Once they got me into a room and lay me down on a soft, comfortable mattress, still thinking I was passed out, they began to discuss what they were going to do with me and I listened silently as they spoke in Spanish.

“I think we should kill her and be done with it. She looks like trouble, rogues are never good news.”

“We can’t leave her like this! It looks like the hunters got her good and she could help us fight against them. Intel and the likes”

“She’s obviously run for a long time. Look at these scars and scratches, not to mention the cuts.”

“We should let her heal and decide what to do with her when she wakes up.”

I heard the door click open to my right and someone, a small woman from the sound of her footsteps, entered.

“Why is everyo—” There was a sharp intake of breath and I heard her move closer to me. I felt her finger softly tracing the biggest scar on my stomach. It stretched from the left side of my bellybutton upwards to under my right breast. “What happened?”

I chose this moment to snap my eyes open and bolt out of the bed, snarling at the six people standing around the room looking at where I had been.

“Don’t touch me Rieker.” I hissed and crouched, ready to attack. I had to sell this otherwise they would kill me for being a rogue; that was the least of their worries though. The only way to do that was act like I’d been abused and used by hunters; not too hard to do considering it was the truth. The scar she’d traced was from when I was disembowelled by an alpha on my second mission.

As I had jumped up the alpha had shoved someone behind him and was baring his teeth at me. “Stand down rogue before I kill you for threatening my mate.” He growled.

Not wanting to push it I looked around at the others in the room, four I recognised as the wolves who confronted me in the forest from their scents and an older woman with bright blue eyes filled with concern.

None of them made a move towards me but stood still, waiting to see what I’d do.

“Who are you?” I whispered, knowing that it would be suspicious if I knew who they were. Someone on the run wouldn’t be bothered with such details when running from hunters.

 “The Piedra de la Luna pack.” A small voice said from behind the alpha, she stepped out from the protection of her mate and I was greeted by the sight of Rosy Sterling. “I’m Rosy, the alpha female and this is my mate Flynn.” Platinum blonde hair, pale rosy skin, slight dimples and bright sky blue eyes, just like the picture, although she looked slightly older. She had an English accent which matched her complexion and background from the file I was given.

I nodded and sunk down to the floor, knowing full well that I was butt naked. “I didn’t mean to run this far.” I whispered to myself, knowing they could hear me.

“Where were you going? What happened to you? Who are you?” Rosy asked stepping forward slightly, I tensed and shuffled back toward the wall and whimpered.

“They took me during a run. They hurt me, experimented on me for months.” Lie. It was more like centuries, centuries they’d been hurting me. Taking a shaky breath I squeezed my eyes shut and curled in on myself. “I escaped by stealing a knife and stabbing the guards when they came in to have their fun. I ran and haven’t stopped or looked back since.” A lone tear slid down my cheek and I looked up at them through my eyelashes.

I saw tears filling my target’s eyes as she turned to her mate. “You are not hurting her!” Rosy yelled at her mate and smacked his chest.

“Aw baby I was just being careful. She could have been here to hurt one of my pack members or worse yet, you.” He said rubbing his chest and pulling a puppy dog face at her.

I wanted to be sick at the looks they were giving each other; it was almost sickening. Love is a poison, a sweet poison yes, but a poison all the same. It destroys people and gives other power over you; I’m a prime example of that. When you love, you get hurt and so do the ones around you.

So far I’d been lucky; I hadn’t found my mate. There was nothing more dangerous to someone like me, a cold- hearted, ruthless hunter, than a mate bond. A mate bond bought even the strongest wolf to their knees, make the strongest wolf vulnerable. I know that I would either be forced to reject or kill him, maybe both. I couldn’t be vulnerable, I couldn’t let anyone in and I know that it would be my demise.

Rosy moved over to me as they broke away from each other, though Miller kept a very close eye on her as she approached me.  “You’re safe now.” She smiled at me and tried to help me up but I shied away. “You don’t need to be scared of us. We’re here to help you and you’re safe from the hunters.” She said gently.

No Rosy, no one was ever safe from hunters.

“We need to clean her cuts. She’s losing blood from them and their not healing so they’re probably infected with silver.” The other woman said from the side of the bed. I knew that she was right and if I wanted to stay healthy I had to let her clean the cuts; because even though it didn’t hurt me and affect me, it was a bad idea to have silver in my bloodstream for too long. It was slowly poisoning me, weakening me from the inside out.

Keeping up the act I slowly walked up to her and showed her the cut on my stomach that was the worst. “Please do it quickly.” I whispered softly, pretending that I was afraid.

They all looked shocked as she produced a first aid kit and nodded to the bed. “Lie down.”

I did as she said and winced as she cleaned the cuts thoroughly, she had to press gauze into the cuts to make sure that she’d gotten all the silver, stretching them in the process. I sat there, looking at the wall blankly and ignoring the sting.

“There you go, all fixed.” She said cheerily as the cuts healed and I slipped a huge shirt over my head, knowing that it belonged to the alpha because of the scent.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked Miller in a meek voice as he watched me.

He thought it over for a moment before shrugging. “We’ll see.”

-

Two days later I followed Miller into his office. I’d healed a few hours after they cleaned the cuts but I kept up the act that I was still healing, otherwise they’d be sure to question my fast recovery.

As I walked behind the alpha with my head bowed I could feel the stares of his pack on my body. I took note of the layout of the house as we walked, scenting the air to see how many wolves were here and how many were male. There were so many scents it would have been hard to pick them apart to identify individual scents, but for me it was easy.

He shut the door to his office behind me where his beta was already sitting. “Take a seat Ms Lians.”

