Huntress or Mate?

Chapter 3 - Revelation

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Zane

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“What the-” I mutter, stopping my car before reversing as my headlights shine on something that looks like a naked body lying on the burnt space that used to be our next-door neighbor’s house. I get out of the car, noticing it is a body, and take slow steps advancing to it.

“f**k! Arlo?” I mutter, now running, noticing who it is. “God. He’s alive?” I whisper, kneeling next to him, trying to wake him up, but he looks dead. He’s got dry blood on him, but he doesn’t have any open wounds. “Arlo?! Wake up?! Wake up!” I call out to him, tapping his cheeks and shaking him, but he doesn’t respond.

“f**k!” I have to get him out of here before someone sees him. I wrap my arms around his naked body and drag him to the car. After struggling for a bit, I finally get him inside and slide into the driver’s seat before driving the rest of the way home like a maniac in a full-blown panic. How is he here? How did he survive? Was he not home?

I park the car and drag him out, still unresponsive. “Mom! Dad!” I call out to my parents, not even bothering to switch on the lights, and after a couple more times, my parents come rushing down the staircase.

“What the hell?! Why did you bring him here?!” my mother shrieks as my dad rushes over and helps me put him on the couch, and I don’t reply to my mother. My dad checks his pulse.

“He’s alive,” he says, getting up and running upstairs while I take his hand, whispering it's going to be okay.

“Why did you bring him here?! Where the hell were you?!” my mother yells, scowling at me while clutching her nightgown like she's going to poke holes into it.

“I didn’t know what else to do! He needs help!” I reply, ignoring the other question. Ever since the attack two weeks ago, my mother doesn’t want me out of the house. She wants me to come back straight home from varsity and only leave the house when going to varsity again. But I can't live like that. I would go crazy, and it was Gene’s twenty-first tonight. I had to go. And now I’m glad I did cause I would not have seen Arlo if I hadn't gone.

“Why would you bring him here, Zane?!

“Enough, Laraine!” my father growls, placing the first aid box on the ground before covering Arlo with the blanket he had in his other hand. “Rhaegar was our alpha. I was supposed to have gone to his aid!”

“-And get us all killed?!”

“If that’s what it took, yes! It was my duty to die by his side! He wasn't just my Alpha, our Alpha. He was my friend, and I was supposed to have his back, but I didn't! I listened to you and did nothing. I stayed locked up in here like some spineless coward while his family screamed for help. I failed him, and I will not fail his son!” my father bellows, clenching his fists, and my mother flinches as his aura darkens the room.

When Arlo’s family was attacked, my father wanted to go help them, but my mother stopped him, clinging to him, crying, saying he was going to get us all killed. My father ended up not going, but he hasn’t been himself ever since. He’s been riddled with guilt and shame, feeling like he failed his Alpha, his friend. The people that attacked them were wearing masks and carrying hunter weapons. We were shocked since it was the first hunter incident in this town in decades. We heard rumors of hunters, but nothing was ever proven. Now everyone’s on the edge since no one knows the identity of these hunters or how much they know. But my mother is worse. She even wanted me to stop attending varsity, but my father told her that might be suspicious, so I continued as usual. She hasn't stepped out of the house since the incident and does everything online.

She wants the same of us, but it's impossible. We can't live in fear. We haven't been able to find out anything about these hunters, and we can not put our lives on hold forever. Besides, if they are watching our every move as she fears, changing our routine to one that ensures we are locked up inside the house twenty-four-seven would surely make them suspicious. And there would be nothing we could do when they come for us. We would be so busy hiding that we would not even see them coming.

I noticed that Harlow, Arlo’s girlfriend, was also not in varsity for the past two weeks. I don't know if the hunters got to her too, but I hope not. I hope she hasn't been attending only because she’s grieving.

“Turn those bloody lights off! Are you out of your mind?! What if they are after him?! Do you want them to come here?! Are you so eager to get us killed!” she screams at me when I turn the lights on, and I quickly put them off again.

“I want him out of my house, Jackson!” she says to my father before marching up the staircase, huffing, and my father doesn’t reply and just asks me to hold Arlo’s arm while he attaches a drip to it. My mother is not a bad person; she's just really scared.

My father is a doctor by profession. My mother was one as well, but she stopped working when she had me and never went back. Now she's a businesswoman. She and Arlo's parents own a couple of establishments together.

When my father is done with Arlo, he tells me to go to bed, and he does the same, saying we’ll check on him in the morning again. I ask him if he's going to be alright, and he says he doesn't know but hopes so. I bid him goodnight and head to my room, a lot of questions running through my mind.

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Elora

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“What the hell did you do?” Hudson asks, roughly grabbing my arm, causing me to gasp, the action taking me by surprise. My back hits the wall, and I tremble as he pins me against it, his eyes suddenly red. The Shadow is fuming and roaring orders, and we are all heading toward Arlo’s house since everyone thinks that’s where he would have gone.

