realized he couldn’t move his legs—he was still frozen in stasis.

And then he was really panicking, gasping for air.

“Nick, it’s okay! You’re okay!” Joan said, desperate to comfort him. She bent, with shaking hands, to unmake the stasis.

Freed, he staggered, knees buckling. Aaron swore and caught him before he could fall, supporting him with Joan’s help. Even

with both of them, it was a struggle to hold him up. Nick wasn’t much taller than Aaron, but his muscled build made him a

heavy weight.

“Where...” Nick’s voice rasped. He wet his dry lips and tried again. “Where am I? What’s going on?” Joan’s heart wrenched at the fear and confusion in his voice.

Did he remember what had happened? How had he survived? Joan shook off her own questions. Nothing was going to be answered

right now.

“It’s all right,” she reassured him again. “We’re in a—a—” She couldn’t bring herself to say trophy room . God, she hated the Argents. “We’re in the Argent house. All those animals are in a stasis. They can’t attack us.”

“We need to go,” Aaron said tightly, glancing toward the door. “There’ll be people here soon, and they can’t see Nick like

this .” His voice was strained from Nick’s weight, but there was a more pained note in there too.

Joan turned to him. While Nick had gained color, Aaron had lost it. The full implications hit Joan then, all at once. She

and Aaron had slept together last night. And now Nick was alive.

“Aaron—” she started, needing to reassure him. But he shook his head. Joan swallowed. She had to talk to him, but they couldn’t have a conversation right now, she knew. Cassius had said he was sending in cleaners. They

had to get out of here.

“See me like what?” Nick said. He was responding to Aaron’s comment, slightly delayed.

Alive. Neither Joan nor Aaron wanted to say it. Nick was clearly too confused to process it. He was still trying to focus on their

surroundings, trying to bear his own weight. He’d realized that they were in danger and was anticipating having to fight.

Cassius had mentioned an external entrance that humans used. Joan spotted a cord hanging from the ceiling, and the outline

of a door up there. She pointed at it, and Aaron nodded.

“Go,” Aaron said. “I can hold him.”

Nick seemed to be regaining his strength, though. When Joan released him, he stayed upright, hardly leaning on Aaron at all.

Joan ran over and pulled the cord. A ladder came down, and she peered up. A square hole above showed the clouded sky. “I think

this goes up to the roof.”

“Wait,” Aaron said. “Let me check it out first.” While Joan had been working on the door, he’d gotten Nick out of the invisible

maze of the stasis. Nick was recovering fast—but he still seemed dazed as he stared at the stag heads and time-suspended animals

around them.

Aaron climbed quickly. He was gone for a minute, and then his head reappeared, looking down at them. “I’m on the roof,” he

confirmed. “We can get out this way—there’s a ladder down to the street.”

“Do you think you can make it up?” Joan asked Nick.

Nick focused on her. He was still clearly confused, but he’d heard the urgency in her voice. He nodded.

He was wobbly as he put his foot on the bottom rung, but he steadied as he climbed, one foot after the other, glancing back

down at Joan every now and then.

He was about halfway up when Joan heard footsteps and the trundle of a trolley.

From the roof, Aaron cursed. “Is that the cleaner?”

“I’ll delay them!” Joan said. To Nick, she added, “Keep going—I’m right behind you!”

Cassius had said that the lions had been frozen alive, and perhaps the bears too.

Joan hoped he’d been telling the truth. She ran back to the stasis and quickly unmade as much as she could of it—lions, bears, the saber-toothed tiger, the mammoth.

She backed up as suspended sand fell away.

This close, the animals were huge—the lions’ fangs were dagger sharp.

She was still backing up when the first lion began to stir, breath inflating its chest. She didn’t wait for it to wake properly.

She sprinted back to the ladder and was halfway up when the cleaner opened the door.

Joan shouted, “The stasis failed! Get help! The animals are on the loose!”

The shout attracted the attention of the lion. It shook its head and roared. Beside it, a bear blinked, confused, as if coming

out of hibernation.

The cleaner had a direct line of sight. “Oh God!” she shouted. The door slammed shut again, and Joan heard the thump of the

trolley as she shoved it out of the way, and then her running steps in the corridor.

