Page 86 of Bound By Roses

We race through the weaving tunnels. I hear him first and the sound of those cries twist my stomach. I know those sounds because I’ve made them, courtesy of my father. As the leader of the army he was building, I would have been the prime target of Lunae’s forces. If I were captured, I’d be beaten and tortured andmy father couldn’t risk Rosewood’s location being found. He’d rather they kill me than spill his secrets.

So we’d practiced.

These screams, though, are too high for fists. Erwyn is using blades.

Abby’s breath catches when her human ears finally pick up the sounds. We round the corner into the hall that houses the room where the Guardian was supposed to be safe. When we reach it, I slam into the door and turn the wheel that opens it as fast as my hands will allow. For the first time, I’m thankful that there aren’t any locks on these doors.

“Tell me!” Erwyn shouts, pressing a knife into the man’s side. It’s not a fatal wound, and he knows it. Each time he twists the blade, another blood-curdling scream erupts from the man’s lips. The Guardian is drenched in sweat. A bruise is already forming over his left eye and a trickle of mostly dried blood runs down from his nose. That alone is all I need to know that this has been going on for at least a half hour, and it’s escalating fast.

“I swear, I don’t know!” The Guardian sputters between the agonizing twists of Erwin’s blade. The scar on my side burns with the memory of when I endured the same when I was sixteen. Though father’s knife was bigger. “Please!”

It’s the ‘please’ that does me in. I can almost hear my father’s voice in my head telling me that ‘please’ has never saved anyone.

I’m moving before I can even make the conscious decision to do so. I collide with Erwyn, careful to grip his hand and pull it cleanly from the wound before pressing him up against the wall and holding that same blade against his throat. “What the fuck are you doing?!” I shout the words I would have never dared say to my father. This man isn’t my father, but right now? I’m not seeing the difference.

“He is a prisoner and I am treating him like one,” Erwyn spits. “We need answers.”

“I’ve told you everything I know!” The Guardian is pleading, even now. I don’t have to take my eyes off the man in front of me to know that Abby will already be tending to this victim.Victim—not prisoner.

“Liar,” Erwyn growls and I press the knife deeper against his throat in warning.

“Everyone needs to calm the fuck down.” When I’m certain Erwyn isn’t going to move, I glance over my shoulder and address the Guardian. “What does he think you know?” He wouldn’t have resorted to twisting a knife in his gut if it wasn’t important.

“His men were attacked,” the Guardian sobs. “I swear, I know nothing!”

I believe him. This is a boy who has been starved, but never tortured. I turn my attention back to Erwyn. “What men? What attack?” I relax my hand ever so slightly so he has room to speak without fear of cutting himself.

He pulls in a ragged breath. I guess he was afraid to breathe, too, or maybe the residual rage had me pressing down a fraction too hard. “I sent two men on a reconnaissance mission to gather intel. They were to swim west until they reached Lunae’s mountainous border and report back any possible crossings if we were to launch an attack from the sea. There was no reason for any Guardians to have been there, as those mountains are said to be impenetrable.”

I know this. What I don’t know is why there was a mission to begin with. “What evidence is there of an attack?”

“One of your wolves found their heads this morning as they patrolled the border.”

My blood runs cold. If I’d been a wolf last night like I was supposed to be, I would have known this. I would have known before Erwyn could have gotten his hands on this boy. No doubt Abby was closed off to them too so she could focus on me.

I curse under my breath. “Why wasn’t I told about this mission?”

“Because I do not need to run my actions by you.” Oh, he’s just asking for me to slice into his flesh with the same ruthlessness executed by his hand.

“From this point on, you do.” I lower the weapon and push him towards the door. His answering scoff has me grabbing his arm and pulling him back. “Those men are dead! We can’t afford to lose our numbers.” It’s cold, but Erwyn thinks like a warrior. He can pretend to care about his men all he wants, but he sent them there to die at a time when we need every able body that can carry a sword.

“Their deaths are not on me.”

“Then who? Surely not this man.” I point the blade towards the Guardian on the bed. Abby has untied him so he can help keep pressure on his wound.

“Someone is leaking information.” Erwyn says it as if it were a fact, but I see no evidence of that.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who here would help Lunae?” The sirens have more reason to hate Lunae than we do, and I trust every one of my people enough to know that they wouldn’t betray us.

Erwyn falters just a fraction. “No one knew about that mission except those men and myself, and I very much doubt they told on themselves.”

I’m losing my patience. “Wouldn’t that makeyouthe leak?”

Erwyn growls. “I will find out who among us cannot be trusted.”

“Knock yourself out, but you won’t be using this Guardian to do it.”

He scoffs again, but this time I let him storm out and shut the door behind him. I sigh before wiping the blood from the blade on my pants and setting it down on the dresser. Thisroom is bare compared to the others, with only a single chair, dresser, and bed. Even the rope restraints on the bed are new. I guess, even with the strengthening of Marein’s military after Lunae’s attack, they hadn’t thought about creating a place to hold captives. Though, that’s likely because they didn’t plan on letting anyone live that long.

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