yourself that you don’t want to leave this place, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He’s got me there.
“Come on. Walk and unlock,” Rook orders, amusement clear in his voice as he nudges my arm and forces me to walk back to my cell while simultaneously picking the lock.
It’s a little bit tricky because there’s just enough slack on the chain for me to bend my hand the way I need in order to dig into the lock on my left hand. Plus, the prick is making me walk at the same time, so I keep stepping out of sync and running into the wall or into him—which is basically another solid wall.
“You didn’t ask what happens if you lose,” Rook points out beside me.
I don’t look up at him, because I’m very aware of my countdown, and there’s no way in hellfire that I’m losing this bet. Not when I’ve been going through serious Pop Rocks withdrawals.
“That’s because it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to lose,” I tell him.
A slow, rumbling laugh escapes his chest, and the sound actually makes me trip over my own feet. I stumble to a stop, momentarily stunned as I look up at his smiling face. Dimples. The fucking dimples! Just like that, my tail starts flicking behind me like crazy, trying to jerk around my body so he’ll see my bright-colored feathers and pay attention to them.
I quickly reach behind me to try to stuff it in my pocket, but I can’t reach with the cuffs, and my tail darts out of the way. I curse and spin around, trying to catch it like a dog chasing her tail, and I drop my pin in the process.
“Son of a bitch!” I dive for it, but a black boot comes down, landing on top of it before I can snatch it up.
I lift my head up, glaring at Rook from the floor, my tail still going wild behind me. He has the audacity to shine those dimples and perfect teeth at me like they’re high beams. “Problem?”
“Move your foot!” I hiss.
Biting his bottom lip in a gesture that is way too sexy for a prison hallway, he shakes his head. “Your tail seems to be doing some very interesting things right now, don’t you think?”
“No!” I snap. “It’s just irritated. It’s twitching in irritation.”
He pretends to consider this while my tail sneaks between my legs and shakes at him like a crazed maraca that’s begging to be shaken or fucked. I slap it away, and it goes back behind me and curls around my hip to sweep over the top of his foot like it wants to shine his boot. And I mean that sexually and literally.
Letting out a string of curses, I reach for my horny tail and manage to finally grab hold of it and stuff it into my pocket. The feathers bulge obscenely, gyrating around my pants like a hussy on the dance floor. So embarrassing.
Still on the ground between his feet, I glare at Rook who’s clearly enjoying this way too much. “Are you gonna move your foot now?” I growl.
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Fucking cocky ass cockatrice!
I glance at his watch, seeing that I only have thirty more seconds. I give him a sickly sweet smile. “Fine.”
With a move that would make lightning jealous, I slam the heel of my palm up directly against his balls.
Bam!
A pained grunt flies out of his mouth, and he falls to his knees, his feet coming up enough for me to pluck the pin from the ground. While he’s swearing and sweating and clutching his family rocks, I whistle a happy tune and quickly unlock the first cuff before getting to work on the other. With three seconds to spare, I pop off the second cuff, my whistling changing to mix with the beep of his alarm going off.
I swing the handcuffs around on one finger as I smile at his pained face. “I won.”
Still clutching his cock rocks, he glares at me. “You can’t fucking attack a guard!” he snaps, though I must say, his voice is a little more high-pitched than usual.
I shrug and get to my feet, so that this time, it’s me standing over him. “Why not? You were standing on my pin, which was a total bastard-cheat move, by the way. Besides, I’m trying to extend my sentence. The opportunity presented itself.”
With some effort and a lot of grunting, he manages to stand upright, though he’s hunching