Huntress or Mate?

Chapter 2 - Payback

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Warning: The following chapter may be triggering for some.

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Unknown Huntress POV

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“Where the hell have you been? Come, The Shadow needs our help!” Hudson, my cousin and third in command says, running past me as I make my way down to the dungeons.

“What about Arlo? Who’s watching him?!”

“Leave the dog; it’s not going anywhere!” he replies, and I start running behind him, but I turn around and run back to the cell the moment he's out of sight. I grab the keys and quickly unlock the gate, my heart banging against my chest as though it’s going to leap out and fall at my feet. I take a torch and walk inside to find him lying in a pool of his own blood, battered and broken.

“Arlo! Get up! You need to wake up!” I call out to him, tapping his cheeks while scrambling for the collar, trying to insert the key and unlock it. “Get up!” I repeat as his eyes droop close again, tears now coming out of my eyes seeing him like this. I unlock the collar but gasp, falling on my bum when his eyes snap open again, this time crimson. A low growl vibrates from his chest, causing me to slide back, and my hands tremble in fear. He gets to his knees, and I watch in horror as his bones break before a black wolf towers over me.

He takes menacing steps toward me, and I tremble even more, cowering in fear. I fall on my back, shielding my face with my arms, when he suddenly lunges, thinking he's lunging for me. But when nothing comes, I open my eyes and slowly lower my arms to find him gone. I quickly get up, the gravity of what I have done sinking in, and I run out of the cell. I’m terrified of the consequences should I be discovered, but I don’t regret what I've done. I couldn't just stand by and let him die like this. Arlo saved my life. I owed it to him to at least try and save him. My heart breaks at the thought.

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My mother and I moved to this town five years ago. We were running from my abusive stepfather after he tried to kill us. He set our house on fire with me, my mother, and my sister inside. My sister died, and my mother and I survived and fled. We had nothing, no money, no clothes, so we came here to my mother’s half-sister. She gave us shelter, and I started going to school here the following year.

Things started to get better. But Zane, the school’s bad boy, noticed me. He started pursuing me, but I was not ready for a relationship. Plus, I was not in his league. I was nothing compared to the girls he dated, and he looked as if he came from a wealthy family too. He didn’t take kindly to the rejection; he was used to getting his way. He started taunting me, even telling his nasty girlfriend Stacy that I tried to seduce him. She and I were in the same class, and she made my life a living hell. It became worse when they discovered the burn scars on my arms. They nicknamed me crispy.

They humiliated me every day, seeking me out when I tried to avoid them, and no one intervened but Enya. She found me crying in the stalls, and I expected her to drag me out and laugh at me like everyone else, but she didn’t. I was tired that day, and I had decided to end it all. She hugged me and comforted me when she didn’t even know me, and by the time she was done, I didn’t have the strength to go through with what I had planned. She saved my life that day, but it didn’t stop there.

One rainy Saturday evening, I went to get some candles for our house from the store after the rain tripped our power, and I was cornered by Zane and his groupies. They dragged me into a deserted house down the block and almost raped me if it wasn’t for someone passing by who heard my screams and came to my aid. I was wet and shivering cold. Arlo took off his hoody and put it on top of my wet clothes, he took me home, and I later heard he warned Zane and his groupies to stay away from me. They backed off since that day. He and Enya both showed up at my darkest moments and saved me.

I hate wolves. My stepfather was one. My mother dated him before he dated my father, but he was abusive toward her to the point where she left him and met my father. My father was a good man and loved her, but they couldn't be happy. My stepfather kept coming after them, trying to get my mother back, and when my mother was pregnant with my sister and me, he broke into our home and murdered my father. That was the first time my mother got to know what he was.

She was terrified, and when he threatened to kill her, out of fear, she stayed with him. He was a monster, and she knew nothing could save her from him.

We didn’t know he wasn’t our father since my mother never told us. She tried to shield us from the abuse. As long as he didn’t touch us, she stayed and took it all. He also never hit her in front of us. We sometimes noticed bruises on her, but she would always have an explanation. But one night, my sister and I were awakened by a loud commotion. They were arguing, and we heard our mother apologize before we heard her scream. We ran to the room, and we found him hitting her. She told us to return to our room, but we didn’t. We couldn't leave her like that.

We ran to her and tried to yank her away from his grip, but he grabbed us and threw us off of her. She got up and fought, and that’s when he hit all of us. He half-shifted, and we huddled in a corner screaming in fear. It was the first we had seen something like that, a beast, and we couldn’t even move. We were paralyzed by fear.

He locked us inside and set the house alight. By the time the neighbors came to our rescue, we had caught flames. My mother and I woke up in the hospital, and we were told my sister’s burns were too severe, and she died. That’s when we fled.

A social worker was kind enough to help us get to my aunt, and that’s when my mother told me everything, including that he was never our birth father and that our father met his end by his hands. I sank into a dark place. I couldn’t even start school that year. I was afraid even to step outside. Every face I saw turned into his face, and my sister's screams as we burned alive while my mother desperately pled, trying to open the door, haunted my ears. I became suicidal, and the thought of leaving my mother alone was the only thing that held me back every time I was about to take my life.

