The Hunted

Twelve

Blake

It had been stupid, so impossibly stupid, to open her damned mouth and speak to the werewolf.

But it had been three weeks of silence, plus the days she'd spent in this cell before he started coming regularly and the days that she'd been unconscious as they'd used freaking warlock magic to fix her.

The first word had just...slipped out. It was like she hadn't even given her mouth permission to speak when she was suddenly talking and having a conversation with the monster. The conversation hadn't even done anything to abate her curiosity.

If you died, I would die too.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Blake thumped her head against the wall and closed her eyes, replaying the conversation in her head. Listening again for false notes in the voice, shifty eyes, fidgeting – anything that might indicate the werewolf was lying and that he did know about the murders.

Because when she had told him, it had been shock that darted across his face. Not the mask of composed calm he would have worn if he'd known.

And for some reason, she believed that he hadn't known. Even if she had told him that she didn't.

Not like it mattered if she believed him or not, or if he knew about the murders or not. There would be no leaving this place, no going home to Josh who'd now lost everything, including hope in her return. He would have held out for a couple of weeks until it was clear that she was gone.

A small part of her wondered if he would feel it when they did kill her. If that sibling bond would somehow inform him that she was well and truly dead. Though that wolf had said he wouldn't kill her, she didn't really think that was true.

If you died, I would die too If you died, I would die too If you died, I would die too

There was no answer she could fathom for why her life would matter so much to one werewolf. But even if she knew the answer, it wouldn't matter. They were murderers, monsters, creatures of the moon...

It didn't matter if one of them had a soft spot. It wouldn't change how she saw him. Red, niceties aside, was a monster.

No amount of books given or soft words spoken would change that. It was in his genetics.

And that was something that could never be changed.

*~*

Blake was left alone with her thoughts for four days. Red didn't come back to her cell and she wondered if something had happened to him or if he was gone. Weeks of his companionship had begun to take their toll and while she wasn't fond of him – not by any means – she found that she'd grown used to seeing his face and hearing his voice every day. It was like clockwork.

Instead, it was another woman who came to Blake's cell every day to give her food and water. She wouldn't have touched it, just to test the theory about what these wolves would or wouldn't do to keep her alive, but with the sustenance, the werewolf brought a book and Blake had known that it was a signal, a command really, from Red that he was still around. Still watching.

The female werewolf, who called herself Monroe, was leggy and blonde with eyes as blue as the ocean. A few times, she tried to engage Blake in conversation, chattering on about some television show she was watching – apparently, werewolves liked Project Runway – and celebrities that everyone thought were human but weren't.