Chapter 233: Chapter 233

“Tired of being stuck down here. Tired of the silence, the dark, and the never-ending cycle of fighting against your wolf.”

Fio remains motionless, but her breathing picks up a notch. Her consciousness was still there. Buried as it may be, it was attentive enough to feel something at my taunts.

“You must be so tired of being alone.”

A finch.

“You know, I don’t like to be cruel. But sometimes there’s just no alternative.”

The placidity within the cell begins to feel disturbed. There’s a sense of energy, slowly building up as though it was waiting to gather as much as it possibly could before snapping. The atmosphere feels charged and that in itself is alarming.

“Your mate confessed to everything. He’s told us all he knows. He’s been taken into confinement, away from here. You could see him again, if you wish. Though of course, you’ll have to give me something in return. Nothing is freely given in this world.”

I get up to carefully remove the bandage preventing her to speak and sit back down just as quickly. She didn’t try to bite me or retaliate. It’s the promise of reuniting with her mate that sparks some kind of recognition in her expression. She blinks, lips trembling into a disbelieving open grin.

“M-my mate?”

She asks h oar sely, “Y-you’ll br-bring me to my m-mate?”

It’s almost pitiful. To see what she’s reduced to almost makes me pity the wolf she could’ve been.

Should she not have followed Xeneron, should she not have been influenced by the drive to create a new order like so many other rogues feel.

“Yes, Fio.”

She whimpers at my tone, the falsity of compassion giving her the sense of security her vulnerable state was in desperate need of.

“You could see him again. If you tell me everything, you could see your beloved mate again.”

She looks ready to listen but a small flash of defiance makes her falter, “B-but-”

“Unless you don’t want to. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you don’t want to see Val. What a shame. I’m sure he’ll be devastated.”

Theatrics always felt a little silly for me. Especially when I knew the minute I got up, Fio would scramble upon herself to make me stay. Her desperation would overpower any kind of doubt she’d have.

“No! NO! I’ll speak, I’ll speak! Wait! Please!”

She thrashes against the straps for more than a few moments but calms down when I make no move to leave. Wild, feral eyes search for me, 13:14 The Female Alpha’s Sanckian 98.7%

“Y-you promise? You’ll bring him to me? You won’t break your word?”

The smile I gave her, I hope comes off as indulgent. She seems to be appeased by this as she lowers herself back to the bed. The hackles she raised lowered instantaneously when she sees me stay put.

Fio’s heavy breaths sound frayed. The stamina her minor outburst consumed illustrates just how worn out she was.

Opal was right. She doesn’t have much time left.

I take her moment of compliancy to stand closer. I got so close to the point that I was very nearly hovering over her.

“You just need to tell me everything you know”

I coax gently, running my hand over her hair.

“-not a detail spared.”

The trusting glint in her eyes and the impatient twisting of her fingers lets me know that finally, I have her. So I wait. I wait until the truth she so steadfastly held onto from the very beginning spills forth. The entire time Fio speaks, I run it back in my mind to compare her words to Val’s. After every piece of information she gives me she steadily starts to get more confident. Once she started going, she couldn’t stop. She’d go on a tangent every few sentences, getting lost in her own thoughts. It’d take her some time to get back to it but she does. Eventually at least. The things she tells me are identical to those of Val’s words. There are no discrepancies, no confusion, nothing but identical statements.

“He always told us it was… necessary for the goal.”

She mumbles to herself. Her eyes glazed back.

“Told us he needed something in Nightwake… the gift.”

Her words give me pause but she’s too lost in her own mind to notice how I turn stock-still.

“Said it was important. That he needed it. Didn’t tell us what it was except that it was in Nightwake. It was too fragile to steal. Too many risks would put it in danger so he wanted to wait… until it was brought to him.”

Gift.

Sophie had said that when Hestia and I were still infants, Benicio had taken us to Ivory. To see if either of us had gotten the Goddess’ favor.

To see if we were gifted.

My heart thudded against my chest. The sound of my blood roaring in my ears momentarily blacks out whatever else Fio was saying. Before I could even begin to think about reassuring myself with the video recordings, another spear of distress hits me.

Gift.

He’s looking for the gift, He’s looking for Hestia- no, he’s looking for me. It would make sense. I was Raizel’s blessing, I was the one who was given a choice in mateship, I was the one who suffered the same fate as Luna. I was reliving the same story Luna did but on a bigger scale. It never f ucking ends 13-1