He was still alive. He’d been alive the whole time.
“They were inflicting never-ending pain on me. The least you can do is have the decency to call it what it fuckingwas.” She paused as a tear ran down her cheek, and then she whispered, “Torture.”
Brynleigh wasn’t ready to dive into the specifics of what had been done to her—what he hadallowedto happen—but she could do this. That simple word acknowledged her pain and suffering, and she needed him to say it.
Storms passed through his gaze again before he briskly nodded. “Understood.”
So formal. So detached. Her heart ached once more. Maybe that would be her constant state of being now.
Ryker continued, his voice monotone and his eyes hard, “In order to get you out of thetorture, I had to make a deal with Myrrah Challard.”
A deal.
Her shadows twinged, and a pit formed in her stomach. Whatever was coming would be bad.
A large part of her wanted to shut this conversation down, but she wasn’t sure where that would leave her with Ryker. Instead, she twisted her fingers together.
Brynleigh supposed she had Victor and his merry band of torturers to thank forthatnew development. She never used to get nervous, but then again, being used as a living pincushion for several weeks changed a woman.
She chewed on her lip. “What kind of deal?”
Ryker’s eyes darkened, and the tang of his magic filled the air. Had he always had this much power so close at hand? She hadn’t noticed it as much before.
“Ever since our… wedding,”—he seemed to choke on the word, and his nostrils flared—“the military has been conducting an in-depth investigation into Jelisette de la Point.”
She swallowed. “An investigation?”
That didn’t sound good. But then again, nothing these days sounded good.
Ryker stared directly at her, his eyes drilling into hers. “Your feline… friend was very talkative after a few days of encouragement.”
“My friend… Zanri?” All the blood drained from her face, and she gripped the armrests. “He’s alive?”
She thought that Ryker had killed him.
The captain’s jaw clenched, and he gritted out, “Barely.”
That one word spoke fucking volumes.
Brynleigh’s heart pounded as she processed this latest development. On the one hand, fuck Zanri. He’d betrayed her and came to kill Ryker. He was the reason she was in this mess. On the other hand, she’d been through hell, and to think that Zanri had probably suffered worse…
Grateful her stomach was empty, she groaned and rubbed her temples. She couldn’t process this right now. Not on top of everything else.
“I see.” Her voice was monotone.
Ryker’s fingers twitched as though he wanted toreach for her but decided against it. “It was during that time that we uncovered Jelisette’s Binding to Emery Sylvain.”
“The dead vampire.”
“Yes.” His jaw feathered, and he held her gaze. “That’s not all we discovered. We also learned that Jelisette is connected to the Black Night.”
Too much.
This was all too much.
Brynleigh’s head pounded as she stared at Ryker. Her trio of torturers had asked her about the Black Night, but she didn’t know what that was. That hadn’t changed.
“I’ve never heard of the Black Night,” she whispered.