Joan scrambled up the ladder, not looking back. Nick was recovering fast, and she was sure the animals would too. Above her,

Nick had reached the roof, and he leaned down now to help her, his gaze sharper than it had been since he’d woken. He took

her hand and tugged her up onto the roof.

“What the hell is going on?” he said.

“I’ll explain later,” Joan promised.

She yanked the door shut behind her, bringing the pull cord with it so that no one would be able to follow them up.

Then she tied the cord to a vent on the roof to make a crude lock.

Aaron hurried over. He’d been lying flat at the edge of the roof, scouting the route out.

Now his eyes roved over Joan, checking that she was all right.

Joan swallowed. She wanted so much to touch him. “Aaron—”

“Later,” he said a little hoarsely. Joan hesitated, and then nodded. He was right, she knew. This wasn’t the time. “Cassius

was right,” Aaron whispered. “The trophy room seems to be an attraction. There are people lining up at the front of the house.

Humans, I assume.”

That made sense. Monsters wouldn’t need to line up—they could just travel to a quieter time.

“An attraction ?” Nick’s forehead creased.

Aaron dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “The important thing is that there’s a ladder at this side of the house—” He pointed. “It leads to an alley.”

Joan peered down. The alley below was empty. The ladder was telescopic, tucked against the brick wall. It seemed to be electric.

Joan looked around for a button, trying to figure out how to extend it to the ground. Finding nothing, she pushed hard at

the top rung. To her relief, that seemed to activate a mechanism, and the ladder slid down with a whirring grind.

Aaron went first again, and then Nick, who winced in pain as he climbed. In the bright morning light, Joan could see pink

blotches on his bare arms and legs that hadn’t been evident in the trophy room. Fresh bruises that would have been purpling

by now if he hadn’t been suspended by the stasis. They looked fist- and boot-sized. Joan suspected they’d all come from the

fight in the arena before he’d fallen.

She hated seeing him in pain like this, and at the same time she was relieved that he was here . She couldn’t understand it. How had he avoided the metal spikes when he’d fallen? How had he survived the fall?

And why had he seemed dead to everyone watching from the stands? Why had he seemed dead when Joan had first taken him out

of the stasis? She’d looked into his eyes and seen nothing .

She bit her lip, trying to push the questions aside again. Right now, they had to focus on getting out of here.

She skipped the last rung, jumping to the ground, and then pushed at the ladder again. It returned to the roof, removing another

easy access point into the trophy room.

A commotion was already starting at the house. Guards rushed past along the main road, radios crackling.

“Did you say lions ?” one of them said.

“This way,” Aaron whispered, leading them to the other end of the alley. “I saw a route out when I was on the roof....”

They walked for about ten minutes before Joan realized that Nick was breathing carefully, concentrating on each step.

“We need to stop,” she said, worried. She hadn’t seen blood—or any sign of broken bones—so she’d assumed he could walk. But

what if he had internal injuries? “Where does it hurt?” she asked him.

“Where doesn’t it?” Nick said wryly.

Aaron frowned, looking him over. “Can I touch you?” he asked. Nick nodded, and Aaron pressed carefully against his abdomen,

against his sides. “Is that painful?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Nick glanced over his shoulder. “There are guards back there—let’s just keep moving.”

“Don’t be stoic,” Aaron said, sounding almost annoyed. “Does it hurt to breathe?”

Nick rolled his eyes but took a slow, testing breath. He shook his head. “I remember taking some hits in the arena, but I’m

not that injured.”

Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, trying to gather himself. Joan felt it too. The last few days had been a lot . “You’re still in that damn gladiator outfit... ,” Aaron ground out. He slid off his own posh jacket and helped Nick into

it. It was too small for him, but Nick was clearly grateful to be more covered up.

“I don’t understand,” Nick said. “How did I end up in that room?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Joan asked.

Nick tilted his head as if he wasn’t quite sure. “I went up against Eleanor, and then...” His forehead creased. “The ground

under my feet vanished. I—I fell...”

“You fell,” Joan echoed shakily. She saw him falling again in her mind’s eye, the sharp stakes below. She hadn’t actually

seen the moment of his death—human prisoners and gladiators had occluded his landing.