Warlord Wants Forever - Kresley Cole [11]
They wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Well, shite, they knew something she didn’t. Wroth hadn’t kept her as she’d hoped. She was in trouble, and she suspected she knew why. If you do happen to have information, I can get it from you, he’d said.
When they closed the cell door behind her, and she realized she was the only one in the dungeon, her fears were confirmed. The low beings here—those who made up the Saturday night creature-feature underbelly of the Lore—had been taken away, no doubt to be tortured and killed.
She was the only girl left on the dance floor, but not for long, she knew, because none of the others would’ve talked. Of course, she’d threatened to peel them, and their families, for revealing any information, and there was a reason that “And may you never feel a Valkyrie’s breath at your back” was a drinking toast among the Lore. The vampires might come and take one’s village, but the Valkyrie would creep in, hiding under a bed to take one’s head from one’s pillow. Their word was law.
Which left her…She looked up when she heard boots clicking over the stone.
“Listen carefully, Myst,” Wroth said as a guard opened her cell before leaving them. “I’m going to ask you questions about your kind and about the different factions in the Lore. You must answer them or I’ve been ordered to get the information from you by force.”
“Torture? Ordered? Can’t disobey Kristoff for me?”
“Myst, you know I’d be dead if not for him. My brothers and friends as well. My life has not been my own since that night.”
He was actually serious about this. But then Myst hadn’t been kidding either when she’d said that torture really pissed her off. She’d been giving Wroth preferential treatment because he was, like, a celebrity in martial circles, but now he’d taken a plunge into vampirism—and she needed to remember that. She’d push and cajole to the end but after that…Bring it, leech. Still bubbly friendly, she said, “Wroth, you could help me escape—”
“I swore my fealty and I’ll see my order through. Answer or you’ll face the consequences,” he said. “I’ll begin with the most basic. What are you?”
“Pussy Cat Doll?” she asked, immediately doing a slow headshake at his look. “Judge, jury and executioner.” He scowled. Her eyes lit up. “Transient! What? Really. No? Babe in Toyland?”
“Damn it, Myst, just answer the questions. Then you can come back up to my room.” He lowered his voice and curled his finger under her chin. “We can sleep together again as we did today—”
“But you don’t understand that torture would be easier for me than to go back to the Lore as an informant.” She’d no longer be an A-lister, an “avoid at all costs” enemy. She’d lose her status as a creature with which one did not fuck.
“My brother has tried to get information from the others—”
“But they didn’t talk either, huh?” Did she sound smug?
He seemed to shake himself, hardening his resolve. “You’re leaving me little choice.”
Well. She was about to experience first-hand the Overlord’s ruthlessness she’d admired, because apparently he’d decided she was an enemy just when she’d thought they were getting kinda cozy.
Way to hurt my feelings, Wroth. She sniffled. Now I’ll really have to kill you.
With his thoughts constantly on her throughout the night, he’d stalled for hours, as much as he could, waiting till nearly dawn, ensuring it would at least be brief.
“You’re really going to do this?” she asked as she turned from him, moving into the back corner.
Her shoulders were shaking, and he suspected she was laughing. When he crossed to her, taking her arm and turning her, he was shocked to find genuine tears streaming down her heartbreakingly beautiful face. “Wroth, I thought we had an arrangement.” She cast him