Page 67 of Till Death

He nudged me with a shoulder. “You are so dramatic, Dey… No… I think I like Nightmare the best. You’re so dramatic, Nightmare.”

“I hate you.” I yawned.

We sat pressed together for hours. Until the cold waned and the conversation ran dry. Until my eyes grew heavy and his stories of performing grew slower.

“You can’t let me fall asleep,” I said for the third time.

“I’m not.” He sighed. “Stay awake.”

He wrapped his arm around me, and I listened to his heartbeat until it’d nearly lulled me to sleep.

The second my head nodded, he jammed a finger into my ribs. “Stay awake.”

“How many hours do you think it’s been?” I asked, forcing my sleepy eyes open.

“Three weeks.”

His joke was the last thing I heard before the exhaustion took me.

Chapter 29

“Honestly, it’s just a blade. Thea can fix that with her hands bound.”

I glared. “You nicked the tip. Anyone worth their death knows, once it’s compromised, a dagger is never going to be the same.”

He held Chaos up to the faint light, squinting. “This tiny scratch? It’s fine.”

Snatching the blade back, I slid her into my holster and smirked when his jaw dropped.

“Don’t act like that. We have nothing else to do.”

“Using my knife as a pencil is no longer an option. Find a rock or something.”

He flashed an arrogant smile before crossing his arms over his broad chest to stare down at me. “You’re just mad because you haven’t won a single game yet.”

I shoved him playfully. “I didn’t have the same upbringing as you did. Or did you forget you had to teach me how to play?”

“How could I forget? You keep reminding me every time you lose.”

I’d woken with a start, steeped in a pile of dread until I oriented myself, remembering I was trapped in an underground tunnel with a man who had tried to kill me weeks ago. His arm was draped heavily over my body, and his warm breath caressed my ear. He’d snored softly, and I lay there, afraid to wake him. Afraid that when he woke, it would be those dark eyes that stared at me, hated me, and not the amber ones that made him only a man.

Maybe the eyes never truly changed, but the hatred and the glares did, and that was the balancing act I’d learned to expect from him. He woke shortly after I did, but I only knew because of the change in breathing. Because we’d both lay there longer than we should have. Afraid to jostle the other and admit that there were seeds of companionship, if nothing else. And gods. I’d been so alone I couldn’t peel myself away from that man’s embrace if I’d wanted to.

“We should go over the plan again,” he said, squatting on the floor to look for a rock.

“As long as you don’t turn my dagger into a blunt object by playing children’s games on the walls, I think we’ll be fine.”

“Got one,” he shouted, swiping a pebble from the ground. “Did you have any better ideas to pass the time?”

“Almost anything else.”

He held out a hand. “Calm down, Dey. I meant ideas that don’t involve being naked.”

“So did I,” I scowled.

“I saw that look in your eyes this morning,” he teased, drawing a giant square on an unmarked section of the stone wall. He stepped back to admire his handiwork before examining the rock again. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.”

“Let’s take a break.”