Leo nodded. “Right. We have his recorded confession, the confession that you pulled from him. He’s in jail right now.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t kill him,” Thor offered, but he still didn’t seem pleased with the choice.
“You did the right thing, love.” Faith leaned up and kissed him and when she pulled back, the haunted look was gone from his eyes.
Did I have that effect on Nix? Did I have that much power?
I remembered his tears in the shower… and what came after.
Yes. Yes, I did. But he had the same power over me. That was love.
So be it.
“Then we start with Pawl,” Captain Turaya said, moving to stand behind the queen, ever the guard. “We talk with him again. We know more now, the rumor that the king is still alive, the information we gathered from Morson and from those who survived the explosion.”
“Which isn’t much,” Leo
complained.
His father ignored him. “And now, the queen has been found. Perhaps he will share more. I will have guards bring him here.”
Captain Turaya moved to the door, then stopped. Nix stood. “No, we will collect him.”
Pawl would come. I looked to Nix and saw skepticism, yet fierce determination, in his eyes. Would Pawl talk? And if he did, would he have the answers we needed?
* * *
Nix
The trip to retrieve Pawl from his detention cell was uneventful, but every moment I thought of the female I’d left behind at the palace. Leo’s father and I barely spoke, only because we were both lost in our own thoughts.
When they pulled the traitor free from the depths of the prison and he saw me standing next to Captain Turaya, his face paled, but he straightened his shoulders and walked stoically to an unknown end. He probably expected us to kill him. Perhaps I would. Depending on his answers.
He was not completely spineless. I had no idea of the possible extent of his crimes other than that he’d admitted to being one of a few who went to Earth and kidnapped the queen. I’d assisted in his capture, when Thor left him tied up and helpless for us in the Jax family mountain home. But I’d left the art of investigation to the experts.
I did not enjoy interrogations. I didn’t have the required patience.
I preferred quick and clean. Killing the enemy had always been easier than talking to him. And Pawl was no exception. Just looking at him made me ache to take his scrawny neck in my hands and twist.
He was a threat to my mate, to my queen, and to everything I’d come to value in this life. When I’d served with the Coalition Fleet fighting the Hive, I fought to protect my people. But mostly, I fought against evil.
And this plot against my mate and her family was an evil of the worst kind.
Vile. Murderous. Patient. A master strategist waiting to take Destiny away from me.
If killing Pawl wouldn’t have made Destiny angry with me, I’d have done it anyway, and damn the consequences. As far as I was concerned, and from the crimes he’d admitted to, he’d more than earned a quick death.
“Stop scowling like that or he’ll have a heart attack on the way to the palace.” Captain Turaya stood next to me as Pawl was escorted to the back of a prisoner transport EV. Two additional guards would accompany us back to the palace.
We didn’t need them.
Pawl did.
“He should be dead already,” I murmured, watching him walk to the vehicle and take a seat in the back. He didn’t look remorseful.
I could fix that.
“Goddess damn it, Vennix,” Turaya swore. “Get your head back in the game. You aren’t doing Destiny any good like this.”