“Any other family?”
“My grandmother, Delphine Rider,” I said. “But I am not sure if she petitioned for my release.”
He looked at me again. “She did,” he said simply. “Insistently.”
I absorbed this information.
“When were you marked as one of the Chosen?” he asked.
I breathed in. Remembered in a flash when the men had come. How they’d held me down as I fought, how they’d extracted my blood.
“I was sixteen,” I said, knowing this was going to prompt a further line of questioning. I didn’t lie, because I didn’t see a point. He clearly had done extensive research into my identity. I didn’t know what pitfalls awaited. What information he was asking merely to see how truthful I was being with him.
I wanted him to think I was fully compliant.
“And how old are you now?”
This was the damning question. I hesitated a full ten seconds before I replied. Finally, the word fell from my lips, and with it, my heart.
“Nineteen.”
I was a full year past the required time when I was to present myself to be taken to the capital to be given as a mate to a Sworn. I’d hidden the truth of what I was for almost fourteen months.
Vixor wrote something else down. He didn’t look at me. He reached out and tapped my wrist, the one with the mark on it.
“This thing you wear on your wrist,” he said. “What is it? Some rebel symbol? Some secret act of defiance?”
My honeysuckle necklace. I unconsciously put my hand over it, fear spiking in my chest that he might confiscate it as contraband. “It’s nothing,” I breathed.
His gaze flicked to mine, pinning me into my chair with a stare that sparked with unspoken dangers, and then he rose and walked around the desk. He stood over me, radiating coldness. He reached out and put one finger under my chin, lifting it so my face was tipped toward his.
When he spoke again, his voice was a dangerous purr.
“I can make you tell me anything,” he said. “I have broken seasoned men and women, agents trained to resist torture. I can break you too. So, tell me the truth, Meredith Rider.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
“It’s nothing,” I said again. “Just a necklace. A gift from an old friend.”
“Was this old friend a member of the Order of the Crimson?”
“No,” I said sharply.
His brow curved as if he didn’t believe me. His expression intensified, making him look even more terrifyingly beautiful. “Who is this friend? What is his name?”
Heat rose in me. I didn’t want to sully my best friend’s memory before this monster. Kassian had been killed by werewolves. How dare the Silver Wolf drag him into this interrogation?
But Vixor Rae was waiting for my response. His finger was still beneath my chin, and I could feel the heat of his hand through the glove.
I would not speak my beloved Kassian’s name to this monster.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “It was from a long time ago. I was only a child.” And then, I felt as if I’d betrayed something precious.
Vixor released me and returned to his chair. His expression did not change. His face looked as if it were carved from stone as he sat again and waited coldly for me to say more.
I resisted the urge to rub the place where he had touched me. I felt vulnerable, exposed.
“Go on,” Vixor said. “What happened to this friend whose name you cannot remember?”
“He is dead,” I said. “He died nine years ago.” Tears prickled my eyes. I was so tired. Thinking of Kassian made me feel even more alone. If he were alive, he would have come for me. He wouldn’t have stood there and let me be beaten the way Neil had. The way they all had. Even my grandmother. Kassian would have fought for me. Kassian would have found a way to stop them.
But he was gone.
Sadness pooled in my chest.
“Shouldn’t necklaces be worn on the neck?” Vixor asked. He was still suspicious, I could see.
My back had begun to hurt again. The morphine, no longer dripping into my veins, must be wearing off. My answer was more irritable than was wise when facing the most fearsome Sworn in the country. “I wear it on my hand, my most precious possession, to cover the thing I hate most.”
He wrote something else. His face was expressionless.
My pulse drummed at my unexpected bravery. That had been foolish.
“Is your grandmother a member of the Order of the Crimson?”
“No,” I cried out angrily, sick of these questions. “She is not. She is an old woman who’s lost her son and her daughter-in-law. Leave her alone. I know what you really want to ask. Am I a Crim? That’s what you’re getting at, aren’t you?”
He sat back and crossed his arms. His jaw tightened. “Are you?”
Behind him, the other two Sworn leaned forward with greedy smiles, like hungry animals waiting for prey to die.
“No,” I said. “I’m not. But I wish I were.”
Another unwise act of defiance. But I was angry. Angry at his baseless accusations, at his probing questions. Angry at the world. I was marked; I was a Chosen. He wasn’t going to kill me. Let him know that I hated him and his kind. Let him know that I wished I could work against them. At that moment, I didn’t care.
I shivered with fear in the wake of my words, but Vixor Rae didn’t backhand me or scold me.
“Such spirit,” he remarked blandly. But his eyes glowed. Once again, I felt a shiver, as if he were trailing a blade lightly across my skin with that gaze.
The female Sworn yawned. “I grow tired of this, Vix. Are you going to punish her or not?”
Vixor Rae lifted a hand, and the other Sworn fell silent. It was clear, despite her posturing, who was the one in charge.
The Silver Wolf rose. When he spoke, it was with the careless authority of one who knows he will be obeyed.
“Go home and gather your things. You will be transported immediately to the capital city, for you are in truancy of your summons as a marked woman.”
My stomach twisted.
My summons.
I’d known somewhere inside me that this was going to be the end of things. I knew they wouldn’t let me return to my former life. But still, I must have harbored a hope that they wouldn’t want me. Because that hope shriveled and died as I watched him tear the paper he’d been writing on from the book and slip it inside a pocket at his hip. He called a command, and the guard waiting outside entered the room.
“Escort Miss Rider out of the prison,” he said.
With that, the guard took my arm and led me away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SUN BLINDED my eyes as I stumbled through the gate of the prison and down the gravel road toward the village. The sky was a harsh, cloudless blue, and the air was biting cold.
I was shaking all over from the interrogation. I felt as if I’d fallen from a great height and somehow survived unscathed.
But this nightmare wasn’t finished yet.
I had to get home and see my grandmother. I had to pack my bags. I had to get out of here. Going to the capital was not an option. I’d take to the forest first, live like a hermit all alone. I wouldn’t be a breeder for the enemy. I wouldn’t bear a baby for one of those monsters.