“Wha-what are you talking about-”

“-Don’t lie to me! Have you any idea what you've done?!” he hisses, letting go of me, and tears well in my eyes, realizing he knows. How does he know?

“Where is he, Elora?”

“I don’t know-”

“-I said don’t lie to me! Do not f*****g test me!”

“I’m not lying, I swear! I don’t know. I just let him out,” I reply with a tremulous voice, and he steps back, closing his eyes before suddenly grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming me against the wall again.

“Why?! Why did you do this?!”

“He saved me! He saved my life… I couldn’t let him die.”

“He saved your life. You couldn’t let him die,” he repeats, whispering like he’s tasting the words on his tongue before suddenly screaming in my face, causing me to look around, afraid someone might have heard us. “You broke the code! You betrayed us. You betrayed me,” his voice comes out soft, saying the last part, and the tears I have been holding back fall from my eyes. “I vouched for you. I said you could be trusted.”

“I’m sorry, Hudson-”

“-Do not f*****g speak! You are so f*****g selfish. You know what you did is punishable by death! How could you do this to me? You are going to fix this! You are going to tell me where that dog is, and we are going to go over there and finish him off before anyone discovers what you did. I’m not going to die because of your treachery. You-”

“-Hud?” Varner speaks, and we freeze as he comes within sight, his expression in a frown that’s slowly deepening as he advances toward us. Hudson quickly lets go of me and tries to fix his face while I tremble, scared Varn heard everything. “Hey, Varn,” he mutters, stepping back from me, and Varner asks if everything is alright, to which he answers yes.

“Are you sure?”

“-Yes,” his impatient voice is laced with frustration as he cuts Varner off before he’s finished, causing him to look at me silently for a moment before speaking again.

“Well, let’s go then. We are riding with The Shadow,” he adds, and Hudson nods, saying, of course, before glaring at me. Varner looks between the two of us as we start to jog in the direction of the truck. He can tell something is wrong. It's evident in his eyes. I clench my fists, trying to stop the tremble in my hands while Hudson's words continue ringing in my ears.

We get to Arlo’s house, or what used to be, since there’s no house anymore, just small piles of rubble that must still be collected, and there’s no sign of him anywhere on the property. We look around but quickly conclude that he's not here since there’s no place where he could hide out here. Their neighbors’ lights come on, causing us to step back into the shadows, but they go off again just as we do.

The Shadow is fuming, causing me to swallow hard, glancing over at Hudson, whose busy talking to someone. Hudson is right. What I did was selfish. If The Shadow finds out what I did, he won’t just kill me, he’ll kill Hudson too, and anyone else who knows what we are; that’s how it’s done. If you bring in someone, you are tied to that person, and their wrongdoings also become yours. They want to avoid any resentment that may arise. So they rip out the problem, root to stem.

He tells us to go back, and we do. Hudson and I ride with him again, and he starts asking Hudson if he saw anyone when they were chasing after Harlow that might have let Arlo out, and Hudson says no, his voice bitter as he glares at me. We get to the house, and the sun is almost up, so there isn’t much we can do anymore. We return to the cells, and I swallow hard, looking at a bleeding Harlow as she hangs by her arms, her wounds not healing since she’s got the collar on. The Shadow roughly grabs her jaw, asking where Arlo is, but she doesn’t speak. She continues crying, looking broken.

“We will finish this tomorrow,” he adds, letting go of her, his voice coming out low. She falls back on her knees again as The Shadow stands upright in front of her, looking at her with disgust while she continues trembling like she’s cold and shaking with sobs.

I have always thought I was strong enough to do this job. I have never questioned anything, and I have never once hesitated until now. When you join The Shadow, you are asked questions, questions that include what you would do if someone you loved turned out to be a beast. You are asked to swear that you will never stray, that you will do your duty and do what needs to be done, and I swore. I swore that I would never betray The Shadow, but now here I am, standing here and feeling myself break sliver by sliver. Looking at Harlow like this is breaking me, regardless of what she is, and I have turned into a traitor because someone I cared for turned out to be a beast. How is he doing it? How is he doing this to his own daughter?

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We walk out of the cell, making sure to lock it and head back to the house to change.

“How? How is she your daughter and yet a beast?” Varn suddenly asks the question we’ve all been asking ourselves but are too scared to ask The Shadow, and I turn and look at him, emptying my crossbow. We don’t take our weapons or camo home. We leave them here to avoid the risk of them giving us away.

“She’s not my daughter,” he says, and my eyes widen, shocked even though I shouldn’t be. I mean, what kind of father would do that to their daughter?

“What?” Varn asks, but The Shadow is in no mood to talk, so he nods at Hudson and he turns to look at Varn.

