Chapter 68: A good man CIAN The rubber gloves came first. They were thick and industrial. The kind used for handling the most corrosive substances. I pulled them on slowly. The rubber squeaked against my skin. Then the sentinels wheeled in the barrel. It was massive. Wide enough to fit a person’s head and shoulders. The liquid inside sloshed as they positioned it in the center of the room. The smell hit me immediately. Sharp. Acrid. It burned the inside of my nose. Wolfsbane juice. Concentrated enough to eat through flesh in seconds. The Omegas started crying. "Please, Alpha," one of them sobbed. "Please, we don’t know anything." "We’re innocent," another one said. Her voice cracked. "We would never hurt the Grand Luna." The sentinels were quieter. But I could see the fear in their eyes. The way their hands trembled at their sides. The way they kept glancing at the barrel and then back at me. It was a good start. They had to be afraid. I knew how quick that shit spread. It was going to make whoever it was cooperative... Hopefully. I walked down the line again. Slower this time. My eyes moved from face to face. Looking for guilt. Looking for weakness. Looking for anything that would tell me who had done this. I stopped in front of one of the sentinels. He was tall. Broad shoulders. A scar ran down his left cheek. He’d been in my service for two years. "Look at me," I said. He lifted his head. His jaw was tight. His eyes met mine. "What do you know?" I asked. "Nothing, Alpha." His voice was steady. Too steady. "I swear my loyalty to you and the Grand Luna." I stepped closer. So close I could see the sweat beading on his forehead. "If that’s true," I said quietly, "I will spend my life making this up to you." His eyes widened slightly. "But if it’s not," I continued, "burn in hell." I grabbed him by the back of the neck. If it weren’t for the rubber, my fingers would have dug into his skin. He gasped. His hands came up instinctively but he didn’t fight. Not yet. I pulled him toward the barrel. "Wait," he said. His voice cracked. "Wait, please." I didn’t stop. I forced his head down. Closer to the liquid. The fumes were stronger here. They made my eyes water even through the distance. "One time," he said. The words came out in a rush. "One time, I saw something." I stopped. My hand was still on his neck. His face was inches from the surface of the wolfsbane juice. "Speak," I said. He was breathing hard. Fast. Panicked. "One time," he said again. He lifted his hand. Pointed to another sentinel across from us. "One time while we were on post, he went into the Grand Luna’s quarters." I looked at the other sentinel. He was younger. Maybe twenty two. His face had gone pale. "I believed then he just wanted to steal jewelry," the first sentinel continued. "But perhaps I had been wrong." My blood went cold. I let go of the first sentinel. He stumbled back. Gasping. His hand went to his neck where my fingers had been. I turned slowly to face him. "You were an accomplice to stealing my mother’s jewels?" My voice came out low and foreboding. "Jewels that hold sentimental value because they were given to her as gifts by my father? My late father?" "I apologize, Alpha, I didn’t think—" "You’re not fucking loyal." "Alpha Cian—" I grabbed him again. Faster this time. My fingers dug into his scalp hard enough to tear hair from the roots. He did not even get a breath in before I slammed his head down into the barrel. The liquid swallowed him whole. He screamed. The wolfsbane choked the sound but I still heard it. Thin. Sharp. Almost inhuman. The surface frothed around his skull like it was boiling. His skin reacted at once. Angry red patches rose across the back of his neck, then deepened into blistered purple. He jerked hard. His nails scraped down my arms. His boots kicked against the floor. His shoulders twisted like he wanted to tear himself free. Each wild thrash only dragged more of the burning liquid up his face. It splashed over his ears, his jaw, his throat. The smell hit me. Cooked meat. Chemical sweet. Thick enough to cling to my tongue. I held him down. His legs buckled. His hands beat against the sides of the barrel then slowed. His body sagged, then snapped back into another violent convulsion that sent another wave of the poison spilling over the rim. I counted to five. Slow. One finger at a time. Then I hauled him out by his hair, forcing his head back until his neck stretched tight. His face was swollen and raw. Strips of skin peeled away with the movement. Steam rolled off him. He tried to suck in air. His breath came out in wet gasps that sounded more like choking than living. He was barely upright, so I let him drop. His knees hit first. Then his hands. Then his face. He twitched once as blood and wolfsbane dripped from his nose and mouth. But he was still alive. Even if barely. I stepped over him. My boots sank into the puddle on the floor. The liquid clung to the soles and left dark streaks behind me. The other sentinel was already shaking. His gaze stayed locked on the ruined body twitching at my feet. "Alpha Cian," he said. His voice squeaked like it could barely make it out of his throat. "I swear. All I did was steal jewelry to gamble. I would never poison the Grand Luna." "A thief is just as bad." I walked toward him. Slow. Deliberate. He kept backing away until he hit the wall with a small thud. His breath hitched. "Please," he said. "Please, I didn’t—" I grabbed his head with both hands. My fingers curled into his scalp until he whimpered. He panicked. He lunged at me, teeth clenched like he was ready to bite if he had to. His fist shot toward my jaw. I blocked it with one arm and felt the bones in his wrist shift under the pressure. His