Chapter 99: Chapter 98: Interrogation 2
The old man stepped forward, his hands beginning to glow with soft blue light. "This will be uncomfortable," he warned Cassandra. "But it won’t cause permanent damage. Unless you continue to lie while under compulsion. Then your mind may... fracture from the cognitive dissonance."
"Wait....." Cassandra tried to pull away, but the manacles held her fast. "Wait, please...."
Elder Markov placed his glowing hands on either side of her head. Cassandra screamed....a sound of pure psychological agony as the compulsion took hold. Her body went rigid, every muscle locked in stress.
"Now," Elder Markov said, his voice echoing strangely. "Tell us the truth. Did anyone contact you about Eve’s heritage?"
"Yes!" The word was torn from Cassandra’s throat against her will. "Yes, someone contacted me!"
"Who?" Damian demanded.
"I don’t know his name!" Cassandra sobbed. "He never gave one. Just a voice....through a communication crystal he left in my room three weeks ago. He said he knew what Eve was, knew she was important, knew I had access to her. He offered money....so much money....if I could provide proof of her lineage."
"What did you tell him?" Silas’s voice was deadly quiet.
"Nothing yet!" Cassandra insisted. "I swear, I haven’t communicated anything back. I was still gathering information, still deciding if I was really going to go through with it...."
"Where is the crystal?" Damon interrupted.
"Hidden in my quarters. Behind the loose stone in the fireplace."
Damian nodded to Marcus Senior, who immediately left to retrieve it.
"What did this voice sound like?" Eve spoke for the first time since entering the dungeon, surprised by how steady her voice sounded.
Cassandra’s eyes found hers, hatred and pain and desperate apology all mixed together. "Cultured. Educated. Male. He had an accent....something old-world, formal. And when he spoke about you, about the Seraphim heir... there was eagerness. Hunger. Like you were prey he’d been hunting for a long time."
A chill ran down Eve’s spine. The Seraphim Court. It had to be. They’d found a way to reach into the estate, to turn someone inside against her.
"How long ago was the first contact?" Elder Markov asked.
"Three weeks," Cassandra confirmed, the compulsion still forcing truth. "Right after that night when Eve’s power surged. When everyone felt it. He said the power spike had given them a general location. He needed me to confirm she was here and provide details about her abilities, her training, her weaknesses."
"And you were going to give him all of that," Damian said, his voice colder than Eve had ever heard it. "You were going to hand over everything he needed to send assassins or worse."
"I don’t know!" Cassandra wailed. "I was conflicted! Part of me wanted revenge, wanted to hurt her like I’d been hurt. But part of me...." She looked at the brothers with desperate pleading. "Part of me still loved you. Still didn’t want to truly betray you, even if it meant punishing her."
"That’s not good enough," Damon said flatly. He pressed the knife to Cassandra’s throat....not cutting, just resting there as a promise. "You contacted an enemy of our mate. You gathered information that could get her killed. You betrayed pack law and Luna’s trust. The penalty for this is death."
"No!" Cassandra thrashed against the restraints, the movement driving the small blades in the chair’s back into her flesh. She screamed at the pain. "Please, no, I didn’t actually give them anything! I was going to destroy the crystal! I was going to...."
"Going to," Silas interrupted. "But hadn’t yet. Which means you were keeping your options open. Keeping the possibility of betrayal alive."
Marcus Senior returned, holding a small crystal that pulsed with faint red light. "Found it exactly where she said. And it’s been used.....there are three outgoing messages stored in it."
Cassandra went white. "No. That’s impossible. I never...."
Elder Markov took the crystal, examining it with narrowed eyes. "She’s not lying about not sending messages consciously. But this crystal has a passive function. It’s been recording automatically.....ambient conversations, movements in her room, anything said within range. And it’s been transmitting that data back to whoever gave it to her."
The implication hit like a bomb. Cassandra hadn’t just been considering betrayal....she’d been actively betraying them for three weeks without even knowing it. Every conversation she’d overheard about Eve’s training, every glimpse she’d caught of documents, every detail she’d accidentally witnessed.....all of it had been recorded and sent to Eve’s enemies.
"What have I done?" Cassandra whispered, horror replacing the defiance in her eyes. "Oh god, what have I done?"
"You’ve given our enemies everything they need," Damian said coldly. "Location. Abilities. Training schedule. Weaknesses. You’ve painted a target on our mate’s back and handed them the arrow."
He looked at Damon and Silas. "The penalty is clear. Pack law is absolute in cases of Luna betrayal. Marcus Senior, do you agree?"
The beta nodded gravely. "The evidence is conclusive. The penalty is death. To be carried out immediately by the alphas or their designated enforcer."
Eve’s stomach churned. She’d known this was coming, known pack law demanded Cassandra’s execution. But knowing it intellectually and watching it happen were two different things.
"Eve," Damian said, turning to her. "As Luna, you have the right to order the execution yourself. To prove you’re capable of the ruthlessness required to protect the pack. Do you want that responsibility?"
Every eye in the room turned to her. Cassandra’s tear-filled and desperate. Elder Markov’s ancient and measuring. Marcus Senior’s respectful but expectant. And her mates’.....waiting to see what she would choose.
This was a test. Not just of her authority, but of her willingness to do what was necessary. To be not just powerful but ruthless. To make the hard choices that came with being Luna and future queen.
Eve looked at Cassandra....broken, sobbing, terrified....and felt nothing but cold calculation. This woman had betrayed her. Had given enemies information that could get Eve killed. Had been willing to destroy Eve’s life out of jealousy and spite.
Compassion was a luxury Eve couldn’t afford anymore.
"I’ll do it," Eve said, her voice steady and cold. "But not quickly. She gave our enemies three weeks of information. She deserves to understand exactly what that betrayal means before she dies."
Damian’s smile was sharp and approving. "How do you want it done?"
Eve looked at the instruments on the wall, at the chair Catherine was strapped to, at the woman who’d tried to destroy her.
"I want her to feel what she tried to make me feel," Eve said. "Violation. Loss. The terror of being hunted. I want her to experience a fraction of what she’s condemned me to. And then...." Her amber eyes met Cassandra’s horrified ones. "Then I want her to know it was my hand that ended her. That the ’nothing girl from the strip club’ she hated so much was strong enough to do what needed to be done."
"Luna," Cassandra sobbed. "Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...."
"Yes, you did," Eve interrupted coldly. "You meant every bit of it. And now you’ll pay for it."
She looked at Damian. "Teach me how to make it hurt. How to make her tell us everything else she might know. And when we’re certain we have all the information....."
Eve’s hand moved to the knife Damon still held, taking it from him with steady fingers.
"Then I’ll finish it myself."
The dungeon suddenly felt much colder. Much darker. And as Cassandra’s screams echoed off the stone walls, Eve embraced the ruthlessness her new life demanded.
She wasn’t the terrified dancer anymore. Wasn’t the girl who hid behind masks and hoped no one would see her.
She was Luna. Future queen. Powerful enough to destroy her enemies.
And she was just getting started.
