Huntress or Mate?

Chapter 5 - Loss

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Warning: The following chapter contains

triggers and may be hard to read for

some

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Harlow

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I open my eyes, groaning, and I’m disoriented for a moment. But soon everything comes flooding back, causing me to gasp out a sob wrapping my arms around myself. I cry out in pain, touching the arrows that are still sticking out of me, some half broken. I slowly sit up, my body trembling as I do. The pain from the arrows is unbearable, but the worst is the spear half-buried in my rib cage.

My heartbeat accelerates and tears flow from my eyes, everything that happened on repeat in my head. What I am, the hatred in my father’s eyes as he told me I wasn't his daughter, how he wanted to burn me alive, how I begged them for mercy, the silo, how terrified I was.

“I’ve lost my family,” I whisper, choking on a sob, looking at my battered body before looking around in the dark forest, to see if I recognize my surroundings but I don't. I can hear a river, and it sounds close, causing me to swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry. I’ve lost everything and I don’t know where I’m going to go or what I’m going to do. My father was my only family.

I try to get up but moving hurts as the spear also moves. I need to get it out, I need to pull all these arrows out of me. I start with the one on my thigh, letting out a scream as I pull it out. The more I pull out, the weaker I start to feel and the drier my throat gets. So after pulling all of them out, only leaving the spear, I try to get up and head in the direction of the water but I can’t. Moving hurts too much. The spear moves every time I do. I start to feel dizzy, but I need to get it out.

I lie on my side, taking deep breaths before sitting up and securing my hands around it. “Ahh!!” I scream, trying to pull it out but my hands are trembling too badly and the flash around the wound has healed, making it difficult. I take another deep breath and let out a cry, getting to my trembling knees. I will have a better grip on it from this position.

I take another deep breath, to try and ease the trembling of my hands before securing them around it again.

“I can do this,” I whisper between the hiccups before letting out one big scream and using all the strength I have to pull it out. I fall on my side, dropping it to the ground before placing my hand over the wound as blood gushes out.

“Mm…Mm!” I moan in pain, keeping my hand over it, and crawl until I find a tree and use it to get to my feet as my eyes start getting blurry.

I feel like I’m going to fall, so I desperately hold on to the trees, staggering in the direction of the water. I can’t afford to pass out again. I need to get as far away from here as I can. I don’t know for how long I was out and my father is probably on my trail.

I see the water but I run out of trees, causing me to fall. I groan and try to get up, and after crawling for a while, I make it to my feet but my vision is too blurry. I can hardly see where I'm going. I stop, taking deep breaths before proceeding but I let out a scream as the ground beneath me gives way. I try to hold on, as the fall continues, but I can’t. I groan, feeling tree branches hitting me on the face, the body, and a blow to the head is the last thing I feel before my lights go out.

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Unknown Person POV

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“f**k!” I cuss, frustrated realizing I have to take a leak and pull over on the side of the road. I turn off the engine and jump out of the car, not able to hold it any longer. I walk just a little further from the car before pulling down my zipper. “Ah!” I let it out, my lips parting in relief. This is why I hate beer.

When I’m done, I pull up my zipper, turning towards the car, but a scream causes me to halt my movements. I look up the cliff as someone, or something hits the tree branches before there’s a thud on the ground. I head to my car and take out my searchlight, even though I don’t really need it since I can see just fine with my wolf’s eyes.

“s**t!” I cuss as a rock I stepped on gives way, causing my boot to go into the water as I navigate the river crossing. My wolf tells me it’s a wolf as I get closer to it, but what he doesn’t tell me is that it’s a naked she-wolf, interesting.

“Well, well,” I squat next to her, and she looks dead as blood gushes out of her head, but I know she’s not dead.

I switch off the searchlight and put it in the back pocket of my jeans before scooping her up in my arms.

“You’re alright,” I whisper as she stirs, and she goes out of it again. I take her back to the car. But a frown makes its way onto my face after laying her on the back passenger seats, noticing how slowly she’s healing. The wound in the head should have healed by now.

“Oh, well,” I mutter, shrugging my shoulders as I leave the door open, heading to the front. I open the front door and lean inside the car but just then, my phone rings, causing me to leave what I wanted to take out and pick it up first.

“Deegan.”

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Arlo

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“And this one?”

“No, leave this one with me,” I hear voices and my eyes slowly open, but it’s too bright. So I close them again, but just then, I feel it. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. I force my eyes open, trying to sit up, but I can’t. I look down to see that I’m strapped to a bed and it looks like I’m in a hospital. I start hyperventilating in a panic, not feeling my wolf, and just then everything comes flooding back. All the events of the past two weeks. From when Harlow, my mate stabbed me in the chest, to finding my home in ruins.

“My family,” I whisper, struggling against the bonds.

“Easy, easy,” someone speaks on my left, placing their hands on my shoulders, trying to get me to stop struggling but I scream, tears flowing from my eyes as the pain rocks me to my core. Another person helps him hold me down, and they try to calm me but I continue screaming. Why am I alive? Why when everyone I love is dead? Just then, I feel something pierce the skin of my neck before I fall limp on the pillow. I try to move but I can’t. I’m paralyzed and a man in what looks to be a doctor’s uniform sits on a chair next to me.

Tears continue flowing from my eyes, gutted by the pain, but I can’t even move a finger. The guy sits there and lets me cry to my heart’s content and after I don’t how long, I exhaust myself and calm down a bit.

