Chapter 10
977 Words
VALIK POV
The guards dragged the unconscious prisoner the hall first, boots scraping stone, his body bumping against the walls. The conscious one followed without resistance, head tilted like he was curious about the architecture.
Like he was touring.
I walked behind them, the corridor narrowing again, the mountain pressing in on both sides.
The interrogation rooms were cut into the base rock—two small chambers with stone walls, a drain in the floor, a heavy table bolted down. One way glass set into the wall, dark from this side but clear from the observation corridor.
I’d used them before. I’d built my reputation in rooms like these.
I hadn’t needed them in years.
Zach stood next to me in the observation corridor as the guards got them inside. Watching. Analyzing.
The unconscious prisoner was thrown into the first room on the right. He hit the floor and didn’t move. The guards dragged him into the chair and strapped him down—leather restraints across chest and thighs, wrists tied to metal rings fixed into the table.
Iron again.
He flinched even in sleep. A twitch through his shoulders like his body hated contact.
My eyes narrowed.
The second prisoner went into the one on the left. He sat when told. He leaned back when strapped in, as if the restraint amused him.
The extra guards filed out, two remaining in the corridor as the heavy door shut, dividing the cells from the interrogation rooms.
I watched through the darkened glass set into the wall, reflective from inside the room but clear from the corridor. I looked between them both carefully, turning over everything in my mind.
“Thoughts?” Zach asked, voice careful, eyes on my profile.
The unconscious prisoner.
A wolf would be sweating fear by now. Straining against dominance. Shifting, half feral.
This one lay slack.
Too slack.
“They’re not wolves,” I said.
Zach’s jaw tightened. “Then what?”
I didn’t answer, because the truth was, I didn’t have a word for it.
“We find out,” I said, and motioned to the two remaining guards.
They stepped back into the first room with a bucket.
One of them tossed water, cold and heavy, straight into the prisoner’s face.
He jerked.
He sucked in air with a strangled sound, head snapping up, eyes flashing open too bright in the torchlight.
His gaze landed on the guards first—then shifted, slow, like a predator waking.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
His mouth curled.
“My turn already?” he rasped.
The guard backhanded him hard enough to snap his head sideways.
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Zach’s brows drew together. “That’s…”
Wrong, he meant.
I moved into the room.
The prisoner’s eyes tracked me instantly. There was a sharpness that wolves had when they were cornered. But he lacked it.
His eyes showed me everything. The absence of animal in his eyes. Not just hidden. It didn’t exist.
All I saw was the workings of the mind.
All calculation.
It was all I needed to be certain.
These two are not wolves.
“You’re the one,” he said.
His voice was thicker than the other’s. Rough. Like he’d swallowed smoke.
I stopped behind the table, letting my presence fill the space.
His gaze flicked over me and settled—interest sharpening.
“Alpha,” he said, and it wasn’t respect. It was classification.
I leaned forward, palms on the table. “You hunted a lone wolf in my territory.”
His lips quirked. “Did we?”
“You did.” I let my wolf rise just enough to make the air heavy. “Why.”
He stared at me with eyes too steady. “Why do beasts bite?”
The guard grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.
He didn’t snarl.
He didn’t bare teeth.
He just breathed, slow, like pain was a language he’d already learned.
Zach stepped in behind me. “You’ll answer,” he said. Beta voice. Steel under it.
The prisoner’s eyes slid to him. “And you,” he murmured, like Zach was an amusing accessory. “You think you’re dangerous because you wear someone else’s authority.”
Zach moved like a flash—fist to the prisoner’s mouth.
Bone cracked. Flesh gave way. Blood split his lip.
The prisoner swallowed it and smiled red. “There it is.”
I watched. Filed it away. Zach’s temper was useful. Mine was the weapon.
“Who sent you,” I asked.
The prisoner’s smile faded a fraction. Not fear—calculation again. “Sent?”
“Yes,” I said, and let my voice drop into something colder. “You didn’t cross alone. You didn’t pick a target at random. Who gave the order.”
His eyes sharpened. “You don’t even know what we’re after.”
My stomach tightened.
Not because of the words. Because my mind showed me Maethys sitting in the clinic bed, small against stone walls, terrified, eyes too big for her face.
Alone.
I forced my focus back.
“Enlighten me.” I said flatly.
He laughed again, and it turned into a cough that sprayed blood onto the table.
“Not for you,” he rasped. “Not for wolves.”
The guard slammed a fist into his ribs.
He grunted, breath catching.
Then he smiled again.
He enjoyed this.
I felt my wolf coil, offended.
I stepped forward and grabbed the prisoner’s chin, forcing his face up. His skin was cold.
Not sick-cold.
Stone-cold.
“Listen closely,” I murmured. “I don’t need you alive. I don’t need you intact. I need answers.”
His eyes glittered. “Then you won’t get them.”
I stared at him for a long beat, letting silence stretch until the air felt thin.
Then I moved.
- Writer
