“She's telling the truth, Nik,” she said in a hollow voice.
He sighed, reining his anger in so he had enough patience to listen to her. “How so?”
“Carr is her lover. But maybe she had another lover. Before or during Carr. And that was the one she was talking about. The one the paper mentioned. The one who used her to do that... test on Lora. Maybe she didn't know what would happen. Maybe Carr knows about it because she confided in him and he's merely protecting her.”
“It could be possible,” Erica added.
“We do not want to do anything rash, without knowing the truth,” Arik concluded in his wise, mellow voice.
Nik glanced between them, his fury leading way to reason. “Fine. I'll go and ask.”
“No,” Maria interjected. “Let Jaz go.”
Nik gaped at Maria like she was a mad woman.
“She'll open up to me more, I think.” Jaz said.
“Why would you encourage this?” Nik demanded as he glared at Maria. She hunched her shoulder in response.
“I want to go inside the room,” Jaz said in a firm voice.
He turned to Jaz. “Absolutely not. I won't let you go anywhere near either of them without a six-inch wall of glass between you.”
“She saved me twice yesterday. She won't hurt me. Neither will Carr. And you know it.”
*
Jaz sidled into the room, Leif at her back. He leant against the door standing guard.
He still had hard feelings about being knocked out yesterday. Even though it hadn't been her doing, she was still going to get dirty looks from him for a while.
Fraya stood up, her eyes wide with surprise at Jaz's presence.
“Sit down, Fraya.”
Fraya slumped onto the chair obediently, resting her mucky, scabby hands on the table.
Jaz took the other seat opposite and sighed. “Tell me what happened. And don't lie to me.”
Fraya bobbed her head. She first admitted to her dislike of Jaz's sister, mainly fuelled by jealousy. Because she'd had feelings for Nik. Because she was bitter about losing her mate, Thor, and couldn't stand anyone being happy. She was broken, and it made her do stupid, reckless things.
And that's when she mentioned the man. The man who'd at the time been there for her. Given her what she thought was the best gift in the world. It was something that he promised would break Nik and Lora apart. He'd said Lora wasn't a pureblood. And he'd said Fraya had the power to prove it.
“Who is the man?”
Fraya gazed at her, a glimmer of fear in her eyes. “They call him the Black Cloak. I never saw his face.”
“How did you meet him then?”
“I was jogging through the forest at night. I nearly knocked into him, he just appeared from nowhere. He knew so much about me. About the Pack. He told me about Lora. And asked me to do it,” she whispered.
Jaz shook her head. “You're lying to me.”
“I-”
“You knew him. You had to have known him, y'know why I think that? Because you're not stupid. You're bitter and jealous and a mean bitch most of the time, but you had to have had more reason, more proof than that. You had to trust the man. There had to have been more to it than that.”
Fraya looked terrified now.
“So who was it?”
“I can't... I can't tell you. I mean I was never sure.”
“You were lovers, right?” Jaz pushed.
Fraya stared, then glanced sideways.
“So forgive me for being the ignorant virgin here,” Jaz said mockingly, “but how could you not know?”
Fraya looked down regretfully. “He never showed his face. He always wore a mask or something. And it was always dark whenever we met.”
“What about his scent?”
“He altered it or masked it somehow. Wore a lot of perfume or mud or something. I swear to you I never knew who he was. Not for sure. And if I'm right... I mean- he'll kill me.”
“If you don't, we'll have no choice but to do the same.” Jaz couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth, but she was thinking only what Nik would have said in her position.
“He'll kill you too,” Fraya whispered.