My mouth watered at the sight of it. I tore off a piece of the doughy goodness and brought it halfway to my mouth, but then I remembered that Ronan didn’t get any.
I broke it in half, eating mine before putting the second half back in the napkin and lowering it into his cell. I then backed away and ripped the corner of the bagged blood like I did the night before.
But unlike the first time, I didn’t try to smell it first. I just pinched my nose and threw it back. It didn’t go down easily, not that I expected it to, but at least I felt a little bit stronger. Not at all like I would with human or supe blood, but it would do.
When I was finished with it, I glanced back over at Ronan’s cell. He’d moved off his mattress and had picked up the biscuit. Instead of eating it, he put it back on my side of the bars and backed away.
“It’s yours,” he told me. “They’ll bring me something to eat soon.”
I frowned and picked up the napkin handing it back to him. “Why don’t you eat it now and then give me a bit of your food when they bring yours? There’s no need for you to be hungry when I have this to share.”
He signed. “I’m not hungry, lass. I promise.”
“When was the last time you ate then?”
“Yesterday. Before they locked me in here with you.”
He answered quickly and I wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.
“Besides, you need your strength more than I do. I’m not even sure why they’ve kept me alive actually.”
That was a good question. Why had Ironshot kept him alive when killing him would be a quick solution to his problem?
One thing I learned about Michael Ironshot was that he always had a reason. He kept Ronan alive when he could have easily killed him. When I was captured, they moved Ronan so he was in the same cell block as me. Lastly, I was moved into the cell directly next to his. Why? What was the purpose?
He knew my magic was gone; he felt it himself, but maybe he wanted to see if it could come back; to see if I truly was a threat. Oh, shit. That had to be it.
I needed to keep my magic on lockdown as long as possible. The more I thought about it, the more I believed that not only my life would be on the line when my magic returned, but Ronan’s too. Once I took the potion, I’d have about another eight days before it wore off, so that left me about two weeks to try and find a way to escape. I knew I had to change my mind and take the potion when it was time. I needed to.
I glanced over at my caster mate’s cell with dread. The biscuit lay on the napkin in the exact spot I last left it on Ronan’s side of the bars, untouched. I started to tell him to eat it but he was asleep again. He seemed to be doing that a lot.
I needed to get him out of there because I wasn’t sure he could last two weeks.
Chapter Twenty
“Ah, there she is!” Ironshot threw his arms out excitedly when my two guards brought me into his caster’s lab.
I gave him a tight smile and quickly looked around the room, noting it was very similar to the one Devlin kept back at the rebel mansion, except for one important difference. Potions were brewing on table tops, books and jars of ingredients were lined up on shelves, and there was lots of light, which was good for growing plants used for making things.
The thing that was different between this lab and Dev’s was that at the left end of the room stood a long metal table that looked just right for experimentation on living things. If I were a betting person, I would say the drawers and cabinets that surrounded the table contained all kinds of cutting and collection instruments as well.
“Don’t worry, stepdaughter. I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that side of the room. At least not yet.” Ironshot caught my eyes lingering on the table a little too long before finding their way back to his face. I gulped and did my best to look unaffected, but he knew exactly what his words would do to me.
I was already on edge for several reasons when Harris and Kenny collected me from my cell, mostly because Ronan never got food the day before. Kenny gave him a mini water bottle but that was all he got for sustenance that day. I begged him to eat the biscuit but he flatly refused, saying I needed more strength than he did.
It sat on his side of the bars all night and by morning it was rock hard. Worried what my guards would think about finding untouched food, I ended up eating it myself. I didn’t want them to deny me food because they thought I didn’t want it or whatever.
I hated that I was at this man’s mercy. I hated that my life depended on the mood of one seriously mercurial caster with a superiority complex. It was so wrong, so degrading but I wasn’t ready to give up. So there I was, playing along with his game in hopes that I’d find my opening.
A man and a woman stepped into the room through another door and approached us in the
