"Good," Theo murmured. "Because if you'd been hurt, I'd be killing Bite, too, before we have a chance to get information out of her."
He took a moment to light a few candles to bring some light to the otherwise dark room. Long shadows cast from the bedframe across the floor, dancing like the darkness in Theo's soul.
He turned on the cowering goblin again, who was pale and shaking. "I-I only wanted what's best for our people, my liege," she insisted. "The wolves will never accept us, they'll always see us as nothing more than monsters. We don't need them, we can win this war on our own!"
"Even if I could understand why you'd go after my new wife because you disapprove, whyme?"
Bite's eyes widened as if the answer should have been obvious. "It's unnatural for wolves and goblins to be together! Yer union is horrible and an affront to goblin kind! But you ... you're an abomination, part wolf, part goblin. Ye should never have been prince, let alone king! Yer father's advisors wanted him to kill yer bitch mother once her belly swelled, and he wouldn't. Then they told him to throw ye for the wild to take, but he wouldn't." Then Bite snarled, her whole body shaking with anger unlike anything Theo had seen from her before. "Then how do ye repay his kindness? By killing him!"
Theo leaned down, grabbed the goblin by her throat, and hauled her up to eye level. "You treasonous, traitorous scoundrel," he hissed. "My father murdered my mother! I would never have taken his place if I hadn't been pushed to do so, but then he went and killed all my siblings to make sure I had no choice but to be his heir. And you have the audacity to come here and tell me to myfacethat I'm not good enough for you? My father was a fucking barbarian, and if you had acted against him, I assure you, you would be long dead by now."
"We wouldn'ta acted against yer father," she spat. "He was one of us!"
He tightened his grip around her throat, and Bite choked and sputtered. "Please, my liege, I beg of ye—don't kill me."
"You should die a thousand deaths for poisoning the minds of goblins and convincing them to act against me. For daring to conspire against me. For touching my wife! What could you possibly say to convince me that you're worth sparing?"
"I-I have information," Bite said desperately. "Information about the rebellion. About their plans."
Theo knew how angry the goblins who'd fallen in with the rebellion were at how he ruled over their kingdom, but he hadn't realized that they were willing to go so far as to try and kill him in order to overthrow him. That they thought he was a monster, an affront to their kind simply because he'd been born part wolf, a trait that was entirely out of his control. His wolf stirred restlessly within him, wanting nothing more than to tear apart this traitorous creature and make Bite pay for what she and her schemes had done to Lily and himself. But somehow he held it in check just long enough to hear what else she had to say.
Even as Theo tried to process everything Bite had told him, logic struggled to break through the rabid rage that boiled so hot inside him.
But he couldn't kill Bite. Not yet, at least.
Because he did need more concrete information about the rebellion. Now that he knew Bite was a traitor, he figured she was responsible for making it so difficult for him to take any decisive actions against the rebels. She'd likely kept most of the information she did know from him, giving him only enough to leave him frustrated and under the impression that she, and those working for her, were actively doing their best to stop the 'sneaky' rebels.
This whole time, Bite had been the sneaky one.
He considered killing her anyway—she was a traitor and she didn't deserve to live—but if she did have information about the rebellion, it could be useful.
"Fine," he snarled, dropping her in a heap on the bedroom floor. "You live so long as you tell me everything I need. Any tricks, any deception, and I will execute you."
Bite grabbed at her throat, gasping for air. She sank down onto the ground and bowed low before him, trembling from head to toe. "T-thank you, my—"
"Don't thank me yet," he hissed. "Whether you live or die is entirely dependent on you."
He glanced back at Lily. He'd expected her to move back to the bed, as she'd been shaking and vulnerable just moments before, but now she stood stoic and strong like she'd been born to be his queen. She glared at Bite with the confidence that Theo was lacking right now, but he knew, though she was presenting a united front with him right now, he would owe her answers when this ordeal with Bite was all said and done.
"Then what do you want to know?"
"What were the rebels planning? You tried to kill me. Take my wife. What were you going to do after that?" Theo demanded.
"Appoint a new king, of course. As for your wife ..." Bite's eyes flicked away from Theo's face to look at Lily behind him. "Would have joined his harem, where a wolf b—" Bite corrected herself before Theo's wrath fell upon her. "Where she's supposed to be."
"A new king, eh?" Theo chuckled darkly. "Then I suppose I was wrong, wasn't I? You're not the leader of this rebellion, after all. No ... O suppose you're not smart enough to be the brains behind all the trouble the rebellion has been causing in my home. You're just another grunt working for the traitor at the head of the operation. The one who's so eager to take my place and rape my wife."
Theo went to the nightstand on his side of the bed, taking slow, measured steps to give Bite a few moments to think about what her next answer would be. From the drawer, Theo took a long, silver blade—he chuckled, thinking that he'd hidden the knife there in case Lily had tried to kill him in his sleep, but instead, it had been the goblins who attacked her.
The goblins who prompted him to use it now.
"I give you one opportunity to answer my next question," Theo said quietly as he approached Bite. The silver edge of the knife glinted in the firelight. "Who is the leader of your operation?"
Bite shied away, pressing herself harder into the wall. "I—I don't—"
"Onechance," Theo interrupted her. "Don't force my hand, Bite. I know how much you like your ears.
Her little hands flew up to wrap around her floppy ears. With a squeak, she revealed the truth. "It—it's Kaleus! Your cousin! He wants to be king. He's always been jealous of you. And then when he—he saw your new wife, he decided he would act sooner than planned because he wanted her for himself."