Huntress or Mate?

Chapter 9 - Monsters

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Enya

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We pull back from the hug after I don’t know how long and Kolten cups my face, tears still escaping our eyes. He places a gentle kiss on my forehead and I close my eyes, placing my hands on top of his, enjoying the sparks shooting from the point of contact.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t find you sooner,” he softly says, causing me to open my eyes, getting lost in his amber ones as they melt my soul, and I don’t even realize we have started leaning into each other until our lips meet. A million butterflies explode in my stomach, and my toes curl as the electric current covers my whole body in goosebumps. This is not my first kiss. I have kissed a boy once but it felt nothing like this. This feels truly… magical.

We break the kiss after a long moment, our breathing uneven and he leans our foreheads together, causing me to close my eyes again, but a loud banging on the door snaps them open. Kolten quickly lets go of me and jumps to his feet, kicking the collar under the bed before standing in front of me as the person lets themselves in without even waiting to be invited in. The atmosphere instantly changes and I sense panic and… fear? Emanating from him. I hug myself, feeling a cold shiver running down my spine as his aura turns icy before it thickens, turning dark.

“What?” a girl's voice asks in a confused tone, and I assume she’s the one who was banging on the door but I can’t see her. Kolten is blocking my view.

“What do you want?”

“We have a special order and it’s urgent,” she replies and starts to say something else again, but doesn’t get to finish as Kolten mutters 'outside’ under his breath. She lets out a sigh before I hear the door open. Kolten looks back at me to find me looking at him and mutters an apology before saying he’ll be back. I nod and he follows the girl, closing the door behind him.

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Isla

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“What? What’s with the face?” I ask Kol, looking at how pissed he looks, and he runs his hands through his hair in a frustrated manner.

“You're seriously asking me that? What’s the f*****g point of knocking if you’re going to just go ahead and let yourself in without waiting to be invited in?”

“That's why you're pissed?”

“I'm not pissed. What does Deegan want from us, Isla?”

“Why are you mad at me, Kol? It’s not like I haven’t entered your room without an invite before?” I disregard his question, feeling myself getting upset now by his treatment. I'm the one who should still be mad at him after he was a d**k and didn't even bother to apologize. Not the other way around.

“It’s not right. Just because you’ve done it, doesn’t make it right. I don’t want you just barging inside my room,” he says, and I feel something stir at the bottom of my stomach, finally getting what this is all about out. I saw how he shielded that girl from my view.

“Well, maybe in your room. I won’t, but this isn’t your room, is it?”

“Whatever, are you going to tell me what Deegan wants or not?” he says, and I look at him quietly for a moment before I tell him what Deegan said. After telling him, I tell him Nikos and I leave in two hours and he nods before asking if there's anything else. I tell him no and turn around and leave, leaving him standing by the door, my suspicions confirmed.

I don’t care what Nikos says, it’s more than s*x between Kol and that girl. He cares about her. And why is that? Kol called Deegan, the morning he was supposed to fetch the girl and told him she was injured and succumbed to her injuries. Why would he go to this trouble just to have s*x with her? I know Kol. I’ve known him since we were thirteen. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn't do that unless she meant something more to him. Something like a... mate.

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Enya

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I hug myself even tighter the moment the door closes, still feeling Kolten's weird aura. There’s something about his interaction with that girl, how quickly he let me go when she knocked, the panic and fear I felt rolling off of him, and how he seemed to be blocking me from her view, her tone, the way she spoke to him.

The door clicks open again, after a moment and snaps me out of my thoughts and I look up at him as he enters. I see his eyes soften before his expression turns to one I can’t decipher. His aura is not icy anymore or dark, but I’m still sensing fear. What is he afraid of?

“I’m sorry about that. That was Isla, my housemate,” he says, kneeling in front of me again before taking my hands and I hear a change in his heart rate. “There’s something I need to tell you, Enya. Something about me, about who I am. But first, I want you to know that you mean everything to me. The moment you opened your eyes the day we found you, you didn’t just change my world. You became my world. Before you, I was just walking dead. My heart was pumping but it wasn’t beating until I looked into your eyes. I know we just met and that what we feel is mostly from the bond, but I know I can only love you more from this point on,” he says, letting go of my hand and cupping my right cheek before gently caressing it, tears gleaming in his eyes and I feel this overbearing sense of fear wash over me.

Why is he talking like this? Is he going to leave, to reject me? A tear must have slipped out cause next, he wipes it away with the pad of his thumb.

“I’m sorry,” he softly says before letting go of me and getting to his feet. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to tell you; for who and what I am. I’m sorry for what I did,” he adds, burying his fingers in his hair before walking away and walking back to me again, his heart rate increasing with every second. Fear is now rolling off of him in waves and before I know it, I get up and walk up to him before wrapping my arms around his waist, pulling him into a hug. He hugs me back and we stay like that for a long moment before I mutter it’s okay, causing him to pull back from the hug.

He captures my lips in a long kiss before pulling back and taking my hand, leading me back to the bed. We sit down, but not on the bed, on the rug, facing each other with our legs crossed in front of us.

