The Hunted

Ten

Blake

Death was beckoning.

Achingly, wondrously, surreptitiously sweet. It would happen soon. The pain in her shredded arm had become little more than a dull throb, barely worth the effort of thinking about. Not when other issues had brought about more discomfort.

Blake's mouth was dry, tongue heavy. For four days, she'd refused the food and water they'd been giving her and now she knew that her body was approaching the point of no return. What little urine she had been passing was brown. Each movement she took was agony.

Deep exhaustion had begun to set in. A tiredness so severe that it was a fight to keep her eyes open.

A fight that she already knew she was going to lose.

Yet, the cot remained untouched, its thin grey bedding still neatly folded and tucked in. Like it was a hotel bed waiting for a guest. Blake had hardly moved from her spot against the wall, facing the door where there was no chance that she'd be caught unawares by her captors. When she died, she wanted it to be on her terms. She wanted to see it coming.

Not a stab in the back. There wasn't a chance in hell that she'd go down like that.

I'm sorry, Josh, Blake thought. Useless, because her brother would never know that she was sorry. Sorry for following Don deeper into the pack. Sorry for the fact that she was about to die as their parents had. Sorry that she was abandoning him.

Blake wondered how Malachi had broken the news to Josh. Unless Malachi too had died in that forest battleground. If that was the case...Then someone else would have broken the news to her brother.

Someone from Beare Lake had to have made it home. The Alpha had told her that twenty-nine hunters were dead. Between her people and Daryl's, they'd come in with a force of fifty-three. Josh would know that she'd gone in fighting and if Amir and Pam had both made it out after Blake had gone to try and prevent Don from being a dumbass, then Josh would know that she'd gone down fighting too.

At least she hadn't broken. Unless Daryl's guy had known the location of Beare Lake and had given up that information, then her brother was safe. They wouldn't be able to track the surviving hunters there. All of them were smart enough to lay low for a few days to make sure that they weren't being followed before heading home.

Blake sure as hell hadn't told her captors anything and wasn't planning on it either. The Alpha had been to visit her only one time and she hadn't said a word. Not even as he'd snarled in her face after she'd gouged his cheek with her nails.

It had been an excellent demonstration of restraint. The way that he'd held himself in check when it was so clear to both of them that he'd wanted nothing more than to detach her head from her body.

Blake hadn't helped but be a little bit impressed by that composure.

Then that other werewolf had come. From the moment he'd stepped into her cell, she'd recognized him. Of course she had. In the solitude, there wasn't much to do except think. And Blake had spent much of her time going over each and every detail of the hunt that had led to her imprisonment.

Which meant she'd thought about the werewolf that had saved her life. The one who had jumped between her and the Alpha as if he'd had no regard for his own life. Maybe he hadn't.

Blake had begun assessing him the moment he'd walked through the door. The way he moved with absolute quietness. A predator stalking prey. How easily he could kill her. His fingers on her neck would end her life in seconds. Either by his own grip or the rake of a claw across her throat.