Page 9 of Savage Escape

CADEN

She was still fucking breathing.

A-fuckin’-live, god dammit.

The burn in her chest and back was evidence of that unfortunate state of being. Obviously, getting dead was going to be a harder endeavor than the merc anticipated. She’d been pretty goddamn sure that Kyott was gonna stop pussy footing around that last go around, but the rat bastard hadn’t.

Instead, the man had questioned her. Kyott and his fuck-head goons had questioned her.

While she hung like a slab of meat from a hook and they’d lashed her back to pieces, they had fucking interrogated her.

At first, it had been about a stupid goddamn fucking statue. A statue she had long since stolen and sold to the highest bidder in Montreal. Apparently, it had gotten nicked again and Kyott, the dumb fuck that he was, thought she was responsible.

He wanted a fucking jeweled elephant. A statue she hadn’t touched in years. And when he got no other response than, ‘No dumb-fuck, I don’t have it’, he moved on to other questions.

Like where was her stash? Everyone and their mothers knew full well she had to have a stash of art, weapons, and gold. She was Caden Quinn. Where the fuck was her stash?

Then he got down to the list of people she had worked for in the past. Harrington was of special interest to him.

Which didn’t bode well for her plans.

It wasn’t torture for torture’s sake anymore.

Soon, though, he’d get tired of asking and remember exactly why she was on his ‘To Kill’ list.

Evil-little-piddly-shit sons didn’t grow on trees.

The opening and closing of the cell door was what slapped her back to reality. Not Savage or his snoring. Not even the fact that he was still invading her personal space and was he—he was fucking drooling on her hand. The back of her hand was pillowing his stupid head like he could trust her not to kill him in his sleep.

Which, okay, she wouldn’t kill him, but he was operating under the assumption that she was a good person and that was just wrong. The only people to trust her that much were all dead. Still, though, the fact that he trusted her enough to fall asleep around her was... refreshing.

Caden didn’t know what to think about that. So she ignored his snoring, drooling, and explicit trust and took evaluation of her hurts.

The agony of her lashed-up back had all but dulled while she slept. Now it was a burning ache she could shove to the back of her mind and forget about. She could ignore the fact that every time she moved a scab broke open or the ones that were too deep to scab felt like they were ripping deeper into her muscle.

What she could not ignore, however, was the fullness of her bladder and how badly she needed to piss.

But Savage was right there and the thought of pissing into the designated bucket in the corner of the room while he was not five feet from her was an embarrassing one.

And also frustrating as all hell. She never had qualms about pissing in front of Señor Rapist. Not particularly liking that little revelation, Caden couldn’t help but snarl.

“Get off me, Savage.” She took her hand back as violently as possible.

Savage, the precious soul that he was, bolted upright, still drooling down his chin, and moved over her. Like he was protecting her from an attack. Unsure what to do with that, she kept snarling and wiped his slobber off her hand. Confused and pissed and... weirded out was a combination of emotions Caden didn’t like feeling.

“You okay?” He was up and moving towards the food and water.

“Do you think you could maybe keep your drool to yourself? Or, I don’t know, sleep on your side of the room!”

He only smiled, a smile that was not at all diminished by the swollen lip or the two black eyes, in response. The welts on his torso had pretty much faded, but the bruises were vivid against his skin. Still, though, he was not at all hard to look at. What with his back muscles all flexing and his arms stretching. Nope, no problem at all with looking at him. She was just having a problem with the looking away part. Dammit.

“What?” He caught her staring and glanced down at his chest. “Stop looking at my nipples.” He placed her own bowl of white snot in front of her and moved to put an arm over his chest. “I’m cold, okay.”

He took a seat by her head and swallowed his own in three gulps, shivering as it went down.

“Ugh, it’s like eating Maddox’s cooking. Cept less burnt.” He was grinning again until she made no move to touch her own food. “Aren’t ya gonna eat?”

“That’d be counterproductive.”

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