AVA
I managed to get a whole three hours of sleep before I was up and out again. The first job of the day
was interrogating our friend Julian Stanley. We needed to know what he was doing and why the
bloody hell he was doing it.
Was he just acting on behalf of the Rogue King like he claimed? Or is he actually a third psychopath
that I’d need to worry about? That’s the question.
I burst into the interrogation room in the basement, Callum hot on my heels. I’d already had security
move Julian from his cell to the interrogation room; his hands were bound with silver cuffs to the
table in front of him, and his ankles were shackled to the chair legs.
Callum had found a witch to remove the spells he was using, so instead of seeing a replica of Jacob,
we were now seeing him for who he is. He wasn’t as tall as he was pretending to be, or as muscled, so
all of his clothes were now hanging off him. His mousy brown hair looked like it hadn’t been washed,
and his face looked like it had an argument with a table.
I sat down opposite him, my hands clasped together in front of me, with Callum just behind me.
“Julian. I hope you’re not going to make this difficult this morning, are you?”
He just smirked.
“I don’t have time to argue with you today, Julian, so we’re going to have to go straight for doing this
the hard way.” I sat up straighter, letting my aura start to swirl around me, making every sentence and
question directed at Julian a command.
“Are you working for the Rogue King, or for yourself?”
“Rogue… King.”
“Julian. What is the Rogue King doing?”
“I don’t know,” he growled, in pain.
“That’s not strictly true, is it?” I growled back. The Rogue King must have given a specifically
worded command already for him to avoid that question. “Fine, what does the Rogue King want with
me?”
“You’re his mate.”
“Mmm, I’m not though. When is he planning on coming?”
“Tomorrow,” he growled, unable to resist.
“When tomorrow?”
“Afternoon.”
“How many rogues is he bringing?”
“I don’t know,” he winced in pain as he resisted.
“You don’t know exactly how many, or you don’t know?”
“Don’t know… exactly.”
“Is it more or less than fifty?”
“More…” he growled.
“More or less than one hundred?”
“More,” his voice was pained and he had sweat dripping down his face from trying to resist my aura.
“More than two hundred?”
“Less.”
“About one hundred and fifty?”
“Yes.”
I swapped to link Callum. “Whilst I’m doing this, can you get hold of Alpha Michael and ask for more
warriors, please.”
“On it, my Queen.”
Once Callum was dealing with that, I swapped back to talking to Julian. “So, Julian. He’s coming with
about one hundred and fifty rogues. Where are they coming from?”
“All… around…” he groaned as he spoke.
“Where are their bases set up?”
“North, south east and… south west.”
“Which one is the Rogue King at?”
“None.”
“Okay… where is the Rogue King?”
“I don’t know,” his voice was sounding increasingly more strained.
“Do you know anything about where he is? What is the temperature? The altitude? Is he near a
town?”
“Cold, above sea level, no,” he groaned.
“Unclaimed territory or is he in a pack’s borders?”
“Blue… Mountain.”
I growled, I couldn’t help it.
“Is that where the real Jacob and Amelia Hughes are?”
“Jacob… Hughes, yes,” he growled.
“And Amelia?”
“I… don’t know… an Amelia,” he groaned.
I leaned back in my chair, lips pursed as I watched the delightful wolf across the table from me.
“Julian,” I leaned across the table towards him, face stoic. “If I find out you have kept any information
from me that could have turned the tide of this, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Do you
understand me?”
He didn’t reply, just smirked.
I scowled at Julian, but that scowl turned into a smirk when I spoke to Callum. Out loud too; I wanted
Julian to hear every word. “Callum, could you do me a favour please, my King?”
“Of course, my Queen. What do you need?”
“Can you find out which of the Queen’s Guard is most skilled at… persuasion?”
Callum gave me a knowing look and a smirk, one that sent shivers down Julian’s spine.
“I can persuade him if you’d like, my Queen.”
I turned back to Julian, a grin on my face that I’m sure looked a little evil. “Go on then, Callum. Have
fun with it, my King.” I pressed a kiss to his cheek.
We were in the room with Julian for another hour before he was more forthcoming with information.
The one problem with compulsion, especially when the individual has already been compelled by
someone else, is that it is very hard to get information unless you’re very specific.
Just saying “tell me everything you know” isn’t enough. For weaker or newer wolves, absolutely. But
older and stronger ones can get around that because they know there are some pieces of information
they have that they can’t give me. It’s a strange quirk of compulsion.
On the plus side, Callum did successfully get some more information out of Julian. We now knew that
the Rogue King’s main camp in the Blue Mountain territory always had a minimum of thirty wolves,
if not more. If he himself was in attendance, they tried to stick to more, a lot more.
He also told us that the main camp is a permanent fixture, and underneath it is a network of tunnels,
which includes a prison complex. We’d assume that was where Jacob and Amelia were being held.
We also now knew that Rogue King set Julian up as his spy, wanting to get as much inside
information on our pack as possible before making his move against us. That one was kind of
obvious, but it at least proved he was here for the Rogue King instead of himself. Which is good… I
only had two psychotic wolves wanting to forcibly stick their canines in my neck.
All about the small wins.
“Now then, Julian. On to your brother.”
“My… my brother?”
“Yup,” I replied. Callum was standing behind me again, his hands on the back of my chair. I could tell
he wanted to touch me, but wouldn’t since his hands were a little… gooey. “Where is he? If you really
are working with the Rogue King, surely you’ll tell us what your brother is up to? After all, if we get
rid of Matthew, it’ll only make yours and your boss’ jobs easier.”
“He has a camp set up by the lake in the south west,” he groaned, voice strained. “Most of his men
will be there.”
“How many is most?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has Matthew ever talked about a train line?”
He looked confused. “There’s one near him, if that’s what you mean?”
Artemis was jumping around at the thought we might have just hit the break we needed.
“If I give you a map, can you mark your brother’s location?”
He paused, studying my face. “What will happen to me?”
“Remains to be seen, Julian. That will be something that’s decided after all this has blown over.”
He nodded, sighing. “Yes, I’ll tell you where my brother is.”