Page 104 of No One’s Daughter

​I wouldn’t tell them anything.

​They’d have to kill me first.

​I wouldn’t betray her, Cathal or the network.

​My thoughts returned to Besian—as he’d called himself—as I tore through my mind for any recollection of him, but I couldn’t place him. He told a high tale but as much as I didn’t want to believe him, he fit the profile for who we’d been hunting. He was ancient, unhinged, different to the vampires of this age, but a vampire no less. It explained why the crime scenes had been so confusing. But what on hell’s fresh earth was he doing working with Valerius. And how had he woken from his millennia of deep sleep. That alone was an interesting one. I’d heard of true borns forced into sleep, into a state of desecration. Though when—if—they woke, they were typically mad from the lack of blood and years of torture, and weakened to an extreme. That didn’t seem to hold true for Besian. Which only deepened the mystery around him.

​He was too strong to ignore. He’d be a problem for sure… if we ever made it out of this mess, that was. I wondered what Besian’s angle was and if he could potentially be used against Valerius.

I was ripped from my thoughts by the stench of Brandon entering the room. He eyed me with sadistic humour in his gaze. “Davien,” he said, like my name was a curse. When I didn’t respond he spat at me, but the problem for him was that I was well aware of what he was doing. I wrote the fucking playbook he was playing by. He wouldn’t get a rise out of me.

​I was happy to meet death head on.

He slowly circled me, “Why did you hide her from us?”

I refused to answer.

“What’s your real agenda?”

Again, my lips stayed sealed. My eyes fixed on the hard concrete beneath my feet.

“What is her magic?”

“Who are you working with?”

“Where were you planning to go?”

“How long have you been betraying us?”

“Who do you work for?”

“Is your maker a part of this?”

The questions kept coming and silence remained my only response.

“Maybe a change in tactics will make you more inclined to talk.”

My heart sank at the understanding.

My jaw clenched as I felt her pain tear through my body. It felt as though they’d hit me but it was so much worse because I knew it was her pain rather than my own I felt.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“So you can speak, how marvellous. Now, let’s try this again.”

I clamped my jaw shut, my muscles flexing with each question I refused to answer. I stared daggers at him, picturing multiple ways in which I’d kill him the second I got a chance. Maybe I’d cut off his dick and make him eat it. Or maybe, I’d cut him to pieces limb by limb.

The questions kept coming on repeat, but with each, a new flare of pain erupted over me without anyone touching me.

They were fucking torturing her because of me.

I lunged forward, my muscles bulging against my restraints as I fought like an animal to end him for doing this to her.

If I answered their fucking questions it would put her in even more danger.

“Fucking hit me instead you coward,” I snarled.

I’d been tortured before, I could take it. Part of me knew she could too, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to have to. I pictured that coy smile of hers, the sound of laughter after some sarcastic remark. And then the brutal reality of what I knew they were doing to her just a few doors down, while I sat here helplessly like the pathetic failure I was.