Sapphire Nightborne

Alissa continued to cough, I reached for her when I was slammed against the stone wall. The guards and Jared had let him go, and he was pinning my body to the wall, preventing me from touching Alissa.

"What have you done, Sapphire? How could you do this to them, to me?"

"Xander, I—"

He continued to berate me, before I told him to look at Alissa. She was still coughing, but not as badly then before, in other words, she was fine.

"How?"

I gently shrugged and he removed his arms from mine, looking at me with confused eyes. I took a deep breath before picking up the vial which had held the red liquid.

"This is just concentrated Roselle water, it is harmless."

I reached to slowly pat Alissa on the back, she gave me a weak smile, but her eyes were still wet with tears.

"I think it went down the wrong pipe."

"You were a brilliant actress, Alissa."

"Will someone tell what in the world just happened?"

I bit my lip as I turned to face Xander. Anger, betrayal, confusion and hurt were all present on his face. I know what I did would forever shake his trust in me, but I had no choice. I betrayed him for the good of the pack.

Jared wrapped his arms around me as he began to tell Xander what this whole thing was about.

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"Jared, we need to do something before the trial."

He slumped in the chair before me, head down with his hand pinching his nose bridge. Everyone had left to prepare for the trial besides us, Angel and Kalma left to prepare what they wanted Xander to ask our captives.

"Sapphire, what could we possibly do? You gave Xander the right to carry out the trial, whatever goes down later will follow how he intends for it to go. If you wanted to do anything about it, you should have kept that right."

"Xander wants me to carry the trial out as diplomatic as possible, he does not exactly endorse the traditional way trials were carried out. Jared, you and I both know that the diplomatic way is not the best way now. We already have the information that the boy was a scout for the Grimford Pack and scouts don't break easily."

"Sapphire, I—"

"How long would it take to break one of yours?"

"Never, they would rather die than betray the pack."

I stood up to place my hands on the desk, leaning forward.

"Exactly my point. This boy would either drag it out or drive us to kill him, both are not viable options. We are running out of time, we cannot wait. He has information we desperately need, we cannot kill him. There is no winning unless we force it out of him."

Jared placed his hands over mine.

"Sapphire, I understand your frustration, believe me I do. I want to stop any harm that might befall Chloe or my children, but I cannot betray Xander like this. This pack was built on the principles of his father and has prospered under it, I could not betray him like this?"

"And you think I want to? The New Moon is almost here, and this liquid will be our death sentence.... you saw what it did to Amelia and our wolves. Xander made me Alpha Female, and while it pains me to betray him, I have to do what is best for the pack, even if it means spending the rest of my years earning his trust again."

I pulled my hands from under his, pacing back and forth while running my fingers through my hair.

"Xander is going to interrogate the brother, I will go after the sister."

"I don't get how that will make getting the information we need any easier."

"The boy might be a scout, but the girl is just a member plus she had to have a limb amputated. She is already afraid, we just have to press her to sing for us."

Jared opened his mouth to protest my idea, but I raised my hand to gesture to him to remain silent. Instead I walked to open the door, gesturing for him to follow me. We walked down the hall, but not towards the dungeons. Alissa had been placed in one of the healing rooms to recover after her surgery, her blood poisoning was so severe that it left the healers no choice but to take her whole leg or she would have died. In my pack, we would have withheld treatment to use it as leverage to get the information we wanted out of our captives, but that was not how Xander did things here.

I placed a finger over my lips as we entered the room. Alissa was sleeping in the bed, her arm in an awkward position due to the shackles which provided us with a sense of security, not that she could do much damage in her state, but it was never a good thing to underestimate anyone.

She slowly began to open her eyes, sensing another presence in her room. Quickly, I clamped my hand over her mouth before she had the chance to scream, Jared pinned her arms down to stop the shackles from rattling. She looked at me with utter fear in her eyes, thinking that I had come to kill her.

"Alissa, I am not here to hurt you, but I will if you scream. I am going to remove my hand from your mouth, so stay silent and listen to what I have to say... if you value the future of yourself and your brother."

Her eyes widened at the mention of her brother, vigorously nodding her head to comply with my demands. I slowly removed my hand from her mouth, ready to clamp it back down the moment she showed any signs that she was going to scream... but she remained silent.

She looked at me with big doe eyes before softly muttering.

"I have seen you before."

I couldn't help but let out a laugh, even Jared let out a snort.

"Seeing as I chased you down in the forest, and you came from Black Blood there is a chance you have seen me before."