After months of depression, I eventually got better. But when the bullying started in school, it set me back. All the pain, all the anger multiplied, and I was drowning again.

Hudson was constantly training, and after nothing helped with my depression, he invited me to train with him, and that’s when everything started to change for me. That’s when I found my purpose.

I was going to train harder, and one day I would seek out my stepfather and avenge my sister and father. Hudson and I became very close when we started training together, and one day I told him a story about a werewolf. My mother had warned me never to mention what my stepfather was to anyone, or I would get my family killed. But I had to say it to someone; I needed to, so I told Hudson. When I did, I didn’t clarify if it was just a story, a movie I watched, or if it was real. He would never believe me anyway; no one would, or so I thought, but it turned out I was wrong. The following night, Hudson asked me to accompany him to work.

He worked in security and always worked the night shift. I was confused by his request, but I went with him anyway since I had nothing better to do, and that’s when I was introduced to The Shadow, Gunner Winters, our leader.

He was nicknamed The Shadow in his former group because of his stealth. He was the best at what he did, but one night his whole group was killed. He only survived because he wasn’t with them that night. He started a new band and called it The Shadow after himself, and needless to say, that’s the band I joined.

I was asked why I wanted to join The Shadow, and I told Gunner my story. Six months later, I was initiated into the band, and I got the sweetest surprise of my life. I was taken down to the cells, and there I found a beast waiting for me. He was going to be my first kill, my passage to the band. I was given the blade, and I accepted it without a moment's pause. I was ready, but I could have never expected the face I saw after the bag covering the beast's head was removed. I couldn't believe it. It was my stepfather. Gunner had hunted him down for me. His eyes went wide when he saw me before he started cussing me, thinking I was the same girl he trapped inside a burning house. Everything he did, all the pain came crashing back, and I didn't even wait to be told what to do. My blade sank into his heart, and I felt all the power he had taken from me return ten folds as the light fled from his eyes. The pain-ridden Elora died with him that night, and I was reborn. No one was ever going to hurt my family or me ever again for as long as I still had breath in me. I had my revenge, but my mother doesn’t know.

We are sworn to secrecy. We can never reveal who we are. All our family knows is that Hudson got me a job. The Shadow owns a chain of security companies that provide a perfect cover for what we do. It also enables us to get a salary at the end of the month to provide for our families. So we are working in a way.

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I was shocked when I discovered Arlo and his family were beasts, and for a moment after the shock wore off, I was disgusted. It didn’t matter what they did for me; my hatred for wolves was too strong, but when I saw them dragging a naked, unconscious Enya, something inside of me stirred, and my conscience got the better of me. I felt horrible for standing by and letting them kill her family like that. Yes, they were monsters, but does that undo all the good they did for me? If it weren’t for them, I’d be dead. I couldn’t let them kill her. I had to do something, so I went to the van after they threw Enya inside and helped her escape, but it was too late. I hesitated for too long, and she didn’t make it.

Marko and Varner saw her, and as hard as it was to stand by and do nothing, I did. I had no choice. I couldn’t help her without exposing myself, so I did the only thing I could. I prayed to God to give her strength and help her get away. But a few minutes later, they returned and told The Shadow they killed her. My prayer fell on deaf ears.

It was a good thing I had the cloak on because I couldn’t hold back my tears. I was too late. Arlo was the only one still alive, and saving him was not going to be possible. The Shadow was going to take care of him himself, or that’s what I thought until he announced that he was going to be used as the initiation sacrifice. I almost jumped for joy and exposed myself at the news. I had time to at least save him, but I waited and waited for the perfect opportunity, and it never presented itself until tonight, when I had already given up.

I hope he runs far away, and I hope he makes it, so I can at least pay one of them back for what they did for me.

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I’ve been running in the direction Hudson went in, but I don’t see anyone, so I stop. But just then, I hear a howl cutting through the forest, and I run in its direction, and it’s not long before I see it. A red wolf is trapped in a silver net while being shot at with arrows. I quickly grab my crossbow and aim for its head, but I hear Hudson screaming no, making me confused.

“We have to take it alive!” he says, and I put my crossbow away and help with the net and just then, the beast collapses to the ground, but I gasp in horror when it takes back its human form.

“Harlow? Ho-How?” I whisper, looking at Hudson, but he shrugs his shoulders, his eyes moistening before telling me to grab his spear gun.

“Give me a collar!” Gunner, our leader and Harlow's father says, and Hudson hands one over to him. He immediately clamps it around Harlow's neck while I'm still looking at her, shocked as she shivers on the ground.

We head back, and I keep my eyes forward, unable to look back as the guys drag her unconscious body by the net.

“She’s a wolf, Elora. She’s a beast,” I hear Hudson’s voice, but I don't miss the slight tremble in it. I know he feels it too, but he is trying to be strong for me. Harlow and I were not just friends, but she was a fellow soldier, a sister. How was she a wolf all this time? She hated wolves, maybe even more than I did. My heartbeat starts to accelerate as we inch closer to the dungeons, knowing what I have done.

“What the f**k?!” Varner exclaims, looking at the open cell door, and I freeze as they all rush past me, heading inside the cell. I feel eyes on me, and I raise my head to find Hudson looking at me with a look I can’t decipher, and I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.