Red Riding Hood Meets The Wolf: Book One (and Two) of The Hunted Series. (First Draft)

Red Riding Hood is the New Punching Bag: Chapter 14

My door slammed open the next morning and I found Aretha standing there, her arms crossed with a scowl on her face, disapproval filling her face. “Wow. I haven’t seen that look since last night at dinner, Aretha.”

“Well what did you expect to happen when my reputation is tarnished all because of your stupid actions. What you do, human, reflects on me as well.” She said, barely spitting out the words without raising her voice.

“It doesn’t help that I was thrown in front of an angry werewolf without any other instruction besides ‘Don’t die’ rolling around in my head!” I nearly yelled at her.

“Well then maybe I need to have some one on one training with you to make sure that this foolish mistake doesn’t happen again. When you open that box in 12 days I need you ready to fight. I need to be able to take over your body and not have to deal with you complaining about being sore or having scrapes and bruises all the time.”

“I’m not complaining about the scrapes and bruises. I expected as much, but to put the future Grand Master in as much danger as they did? To throw her in front as pretty much a sacrifice should not be acceptable.”

“Its called sink or swim. If you fought back instead of going into a fetal position you would have…”

“Died instantly for exposing my stomach to a clawed animal.” I interrupted her. Aretha’s demeanor changed and she looked almost impressed. “If I had rolled the animal would have had access to my spinal cord, possibly causing permanent and life altering complications and if I had moved my fore arms from my face I would have left my head and neck vulnerable for a kill shot. I saved both of our lives by not fighting back and waiting for the back up I knew I had to come and help me.”

“I am impressed. Most would have fought and lost a lot of blood resulting in a unneeded casualty in the field, but you where calm and level headed enough to think about survival, which is what this is all about, killing those monsters before they kill us.”

“I’m surprised you thought so little of your own human. Do you think that I still have an allegiance to them all because my mate was one of them? He was weak enough to be killed by a Huntress. He wouldn’t have been able to protect me anyway if he couldn’t stand up to a Huntress.”

“Thank you for your…insightful looks into this matter, Vanessa.” A smirk crossed Aretha’s face and I realized why. She had concealed a camera from my sight and had just video taped everything I had said. “I am sure your mate’s old pack will be delighted to see this. Just think they lost their Alpha, and their Luna has turned against them! Think of how weak and vulnerable they will be.” She let the video play on as it trained on me. I gave a look to the camera that made Aretha trust me enough to come closer. As soon as I got close I whispered one word, with eyes that would send the message across as clear as day.

“Good.” I let a smile slip onto my face before walking right past the camera and out of the room, heading for the dining hall for dinner, knowing I had probably impressed Aretha more then I would have liked to. I thought back on my previous day, on what had made Aretha so upset at me last night and I couldn’t help but have a scowl on my face over it.

I kept my face impassive as I walked through the halls towards the cafeteria for breakfast and past the other girls in the place, not seeing a single person of the opposite sex. I could feel my skin crawl at the thought of a group of women killing essentially animals as well as people. Women were supposed to be not necessarily soft, but nurturing and kind.

I quickly ate my breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice before going over to a wall that was near the exit and seeing why people were gathered around it. When I started to come people parted to let me through. I searched for my name through the list but kept a firm stance in case these girls weren’t going to be friendly to me. When my finger stopped sliding down the list to land on my name I heard a small gasp from a couple of the people