Chapter 225. Interrogations I
Maisie
There’s an overwhelmingly hostile aura leaking out of all three of them, stuffing the interrogation chamber as if it weren’t already hard enough to sit across from them and pretend they meant nothing to me.
I forced myself to sit still.
Under the table my nails dug into my trembling fists as I stared Soren head on, ignoring Mercer and Jericho. Mercer, because I feared he had the ability to open his mouth and destabilize me with one harsh word. Jericho, because he’d always had a way to strip me bare without even speaking.
Quinlan was noticeably absent and I tried hard not to think about what that meant.
Maybe he had written me off. Maybe he too believed the worst of me and didn’t think I was even worth looking at.
I took it as a small blessing. It meant I didn’t have to see the hatred in his eyes, too.
Soren flicked the stylus pen between his index and middle fingers calmly, but I’d spent enough time around him to know when the man was pissed off and restraining himself from acting rash.
It was in the way his aura kept attacking mine and choking the air from around me, leaving me with only enough to make my head woozy and my body titter on the dangerous edge of excitement and fear.
He had changed, too.
He was bigger than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, the muscles of his arms straining against the dark fabric of his shirt whenever he moved. His face had hardened into something colder and more severe. The softness that had come to stay around his mouth the longer we knew each other was now gone.
Jericho sat to his left, silent as ever. His silver hair was a few inches longer, nearly hiding his eyes, but I felt them on me anyway. He hadn’t looked away from me since I woke, like he thought if he looked any deeper, he might find something left of the woman he had fallen for.
My Lycan stirred the moment I took them in.
Mine.
I clenched my jaw. Shut up.
Look at them. Look how strong they became. They got harder without us. We should climb across the table and sit in the dark one’s lap. We should kiss his neck and place our mark on him again. You want that too, don’t you?
I dug my nails deeper into my palms. The perks of spending months training my mind and my body? It gave me some advantage over my Lycan. She could no longer snatch control of the reins whenever she wanted to.
And believe me, she was trying so hard right now. My body kept jerking imperceptibly each time I refused her what she wanted.
On second thoughts, I want the redhead first. I want to sink my teeth into that pretty throat and make him snarl. Then the silver one. I want him on his knees. Our scents on them have faded significantly. We should correct that so they can never wash us off them.
I ignored her.
"You’ve been on the run for nine months," Soren said professionally. He’d been speaking in that same tone for the past five minutes, without looking at me once. He tapped the screen with his stylus pen and the projector on the left side of me pulled up images of me in every city I had worked and fled towards.
There was one in particular where I’d dyed my hair purple, colored the area of my eyes dark and traded my blue eyes for black contacts. I also had a lip piercing. I thought it was my best disguise so far, but Jericho didn’t think so, because his mouth curled in disdain at the sight of it.
"The Council believes this behavior indicates guilt," Soren added. "Do you plead guilty to your charges, Maisie Adams?"
I didn’t think I would miss him calling me just by my last name affectionately, but it took him saying the name like it was poison to make me realize I did.
I said nothing.
Soren leaned forward, his elbows resting against the edge of the table. The movement made the muscles in his arms flex hard against his sleeves.
And when he lifted his gaze to mine again, the weight of his stare felt physical, like he was touching me with those pretty fingers of his.
"Does your silence mean you plead innocent, then?"
When I did nothing but stare at him blankly, he said, "You should know, not cooperating with an active investigation is a crime in itself. No one else out there cares enough to sit through an interrogation with a criminal. They all want you dead–"
"And you don’t?"
He blinked once at the question. "This process is being recorded and will help the Council reach a verdict. It is in your best interest that you answer every question correctly."
"And since when do you speak for the Council?" I murmured.
He tilted his head. "Since I became a Councilman, one in charge of your case at that." He glanced down at the tablet. "Why were you at the Ridge on the eve of the 31st of October?"
I was kidnapped. "It’s all true. The allegations," I said dryly. "You can cut to the chase and tell me how I die." Lock me up until my execution, just so I can get out and fulfil the promise I made to myself. And maybe then, I would really deserve an execution, I definitely didn’t add.
Mercer made a sound that might have been a growl or a laugh, and then he shook his head. "I told you this was a waste of time."
Soren’s stylus flicked again. "How did Lyon Park die?"
"I stabbed him six times and shoved him off the cliff with my foot."
Violet eyes searched mine for something he would never find. "Why?"
I shrugged. "He was annoying me."
Hopefully, they thought I was enough of an unhinged bitch to buy that story, because there was no way I was dragging Lyon’s name anywhere in the mud with me. I would prove his innocence somehow, and I would avenge his and my baby’s deaths.
Soren’s expression didn’t change. "Where did you stab him?"