“You tortured her,” I interjected coldly.
“I…she…she,” he blabbered.
“You tortured her,” I repeated.
Lupercus chuckled darkly, leaning against the cell wall. “Now, now, Joe. Let’s not embarrass yourself with excuses. You look like a soggy biscuit and sound like one too.”
“I…I did what I thought was best for my pack,” he stammered.
I stepped closer.
Joe scrambled back on all fours like a rat cornered.
“You didn’t follow orders,” I shot at him. “You violated sacred law. You took a life that wasn’t yours to break. And most importantly, you touched what is mine.”
Joe sobbed, pressing himself against the wall. “I’m sorry, I swear, I didn’t mean-“
Lupercus clapped his hands. “Can we skip the weeping monologue? You’ve cried more in this cell than a toddler watching their mom leave the room. Geez!”
Joe wailed.
“I’m not here for your screams,” I told him. “I’m here for your confession. Every detail. Every bruise and method you used on her. You’ll speak, and if I even suspect you’re lying…”
Lupercus pulled out a dagger and let the blade kiss the flickering torchlight. “We get creative.”
Joe’s head thudded against the wall as he slumped, sobbing into his knees.
“Lupercus,” I called, not sparing Joe a glance as I turned away.
“Boss,” he answered smoothly, already on alert.
“I want all of them, the scum arrested alongside him strapped down in the interrogation room. Now.”
He grinned like I’d just handed him a birthday present. “On it, boss.”
Behind me, Joe collapsed to his knees.
“P-Please, Your Majesty,” he choked out, crawling forward like a worm. “I beg for mercy… I can’t take it anymore…”
His words were fragile, pitiful, and meant to appeal to something soft in me. But all it did was feed the fire.
Narine’s voice haunted me.
“Please, please, please, Joe, don’t do this…”
No.
Joe’s pain wasn’t enough yet.
I shot him a final, contemptuous glance and strode toward the interrogation room.
The metal door loomed at the end of the corridor tall, thick, and smeared with rust and old blood that would never come off. It groaned open at my touch, revealing the room inside.
The Pit, we called it.
Not officially. But every soldier, every guard, every fucker who’d ever been brought here knew the name.
The room was hexagonal, the walls were obsidian black and lined with silver runes that absorbed sound. No one outside would hear what happened in here. In the center, a long steel table gleamed under a single low-hanging lightbulb, flickering slightly with a buzz.
Twelve reinforced chairs were bolted to the floor on one side. I re-rolled up my hoodie sleeves to the elbow.
This would get messy.
At the table, I began laying out the tools. An obsidian knife, a silver-threaded scalpel, a pair of bone pliers, branding iron, a glass vial of wolfsbane extract, and a hammer.
The door burst open.
Lupercus strolled in, dragging nine whimpering bodies like broken dolls behind him. They were soaked in their own filth, smeared with sweat and blood. Flies buzzed lazily around them, and maggots squirmed in open sores.
“Alright, fuckers,” he called out. “Take your seats. You…” he kicked Joe forward “get the middle one. Our guest of honor.”
They obeyed, trembling, whimpering, and stumbling over each other as they sank into their chairs.
One by one, Lupercus strapped them in with thick silver cuffs on their wrists and ankles.
“Gross,” he muttered. “Y’all smell like a septic tank fucked a corpse.”
He took the seat across from me with a little sigh, folding one leg over the other like we were about to have afternoon tea. I picked up a Thornsteel knife. Using a silver-coated knife would be a mercy, they would heal, albeit painfully, but Thornsteel? Its metallic tendrils burrow into flesh and hook into the nervous system. It physically connects to the pain centers and pulses with agony. It’s not something everyone knew, just the royal families.
I stood up and went round the table, and sat on the edge. I grinned wickedly, twirling the knife in my fingers like a lover’s caress.
“Fellas,” I purred, “shall we begin?”
Their eyes widened at the knife, and terror swelled in the room like smoke.
“Now… who would like to tell me why Narine was tortured, truthfully this time?”
Silence.
I sighed, long and disappointed. “Pity.”
I turned to the one closest. His eyes met mine, and I drove the knife through his palm with a wet crunch and twisted it until the bone splintered. I twisted the blade and yanked it free. Blood splattered on my body, but I didn’t care, nor did I care for his scream of agony.
I sighed again.
Before he could gasp, I grabbed his jaw, wrenched it open, and in one brutal motion ‘schhlk!’, sliced out his tongue. The wet muscle hit the floor with a slap, twitching.
“Yuck. I think that landed near my boot.” Lupercus complained, lifting his leg away.
“Ahh,” I mumbled, flicking the blood off the Thornsteel knife. “Silence again. How beautiful.” “Now… who’s next?”
The one closest to Joe began to sob, his eyes went wide as he watched the tongue-less fool writhing in piss and blood on the chair. His lips trembled like a coward.
“We only followed Alpha Joe’s command, Your Majesty,” he sobbed. “I swear, I didn’t know anything. He just told us she was a monster and that we had to kill her before she killed us.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” Another piped in. “I swear on my lineage, I didn’t lay a hand on her. All I did was hold her down… that’s all. That’s all I did…”
“Hmmm,” I drawled, narrowing my eyes. “Monster? Worse than lycans?”
I leaned forward. “You must think I’m here to play games.”
“They’re telling the truth, Your Majesty.” Joe rasped. “These two weren’t there, but I was. I saw her change. She was bigger than any werewolf I’ve seen, but not quite the size of a Lycan. That’s not the worst part.”
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