Page 62 of Cruelly Bitten

“I’m aware,” I drawled.

“And she”—he pointed at Ismerelda—“is his sister and has been living with a clan that’s also known to be against our principles. It makes sense that she would help her brother try to take down our operations, regardless of our goals.”

That was a much better reason to accuse her of assisting her brother.Except…“We still don’t know if Damien is the culprit.”

“Whoever it is clearly wants to sabotage our work here, and the only ones with motive for that are members of your cousin’s revolution.” Michael folded his arms across his chest. “And these problems started after she arrived.”

“While unconscious,” I reminded him. “Which means she couldn’t have hacked into anything to open a communication channel with her brother, yet he—or someone else—gained access to our systems during that time.”

Michael’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t otherwise speak.

Which was good because I wasn’t done.

“I used the scanner on her, and she’s clean, thus disproving your theory that Damien implanted a chip, which he then in some way used to connect to our systems.”

Michael still didn’t comment, nor did he nod in acknowledgment. He merely stared, waiting for more.

“So even if Ismerelda somehow miraculously connected to Damien tonight, using my laptop, it still doesn’t explain how someone hacked into our system initially,” I went on. “Nor does it explain why she suddenly needed to help him tonight.”

Because, again, there wasn’t much motive other than wanting to dismantle our operations.

However, Ismerelda had to know that harming our goals would hurt her as well. She was mine. If I failed, she failed. It didn’t make sense for her to try to fight me when I already owned her.

“Maybe she reached out to him tonight to provide an update and that’s why the tracker led me to your laptop,” Michael proposed.

“My laptop had no external communication abilities due to the hacking issue,” I pointed out. “Unless you’re suggesting she knows a workaround that our entire technical team has failed to contrive?”

That seemed pretty fucking unlikely to me. I glanced back at her, curious to read her expression, and startled at the fierce gleam in her eyes.

The lioness is back and she’s pissed,I marveled.Excellent.

“Do you know more about computers than you led me to believe?” I asked her.

“Are you going to replace me with an immortal blood bag?” she countered, apparently still stuck on that revelation.

“Not today,” I told her. “Or anytime soon, given that Lilith failed me entirely.”

She snorted at that, the noise one I strongly disliked. It was both rude and unacceptable.

I faced her fully. “Are you forgetting your place,little swan?” I took a step toward her. “Shall I force you to your knees and remind you of your purpose here?”

The feline danced angrily in her gaze, making me hard in an instant.

This female wasn’t broken at all. She was full of fire and life, making her more intriguing by the second.

No wonder she’s mine. A thousand years and she still looks at me like this? With all this passion and confidence?

And she’d proved to know when to bend, too. How to submit.

So exquisite.

I wanted to bite her. Master her. Make her mineand hear herroar.

“I know a little bit about computers, my liege,” she said, startling me from my hungry thoughts. “Enough that, yes, I could log on after you showed me your password. But you had no connection to an external network, so even if I’d wanted to send my brother a note, I wouldn’t have been able to.”

“So you admit to logging in to his laptop?” Michael pressed, interrupting the moment and forgetting his place in this room.

“I logged in to see if I could send an email just to let Damien know I was okay,” Ismerelda replied, her gaze still on mine.