The Hunted

Eighteen

Blake

The leggy blonde werewolf led Blake through the large house. Though perhaps house was the wrong word. It felt more like an old woodland manor she'd find in some kind of ghost story. The Alpha had just driven up to it, appearing next to the house as if it had materialized through mist and trees by means of magic.

In truth, it had been a little back dirt road that had led them here and Blake didn't even know where they'd passed through the wall. Wherever it was, it wasn't the hole that she'd entered the pack from before nor was it the spot that Red had escorted her through.

Blake had committed the route to memory, just as surely as she was memorizing the house now. There were no other wolves in sight – just the blonde, who Blake had met previously and remembered that her name was Monroe, and the pretty dark-skinned woman who'd accompanied her. Blake knew enough about the second woman, had stared at her photo, memorizing the kind-looking features next to the Alpha's rough scowl the night before the attack eleven weeks ago. The Luna. The Alpha's mate.

A soulmate, if Red was to be believed.

Just as he thought that she was to him.

If it were true, she'd thought that maybe she'd feel something when she'd seen him. Had wondered if now that he'd put a name on it, Blake would be able to feel a bond between them.

But Blake had stepped out of that car and seen him standing on the deck of the house and felt nothing. Not an inclination towards him, no innate draw that told her that he was supposed to be the other half of her soul. A bit of relief, sure. Though that mostly came from having a somewhat familiar face in the crowd. Being near a person she knew had a reason not to kill her. Someone who might even protect her now that she'd willingly walked back into the wolf den.

Of course, there was no one to protect her now as the blonde paraded her through the house. One swipe of those claws across Blake's throat and she'd be down and dying on the floor faster than Red could reach her from wherever it was that he'd disappeared off to.

"So Blake," Monroe said as they entered into a grand foyer, her blue eyes flicking over Blake's frame. "Long time, no see."

"Well, time sure does fly by pretty fast when you're not rotting in an underground prison."

A tense pause before Monroe steadied herself with a breath and plastered a pleasant smile on her face. "What's home for you? Where'd you head after Red sent you off into the wilderness?"

Blake glanced around the house, ignoring the easy tone of the werewolf as she took in her surroundings. There was a long hallway down one side of it, branching off into a variety of rooms. The nearest open door exposed a large open-concept kitchen, housing what appeared to be state-of-the-art equipment like the kind Blake saw on television. Nothing like her ramshackle little house. Beyond that was a series of closed doors but to her left, there was a large staircase.

It was this that the wolves angled towards and as they began to climb, Blake replied smoothly, "Seattle. Didn't make it all the way there, though. I was a bit concerned that I might be followed so I took the scenic route before I changed my mind and turned back. I'm sure you can imagine why I didn't head straight home."

The blonde offered her a wicked grin, the kind of smile that Blake herself had perfected over the years. "You mean you didn't trust that we wouldn't try and track you down?"

The dark-skinned female didn't smile at the dry tone of her friend. She turned to Blake and met her gaze with earnest and steady brown eyes. "We didn't try to follow you. We wouldn't do that to Red."