“I can’t feel-” I start to say, but stop mid-sentence, realizing he might not be a werewolf. I can’t feel another wolf without my wolf. He introduces himself but I don’t hear him as tears continue to flow from my eyes. He keeps on talking and I desperately want to turn away from him but I can’t. So I just close my eyes and block him out. Please take me. I let out a silent prayer to the Gods as my family’s faces and the void in my chest make me wish I could close my eyes and die. I don’t want to be here. Not without my family. Not without my parents; without “Enya,” I whisper, opening my eyes but just then, my vision gets blurry. The room starts to spin and it's not long before darkness takes over.

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Harlow

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“Mm!” my eyes snap open, and I can immediately feel something is wrong. My vision is blurry but it soon clears and my heartbeat accelerates, my breathing getting labored, realizing I’m tied to a bed with a collar on my neck. “God, no. Please, no,” tears immediately come out of my eyes as I desperately try to pull on the chains. Help me! Please help me! I plead to the voice in my head but it’s quiet. I can't feel it, it's disappeared again. I pull harder on the chains but they don’t budge. “God, please help me!” I start begging God, knowing I won’t be able to get away this time.

I hear sounds that sound like machines and just then there’s a scream, a woman’s scream, causing me to halt in my movements; and I only realize now that I don’t recognize this room. I look down on myself and I’m now dressed in a t-shirt that stops just mid-thigh. I hear the sound of a door opening and I start pulling on the chains again, feeling like I’m going to lose my mind in panic. I can hear the sound of boots making their way towards the room and I start audibly crying as my heartbeat continues to drum against my ears like it’s going to leap out of my chest and fall on the small bed. Just then, the door to the room rips open and a man I’ve never seen before enters. He's tall, muscular build, and his black hair is tied in a low ponytail, exposing tattoos that are covering his whole neck.

“Finally,” he says with a sinister grin on his face before making his way to the bed.

“Please, please don’t hurt me,” I plead, looking at him in horror as the black disappears in his eyes, leaving them off white-ish.

“You better make friends with pain sweetheart cause you and her are going to be best friends from now on. But first, you and I are going to have some fun,” he taunts, roughly grabbing my face as I jam myself against the wall, continuing to plead. But a scream escapes me as he roughly pulls me down on the bed.

“Please, no!” I beg as he rips the shirt open before pulling the chains and securing them, causing my arms to stay up. He undoes his jeans while I continue to scream, begging, but my screams die in my throat when his hand finds my throat, wrapping around it and making it impossible for me to breathe while forcefully parting my legs with his. I writhe under him but he’s too strong for me and my struggles are futile.

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Unknown Person’s POV

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“She’s awake. Don’t you want to go say hi? Show her the face behind the arms that have been comforting her, chasing her nightmares away?” Nikos's voice is laced with sarcasm as he nudges my arm, standing next to me by the window. I don't know how long I've been standing here for, watching the rain that had seemed to stop but is now pouring again; the dark stormy skies resembling my inner turmoil. I wish I could tell him to f**k off, tell all of them to f**k off before marching inside that room and taking my mate into my arms. But I can’t. I can’t sacrifice my family. I can’t condemn my brothers to a life of slavery. I have already sacrificed my soul to keep them safe.

“No, I’m good. Where’s Isla? I’m hungry,” I find my voice after a moment, my claws digging into my palms as I desperately try to calm my raging heart.

“The food is in the kitchen. Isla’s busy with Deegan on the phone,” he casually replies, causing my throbbing heart to bleed. Deegan is coming to fetch Enya today and taking her to the mines. He was supposed to have done it last night already. Enya, I repeat her name in my head, her face flashing in front of my eyes and tears start to pool in them.

“Let’s go eat,” Nikos says, closing the blinds, but I don’t move. I stare at my reflection in the glass, staring at the tattoo on my neck. The tattoo that once made me feel like a man, but today stands as a painful reminder of the oath I took. It was so easy... so easy to stand there and renounce everything. Sacrificing a mate for a family seemed easy enough. I felt luckier than the rest. I was grateful. It was a small price to pay. I was going to be free; my family was going to be free. So, I stood there and took the oath. I stood there and condemned myself to a worst kind of slavery than the one I thought I was saving myself from. One disguised as freedom.

A traitorous tear runs down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away. Nikos, now standing behind me starts to speak bringing me out of my thoughts but just then, the door clicks open, and Isla comes running inside the house.

“f**k! Stupid rain!” she cusses out the rain, wiping her face with her sleeves. I don’t know what the poor rain ever did to her. She hates it.

“Well?” Nikos says, looking at her expectantly and Isla rolls her eyes, placing her phone on the coffee table.

“That horny bastard’s busy f*****g the dead,” she says, taking off her jacket and placing it on the chair.

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” I ask, advancing to her.

“He says he’ll come through tomorrow. He’s busy for the day, but I can hear someone, a girl crying in the background and the bastard's out of breath. He’s probably breaking in some new girl,” she shrugs her shoulders, saying the last part.

“Motherfucker,” Nikos mumbles with a smirk, looking impressed. “Ginger told me about that last week; He said he kept a girl for a whole week the one time; screaming from dawn to dusk. She couldn’t even walk by the time he let her out,” he casually adds, walking up to Isla and I stagger, feeling dizzy suddenly.

“Are you okay, man?” he asks and I nod after the third time, unable to find my voice.

“I’m hungry. I’m going to start eating,” Isla says, and she and Nikos both start walking out of the room but I blurt out, “wait!” causing them to come to a sudden stop before turning around to face me again.

I can’t let him take her.