I did as he said, sitting up straight and tense as I felt the other wolves staring at me. Miller cleared his throat and stared at my bowed face. “Can you shift? Is that why the hunters took you?” He asked.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry but I can’t shift.” I lied. It was rare to find any female that could shift and the ones that could were kept under lock and key. Although many females were born, none possessed the mutation that allowed them to shift and over the centuries hunters had found that by wiping out the female shifters, the males soon became weak as the generations continued. Thousands of years ago there had been many shifting females but now they had almost died out.

Hunters hadn’t stopped there though, oh no. Now they were targeting mates of powerful wolves so that the bloodlines would die out; for only a male could fully mate and impregnate his mate.  Although werewolves are immortal, often many do not find their mates for hundreds of years which made breeding difficult.

That’s why Rieker had put a target on Rosy’s back and if they found out that I could shift, they would lock me away under guard and it would be almost impossible to do my job; killing Rosy, and her family.

“Do you know why they took you then?”

I shook my head and curled up in the chair. “I’m sorry I can’t help, I honestly don’t know, I don’t remember much anyway.” Best way to keep this short was to be vague and not give anything away.

“Alright you may go; I will accept you into the pack in three weeks, after our guests are gone. Until then you’re on probation; one wrong move and I will kick you out.”

I whimpered but nodded. Who were these guests? All I’d smelt was the stench of wolves from the Piedra de la Luna pack. I walked to the door and pulled it open, only to be greeted by Rosy. I jumped back a little, pretending to be surprised, but I knew that she was there all along.

“Do you want something to eat? You look a little malnourished.” She walked me down to the kitchen where she pulled out a huge, rich chocolate cake. It smelt heavenly but Rieker was very strict with my diet and if he got wind that I had disobeyed him by eating even a bite, he would give a lash to my sister for each crumb that reached my lips.

“No thanks.” I shook my head and moved to sit on the last vacant stool. “Have you got any Walnuts or Salmon?” She looked up as a hoard of boys ran into the room and surrounded her, looking at the cake like it was their last meal.

I extracted myself and opened the fridge, looking for any food that I was used to eating. I could smell the vegetables and a container of steaks in the bottom so I refilled through until I found what I was looking for.

Taking the container I sat at the bench in front of Rosy and took out a raw steak. I couldn’t smell any spoilage so I took a bite.

“So where are you originally from?” The scrape of a plate bought my attention back to Rosy who was licking her finger free of rich, thick, chocolate icing on her finger as the rest of the boys dug into the divine smelling cake. She looked up at me and I saw her pale a bit.

“Moscow.” I replied, biting into the steak. I knew that the less I lied, the less chance it was that I would get caught out. Russia was the hunting capital of the world and since I hadn’t bothered to hide my accent, there was no use lying. It would make it more believable that I’d been taken by hunters if I was already near their bases.

“What? How long did it take you to run down here?” I tore into the next steak, blood dripping down my throat. I growled when one stupid boy eased closer to me. If he touched me I wouldn’t be responsible for what happened.

“Two days.” I ignored the disgusted looks I was receiving from everyone, savouring the food. Since I could shift I burnt energy at an alarming rate and if I didn’t eat enough then I wouldn’t be able to function very well. I ate when I could, seizing every opportunity, because you never know what lay around the bend.

“So anyone that would be looking for you?” I shook my head and grunted as I reached into the container and realised that I’d eaten all the raw meat.

“Well where’s your family? Your pack?” I zoned in on the unfamiliar male voice, deep and complete with an English accent. I turned my head to see a man who looked like Rosy, with a few differences; like his nose and eyes, a lighter blue than hers. This was her brother Kain, one of the wolves who would soon be dead by my hand.

“I am an orphan.”

“What’s this about orphans?” I turned around to see a tall, dark and god damn handsome stud standing there frowning. He was athletic and muscular with a tall 6 foot 3 inch frame, a broad and well-muscled chest that tapered down to a narrower waist, washboard abs and thick muscular legs. His arms matched the rest of him, muscular. He had gorgeous sun-kissed skin that was smooth, save for one scar in the middle of his chest, tousled shiny, thick, black hair, deep fudge eyes that seemed to look into my soul, pink, full and plump lips that were set in a line, a chiselled strong jaw and a straight nose.

He walked over to the tap and reached behind Rosy to get a glass.

“Alex here escaped hunters and we were just asking questions.”

“Which compound were you in?” He outright stared at me and I was so tempted to punch him since he was watching me with distrust. I whimpered and sunk back in my seat. “I-I don’t know!”

 “Look what you did now!” Rosy said upset. “She’s pulled her walls back up and is scared again.”

“What happened? And who are you?” He asked, ignoring Rosy.

“Hunters got her, hurting her.” She said sadly. They were talking about me like I wasn’t in the room; good, I’d fooled Rosy. She was too trusting, too kind. “Alex this is Matthias Holt, beta to Alpha Alexandros Knight of the Alcaeus Aatu Clan.”

“Why are you here then?” I asked quietly, taking a deep breath to slow my heart beat. Alpha Knight was very familiar to me; for he was the one who I was sent to kill all those years ago. I failed and he lived to see another day, my brother however, did not.

He took a sip of water, searching my face for something. “The king’s coming!” Rosy blurted out, sounded extremely excited.

“Why is the king coming here?” I whispered, no one else seemed surprised but many looked excited. I on the other hand saw a golden opportunity.

“He’s talking to my mate about the hunters.” Rosy said proudly, her eyes shining with happiness.

I saw Matthias shoot her a scolding look before he took her hand. “Luna I think I hear your mate calling.”

“But I d-” He dragged her away before she could talk anymore and I knew that I had to watch my back if I wanted to make sure that I did not become the target.

My guess was that my doings had caught the attention of the alphas and now they were searching for me. Too bad that the only person who knew what I looked like was Alpha Knight and he might just find himself dead before the day is done.