Hunter's Alpha (gxg) ✓

11. Teeth

"Do you have any idea what you did?"

"Well," I say. "First, I tried to escape. I knocked Derek out and hid him in a bathroom―"

Hunter's mouth falls open.

Pleasantly, I continue, "Then I stole a key card from some girl. That didn't work, which led to me dealing with those two guards and, yes, taking their gun―"

I can't read anything on her face. Once again, the ice slides back into place and she seems almost . . . distant. Too far away for me to guess what she's thinking.

"Didn't you see my note?" Her voice is cold.

That glimpse―her shock―seems to be the only reaction I got out of her. And now, that's gone too.

After the Wolves arrived―about seven of them, probably their best soldiers―and found nothing but me and the disarmed guard beneath me, hell was set loose.

It seems, in this scenario, I would be mistaken as the attacking Saint.

And, in this scenario―strictly hypothetical―it seems I am a little good at fighting to be deemed nonthreatening. So, of course, I was handcuffed and detained.

And after the Alpha realized what had happened, it was Hunter―Hunter―who promised to take care of me.

Grim face. Determined mouth, which I couldn't help staring at. Hypothetically.

Now, I sit on the bed of the room I first woke up in. My eyes latch onto the hints of pastel orange around the room, and again, I can't help wondering how they knew this was my favourite colour. But there's no way―I have no idea whose room this is.

"I told you," Hunter grits out, "to stay here."

Right. The note.

"Yeah, about that," I say, biting my lip. "I kind of wasn't going to listen to people who are forcing me here against my will?"

"It's dangerous out there."

I roll my eyes. "Dangerous? All I had to do was cry about some made-up boyfriend to steal the key card right out of someone's pocket."

"You shouldn't have taken advantage of Gianina."

Finally, I touched a nerve. "Oh, sorry, next time I'll just try asking her to borrow her key so I can escape from the Mafia's lair."

Hunter rounds on me, her brown eyes flashing. "The Underground isn't a lair."

There's something about her eyes that I notice, then―something strange. But I push the thought away from my mind. I need to make her mad. I need to rile her up.

"Well, what else do you call fifty floors deep beneath the surface? With a self-sustaining market place and bedrooms? What are you preparing for, the Apocalypse?"

Her jaw flexes. She is staring at the picture frame I saw earlier, of the two little girls. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

I can't think of something to stay. She seems like stone. Impenetrable.

"Who are the girls in the photograph?"