“I don’t know how-” he starts to say, but I cut him off, taking his hands. I thought I could do this but I can’t.

“Please, don’t reject me.”

“What? You think I’m going to reject you? I would never do that,” he says, giving my hands a firm squeeze and I internally let out a sigh of relief.

“Then what is it? What got you so scared?” I ask and he closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again.

“I’m a horrible person, Enya. I’m a monster and I’m scared you’re going to hate me,” he says, turning my expression into a confused one before I blurt out that I would never hate him without even giving it a second thought. He’s my mate and he’s the only person I have now in this world. I could never hate him.

A tear escapes his eye at my words before he begins to speak. “There was a fourteen-year-old boy who lived in a small remote village called Citville,” he starts, wiping his tear away before continuing with his story. As the story continues, I realize that this little boy is him, and I gasp before clamping my hand over my mouth, tears flowing from my eyes when he gets to the part where their village was attacked. He pauses, giving me a moment before he continues.

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“Say something, please,” Kolten says after a long moment of silence but I don't speak, I can't. Instead, I engulf him in a hug. I have no words to express how sorry and heartbroken I am for him. We both cry in each other's arms, for a moment, having forgotten all about my own life's misfortunes as my heart bleeds for my mate. “I’m a monster and I don’t deserve to be loved. But please, don’t leave me. I don’t want to lose you,” he says, still in the hug, and I pull back and cup his face.

“You are not a monster, Kolten and I will never leave you. You are a good person forced to do monstrous things by monsters. Monsters are the ones who came to your village and killed your father and sister. They are the real monsters. You were given an impossible choice and you chose to save your family. That doesn’t make you a monster. Kolten, I would do anything to get my family back. If I were given a choice to save them. I would have taken it. I would have done whatever it took. We are going to figure this out together. We are in it together now,” I assure him before pulling him into a hug again, and I hear him sob as he tightens his arms around me.

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Harlow

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“It’s time to pack up. Let’s go!” One of the guards says, but I don’t move, since I’m not sure if he means what I think he means. But I see people getting to their feet and a middle-aged man motions me to do the same; just as the guard starts to shout at me, asking me if I’m deaf. I get up, looking at my pruney hands and knees from kneeling in the cold muddy water all day. I’m shivering cold and my hands hurt from sifting and prying the stones out of the rocks.

We are organized in a line, the ones who have been here for long already forming the line on their own. I look around, looking for the girl who helped me when we were arriving here as other groups I assume to be from other sections join us, but I don’t see her. I see the old woman who was in my cell but she’s about eight if not more people ahead of me.

We walk still holding the line and after a short walk in the dark tunnel, we are above ground. It’s already dark and the lights are on, making me wonder what time it is. I groan in pain after scratching the side of my thigh. It was itchy and I scratched the sore bit. My back is sore but my knees are killing me. It feels like my caps have shifted and I have cuts that are still bleeding from getting cut by the rocks from crawling the whole day. I don’t know how I’m going to do this every day.

The people in front of us stop, causing all of us to stop and I notice we are queuing in front of what looks to be a big shed.

“Five at a time. You know the drill,” one of the men standing in front says, but I startle as someone suddenly screams inside the shed. I look around but no one is moving. It's like they don't hear the screams. My heartbeat accelerates as I look on in horror, too scared to imagine what could be happening to her. A moment later, a woman is thrown out of the shed and I gasp, placing a hand over my mouth, looking at the blood on her back as she crawls, crying before making it to her feet. Two guards march up to her and one grabs her by the arm, dragging her back towards the tunnel, while she looks dizzy. The lines move and people go inside the shed and make their way towards the tunnel when they come out.

Someone else is thrown out again and this time it’s a guy who looks like he could be around Hudson’s age. He falls to his knees but quickly makes it back to his feet and I gasp again, looking at his bloody back.

I can almost hear my heart breaking as I recall Hudson and I start to tremble. I tighten my grip on the bucket, feeling like it’s going to slip out of my hand. What are they going to do to us inside this shed? The closer my turn to go in gets, the more scared I get and I start feeling an urgent need to pee but I’m too scared to ask.

Back in the tunnel when we were digging, we weren’t allowed to go pee. You are only allowed if you have to do more than pee. You are escorted by one of them into a hole they dug in the wall and there's a bucket inside. The guard waits for you, and when you are done, you have to go empty the bucket and clean it before putting it back there. It's humiliating.

“Are you waiting for a f*****g invitation?!” I’m snapped out of my thoughts by a loud voice and I realize it’s my turn. I walk inside the shed and there are big trash cans lining up. Each one has a machine next to it that is running. We stand in a straight line, next to each other this time instead of behind one another. The first person is called and she walks up to the guy and empties her bucket.

“Here, take mine,” I’m startled by a voice on my left and I look to find the middle-aged man who gestured for me to get up, handing his bucket over to me.

“What?” I ask, confused but he grabs my bucket, giving me his.

“Take this,” he says and I take it but just then someone speaks causing us to halt in our movements.

“What the f**k do you think you are doing?!”

