Arabella Dimitri

It happened yesterday. My brother was stabbed with a knife, coated in wolfsbane and some other substance. The wolfsbane did some major damage, but the other substance paralysed him. The labs in the hospital were still working on whatever it was, but they had absolutely no idea, they had never seen it before.

"If we can't work out what it is from the labs, we need to find the person who bloody soaked the knife in it and get them to tell us what it is," I growled, pacing the room where the Royal council had assembled.

"Does anyone know anything?" commanded Nicholas, only to be met by shaking heads.

"Your highness', the Night Warriors that brought Sir Jason to the hospital are here," one of the butlers informed us. Nicholas nodded for them to be sent in. There were two of them, they stood side by side with their arms straight down their sides.

"At ease," Nicholas said, and they moved into a more relaxed stance, their hands clasped behind their backs. "Tell me your account of things."

"Sir Jason Dimitri was just leaving the florist in town, four men approached him, said some nasty words to him. I think one made a play for the flowers, and Jason twisted the man's arm. That's what alerted us to him," explained one of the men.

"Sir Jason said it was nothing he couldn't handle, but we told the men they'd be getting a summoning to the council, to explain," the other one continued.

"A couple minutes later, we heard the pained cry of Sir Jason, rushed to help him. I stayed with Sir Jason, Finn ran after the man, but he disappeared into thin air."

"Did you recognise the man?" asked Logan, who up until now had been sat in the corner, head in hands, growling constantly, just waiting until the moment he could strike and kill whoever did this to his mate.

"Same clothes as one of the men in the group," explained the Night Warrior.

"Do you think you could give the names of each of the men in the group?" asked Logan, who was practically seething with rage, he was clenching and unclenching his fists, itching to get his hands on the people that did this to his mate.

"Yeah, I think so."

As soon as the names were found, there was a search mission for the four men, mainly led by Logan, who was pretty close to going completely animal and off the rails. Nicholas had to keep a close eye on him, constantly bringing him back to some kind of form of sanity. It was ruthless. The Night Warriors tore through the town looking for them, leaving no stone left unturned. I could only watch from the balcony of one of the rooms of the castle, the one with the best view of the town. I was frustrated with Nicholas, as he said my judgement was too clouded and I would just get in the way of the search, yet there he was letting Logan, whose judgement was the most clouded of them all, lead the search. He gave some bullshit excuse about how he 'knows how Logan works'. I called him a couple of names, I told him to go do one, and I was so close to kicking him in the balls, but I refrained.

The search went on for the entire night, and I couldn't sleep a wink. I didn't try though. I just lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to think what the fuck happened, and why.

"You should be sleeping," Nicholas said, walking into the room. I instantly sat up, my senses on high alert.

"Have they found them?" I rushed out.

Nicolas sighed, "they've found them, all four." I jumped out of bed and ran towards the door, ready to beat the living daylights out of the men that hurt my brother. "Arabella, please. It's late. We will interrogate them in the morning, rest, please, I beg you. We will interrogate them in the morning," he pleaded with me. He sounded exhausted, and I felt bad for him, but I still wasn't happy to just let them wait. "Let them stew overnight, they might be ready to talk in the morning after a night in the cell, and you will be on your best form after a good night's sleep."

"Fine," I grumbled, slowly making my way back to my bed.

It had been an hour, and I still couldn't sleep. My mind was racing a mile a minute, and it was hard to relax. I knew Nicholas was awake too; I knew he didn't want to sleep before me, it was the same every night; he would only sleep once I had gone to sleep.

"I can't sleep," I said, tossing over to my left side for the millionth time that night.

"Neither," he said back to me. "If you can't sleep, I can't."

"Is that sofa uncomfortable?" I asked.

"Slightly," he mumbled.

"I think, purely because it is the best thing for us, you should sleep here. Then, I will sleep, because everyone knows you sleep better next to your mate, and you will sleep, and we will both be on top form to interrogate the guys tomorrow," I explained. "But that's the only reason."

