AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wasn’t choking him right now, still my hold on him was uncomfortable. I flexed my fingers to prove that I would squeeze again if he gave me cause to.
“Please. I haven’t seen her since… the park… please. I didn’t know she caught your eye… I didn’t…” He coughed. “I would have never pursued her had I known…”
I let go of his throat, but pinned him in place with my eyes. “You pursued her.”
Something like outrage flickered in his gaze. “You can’t fault a male for trying to get a beautiful merrily’s attention, to try and figure out if she is the ONE.”
I shook my head. “Nocc, but I can fault you for having something to do with her abduction.”
His eyes widened. “Abduction? Lady Heather was abdu—” He broke off when I turned my head to Commander Noctus and waved my hand.
One of the walls turned into a screen. A still shot of the holovid taken by the security cameras. Noctus had already anticipated exactly what I would need.
On the hologram the three males, wearing Vodin’s colors, carried a struggling Heather. The hologram still managed to sour my stomach. Acid rose and flames kindled, just waiting to ignite my fury anew.
“By Staphor… nocc! Nocc, those are not my guards.” Vodin exhaled loudly.
I watched him closely. He looked horrified, stricken. Some people had the gift of masking their guilt, their desires, Lady Madeema was one of them, her features were always schooled, she could change masks in the span of a click, but I didn’t think Vodin was one of them. His horror was genuine.
“Please, Your Imperial Highness. Those are not my males. I swear by Staphor’s living soul.”
“They’re wearing your colors,” Noctus grunted from behind me. I crossed my arms over my chest, still scowling at Vodin who stepped closer to the hologram. I kept studying him just as hard as he was studying the males, their uniforms.
“They must have stolen them from my guards,” he concluded. “I swear I had nothing to do with this. I would never harm a merrily like this or any other way. Especially not Lady Heather. She’s special.”
“Vra, she is,” I agreed, and threw a glance at Noctus who shrugged imperceptibly, coming to the same conclusion as I. Unless I had lost my edge in reading others, this male was innocent in Heather’s abduction. A pawn, a decoy.
A decoy for what? Or better yet, for whom? I wondered.
I hit my fist into the hologram, embedding it into the unforgiving wall. I did not care about the pain in my knuckles, other than welcoming it, because it overshadowed the pain in my heart for just a few clicks.
The only thing I knew without a doubt was that Lady Natoi was involved in Heather’s abduction. She had lied, had even ordered evidence to be cleaned up. But she couldn’t possibly be the mastermind behind this. This was too elaborate for her. Too clever.
So that bore the question again as to who had something to gain from taking Heather. If they were going to blackmail me with her, they would have done so already, wouldn’t they?
“Is there any way the Cryons could have bribed Pandraxians to do this?” I asked Commander Noctus, who gave my suggestions a few clicks to think it over.
“Everything is possible for the right amount of credits, I suppose,” he finally said.
“But you don’t think it a consideration?” I pushed.
“I didn’t say that.” Thoughtfully, he stared at Vodin without seeing him. “I suppose it’s a route we need to consider,” he finally said, making it obvious he felt as uneasy about the conclusion as I did. It made sense though. Because as far as I could see, the Cryons were the only ones who could gain from this by blackmailing me into backing off them and Earth. It actually made some sense. More than any other option I could come up with.
I was dead tired, hungry, and sore from the kind of physical work Gitgo forced me to do. I had never worked this physically hard in my life. At some point, Gitgo walked past me, back upstairs to assumably his bedroom, and I collapsed onto a somewhat-cleaned beanbag chair where I instantly fell asleep.
Not into a deep sleep though. Every little noise startled me, but at least I got some shut-eye to let my tired mind and exhausted body rest.
I wasn’t sure if it was day or night, or how many hours had passed, but it was dark in the house and quiet. My stomach twisted painfully from hunger and I wondered if Gitgo was ever going to feed me, or if he intended to starve me to death.
Carefully, I extracted myself from the beanbag chair—it was easier to get in than out—and walked the few paces into the kitchen.
The fridge opened silently, allowing me to peruse the contents. The salami thing he had eaten earlier caught my eye and I broke a piece off, sniffing it carefully before I stuffed it into my mouth.
It was brittle and tasted salty, but my empty stomach welcomed it. I broke off another piece, and then another. Before long, I had stuffed nearly half of it into my mouth and forced myself to stop.
I poured a glass of water, praying the slightly grayish liquid wouldn’t make me sick, and thirstily drank it down, where it mixed with the salami. I felt as good as possible under my given circumstances. There was no way Gitgo would miss that I had eaten half of his food, but I was prepared to face the consequences because I wasn’t ready to starve to death.
Next, I walked to one of the windows and peered out through a narrow slit where the metal covering the glass hadn’t been aligned properly.
