Serix looked away from Cassie when she said she knew he was injured. He wanted to punch Hunter. He had been trying so hard to hide his pain from her, and the human just had to come along and spoil all of his efforts. He stared at the ground, his mind racing to come up with a feasible excuse. He couldn’t tell her about the beatings. The truth would just upset her more, and he didn’t want to do that to his mate.

After a moment, Serix remembered that Ryan had struck him in the jaw yesterday. Next to the searing pain in his back, he barely even noticed it, but there was a faint bruise just to the left of his chin. Maybe he could use that to his advantage. He looked up at Cassie again, meeting her eyes in the dark, “Fine. I didn’t want to tell you because you’re already worried, but they didn’t just question me.” He sighed in resignation and moved closer to her, forcing himself to ignore the sharp protest of his muscles when he did so. “They roughed me up a bit, too, but I’m okay.” He tapped the dark spot on his jawline, leaning close to the metal bars so Cassie might be able to see it. “It’s nothing you should be concerned about, alright? Don’t listen to Hunter. He’s just trying to make you worry.” He reached for Cassie’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll make it out of this soon. I promise.”

Suddenly, Serix was struck with another harsh wave of pain. He pulled away from Cassie and took a steadying breath, but this one was worse than usual. He lowered his head slightly, using the darkness of the room to shadow his face so his mate wouldn’t be able to see him wince. Once it passed, he lay down on his stomach, acting like he was merely fatigued.

“If all goes well, we might even get out of here tomorrow,” he said quietly, closing his eyes. As soon as he was lying down, he could feel the weight of everything that had happened during those past two days come crashing down on him. He began to slip from consciousness again. “Why don’t we get some sleep? It will make tomorrow arrive more quickly,” he murmured tiredly. “I love you, Cassie.”