The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Ten

"How long have you been working as a spy?"

My stare drills holes into the middle-aged man with three point stars on his shoulders. "I am innocent."

Master Sebastian releases a frustrated growl from where he stands over the interrogator’s shoulder. We’ve been at this for hours. All day. The chains at my wrists and ankles have chewed through skin, metal rusting with my blood.

My left eye is swollen shut and I can taste iron in my mouth. In the far corner, Thane’s ghostly figure flickers in and out, his brows furrowed deep with worry. "You look one blow away from the grave, girl."

I glare at him with my one good eye. "Whose bloody fault is that?"

"Who are you speaking to?"

Glancing forward, I find both men looking at me like I have only just managed to convince them that I’ve lost my mind. I don’t respond, returning my gaze to the window.

I look away.

"What is your real name?"

"Innocent."

"Was Eldric Ironfang a spy?"

Silence.

"How did you kill fourteen of the General’s elite by yourself? Do you carry the Ebonheart curse? Or have their beasts infected claimed you?" the interrogator presses, arms bunching on the desk.

In a couple of months, I will come to understand his questions, but in the moment, it sounds like garbled nonsense.

"I didn’t kill anyone."

"Did you have help?" His tone grows more vicious. "Is House Griffin behind this? You have been seen with Bryn--"

"I’ve also been seen with the Quartermaster," I snap. I look to Master Sebastian and give him a grin. "Maybe you’re my partner in this. Oh, but let’s not forget the stable boy. Maybe even the kitchen girl who handed me a bread roll last week. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?"

Sebastian roars, slamming his palm into the desk. The metal screeches and crashes against the wall, leaving the air shaking. "I will flay your flesh off your bones if you do not start cooperating, boy."

I wish I have it in me to be frightened. "How is the prince?"

He sneers at me. "So eager to see if you succeeded in your plans?"

I swallow down the worry that has been twisting it’s way through me all day, even with what seems like an evitable death looks over me, and raise my chin. "The Prince happens to be the only who can prove my innocence, so yes, I am very invested in knowing if I succeeded in saving his life. Or not."

Thane sighs. "Your words aren’t helping, Valka."

"Shut up, old man!"

Master Sebastian looks at the space where Thane rests against the wall, and obviously, he can’t see him and thinks I’m a nutcase.

I’m beginning to wonder myself if having a guardian comes with any other perks asides getting in trouble.

"You aren’t privy to any knowledge regarding the Prince." He draws closer and leans forward, staring me down his nose. "Come tomorrow, you will be executed for your crimes and your body will be hung on the gates as a warning to the rest of your kind."

He spits on the ground beside my feet and leaves, the officer following behind him.

Left alone, I let my lips quiver and the tears that sting the back of my eyes fall.

Men do not cry.

But I am no man.

"Is it written in my future that I die a boorish unjust death?" I whisper to Thane, voice breaking.

Thane waves, like I’m being excessively emotional. It’s not like he can understand what I’m feeling. He’s not even a living being. "You are not going to die. If you have never trusted me before, I ask that you do now."

I turn away from Thane. "As you like it."

****

People say in those moments before you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

I do not understand what they mean. Or perhaps, it is the fact that I haven’t even lived enough to have those memories. All I have known and loved is gone. My life has always been out of control and there is nothing I could’ve done to divert the course of it.

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