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“I know.” I clenched my jaw. “Have her shadowed. If she pisses, I want to know.”
“Vra, Emperor.” Noctus sent his orders through his comm. “Do you think she has the lady hidden somewhere?”
I shook my head. “Whoever is behind this is smarter than Lady Natoi. Nocc, this is too elaborate for her to be of her making, but I do believe she is involved.”
“Why?” Noctus probed, as any good investigator would.
“Because she has set her sights on me? Or better, on becoming empress,” I corrected myself. “And when I showed interest in Heather, I endangered those plans.”
I should have never allowed Heather to leave that night. Never. She would be safe and sound by my side now had I not been such a coward, wanting to hide our relationship.
Never again, I swore. If Staphor showed himself merciful enough to bring her back to me, I would never allow her out of my sight again. I would make her my empress, consequences be damned. Only then would she be safe. I was the frygging emperor and I did as I pleased.
“Interrogate all of Lady Natoi’s servants. If one of them made Lady Heather’s bed that night or in the morning, I want to know,” I pressed out my last order for Noctus before he left.
Once he was gone, I gave in to the impulse that had been itching inside me for hours. I grabbed the decanter Lady Madeema had fingered the day before and threw it against the wall, where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
No guards entered, used to this sound.
This time the bang and shrill rattle of breaking glass didn’t soothe me though. Instead, the sound echoed inside my heart, making it feel as if it too was breaking like the decanter into a hundred thousand little shards of glass, cutting my insides.
Heather, was all I could think. Be strong. I will find you, I vowed.
It was only an hour later when one of Lady Natoi’s servants confessed that she had made the bed after Heather’s abduction.
“Bring Lady Natoi in and make her tell you where they’re keeping Lady Heather,” I hissed at Lady Madeema, making one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
“She didn’t orchestrate this alone,” Lady Madeema echoed my earlier thoughts.
“Nocc. Make her tell you who her coconspirators are and bring them in as well.”
“Sir Vodin,” Lady Madeema suggested without hesitation, she too had seen the security footage.
“Commander Noctus is already investigating Sir Vodin’s guards. He will find them,” I filled Lady Madeema in, who looked a bit surprised.
“Excellent,” she praised, but there wasn’t much vigor in her voice. I put it down to her rivalry with Commander Noctus though. At that point, I had no reason to mistrust her, at least not in a way that would suggest the treachery she was committing against me. I always thought of her as sneaky but having my best interests at heart. I thought her loyal.
“I want you, personally, to interrogate Lady Natoi.”
“It will be my pleasure.” Her expression was gleeful. I knew she enjoyed this part of her job the most. She had a devious streak in her that made her perfect for being my intelligence officer. The same streak that would have made her a terrible empress.
“I will update you as soon as I have something,” she assured me before she left.
I was left alone once again to suffer imagining what Heather was going through, and the pain of it nearly debilitated me. My fault, I accused myself, my fault.
At some point, I sat down exhausted by the kitchen table, rested my head on the now-clean surface, and fell asleep.
“Get up you lazy calleio!”
The oozing-puss alien’s voice ripped me from my sleep, and instantly brought me back to my reality as a prisoner. It took me a moment to open my eyes—losing a few lashes in the process—since they were clumped together by crud from dried tears, indicating that I must have cried in my sleep.
“What?” I sat up.
“I told you to clean up,” he snarled.
“I did,” I said, looking around the kitchen, which was, if not spotless, at least a lot cleaner than before.
“And what is this?” He smeared one of his six fingers between the counter and stove. The grease that had filled the space in between was so thick that none of the cleaning liquids I had used had managed to get it all out. It hadn’t helped that the stove was too heavy for me to drag out.
