A/N: Some readers may find this chapter quite disconcerting, but I don't think it crosses the realm of T into M quite yet. Mega-whumpage of Carson should end with this chapter, sorry. But now it's on with the comfort portion of H/C! Alpha Pegasi, it's in your hands to outdo me with chapter 11 of "Adrift" now, but I think with this one I just might have taken away your crown. :)

WARNING: This chapter may be DISTURBING for some readers. If you are disturbed by almost-but-not-quite-rape scenes, do yourself a favor and don't read the rest of this.

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Lota knew me well enough to know that I was up to something. Being a innkeeper, she had one of those well-practiced suspicious looks that could put anyone in a position to tell her whatever she wanted to know. But I wasn't prepared to talk to her of my plan in the wide-open hallways of the tavern and inn where someone might hear me. So I motioned her to follow me into the visitors' recently vacated room, where she busied herself with changing the bedsheets for the next customer who would use the room.

"I may need a favor from you, my friend," I began hesitantly. "But it could put you in a dangerous position."

"Name it, and it's yours," she said without stopping.

I shifted uncomfortably. "Their friend, the one who went missing, is being held prisoner in the palace."

She halted curiously, looking up at me with a perplexed expression. "What favor are you asking of me?"

"I have a plan," I explained softly, leaning in closer for her to hear me better. "I have had access to the plans of the palace, and I know of a secret entrance that leads in not far from the prisons. I will rescue him myself, but we will need somewhere to hide once the palace guard discovers that he is missing. His friends will be coming back for him."

She snickered with amusement. "You? You're going to go in there and rescue him all by yourself? Well, if you manage to make it back, I'll be impressed. But I might have a safe place in the cellar to stow you and your friend in until the guards have stopped looking for you."

It was my turn to give her a perplexed look. "You still have spaces for contraband in your cellars? I thought you gave up smuggling when queen's soldiers found your stash last year."

"Hey," she said with mock disappointment and a grin. "Are you planning to turn me in, or are you going to let me help you out?"

I could not help but smile. "Thank you, Lota. I owe you one."

I turned and left quickly, leaving her smiling behind me as she returned to her work.

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Finding the latch in the wall in all that darkness had been a trivial matter; it was finding the entrance in the first place that had been tricky. I suppose it had been designed into the palace as an emergency escape route for the queen, should she ever be forced to quickly abandon the Ancient outpost. I had found it by accident, actually. I was fairly sure that the queen and I were the only people alive who knew about it, surely since the architect of the palace had been executed for treason some time ago. I had not been a part of her council yet, and thus I am unsure of the evidence that had been presented, but it was not odd that no one had ever questioned the queen's authority again after that day.

Pushing the hidden door back into place behind me, I slipped through the shadows thrown by torches in the doorways. The hallways around me were lined with numerous doors set deeply into the stone walls, with corridors in each direction leading to a separate area of the palace. I chose the hallway to the right, which if I remembered correctly, led directly to the prisons.

As I approached the cell block that contained Carson's prison, I heard hushed voices within. It was open, and as I peered around the corner cautiously, I could see two people in the cell with him. Poor Carson was pale as a sheet, and had been bound again at the wrists and ankles, with a gag placed once more over his mouth. His wrist bindings had been attached to a rope that had been tied off above his head, leaving him uncomfortably supported with his arms tautly stretched out above his head.

I slipped into the shadow of a closer door and waited for an opportunity to present itself. But the women inside, one of which was Pel'Ara, seemed to be talking about him. It made my stomach twist with anger as I realized that the other woman was a noblewoman that I had never met before, and she obviously came to examine Carson as if he were merchandise. I could hear their voices much more clearly from the doorway I watched them from.

"Do you think he'll survive the queen's experimentation?" the noblewoman asked tentatively, rubbing her chin contemplatively. "I'd hate to think I'd just be wasting my money on an injured slave who could die before I even have a chance to put him to work."

"No need to put any money down for him right now," Pel stated flatly, giving Carson a slap on the abdomen, to which he could only grunt in response. "He appears to be from good stock, and I don't think Ky has the stomach to kill him with her experimentation."

"Hmm," the noblewoman mumbled, obviously unsure of her potential purchase. "I don't know. Are you even sure that he is capable of being trained? He's quite different from the local men, especially the color of his eyes, but he seems somewhat headstrong to me."

"I wouldn't worry about that," she assured her with a cruel smile, then reached behind Carson and yanked back his head by a handful of hair. He squirmed futilely in her grip, biting against the gag and twisting his wrists in the rough ropes that bound him. "Sometimes they just need an incentive to be obedient."