other hand clawed at my neck. I caught that wrist too, twisted hard, and heard a crack. His grunt sounded more like an animal than a man. The other sentinels moved. I heard guns slide from holsters. Metal clicking. Fear building in the air. I raised my free hand without looking at them. They froze. The sentinel threw a knee at my ribs, desperate enough to fight dirty. I shifted aside. His leg cut through empty air. I used the motion to slam him into the wall again. His skull hit the stone with a sickening smack. His knees buckled for a moment, then he forced himself up, dizzy, still swinging. He was skilled. But I had patience. I had purpose. He rushed me again, throwing wild punches. Each one slower than the last. I watched his eyes start to dull as exhaustion crept in. He tried to back up. Tried to angle his body like he might slip past me. I let him think he could escape. Let the hope rise just enough to make the fall hurt. Then I hit him. My fist cracked into his jaw. The snap echoed. His head whipped to the side. Before he could even register the pain, I drove another punch into his ribs. Something gave under my knuckles. He sucked in a sharp breath. I hit his stomach. Hard. Deep. He folded, coughing spit and blood onto the floor. I grabbed a handful of his hair. Not to hold him. To control him. To own him. His face lifted because I forced it to. His cheek was already swelling. His lip split wider when he tried to speak. Blood dripped down his chin and onto my hand. He whimpered something. I did not care what it was. I dragged him across the floor. His boots scraped uselessly. He grabbed at my wrist, at the ground, at anything he could find. My grip did not loosen. The barrel waited. And he knew exactly where I was taking him. "No," he said. The word came out slurred. "No, please, no—" I shoved his head into the liquid without mercy. I forced him down until the liquid swallowed everything above his shoulders. He screamed. The sound tore out of him. It shook the inside of the barrel. It rose higher when the wolfsbane started eating through his skin. The liquid hissed as it worked. Violent bubbles clawed at the surface like they wanted to drag him deeper. He thrashed. His hands slapped the metal rim hard enough to leave blood smears. His boots slipped on the floor as he kicked behind him. His whole body fought to get away from the burn crawling over his face. I held him down. My grip did not move. Not even when his fingers found my arm and tried to dig in deep enough to break skin. I counted to seven. Slow. Then I let go. He collapsed onto the floor like a dead weight. His body jerked in sharp bursts. His breath came out in wet rattles. His face was destroyed. Red. Shiny. Strips of skin hanging loose. Blisters torn open. Patches where the liquid had eaten straight into the flesh beneath. I saw raw muscle twitching with every weak gasp he made. He lifted a hand like he meant to crawl. I drove my boot into his stomach. Hard. The breath punched out of him. His whole body folded around the impact. A broken sound spilled from his throat. It did not sound human. It sounded like something dying slow. His hands curled toward his chest. His back arched. His legs kicked once, then twice, before they gave out. He tried to suck in air. I watched him choke on it. The room was silent except for his gasping and the soft crying of the Omegas. I turned to face them. They were all pressed against the far wall. Trying to make themselves as small as possible. Their faces were streaked with tears. "I can go all day," I said. My voice echoed in the chamber. "Who is it?" But all I got was more crying and more begging. "Please, Alpha." "We don’t know anything." "Have mercy." I walked toward one of the Omegas. A young woman with dark hair. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. I grabbed her arm. She screamed. "No! No, please! Please, I haven’t done anything!" I pulled her toward the barrel. She fought. Tried to dig her heels in. Tried to pull away. But she was small and weak. So it didn’t matter. "Look at it," I said. I forced her to stand in front of the barrel. Made her look down at the liquid. At the way it still bubbled slightly from the heat of the sentinel’s burning flesh. "Look at the others," I said. She turned her head. Saw the two sentinels on the floor. One was still conscious. Barely. His eyes were unfocused. His breathing was shallow and ragged. "If you’re allied with my uncle," I said, "are you willing to die for him?" She sobbed. Her whole body shook. Then I turned momentarily to the rest. "Gabriel is good at using people he deems lesser for his crimes," I continued. "Because that’s all he sees you Omegas and sentinels as. A means to an end." When I was done with my speech, I grabbed her by the back of the neck. She screamed again. Louder. "Have anything to tell me, darling?" I asked. "I don’t, Alpha—" I closed my eyes. And shoved her head into the wolfsbane. The scream was instant. Piercing. It cut through the air like a blade. The liquid hissed and bubbled. Her hands came up. Clawing at my arms. At the edges of the barrel. Her nails raked across the rubber gloves. The smell was worse now. Burning hair mixed with burning flesh. I held her there. My jaw was clenched so tight it hurt. My wolf was howling in my chest. Raging at my cruelty. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t show weakness. Not now. Not when my mother’s life hung in the balance. The Omega’s struggles were getting weaker. Only then did I pull her out. She collapsed. Gasping. Choking. Her face was a mess of red and white. Blisters were already forming. Her hair was singed at the ends. But she was breathing. I turned back to the others. "Next," I said.