Page 81

Abare bulb burned overhead.

Lachlan sat in the center of the dungeon exactly where Isabeast had left him, his head hanging over his bare chest. The blindfold remained tied around his eyes, and his wrists and ankles were still cuffed to the heavy wooden chair.

His shirt lay in torn pieces on the floor.

I eased the hidden door shut behind me and rounded the chair, gripping the basket in both hands.

From the front, the full extent of the damage came into view. Bruises covered his ribs and stomach. Angry red marks crossed his side, some already darkening at the edges. I didn’t need to identify how Isabeast had made them. I’d heard enough.

The cut on his right cheek had opened again, leaving dried blood along his jaw.

He sat motionless with his pants open, and he was…fully exposed.

I stopped so abruptly that the basket bumped against my leg.

“Lachlan?”

No answer.

I approached slowly, watching his chest until it finally rose. Then I stepped between his knees and set the basket beside the chair.

The breath trapped in my lungs rushed out.

“Thank God. You’re alive.”

My eyes dropped again.

“Oh, wow.”

Heat rushed into my face.

“I came prepared for blood and bruises. I was not prepared for…all of you.”

He didn’t move.

“If you aren’t unconscious, have the decency to keep pretending.”

Still nothing.

Good Lord. Apparently everything about Lachlan Byrnes was excessive.

I pulled the folded towel from the basket and laid it carefully across his lap.

“There. We’ll pretend I didn’t look twice.”

My embarrassment died when I studied the rest of him.

The cuffs had rubbed his wrists raw. Dried blood crusted the places where the metal had cut into him, and his shoulders strained at an unnatural angle after hours with his hands locked behind the chair.

“You were supposed to get me out of here,” I murmured. “I can’t drag a man your size through a drainage channel, so I need you in better condition than this.”

The words sounded selfish the moment they left my mouth.

“I do need you,” I admitted. “But I would’ve come even if I didn’t. What she did to you was vile. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

I rested my hand lightly on his shoulder.

His body stayed still beneath my palm.