He just glanced away.
I yearned to tell him that fighting was all I’d ever known too, and that sometimes I didn’t know if fighting was truly such a vital part of me or if I’d been made to feel that way.
“We should keep going,” he eventually said. “I have to get back Moncho and Lev before… Well, I fear it may already be too late.”
“What is it exactly that the empress might do to them?”
He pursed his lips, his features hardening more.
“What were you picturing?” I asked. At his upturned brow, I added, “When you were envisioning all the ways you wanted to punish me?”
“Ah.” He looked away again. “My favorite was whipping your bare ass.”
My breath caught. “Whipping me? You want to whip me? Of course you fucking would.”
“In my dreams, you want me to do it. You actually beg me to.”
“I wouldn’t beg you for anything.”
His dreams? He dreamt of me?
“I know. But hey, my dreams. I get to do what I want. Same as you do in yours.”
“I’ve never dreamt of myself pleading you to whip me.” I had, however, dreamt of him plowing into me and taking me in all sorts of positions—over and again, more times than I would ever admit to.
“I wouldn’t want to be whipped by anyone.”
“Well, same here, buddy.” It was only a little bit possibly a lie. It depended on what kind of whipping—and whether it would be painful, pleasurable, or both.
Reverently, I smoothed the backs of my hands along the dragon-hide cover and tail of the book, not wanting to sully them with whatever goop coated the cave walls.
“I don’t think we should keep exploring the caves. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“Doesn’t feel like we are. But we have to get out.”
“By the Ethers, do we ever.”
He laughed. “I’m actually missing the castle’s usual gloom at this point. Never thought I’d say that. I even miss the music.”
I chuckled in disbelief. “I didn’t even notice it wasn’t playing.”
“It was one of the first things I noticed. Right after realizing I was stuck inside Mauldrene’s guts.”
I glanced at him. “You think we’re in her guts?”
“Sure looks, feels, and smells like it, doesn’t it?”
I looked around.
“The smooth, long walls with little bumps and turns, all wet and?—”
“Totally like intestines. Now I can’t stop seeing it.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking it since I followed you down here.”
“We don’t actually know if we’re ‘down.’ We could be practically anywhere inside the castle.”
“As long as we’re still inside it.”
