The Betrayal

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"If you tell us, you can eat," Valerio said.

The man sealed his lips, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. I growled down at him. We had been sitting here for hours. Valerio's tried everything to get him to speak.

Valerio stood, the legs of his chair screeching against the cement floor. He walked up to me and watched the man fiddle with the silver cuffs on his wrists and ankles.

"What do you want to do?" Valerio asked through mind link.

"Find out his name. Find his family, if he has any left,"I said through the mind link, clenching my jaw. "In the meantime, why don't we give him a taste of his own medicine? Maybe, that will make him talk."

I was done waiting for him to talk. If we needed information, I was going to have to get it out of him myself. We didn't have time to sit around and twiddle our thumbs as we tried to get him to talk. We needed information and we needed it now. Pups were going to die. Innocent pups. Didn't these Challengers have any ounce of sympathy?

Pushing myself off of the wall, I stalked over to a table with different types of silver blades on it.

"Mae... I don't know if this is a good idea. Remember you wanted to lead ethically and not like your mother,"Valerio echoed through the mind link.

I grabbed one of the knives in my hand, pricking my finger with its tip.

"Do you want more pups to die? Do you want to find the life drained out of them?" I asked.

Silence.

Taking a deep breath, I stalked over to the man. "You have one last chance to talk."

He gazed up at me, yet he didn't open his mouth.

I uncovered the knife bringing it up to the side of his neck and pressed the silver against his flesh. "You won't do it," he taunted.

I pressed the silver harsher against his skin and he flinched away. I shook my head at him, grabbing him by the hair to keep him in place. The knife cut into his skin, creating a slit against it.

Blood spurted out of the wound, sliding down his neck and soaking the tops of his shirt. After a few moments passed, the blood formed a puddle on the floor under his seat. His face paled. Placing my hand to his face, the cool skin chilled me.

"Get Mike to heal him," I said through the mind link to Valerio.

I didn't want this man to die. I wanted to hurt him just enough to make it unbearable to live with the pain.

The door clicked closed behind me as I continued to watch the blood seep out of him.

"Every day I'll drain you. Over and over and over again, if you don't start talking. Each day, I'll drain a little more than the last until you tell me. And, if one day you die then I'll find someone else to drain over and over again. You better pray to whoever you're worshipping right now that that someone else isn't anyone important to you."

The door reopened, and Mike and Valerio walked in. Mike sat by the man's side, closing the wound.

I turned away from him, walking to the door with Valerio. "Feed him very little. Just so he has energy for tomorrow's draining."

Valerio raised a brow at me. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

For a moment, Valerio looked strained, but the emotion evaporated from his face and he nodded.

"If you need me, I'll be at Damon's. I told him, I'd see him today..." I glanced at the darkness in the window. "And, it's nearly night already."

"Are you going to warn him that Luca is going to attack him soon?"