“You all know that before the general started The Shadow. He was part of a group of hunters called The Cleansing. The group was established by our forefathers and dates back centuries. It was also the first of its kind. The general was the second in command, and the band was based on a small farm where the general lived. But they didn’t hunt on the farm. There was nothing to hunt there. They hunted in the city. The city was overpopulated, providing a perfect hiding spot for the beasts. Plus, they would have been easily identified on the farms since everyone there knew everyone. Only old families that owned the farms resided on the farms.

Eighteen years ago, one night while hunting, the band came across a group of beasts that were different. They reeked and were sickly looking. They had never seen this breed before, and fighting them proved problematic, too, as they didn’t seem to care much about their lives. It didn't matter how many of them were dying. They kept charging forward without care, attacking like they were mindless. They eventually defeated them, and only a hand full of them survived, and the general, together with his leader, chased them to the city's borders. The next night, the general and his team went out again, more prepared for an encounter like the previous one, but there was nothing. They roamed all night and found nothing, and it was strange cause back then, it wasn’t like now. You were almost guaranteed to catch one every night.

They buried the men they lost that night, and everything was dead quiet for the following days. The general’s mother, who was widowed, fell ill, and the general went to visit her. She lived in the city, so she could be close to the care she needed. His family couldn’t travel since his lady had just had a baby. He was to return early the following day, but his mother passed away the next morning just as he was about to leave, and he had to stay one more night. The following afternoon he went home and arrived in the middle of the night, but what awaited him he could never have imagined. He found his whole family massacred, their heads separated from their bodies. His lady was the only one still alive, and she took her last breaths in his arms, but his three children, including the baby, were dead. There were claw marks on the walls, indicating exactly who the peps were, and their trail was still fresh, leading to the cornfields. He ran until he reached the nearest farm, but couldn’t find them; what he found was another blood trail that they had left behind. They killed all the families who were living on that farm except for a baby, a few months-old baby that was crying in a dead woman’s arms. A woman the general knew. It was her child. The farm belonged to a man who grew up with the general’s father. The Winters family and the Gregor family lived on that farm before the general's great-grandfather was able to secure land of his own.

“So they lived with the beasts without knowing?”

“They weren’t beasts. Aurelia Gregor, Harlow’s mother, was not a beast,” The Shadow spits with venom, getting to his feet and walking towards the window before turning to look at us, eyes blazing with hate.

“Wait? What? If she wasn’t a beast then… that means…” Varn trails off, not needing to finish the sentence, and for a moment, there’s complete silence. All of us are shocked by the revelation. If Harlow’s mother was not a beast, then that means her father was one. I shiver at the thought, the idea of lying with one and giving birth to an abomination making my blood run cold. I'd rather die. I'd rather have my heart ripped out of my chest and forcibly fed to me. How could she do that? Was she tricked? What? What could have possessed her to defile herself like that? How could she sacrifice her own kind, her family?

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Enya

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“She’s awake,” I hear voices from a distance before they start getting louder. I slowly open my eyes, disoriented for a moment but just then, everything comes crashing back. The attack, running for my life, drowning in the river, and I abruptly sit up on the bed, hyperventilating.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. You are okay,” a guy speaks, pulling me against his chest, his touch oddly comforting, and I break down and cry. I fist the stranger’s shirt, shaking with sobs as the events replay in my mind. My father’s loud groan after he told us to run, his bloody body lying lifeless on the floor as our house filled with smoke; my mother’s wolf crashing on the ground and her last words, run, as blood spewed out her mouth; all of it playing over and over in my head. My brother, Arlo, he didn’t even get to see us one last time. He died out there all alone. Why did I run? I shouldn't have let her save me. What's the point when everyone I love is gone?

The stranger holds me tighter, rubbing circles on my back, and after I don’t know how long, I lose the little strength I had to sit up and fall limp in his arms.

“I will never understand why we had to bring her here. We should have just taken her straight to the underworld. Like we always do,” I hear a girl’s voice complain as he gently lays me back on the bed, but her voice starts to fade away again, and darkness takes over.

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Unknown Persons’ POV

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“I’m calling Deegan.”

“Yeah, do that.”

“No!"

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not, man?”

“Look at the state she’s in. We’ll get more commission when she’s back on her feet.”

“What?”

“Since when does it work like that? The two women we handed over last week were way worse-”

“-And look at the peanuts we got for them-”

“-Because they were old and pretty much useless. What is going on? Do you want to hand this girl over or not?

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nikos. Of course, he wants to hand her over. We hand over everyone. Kol knows that.”

“Then why is he stalling? We’ve kept this girl here for two weeks already. We've never done that before. Deegan would have woken her up like he does all the passed-out ones we send over there. But for some reason, we have to nurse her back to health first. Is this girl your mate?”

“Are you listening to yourself? Do you not see the collar on her neck?”

“I do, but you don’t have a collar on your neck. You would feel it.”

“Whatever, man! Make the damn call.”