“I’m sorry,” he says as one of the guards comes rushing toward us, looking pissed and tears start flowing from my eyes, scared shitless as the guy apologizes. “Please-” the guy starts to say but doesn’t get to finish as the guard hits him with the back of the gun on the face causing him to fall face first before kicking him. I scream, begging him to stop but the back of his hand connects with my face, causing me to fall to my knees before telling me to pick up the contents of the man’s bucket that scattered on the floor when he fell.

“Take him,” he orders, and two men come and drag the bleeding unconscious man away. When I’m done picking up the stones, I’m ordered to get up and head over to the machines. The man’s bucket is ripped out of my hand and I’m told to empty my bucket into one of the machines. After I’m done, the machine displays eighteen. I’m asked, what’s fifty minus eighteen and I’m confused as my quivering lips mutter thirty-two. There's a sinister smile on the guard's face before he speaks.

“Thirty-two it is,” he says before picking up something behind him and my eyes widen seeing what it is. He orders me to face the big trash can and place my hands on it. I realize what he's about to do and I start audibly crying and begging but two men hold me, saying I'm wasting time, and I scream as the whip tears the skin off my back.

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Three months later

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Arlo

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I check the time and it’s 6:30 am. I should have been out of here thirty minutes ago but Dr. Garcia, one of the neurosurgeons, asked me to take a look at one of the machines in the ICU. She found out I was doing Biomedical Engineering when I helped her out with a machine that was stuck. They were looking for a night janitor here and Harry got me in. It’s kind of perfect since I can’t sleep anyway.

It’s been three months since I woke up in this hospital. Four and a half months since I lost my family and my wolf hasn’t returned. Harry has suggested therapy, but I don’t want to talk to some stranger. He’s hopeful that I’ll soon hear from my wolf and so am I. I have to, otherwise, I'll go mad. The hope of hearing from him again and making Harlow, her father, and their minions pay is the only thing holding me back from slipping off the edge.

I've been thinking a lot about the girl who saved me though, who was she? Her scent… it was familiar but my wolf and I were a mess and now I can’t place it. I couldn't see her face since she was wearing a cloak. I wonder why she helped me. Why betray her own kind? When my own mate was carrying the torch, too eager to end my life.

I hear something snap and look down at my hand and realize I broke the small pipe I was holding. Just thinking about Harlow makes my blood boil. I need to work harder, take more shifts. I’ve been job hunting for a day job but haven’t found anything yet. I must speak to the day janitor and find out if they don’t need extra hands during the day. Maybe I can score some more hours. The pay is okay but I don't have forever. I need to save and move out of Harry’s house soon, so I can start working on my plan to go back to Idowood and face the scums who cost me everything. I will probably get one chance and I can’t screw it up. I need to be prepared and preparation costs money, especially since I don’t have a pack anymore. Maybe once that is accomplished, I’ll feel some kind of peace.

Harry and Dr. Garcia have both advised me to enroll in one of the universities here to finish my education but they don’t know what it’s like in my head. I can’t even think of studying right now.

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I take my bag out of the locker and head out.

“Finally, he emerges!” I hear a voice speak to my left just as I exit the building and I look to see Ross, leaning against his car, smoking.

“What are you doing here?” I ask since I wasn't expecting him to pick me up.

“I was awake, so I decided to go for an early run and after that... Well, I just figured I’d give you a lift,” he says, opening the front passenger door, and I make my way to the car.

“Thanks, man,” I tell him as we fist bump before I get inside the car.

Ross picked me up every day when Harry wasn’t working the day shift or when he was off, but last month I told him I’ll start taking a cab. He didn’t complain about picking me up, but I didn’t want to burden him. It’s only a few days a month that Harry’s not here and I can find my way around now. I’ve been living here for a whole three months. But now and then he shows up to pick me up, like now. Ross is your typical playboy, but if you can get past the cockiness and the tinge of narcissism. He’s a great guy.

“Garcia, Garcia, Garcia… uhm!” he shivers, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he slowly drives past Dr. Garcia’s car. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why you haven’t tapped that yet,” he starts and I sigh, already exhausted. He’s got this theory that Dr. Garcia wants me and it doesn’t matter how much I tell him that's the furthest thing from the truth or that I’m not interested. He just keeps going on and on.

After what feels like forever, we get home and head inside. “Morning boys,” Harry says, coming out of the kitchen with a bottle of water, looking like he’s coming back from his jog. He tells us to clean up and come down for breakfast and we both reply with a yes sir at the same time as we make our way up the staircase.

I hit the shower and change and I head downstairs when I’m done. Eva, the house help, is busy placing the food on the table when I walk inside the dining area. When Harry is working, we all just grab a bowl and make ourselves some cereal for breakfast, but when he’s off. He makes sure we all sit down together. Last night he and I were talking and he asked me what happened, how I was discovered, and I kind of freaked out. I’ve been living with him for three months now and it was the first time he asked me and I shouldn’t have reacted like that.

Ross comes and joins us and we start digging into our breakfast, chatting about trivial matters.

“Harlow,” I suddenly say, causing them to look at me. “Harlow Winters. She’s my mate and a huntress. That’s how I was discovered. My mate killed my family.”