Page 95 of Blood Heir

With the vest, I can take a few shots for her if things get bad,

Emilia swallows, nodding quickly. “Deal.”

I motion to the men. “Load up. We move now.”

The engines roar to life, and we speed into the darkness—straight into war.

Chapter 21 - Severin

Cassian crashes onto the cold concrete floor with a sickening thud, gasping for air, face flushed red, his limbs twitching as blood finally rushes back into them. I watch him carefully, eyes narrowed, my own breathing steady despite the raw burning that lingers from the lashes across my back.

For five agonizing hours, I’ve guided him through it.

“Don’t let your head hang, Cass,” I’d told him over and over. “Keep flexing your calves. Roll your ankles. Breathe shallow; keep the blood circulating.”

He had obeyed, gritting through the pain, his face purple at times, but alive. His cufflinks had been our only chance—small, heavy, sharp enough if pressed right.

“Use the edge, Cass. Work it against the knot,” I’d instructed him as the minutes dragged into hours. His arms, though bound behind his back, were not useless.

He had wriggled his wrists enough to create friction with the cufflink edge, sawing at the tightly wound rope strand by strand.

I know how hard he worked for that snap.

He lifts his head sluggishly, panting like a man who’s run a marathon upside down.

“I got it—” he wheezes. “I got it, Boss.”

Using the wall, he drags himself upright on trembling legs. His skin is flushed, the veins in his arms bulging under the strain. His lips tremble as he reaches behind his back, pulling out what remains of the cufflink—bent, twisted, jagged.

“Don’t faint,” I tell him.

“No promises.”

He crawls toward me and fumbles for the padlock chaining my wrists and torso to the steel ring hammered into the wall. The chains are thick, the lock heavy.

Cassian steadies his breathing, wiping blood and sweat from his eyes, and jams the jagged cufflink into the lock’s keyhole, twisting hard.

The lock refuses at first, stiff with rust and blood. I see his knuckles go white as he leans into it, teeth clenched.

“Come on,” he hisses. “Come on, you fucker—”

Click.

The lock breaks loose with a sharp metallic clatter, the chains coiling off my chest and legs like dead serpents. My arms fall forward, heavy from the weight that had bound them. My skin underneath is raw, with filthy red welts where the iron bit deep into me.

I breathe. Not relief. Just air.

Cassian slumps to the ground again, his breath ragged and shallow. I push through my own pain and grab his arm, dragging him upright until he leans against the damp stone wall, steady but shaking.

“You look horrible,” he gasps.

I glare. “You look worse.”

My ribs ache as I straighten fully. My shirt sticks to my skin in patches—blood dried from the whippings Gustavo laid into me hours ago. I flex my fingers, feeling every laceration on my back tug with every movement.

We scan the room. This dungeon is small. Stone walls, iron shackles, a single bulb swinging faintly from above, throwing flickers of light that make every shadow stretch like a threat.

But then, I spot it.

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