was still hanging. I was thankful for that. I don’t think I could have stood after all of that. My head lolled down enough to see that I had completed the trifecta from earlier. I even added in blood, shit, and what looked like even vomit.

  I heard a deep chuckle from the dark corner of the room. Mercy was not present, but Bolyan was still here.

  “Pathetic,” his deep baritone rumbled. I heard a thwack against the wall and felt the chains drop. I landed in a heap face-first in the worst of it. I didn’t even register as he grabbed the chains and started to drag me away, making any chance of staying clean a lost cause.

  I lost consciousness when my head bounced off the first few stairs.

  I woke up in a small cell.

  The recurring theme of being knocked out was wearing on me like the overused and inauthentic Hollywood trope it was. Uncaring of my dislike, it just seemed to keep happening.

  I groaned and tried to sit up, but my body screamed in protest. Every muscle ached, and my ass felt like it had been split in two. The cold stone floor beneath me was sticky with dried blood and other fluids I didn't want to think about.

  "Rise and shine, princess," a gravelly voice called from beyond the bars. I squinted through swollen eyes to see Bolyan's hulking form looming there. "Hope you enjoyed your little playdate with Mercy. She can be quite... enthusiastic."

  “You don’t say?” I started while getting up despite my body’s numerous protests. I filed the protests away with every other bit of pain since getting here.

  “Tell me, my bovine friend. Was ‘Princess’ a bit too far, or did I strike a nerve?”

  Bolyan looked confused at the word ‘bovine’ and seemed a little conflicted over something. In the end, he seemed to just shrug his massive shoulders and took a step closer into the light.

  “You are the first to ever call her that, so I do not know. I have seen her angry before, and while that was not it, you did get a very advanced version of a first session. Not to worry, though, it gets worse. you will break eventually. They all….”

  “…do in the end.” I interrupted. “I know. Normally, it’s about the goals and outcomes. Am I punishing this person? Am I trying to punish someone else? Is this a play for ransom? How long before I cut off a finger?”

  I took a short breath. “Please tell me she only cuts off fingers!”

  The implication seemed to be universal amongst males, Bolyan snorted and shook his head, first as a laugh at the suggestion and then in revulsion at the possibility and implication of it.

  “Your parts are safe

  "... probably. It's not like she has anyone to send them to.” Our conversation drew him closer—not actionable close, mind you. It's not like I could do anything to the towering slab of beef that he was, even without the suppression collar on.

  The banter served another purpose, though, and as he moved closer, I caught the barest glimpse of a figure in his shadow. A figure in dark red. I schooled my features, though. This was all part of the game, and I didn’t want to tip my hand too soon. She may have gotten the idea that I wasn’t naive to the process, but I wasn’t about to announce that I knew how to play.

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  “How do you know I don’t have anyone to send parts to? There are dozens of people who would want various parts of me!” I started with a gruff sense of self-righteous indignation.

  This made him laugh.

  A lot.

  When he finally caught his breath, he spoke. “Oh, that was funny. A human caught deep in Beastlands is enough to say that either nobody wants you or somebody wants you dead. That’s not the telling part, though. If you were someone worth ransoming, you would have either pleaded or threatened using your full and family names, long before you took a painrod up the ass.”

  “Hey….I mean, maybe I enjoyed that. Nothing wrong with swinging that way in my book.” I put on my most fabulous tone of voice.

  Bolyan snorted again, a mix of amusement and disgust. "You're a strange one, human. Most would be begging for mercy by now."

  "Well, I already had Mercy," I quipped, unable to resist the pun. "Didn't work out so well for me."

  A flash of movement caught my eye. The figure in red had shifted slightly, revealing more of herself. Lady Mercy stood just beyond Bolyan's massive frame, her face an unreadable mask.

  I locked eyes with her, noticing a flicker of... something. Curiosity?

  Even suppressed, I could feel the Aspects in my core churning away at the input. I couldn’t use them, but the knowledge that they imparted was still in my brain. I may have spent cycles with Mord and not focused on reading people while I rehoned my combat edge with these new abilities and a stronger, faster body, but that doesn’t mean I completely lost that edge.

  She may have slipped back into darkness, but the image of her face was burned into my retinas. She had that look of someone who could be quite pretty if she didn’t have a resting bitch face and a penchant for sucking the souls out of lemons. Is it really resting bitch face if she is actively being a bitch and torturing you?

  Still, I couldn’t hate her. Worst case, this was a job and she was just doing it, ambivalent to the justifications, ethics, and morals around her. In the best case, she was being mind-controlled, and that meant she was an asset able to be flipped. I was far from the best at that.

  Time to try anyway. What’s the worst that could happen? I die? That was probably my fate regardless.

  “I like you, Boylan; I think we should be friends. Not the ‘bail you out of jail’ friends, but the ‘chat amicably while I guard you so neither dies of boredom’ friends. How does that sound?”

  A slight look of concern crossed his eyes when I mentioned being friendly. It was the look of a henchman who knew he fucked up.

  “I don’t think Lady Mercy would like that.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she would want us to be friends. Isn’t that right, Mers?” I pitched my voice to send the shortened version of her name to the last spot I saw her.

  “Indeed, it would make me very happy.” Her voice drifted from the shadows as her form materialized.

  The Minotaur, to his credit, only jumped half out of his skin, quickly turning and taking a knee while bowing his head.

  “My Lady, I meant. I meant no disrespect. I apologize for speaking with the prisoner.”

  “It’s fine, Boyl.” Her tone was that of my wife when things were definitely not fine. “He has been behind bars before, apparently, and knows how to keep himself from going insane. It's important, as while insanity would definitely break him, the end product would be worthless and have to be disposed of. We can’t have that now, can we?”

  “Yes, I would not prefer insanity. I would also prefer to be let go. Any chance of that?” I inquired.

  “Oh yes, right away, this has been all a simple misunderstanding. Boyl let him out.”

  “Mistress? Yes, at once, mistress.” He made an effort to search his belt for a key.

  I took the pause to look at the door of my cell, except there were no doors, just a row of cells, of which mine was the middle, with bars on the front and sides and a rather stout-looking wall in the back. No bed, nor even a bucket to piss in.

  “Boylan, you can stop looking. These are the magical cells and don't have doors, let alone keys. Also, no, we are not letting him go. He is to be the Emir’s new pet. It’s my job to make him.”

  She sashayed her way up to my cell in what I think was meant to be a sexy and alluring way. The effect was muted on me, with the torture and all.

  “I’ll have him begging for my touch before too long, isn’t that right?”

  “Nah…Redheads aren’t my thing, plus his is bigger.” I winked at Boylan.

  “We will see. Come, Boylan, he will be fine alone.” She twisted on her heel and walked out of the jail, with he minotaur in tow.

  Once she was gone, I felt all my bravado deflate as I slid to the ground.

  I did have to admit that she had a great ass. Why was it always the psycho bitches that had the great asses?