Nicholas chuckled, and then I heard some shuffling before he made his way over to the other side of the bed to where I was lying. He lifted the covers away and got inside, lying on his side, so that was facing me. "You know, I heard it works even better if you hold your mate too," Nicholas said. I knew that was true, but I also knew that he was saying it for the pure fact he just wanted to cuddle me, and he was using this situation to his advantage. However, so was I, and if it would heighten my senses for tomorrow, I would take it, and use him to my advantage too.

"Fine, but tomorrow night you're back on the sofa," I said, as I shuffled over to him, and he came closer to me, wrapping an arm around my waist, and burying his face into my neck.

"Oh, Arabella, darling, you're going to have such a good night's sleep, you aren't going to want to let me go," he mumbled into my neck.

"You wish," I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see them.

"I know," he said.

"Cocky little prick," I grumbled, which just made him chuckle. We fell asleep like that, as I tried to ignore the electricity that flowed from my skin to his, or the overwhelming sense of comfort I was feeling.

***

That was arguably the best night's sleep I have ever had. I wasn't about to tell Nicholas that though, no, his head would grow too big to fit through the door on his way to make me breakfast. Then what would I do?

"Morning," I heard his husky voice in my ear. At some point during the night we had begun spooning, and now I was very comfortably nestled into his front, with his arms wrapped around me like a blanket, and our legs were all tangled up in eachother.

"Morning. You snore," I said, trying to wriggle out of his hold, to no avail.

"If I snored you would have said it the first night," he spoke. Why is his voice so sexy in the mornings? And why have I not heard it like this before?

"Well last night you were snoring right in my ear so of course I was going to hear it," I rolled my eyes, finally breaking free of his hold. "Why are you naked?" I asked. He had rolled onto his back and sat up, and his hands were clasped behind his head, giving me a full display of his chest and extremely muscular arms.

"I was like this when I got into bed last night," he shrugged.

"No you were not," I retorted.

"Yes, I was. You were so eager for me to get in, you clearly didn't pay any attention to what I was wearing," he teased.

"Shut up," I punched him in the stomach so that he groaned in pain. "Another word and I'll punch lower."

"But how will we have kids then?" he mocked me.

"Make me breakfast," I folded my arms over my chest. He just laughed at me, rolled his eyes, and left the room.

A little while later, a tray of food was placed in front of me, with two plates and two mugs of coffee. He sat back up on the bed next to me and took his plate and mug, and we ate our breakfast. He was actually a decent chef, again though, not that I would tell him that. His ego is big enough, especially after me letting him stay in the bed. He'll not be sleeping next to me for a couple days at least, he needs to remember it's a privilege, not a right.

"Right," I said hopping out of bed, after wolfing down my food. Pun intended. "I have prisoners to interrogate."

"About that... I don't think you should interrogate them... I don't want to expose you to all that you know..."

"Because I'm a woman? Or because I'm your 'mate'?" I asked, in complete disbelief that he would dare say those words to me.

"It'll be too gory."

"Oh, like I haven't seen gory? I've seen more gore at one of the Vampire King's parties than you've probably seen in your life. Remember, I am the rouge here, I had to kill for most of my meals, protect mine and my brother's back at all costs, fight anyone who dared cross us, and kill a bitch if I had to. You, however, were born with a golden spoon in your mouth. I wonder who has seen more gore here?"

"I'm sorry..."

"Nicholas, you will either allow me to interrogate these people with you, or I will do it on my own because you and every other Night Warrior in this place will be detained," I stepped right up to him, I was in his face now, even if I was a little short. "No one gets in the way of me protecting my brother, not even my own mate, got it?" I was spitting venom now, but I meant every single word, and I wanted to make sure Nicholas knew that.

"You are not my superior," he growled, obviously hating being challenged.

"No, but I am your damn equal, so you better treat me like it." With that, I turned and left to go into the bathroom to get ready.

