Page 45 of Lovely Deceit

“Don’t lie,” Alaric grinds out.

I pull my collar down and spot a red light on the suction cup that stung me. It dawns on me then: this is far more than just a lie detector. “You… This is—”

“It’ll shock you if you lie.”

“Are you fucking insane?” I grasp the cell bars in front of me and rattle them. “You made them hook me up to this torture device?”

“If you don’t lie, you won’t have a problem.”

“You don’t deserve my truths, Alaric.”

He blanches for a second before gripping the bars tighter. “I’m proving to you that I do.”

One of the discs on his chest lights up, and he peers at it.

Sighing, he says, “AndI’m proving to you that you don’t want to be angry with me.”

I watch his chest but none of the little lights go off.

I search around the room, inspecting every nook and cranny for a camera or a microphone.

“They can’t hear us,” he says. “They can’t see us either. Afterward, they’ll see a read out about who was lying, but that’s it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s in the rule book, and the Knights always follow the rules.”

“Including you?” I sneer.

While I wait for his response, I search for any way out of this. I can’t tell him anything. He’s a Knight. He’ll go to his father or Sir Jarvis…anyone. There has to be a way out of this.

“I’m going to ask you questions, and you need to answer me truthfully if you don’t want to get shocked.”

I shrug. “It actually didn’t hurt that bad.”

“They get worse the more you lie.”

“Of course they do.” I run my hands through my hair, and the suction cups pull at my skin. I suppose if I just took them off, the Knights would be able to tell, and then I would have to go through the punishment process, or hell, they may not even give me that luxury. They’d probably just kick me out.

That’s the last thing I want.

“You’re a dick.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” he says, still gripping the bars with ferocity. “You can ask me questions, too. This goes both ways.”

I almost don’t want to stoop to his level, but at this point, I don’t care. “Why did your father hit you?”

“Because I lost his money. Power and prestige are everything to him, so I also highly suspect it’s because I’m the first Barclay to ever be punished by the Knights.”

I raise my brows. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I refuse to feel guilty about what I did, though. “Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” I snark, but one of the sensors on me goes off with a prickling sensation. Okay, so it was a half lie. Maybe.

Alaric doesn’t respond, he just asks again, “Who hit you?”

Since I know from experience that nothing will work except the truth, he has me caged into a corner. I have to tell him or risk getting zapped. “Leon Forbes.”

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