The noblewoman smiled eagerly. "Is he soft?"

"Feel for yourself," Pel responded without a hint of compassion, holding him still while the other woman ran her hands across Carson's chest. He whimpered softly under the gag at her touch, continuing to twist his wrists against the scratchy rope until a few drops of blood began to stain it. I clenched my fingers into fists with anger, swearing to myself that I would make them pay for their cruelty. But what I saw next just about sent me over the edge of insanity.

"It seems too good to be true," the client said thoughtfully. "There isn't a chance that his previous owner might come to me seeking her property back, is there?"

The guard assuaged her fear with a smug smile. "I was told that his friends have already left; it was sometime this afternoon. I can't imagine that they don't believe he's dead."

Carson's hardened expression now began to betray some of his anxiety, but the noblewoman seemed quite satisfied for the moment. "Have you had a chance find out how pliable he is?"

Pel offered Carson that same depraved smile, the one that terrified me beyond all reason, and transfixed her eyes on his. "Not yet, but perhaps I should find out right now. I still have four and a half hours before the end of my shift."

"Sometimes I think I should have been a prison guard instead of a politician," the noblewoman said with a chuckle. "You will let me know how he was when you're done, won't you?"

Her eyes had not left Carson's. "Absolutely, Ma'am. You'll be the first to know."

She waited for a moment before leaving, watching Carson desperately try to wriggle himself free of the ropes as Pel stepped closer to him, but eventually decided to leave them to their privacy. I waited impatiently to make my move as the noble woman strode away with nerve-wracking slowness, leaving the door open a crack behind her, and thankfully did not see me trembling in the shadows.

Until the woman was well out of earshot, I watched in horror as Pel first touched Carson's face and lips. He could do no more than simply turn his head away from her, but that movement left his neck undefended. She pressed herself against him, running her hands along his back and neck, using her lips to give attention to his ear. He whimpered again through the gag and began to tremble, his face contorting with the frustrating of not being able to make her stop. As one of her hands slowly slid down his chest and abdomen, and was about to slip under the waistband of his underclothes, I could wait no longer.

I gripped the nearest torch securely in my hand and thrust through the door. Pel was unable to extricate herself from Carson in time to stop me from swinging the torch at her head. It impacted with a loud and satisfying crack, and she fell to the floor, unmoving. Carson's breathing was haggard and erratic as I reached out to him comfortingly, but he was still terrified and shied away from me. My heart jumped up into my throat with the feeling of guilt at being unable to come to his rescue before Pel had already begun to violate him.

Cutting the rope securing his arms above him, I first unbound his ankles, followed by his wrists before untying the gag from around his mouth. He was ice cold to the touch and still trembling, but found the courage to look up at me. When he attempted to speak a word of thanks, I placed my fingers over his lips and shushed him softly. Sounds tended to echo and carry through the stone-built hallways, and the last thing I wanted was to find myself a prisoner in the cell next to his.

He allowed me to help him to his feet, and after I shut the door to the cell block, we staggered together out into the hallway. I was not sure of the time, but I began to suspect that it was becoming alarmingly close to the time that the guard shift was supposed to change as we heard voices and footsteps echoing through the hallways around us. About to panic, I looked around for a place to hide, and suddenly spied a maintenance closet on the other side of the corridor. It was a good thing, too, because the shadows cast by the torches wouldn't hide both of us.

Upon opening the door, I shoved Carson into the far corner and closed it behind us as softly as I could. It would probably be half an hour before the guards walking about outside had all found their posts, and so I simply sat down next to Carson and put as much of myself as I could between him and the warmth-leeching stone. What worried me most was that I had not seen him shivering. It was quite chilly in the palace, nearly as cold as the temperature outside, and the lack of shivering was a telltale sign of severe hypothermia.

"I'm c-cold," he whispered softly.

I looked around in the closet, but did not see anything but the thin linen sheets assigned to prisoners who were sometimes allowed to sleep on cots. I grabbed one and wrapped it around him, then removed my button-down sweater. I was about to slip it over his shoulders when he limply leaned over against me. Of course, my medical studies reminded me, body heat was usually the best way to warm someone who was hypothermic. So I simply wrapped my arms around him gently, gasping with the shock; it was like hugging a block of ice.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and were approaching quickly. Someone was just outside the door. My breath became ragged, and I held Carson close to me as the latch was lifted. I could not let everything that I worked so hard for end like this!