The giant ducked his head shyly. I stood by, speechless. My mate had a gift. She’d seen something inside the brutish creature that no one else had seen. She’d treated Rigo as a sentient being, showed him respect. And he’d responded in kind.
We were in the laboratory with the door to the corridor barred from the inside. Rigo and I had manhandled one of the heavy metal cabinets in place to block it. The cargo ship was due to arrive in a few hours. It was my turn to undergo the procedure to remove the chip.
Eldon and I argued about who would go first. “Let’s face it, brother,” he finally said. “If that crazy bastard screws up and kills me, it’s no great loss. I’m an old man. Not much use when it comes to fightin’ them guards—or protecting your lady. She’s the symbol of the Insurrection, now more than ever. We need her alive and well—and she needs you to keep her that way. So let him practice on me.”
I wanted to protest but I knew he was right. And so was Ree when it came to Rigo’s medical skills. Eldon survived the procedure. Over the next few days, he smuggled the rest of our team into the lab, hidden on the cart of cleaning supplies he wheeled from room to room. The guards never searched his cart. They’d grown careless, lulled into a false sense of security by the power their wands wielded over the prisoners.
Of course, the jug of Zibaru’s finest spirits that Eldon passed around at the beginning of his shift went a long way toward their relaxed mood. He took it with him the first night, figuring he’d have a few swigs to give him courage before letting a mentally deficient giant slice the back of his neck open. One of the guards spotted it, so Eldon offered him a taste. Starn was notoriously stingy and his guards seldom got any of the monthly allotment of liquor shipped in for the prison staff. After sampling the hooch, the guard called his partner over and they confiscated the jug.
Eldon staggered out hours later. Woozy from the drug Rigo injected before performing the surgery, he managed to stay upright only by hanging on to the handles of the cart. He planned to get past the guards by pretending to be drunk, but he needn’t have worried. They were both passed out on the floor near the door with the empty jug between them.
The guard was waiting for Eldon the next night with a different partner. This time the crafty old man had two jugs with him—one for the guards and one for Thomas hiding on the cart.
After that it was easy. The other rebels didn’t have to wait for hours after the surgery so they could leave under their own steam. Eldon simply wheeled them out of the building and into the shadows, where they were spirited away to recover. I’d waited till last and asked Eldon to smuggle Ree in too, afraid to let her out of my sight for even a moment now that we were so close to escaping.
I refused the injection Rigo offered. As a warrior, I’d borne far worse pain than a cut on my neck. And I couldn’t risk a drug fogging my brain or dulling my reflexes in the hours to come.
I did have a few hearty swigs from Eldon’s jug, just to take the edge off. Then I laid face down on the shiny steel surface.
Rigo’s first slice had me gripping the sides of the table. He’d wanted to strap me down. When I refused, he warned me if I moved so much as a millimeter during the surgery, he could accidentally sever my spinal cord and paralyze me from the neck down.
“I’m not going to move,” I swore. “Now get on with it.”
Willing my mind elsewhere, I concentrated on breathing slow and deep. Once he got going, the pain wasn’t any worse than when I slowly strangled the shapeshifting darwolf while it sank its fangs into me. Rigo kept up a constant patter, telling Ree lighthearted stories from his childhood. She laughed and exclaimed in the right places, but I knew her well enough to tell she was only half-listening.
That’s why it surprised me when I heard her squeal in the middle of one tale. The sound was cut off abruptly and Rigo’s voice died away a moment later.
Footsteps rang out in the sudden silence, coming closer. My heart sank when the bottom of Ree’s gray cloak came into view, with a pair of legs clad in a deep blue uniform behind her.
“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite guests,” Starn said. “The slut and the savage.”
My first instinct was to jump off the table and take him down. But Rigo hadn’t finished the procedure and I didn’t dare move. I was frozen in place, face down, unable even to turn my head and see him clearly.
“Please, don’t get up on my account,” Starn added, chuckling at his own wit. “I should have known you’d be behind it when I found two of my guards passed out in the corridor. Stinking drunk. Lucky you didn’t bar the hidden entrance on the other side of this room.”
I heard Ree mutter a curse. “I’m sorry, Kaal,” she said. “I should have remembered that.”
“That’s all right, my dear,” the warden said. “You were... shall we say... otherwise occupied the last time I came in that way.”
He leaned down so he could look me in the face, dragging Ree with him. The lights overhead glinted off the blade of a knife he held at her throat. “Your slut was on her second... I believe it was her second but maybe it was her third... orgasm last time I walked in that door. Strapped to the very same table you’re on. Stark naked, legs spread wide, with two of my guards leering at her while Rigo’s fat fingers fucked her in the ass. Didn’t you ever wonder why she was so ready to take your cock there when she was tied up on the platform? He had her screaming and coming long before you did that night.”
I bellowed like an angry beast. Starn just laughed.
“Before I slit her throat I’m going to fuck her and make you watch. But the position you’re in has given me an idea. I think I’ll have her get down and suck my cock first. Right here, in front of your face. You’ll have a close-up view of her taking every inch of me down her throat.”
Ree stifled a cry.
“Get on your knees, bitch, and open your mouth,” he snarled. “And you’d better do a good job... or I’ll start carving up your boyfriend where he lays.”
She dropped to the floor in front of the table without another sound, our faces inches apart. Her eyes were bleak, all the life drained out of them. A trickle of blood ran down her gray cloak where the tip of Starn’s knife dug into her neck.
With his other hand, he fumbled with his pants. Pulled out his cock, already swollen and semi-erect, and brought it to her lips.