What exactly do you wear to interrogate someone? I've only done this a handful of times, although I've seen Remus, the Vampire King, and Seth do it loads back at their castle. I knew whatever it would be would be thrown away by the end of the day, or burnt, so I chose some stuff I didn't really care about, and threw it on. I matched it with some heavy duty boots, with steel caps; I figured if I kicked one of them in the balls, it'd hurt that much more.

The interrogation was gory, I have to admit. It was mainly Logan who did it. Usually Logan was this big softie around my brother, although somewhat quiet and brooding. I didn't like this side of Logan, this side was messed up in the head, and he had a look in his eye that sent a shiver down my spine and my hairs stand on end. His animal instinct were in complete control of him. Nicholas was there too, as well as Christopher, his brother, and Keaton, the head of the night warriors. There were a couple other Night Warriors around, I think partially for my protection, as stupid as that sounds.

I just watched. I watched them bleed and bruise, and I heard them cry in pain. I couldn't figure out why they would have done it though, or where they could have got the plant that caused the paralysis. Even wolfsbane is hard to get around here, the only legal supply of it in the kingdom is with the rest of the weapons, and that's only for weapons against enemies, never to be used against other members of the pack.

"Penelope," I said, out of the blue. Nicholas turned to look at me, as did the others. "Wolfsbane isn't used against pack members, but she tried to use it on me. Then the next day my brother gets stabbed with a knife coated in wolfsbane. There has to be some kind of connection."

"Get Penelope here," Nicholas commanded one of the Night Warriors, who left immediately. "You might be onto something. But, why wasn't the knife that stabbed you covered in the same unknown plant?"

"Maybe it was, but didn't affect me, it only cut my side, maybe it was supposed to go deeper. I also healed myself quickly, I burnt the area..."

"It would have gone in your blood though..."

"Maybe not at a high enough amount to paralyse me."

"It's a possibility. Let's take a break and get back to this," Keaton said, brushing his bruised and bloodied hands against his trousers. Logan wouldn't stop punching though, not until Nicholas rested a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away.

During the break Nicholas asked me a million questions to see if I was alright, and tried to convince me a million times more to leave the room. He said they weren't talking, and it would have to get more brutal from now on. "Let me try something, quickly, just us two," I said to Nicholas, dragging him back into the room.

"Arabella, please," he pulled me back.

"Trust me on this Nicholas," I said, and he did. We went back into the room, and the heads of the men lifted. I don't wish to go into detail, but they looked like crap.

"You'll be gone too, soon," one of the men said.

"You shoulda already been gone, freak of fuckin nature," another man said, spitting in my general direction. Nicholas made a move towards the men, but I held him back, barely.

"Go back to the bloody hole you came from, you shouldn't ever have been here," the first man said.

"Which one of you stabbed my brother?" was the first question I asked.

"I'm not telling you shit."

"What were the plants you soaked the knife in?" was the second question I asked.

"I fucking told you, you slag, I'll not tell you shit."

"Why did you stab my brother?" was the third.

"Are you fuckin deaf?"

"Three simple questions, you tell me, and I won't let your death be slow and painful, I'll even leave your family with a half decent body to bury," I cracked my knuckles.

"And what can you do, bitch?"

"Do you know my power? Why you call me a freak of nature?" There was no answer. "Fire, heat, warmth. So, allow me to heat all of your bodies from the inside out, to temperatures no human on this earth has ever had to sustain, until your insides literally melt, and your bodies turn to ash, completely unrecognisable. But it will be slow, it will be drawn out, and it will be oh so painful. Want a preview?" I asked.

"Do your fucking worst," one of the men said.

"Oh, you've asked for it now..."

***

"Arabella, wait!" Nicholas called after me as I left the cell, with most of the answers I had been looking for.

"What, Nicholas?" I asked.

"That... what you did in there... are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I shrugged my shoulders. "Look, what you'd have done to them would have been just as bad, if not worse, but definitely less effective. I got the answers, well, I got everything they know."

"I just don't want to have damaged you mentally, you know?" he looked deep into my eyes, with concern, searching for any sign of upset, or craziness, or anything.

"Nicholas," I pushed his hands off me, "I'm fine."