"No... I saw you even before all this, I saw you at Grimford. I saw you screaming at your Alpha when those girls were being sold off. It was awful, even though it was years ago I still remember the screams of those girls. Many of us at Grimford hated the practice, but our Alpha always said it was necessary to maintain the lifestyle of the pack."

The Grimford Pack was never one to shy away from luxury, this attracted Ryder to try and form an alliance with them as he saw wealth as strength, never would I have thought a pack could maintain themselves by such a horrid practice.

I ignored Jareds stare as I moved to sit on the side of Alissa's bed, she instinctively cowered to one side, afraid of my possible intentions.

"Alissa, in two weeks time there is going to be a war where many people are going to die and many girls, innocent young girls, will end up being sold just like the ones in Grimford."

I paused for a moment to let that statement sink in, I needed her to relive the experience of seeing the auction at Grimford, I needed her sympathy.

"We need all the information you can give us about the vials we found in your tent, we need to know what Damien is planning to do with them."

Alissa turned her head away from me, biting her lips as tears fell from her eyes. I gripped her hand, placing both of mine over one of hers, forcing her to look me in the eye.

"Alissa, do you really want to send those girls to that fate? Be responsible for all the pain and suffering of mates and families?"

Tears continued to fall as she shook her head, maintaining eye contact with me.

"That is why we need you to tell me everything you know."

She began to sob as she rested her head against our hands.

"I am so sorry, but I really don't know anything. Emery was the one who received the instructions and the vials, he refused to tell me what they were in case we got caught."

That smart boy.

"The only thing he told me was that it was our only chance of saving Marissa, I couldn't pass an opportunity like that."

Jared and I shared a look.

"Who is Marissa?"

"Our baby sister. Damien has her, he took her and kept her to make sure that Emery would serve him faithfully."

That bastard.

"What about you? Why did Damien leave you?"

"He got me to serve his pack in... in other ways."

Jared suppressed a growl and turned to face the window. I looked into Alissa's eyes, really looking. I didn't see the eyes of a killer or a warrior, I saw the eyes of a scared but determined family member, one who would do anything to protect the lives of those she loved. I chose my next words very cautiously.

"Alissa, our Alpha is going to interrogate your brother very soon. I need you to convince your brother to give up any information on these vials, it would—"

"I couldn't finish before she ripped her hand away from mine, eyes wide and frantic."

"No! I can't. If Damien finds out we gave up the information, he will kill Marissa. I am sorry, but I am not willing to risk my sister's life like—"

"What if she is dead already? Damien has never been one to keep his word, you should know better after what happened to me. I thought the same thing you did, that I was doing the right thing to save my pack, that he said was still alive, but in actual fact he already had them slaughtered. What makes you think that he would keep your sister alive, when he knows there is nothing you can do to him even if you knew she was dead?"

Her hands dropped limply onto her blanket as she pondered my words. I needed something to hook her.

"Alissa, you have the opportunity to prevent hundreds from dying, a chance to redeem yourself. I cannot promise you freedom, but I can assure you that even as a prisoner here, you will be treated better than a member at Black Blood or Grimford. I need you to help me, Alissa, please."

She bit her lip and gazed into my eyes for a period of time before slowly nodding. I smiled as I began to tell her of my plan.

"I will send a few guards to bring you to your brother, and I promise that they will not harm you."

Alissa gave a soft yes to acknowledge my words, I gave her a small smile before leaving the room with Jared. He walked out and leaned against the wall, arms crossed as he looked at me reproachfully.

"That did not go as I expected, I thought you wanted to make her pay for what she and her brother did."

"That would not have worked as efficiently as a more sympathetic approach."

Jared raised his eyebrow at my hypocritical words.

"Yes, I know what I said about Xander's style of interrogation, but he needs to use it on the correct captives. Emery will not respond to diplomatic interrogation, he will just keep you talking. Alissa on the other hand, responds best to a more sympathetic approach especially if there is common ground, like what she gave me when she spoke about the packless females. Xander needs to learn that sometimes it works the best to change the way you do things to suit the situation, something I have done."

"Regardless of what you think, Sapphire, Xander is not going to be happy with you for going behind his back to do this. Let's hope this plan of yours works."

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I tried to assess Xander's reaction, but he kept his head low. I reached out to touch him, but he grabbed my hand before I could.

"Xander,—"

He threw his head back, a smirk on his face, eyes focused on the ceiling. His hands were on his hips as I watched his jaw clench. He remained in that position for a short while before letting my hand go causing it to fall limply to my side.

"You said you would trust me, Sapphire."

And, he left.

Hi my lovelies,

Are her actions justifiable?

Let me know in the comments.

Please vote and comment.

Xoxo
SNNair