Page 46 of All Saints Day
“Don’t know where this came from either,cretin?” I place my cigarette between my lips before reaching out with my newly freed fingers to flick the scar in the cartilage of his left ear.
He winces, eyes watering; not because the flick was painful, but because I—another of Frank’s fated mates—have just made contact with what I can only assume is a bite from the dearly departed Michael Duboze.
“All this name-calling,” Rook chuckles easily. “Shoot me if you’re going to shoot me; otherwise, can you give me a light?”
I decide that I’ve been more diplomatic than he deserves already, and give him a left hook to the chin—sending the bent cigarette flying and Rook tumbling onto his side.
“You’re not the boss anymore, Frank—Rook, whoever the fuck you are,” I spit angrily. “You don’t get to make the rules or tell me what to do. From here on out, you listen and you followorders or you’re going to find yourself very hurt, and then very dead,” I explain slowly, toeing his shoulder with my boot so that he lies on his stomach. His face is turned to one side against the wooden ship’s deck, and his bound wrists are forcing his shoulders forward into the ground.
“Oh no, the big scawwy gamma is tawking so tuff,” he mewls in a baby voice—trying to demonstrate how unintimidated he is by me.
Ignoring him, I return my gun to the holster at the small of my back and take a step so that I am standing astride the prone Frank.
I can smell the change in his scent as I drop to one knee—kneeling down low so that I can speak directly into his scarred ear.
“You know what they did to Louise when she didn’t want to talk to them?” My hands travel down his shoulders, dragging over his triceps, hyper-extended elbows, and along his forearms until I reach his hands—his scent turns sour with fear even if his face and voice don’t betray any trace of worry.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me, gorgeous,” he lobs back flirtatiously.
I pivot, letting one of my knees put pressure on his back as I close one of my hands around his right index finger—the precious trigger finger on his dominant hand.
“Woah, why don’t you buy me dinner first, tiger—or a drink at the very least,” he grunts out brazenly, but I can smell the acrid stench of panic beneath the too-strong notes of cedar, styrax, and gunpowder.
“I think a demonstration will be clearest,non?” I continue in a chipper tone, ignoring his flirtatious deflections; my knee presses hard enough to draw a pained wheeze from my captive.
Without waiting for a response, I continue my personal interrogation.
“You didn’t know that Louise was your fated mate until that day at the tank, eh?”
“What does it matter whether I knew or not? I know now—you’re not even asking the important questions,” he huffs a laugh as I put pressure on his finger, bending the tender digit ever so slightly in the wrong direction.
“So what are the right questions, hm?” I croon, his finger giving a slight pop as I press toward dislocation.
“You think I don’t want my fated mate? You think I’m not already planning how to make her mine and only mine?” his scent blooms, warm and sweet—none of that sour tang of fear from earlier. He must really be buying what he’s selling—his desire for Louise.
It’s not some kind of act—not a trick. Frank’s psyche, for whatever collection of reasons, has been shattered into the sharp shards of these different men; Frank, Francis, Rook… he doesn’t know how to give me what I want, but even so, I can’t help myself. I’m still hurt, I’m still angry—I want to make him hurt too. Not by breaking his trigger finger or suffocating him—but by breaking whatever poisonous rotten heart he has, into a million tiny pieces.
“Fine, you want a good question—tell me this,putain; who is Patrick Castle?”
Rook’s smile falls, and he goes very still.
“Who told you that name?” he hisses—his eyes straining up from his place on the ground to search my face.
“What’s Castle security, eh?” I goad him—his body struggling against mine for the first time.
“Don’t you EVER say that name again!” Rook barks out in his full alpha aura—and it takes everything in me not to crumble into submission at that sound.
I was foolish to think that I could get something out of him—even if was just my own satisfaction.
A long, heavy sigh escapes me as I haul myself to my feet—looking out over the moonlit black waters. In a moment I will collect this nightmare of a man and bring him back into his temporary lavatory cell. Once we’ve made it to the waypoint, I can revisit his interrogation with the help of the others.
We can’t afford to have a hysterical barking Frank ruin the operation, so I un-holster my gun and give him a quick crack across the back of the head with its butt.
With a cold, hard, packing sound, he goes limp, and the safety of silence falls over us once more.
Chapter 16
Cazimer
