When his eyes left mine, though—that message, I received loud and clear. His gaze washed over me almost possessively, claiming every bare inch of my skin. I was suddenly hyperaware of how little clothing I was wearing. Just the harem pants I’d been dancing in on the night I tried to kill Lieja and a tight, low-cut top.
I should have hated the way he lingered over my breasts, which were bound tight to my body and pushed up by my top, and my stomach, flat and bare. I should have, but…
I didn’t.
If it had been any of Lieja’s other boyfriends, I would have wanted to kill them for looking at me that way. But him…he could have looked at me like that for an eternity, and I only would have been flattered.
It was honestly, well…kind of hot.
“That collar looks heavy,” he finally said. His eyes glinted devilishly as they focused on the metal that encircled my neck.
From the doorway, Queen Lieja laughed, and just like that, suddenly it didn’t matter how hot Apex was.
He was no different from any of the others. Not really. He might have challenged Lieja more than her other lovers, but he was still on her team.
At least it made him a lot easier to hate.
My guards in the dungeons both had two heads and four arms each. You’d think with that many brains, they’d be a little smarter, but I was pretty sure they just used what little mindpower they had to come up with new ways to creep me out.
“Not so fancy now, are you, little human?” the green one said from his left head while his right one made kissy faces at me.
“Maybe you want some company in there tonight, huh?” The blue one grabbed his package with one set of hands and pantomimed smacking my ass with the other while thrusting his hips violently.
“Not tonight, boys.” I sat against the back wall of my cell where my chain was tethered and imagined kicking them both in all of their mouths. But getting any closer to them was a bad idea. It only encouraged them, which was the last thing I needed.
“Try again tomorrow?” one of the heads on the green guard suggested.
“She’ll give in eventually.” The blue heads both winked at me as the guards turned to leave. “Night-night, princess!”
As soon as I was alone, I sprang into action. What was left of my food went into my pillowcase with the rest of my stores. From beneath my pillow, I grabbed the jagged piece of rock that had fallen away from the wall in the corner on my second day in the cell. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. When I finally got out, it would make a good weapon.
Until then, I needed it to dig.
Initially, I’d thought I might tunnel my way out. The ground beneath my feet was dirt. I didn’t think it’d be that hard to carve a hole into the floor up against the back wall and crawl through it to freedom. But then, just a few inches down, I’d hit more stone on the first night I tried. As it turned out, the floor was just dirty—and unfortunately, after a week in the cell with no good way to shower properly, so was I.
As soon as I got out of here, I was finding a place to take a bath. A nice, long one with hot water and bubbles and a comb for my hair. Once upon a time, the vibrant pink that I’d dyed it back on Earth had made my hair my greatest vanity. But now, every time I looked at it, the pink looked dull and ratty, and without a beauty salon in sight.
But first, I needed to get free of my chain so I could start working on picking the lock on my cell.
I turned the stone over in my hand and gripped it tight, ignoring the way the jagged edges cut into my palms. As long as I washed the cuts off after, the scrapes and scratches were a small price to pay for getting the heck out of here. I’d given up getting the collar off days ago. Just like Apex had pointed out, it was made of heavy metal. It couldn’t be broken or pried apart.
The place where my chain met the wall was another story, though. Queen Lieja’s palace was a little more run down than the fabulous feasts and festivities she held here suggested, and the dungeons were no exception. If the walls of my cell were coming apart in the corners, I had a chance at breaking my chain’s anchor away too.
I slammed the stone against the wall as hard as I could. My efforts were rewarded with a little spray of crumbling rock where my tool had hit. Over the last few days, I’d made good progress. Now, I could get the anchor to wiggle in place. Just a few more well-placed hits, and I was pretty sure it would come free.
After chipping away at the wall for a little longer, the anchor seemed loose enough that I could chance pulling on it. Gripping my chain in my sore, bleeding hands, I placed a foot against the wall and tugged as hard as I could.
On my first try, I got nothing. Maybe the chain was anchored deeper than I thought?
But then, on the fifth tug, something slipped in the stones and I tumbled backwards, landing hard on my butt. The metal anchor on the chain clanked onto the ground next to me.
Free. Or, at least, a little bit closer.
I’d take it.
My next task was a little harder, though. I’d picked the lock on my bedroom door back home dozens of times—and the ones on my windows as well. When Savannah and I misbehaved
