Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Huxley

I HEARD HER whimper.

I heard her moan.

I heard her cry out and scream.

I don’t know what he’s done to hurt her. I don’t know why he’s demanding to know where her father is. All I know is the pang in my chest because I’m helpless here inside this cage.

My knuckles are white as my fists curl around the metal bars. I shake and pull at them, hoping there’s a weakness in their fusion that might miraculously give and let me escape.

Glory needs me, and I’m trapped.

I can’t help her here.

I hear his heavy boots tromp across the floor and my jaw tightens. Everything tightens, my muscles straining painfully. I want to rip him apart with my bare hands for laying a finger on her.

He appears in the doorway, his chest rising and falling sharply with heavy breaths, fists clenched at his sides. He looks nearly manic, his thick black hair unkempt and his clothes rumpled.

I grit my teeth. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing she didn’t want,” he says, fuming as if he’s angry at me. “Tell me where Beau Tolliver is.”

I let out a harsh chuckle. “I’m not telling you shit.”

“Do you want me to hurt her again?”

My grip tightens on the bars and I yank, unable to control my building rage. “Don’t you fucking touch her again! What did you do to her?”

“Where is Beau Tolliver?”

I let go and raise the middle finger of both hands, reaching them out through the spaces between the bars. “I’ve got these two fucks to give about what information you want from us, and I’ll shove them right up your ass.”

He charges forward, reaching out and snatching hold of one of my wrists before I can pull it back. He squeezes as his other hand comes up, grips my middle finger, and starts to pull back. I shout as he bends it too far, as pain rolls in, barreling through my arm.

“That’s a good way to get your finger broken,” he says with a low grumble.

His sound vibrates through me, rippling through my chest, shocking my heart to a dead stop. I stare him down, giving him the full intensity of my rage for the fact that he dared to lay his hands on my Glory.

It’s rage reflecting rage in the dark eyes we both share.

Anger reflecting anger.

Pain reflecting pain.

Fuck.

The pain in his eyes threatens to soften me, tugging at the savior string attached to the center of my heart. It weakens me, it slows me, it stills me. Gradually, he loosens his grip on my finger, though his grip on my wrist holds firm.

Then, he tugs, pulling my arm all the way through, wedging my shoulder in the space between the bars. I wince as he twists my arm, turning my shoulder, and I shout as his hand comes down at my elbow.

“I could break your arm. Take you down to the floor, stomp on your elbow, snap it in two. Is that what you want from me? You want to see the sickness inside me?”

He tugs again and my body crashes against the metal bars, my shoulder dragged through the opening. “Let go!” I demand.

He doesn’t respond, though I can hear him breathing, ragged and heavy. I can only really see him from the corner of my eye. I brace myself as I feel him push forward from my elbow, adding pressure, making me think he’s going to go through with it and break my goddamn arm.

He can fucking break it.

I’m not telling him shit.

I tense, my eyes pinching closed as I prepare for the snap…but then his fingers circle my bicep and squeeze, holding me firmly in place as his body moves, as he comes in closer.

I can feel his heat as he comes up to the bars, tight against my side, and my breath catches in my lungs. He reaches his free hand into the cage and grabs my cheek, his fingers slick as they slide across my jaw and his thumb squeezes my chin to grab hold of me.

Fuck.

I inhale and my knees go weak. I know the scent of sex as well as I know the scent of Glory, and there’s a heady mixture of both all over his hand. I swallow hard as my lust for her swells. But more than that, I can smell him, too. His scent mingled with hers is overwhelming…intoxicating.

“Do you feel her wetness on my hand?” he asks quietly. “Do you smell her?” At first, I think he’s trying to goad me, to upset me because he touched her. But there’s a subtle waver in his tone, a flicker of desire that hints at sincerity. “I strung her up, bound her wrists, and fucked her with my fingers until she came on my hand.”

Goddammit.

