“Ellyana,” he reached to grab me again, this time his arms wrapping around my back. I let him.
“Trust me, I tried everything, but they don’t seem to care. Or listen. If I am not the prince, then I share his name and must have some sort of information about him. If it’s not one thing it’s the other.”
“Maybe you can give them something, maybe if you tell them enough, they will let you go,” I placed my hands on each side of his cheeks, forcing his face to mine.
“I despise the royal family and did my best to stay away. Trust me, if I could have said something, I would have done it in two years.”
“But why don’t they believe you?” I sobbed, sharing his pain, the inability to make people listen, to make yourself heard.
“I’m a faerie who begs for death every day, do you honestly think my word matters anymore?” he blinked at me with a sad smile.
I didn’t know what time it was, but I had a feeling it was still early. Galenor’s even breathing told me that he remained asleep by my side, his hands still wrapped around my waist just like when we’d gone to bed. His closeness enveloped me through the night, but when he suggestively caressed my leg, I bit my tongue to the point of bleeding but faked being asleep.
I knew what he wanted. And I wasn’t ready for it.
My body begged for more, urging me to get close to him and let him take me to the highest realms of pleasure, desperate for another world-shattering orgasm. But my mind kept spinning, drunk with the information, with everything he’d confessed.
He sounded so sincere, so careless, that part of me thought his words had been rehearsed. Over and over again until they sounded as harmless as clear water. It was hard to think that the institution I represented and had worked for my entire life would make these kinds of mistakes. And if they did, that they wouldn’t rectify them.
Every single subject I had encountered during my assignments had proved guilty, whether their crimes were petty, or the information provided saved an entire region. I had never found someone with a case of mistaken identity.
But everything was so secret about this trial assignment. Private funding, no analytics team, cameras and mics in the living quarters, constant torture of the subject. And they had confirmed yesterday that Galenor spoke the truth regarding his help with a Wind Realm delegation. I had given them those exact details and they even agreed to stop observing him for an entire day.
Never once had a team come to an agreement to give time off to a subject, especially while situated in the living quarters.
I couldn’t…my brain felt like it would explode.
Would the unit keep someone locked away and tortured for two years just because they thought he might have information, even if he proved not to be the one they were looking for?
A shiver passed through my guts. I already knew the answer to that.
Yes. Yes, they would.
Everything related to the prince of Wind had become such taboo, some even believed him to be a vampire rather than a fae because of his obsession with claiming human blood. We’d all grown up hearing about his atrocities, ever since he was a child he enjoyed seeing humans suffer. No one knew what he looked like, so he might have been anyone. All the information we had was his name, which was always dropped at the base of every attack, proudly claiming the incident. “Prince Dalenth.” The Prince of Death, we called him instead.
It made sense for the unit to distrust Galenor when he had the exact same name, when he spoke with hatred about humans and hated every one of us. What didn’t make sense was for these attacks to continue even after his imprisonment. Surely, whomever was keeping him here knew about the incidents, so why hadn’t they released Galenor?
So many pieces of the puzzle that my brain was on the brink of a massive explosion.
In the end, I could only go with my gut. Which told me to believe Galenor.
At least for now.
Wanting to let Galenor get some rest, I slowly shimmied out of his arms and leaned against the wall to support my back, grabbed the tablet and slid my fingerprint to unlock it.
I opened the chat box I had saved the last time PDD and I had a conversation and started typing in the hope that someone will be at the other end.
“I would like to confirm information about the subject,” I typed quickly and prayed to all the gods for that chat bubble to start moving. I waited long minutes, my chest filled with anxiety and hoping that Galenor wouldn't wake up just yet. Hoping I had enough time to get to the bottom of this.
“Captain Harrow, how can I help?”
Thank you, thank you PDD for getting back to me so early in the morning.
“Good morning, sir. I would like to confirm the subject’s name.”
“Galenor Dalenth,” the next chat line appeared in a few seconds.
“Background?” I typed, not wanting to get ahead of myself.
