The Hunted

Eight

Blake

Blake had come to terms with the fact that she was going to die. Had accepted it the moment she'd found herself on the wrong end of the fight.

Not like that had been her fault in the slightest. No, the blame for that one rested firmly with Don. Fucking Don.

He was the reason that Blake was here, rotting away in the jail cell. It was nothing fancy – four walls, a cement floor, a toilet that was against the opposite wall from a simple cot, and a single door with no handle. She didn't even have a window – only a harsh artificial light overhead.

Blake's muscles were stiff and aching and her head throbbed. She could feel the blood on her, the stickiness of it replaced by dried and hardened flakes on her face and neck. It had matted into her hair after she'd been thrown into this hellhole and blacked out. Her face still stung from where that werewolf had smashed her into the ground but it was her arm that hurt the worst.

Victor. Not just anywhere wolf. That bastard had killed her parents, scarred her at eleven and then given her new scars now at twenty-three. Twelve years she'd been waiting for that death blow and she'd failed at the final opportunity. All she'd managed to do was get torn up by him again. Victor's claws and teeth had left deep gashes that would scar forever. Each motion stung and even the exhalation of her breath on the wounds caused her to bite her cheek in pain.

It wasn't the worst condition she'd ever been in but without medical help, she knew it would only be a short while before infection set in.

Perhaps that's best, Blake considered as she slumped against the wall, ignoring the cot. Even if it did look clean and soft. Blake wasn't here for comfort. They hadn't chained her up, leaving her free to roam as far as the eight-by-eight foot cell would allow.

Better to go from illness than to have them torture me and kill me slowly.

Still, it would likely be a painful death once the torture started. Long and drawn-out. But at least death was guaranteed. None of the other hunters would come back for her. If the roles had been reversed, Blake knew that she wouldn't come unless it was her brother and she thanked whatever gods were above that Malachi hadn't brought him along on this hunt. Malachi would look after Josh now that she was gone.

This would wreck him, though. Losing her. Josh would never recover from it. He would turn hard and mean and cold. He'd become like Malachi.

He'd become like her. Unforgiving. Cruel.

Blake didn't know how long she sat there, braced against the back wall of the cell facing the door. Long enough for exhaustion and hunger to set in. She spent the next twenty-four hours dozing on and off, never allowing herself to relax in the enemy territory she'd found herself in. Once, after waking, she'd found a tray of food by the door.

She'd taken one look at it and dumped it down the toilet. Better to die from starvation than to eat whatever they were offering her. The food was likely doped with some kind of drug to loosen her up and get her to tell them all of her dirty little secrets, anyway. It was safer for her to keep her mouth shut and hopefully weaken herself enough that she'd just slip away from this world before they even had the chance to notice she was gone.

Blake estimated that she'd been in the cell for at least twenty-four hours by the time she saw her first interrogators. She'd been pacing the cell like a caged animal as the door swung inward, exposing a pair of werewolves.

The first was about her age with ebony black hair that fell past his shoulders and monolid eyes that were so deep a brown they were practically black. His skin was a warm bronze and there was a displeased set to his jaw. His face was filled with barely concealed fury.