My balls tighten and my cock thickens beneath my jeans.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

His thumb brushes across my lip, tugging it down. “How does that make you feel, Huxley Hill?”

I should bite his hand, clamp down on his thumb and slice it clean through to the bone with my teeth. I should snatch his wrist with my free hand and tug his arm through the bars, break his arm like he threatened to break mine.

I should.

But I don’t.

My tongue tingles with an ache to run across his thumb, to lick his fingers clean. The dark desire twists knots inside me that beg to be unraveled. Goddamn, I haven’t wanted a man like this…not since Noah, and our brief fling ended over a year ago.

It’s as if he can read my mind when he drags his hand back, letting his slick fingers pull across my cheek. His thumb pulls down harder on my lip and I part them, letting him push his fingers inside my mouth. I fucking groan at the taste of it…the taste of Glory and Ambrose on my tongue.

“Fuck,” he groans as I suck on his fingers.

I’m lost.

I’m so fucking lost.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. How can I desire him? How can I desire at all knowing she’s out there, whimpering and alone, strung up as he said?

Bite off his fucking fingers.

My teeth come down, but they don’t clamp, they playfully scrape across his knuckles, knowing how the burn and ache of them dragging over his skin must tease him into wanting.

I want him to want me.

I want her to want me.

I fucking want them both.

His fingers break free as he jerks his hand back. His body heat leaves me cold as he releases his grip on my bicep and steps back, releasing me.

His eyes are wide as he lifts his hands to his wavy black locks and combs his fingers through. I should be pleased at the way he shakes his head ever so subtly, happy to see him confused and clearly tumbling off his twisted game. I’m not pleased by it…I suffer for it.

I fucking suffer for the frustration on his face.

I always fucking suffer from the pain of others.

I want both our suffering to end…all our suffering.

I don’t know what the fuck this is, but this shifting, pulsing energy between us is toxic, poisonous, and is eating me alive from the inside out.

He’s sick and wanting him feels like an infection—throbbing and sore, spreading like wildfire.

In a flash, he’s gone.

He disappears from the room, and I hear the front door open, then shut. I let out a long-held breath, and after a few moments of silence, I call out to Glory, “Are you okay? Are you alone?”

“He left…but I can see him outside.”

“Can you see what he’s doing?”

“Chopping wood,” she replies, and her voice sounds strange.

“Can you get free?”

“I don’t know. The ropes are tight.”

“Try. You have to try.”

“I am trying.”

I hear her grunts and groans as she works. I take a step away and lean my back against the wall, slumping against it. I can’t listen to her make those sounds. I’m fucking losing my mind.

Her sounds of exertion are punctuated by the thud, thud, thud of wood being chopped outside, and it’s impossible for me not to think of Ambrose swinging an axe with power and grace.

“Can you see him, Glory?” The strangled words leave my mouth before I even think them.

There’s stillness and quiet for a moment. Then, she says, “Yes,” and the word draws out on a long exhale.

I rub my hand over my chest before my fingers curl into a fist that grips my T-shirt. This shouldn’t be happening. None of this should be happening, but least of all, my cock shouldn’t be hard.

It’s hard for her…it’s hard for him.

Does that make me sick?

I swallow down the sickness. “Glory?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m…I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Why do you think he wants to know where my dad is? Did he ask you?”

“I really don’t know. But don’t say a word to him, okay? If he gets the information he wants, then he won’t need us anymore and we’re as good as dead.”

He won’t need us anymore.

There’s some disappointment in that thought.

“He’s coming back,” she says, her voice trailing off into a whisper.

I push off from the wall, moving to the bars again. “Just stay calm. If you can get away, you run, okay? Don’t come back for me.”

“I’ll always come back for you, Hux. You would come back for me.”

I open my mouth to speak, but I’m silenced by the sound of the opening and closing door, by the stomp of his boots at the entrance, and the tromping across the hardwood. I hold my breath and strain my ears, hoping somehow, Glory gets free.