Hunter's Heart

Chapter 8

"Ow!" Quinn cried as Liam fished a particularly large shard of glass from her arm. "I get that you're pissed with me for what I did, but do you have to be such a butcher!?"

"Maybe I'm hoping the extra pain will get you to wake the fuck up," Liam replied calmly, dropping the glass in the bathroom waste bin with a muffled 'thud'. "This has got to stop. You can't keep reacting this way every time Silvia tries to pick a fight with you."

It had been three weeks since Quinn had been let out of the cells and allowed to move amongst the rest of the pack. After Christian had put forth the command for her to be left alone, most of the pack had done as he'd asked. Liam no longer shadowed her every move and she was mostly ignored by the rest of the pack. It was only Silvia and her little group of minions who insisted on trying to make her life a living hell.

This latest altercation was the fourth since the dining room incident and Liam was beginning to threaten her with locking her away in the cells again if she didn't stop playing into Silvia's hands.

"I'll stop as soon as she does," Quinn replied petulantly, cursing under her breath as Liam finished wrapping a bandage around her arm and tied it off tightly.

"You can't keep retaliating every time she pushes your buttons," Liam growled. "Can't you see she's trying to force Christian's hand and get you thrown out of the pack?"

"The Alpha isn't even here!" Quinn snapped back at him. "She never pulls this crap whenever he's around."

Christian had been away for the last few days, off visiting one of the other Alpha Generals for some kind of official business. It was strange not seeing him around the mansion, and his absence was definitely felt by his people. There was a tension in the pack that wasn't there when Christian was on the grounds. He could be a cold, hard Alpha, but Quinn could see that the pack loved Christian dearly.

The affection he inspired in his people was a clear indication that he was a good man, and it almost made Quinn want to like him, too.

Almost.

Sure, he seemed to love his pack as much as they loved him, but he clearly hated her. Whatever her family had done to him in the past, it had left a mark so deep that he seemed to just hate her on principle. The man avoided her like the plague.

Whenever she entered a room he was in, he quickly made up an excuse to leave. The only times he didn't immediately leave was during meal times and it was during those times that Quinn would sometimes catch him watching her with a peculiar expression. His eyes would roam over her, turn molten gold for a moment and be filled with an intense longing. And then, when he realized he'd been caught, his eyes would go back to their ice blue color, his expression would become livid and he would storm out of the dining hall as if he were a bear with a thorn in its paw.

When word had come that that another Alpha General wanted to meet with him, he'd practically jumped at the change to leave. And that was what had given Silvia the opening she needed to start something with Quinn again. It would be reported to the Alpha the moment he returned.

"That's not the point," Liam insisted, continuing their discussion as he shooed her off of the bathroom counter so that he could wash his hands. "She's trying to get you to snap and you're letting her."

Quinn kicked over the waste bin and stalked off into her bedroom. She still wasn't used to the ease with which her anger could get out of control since she'd been bitten and she didn't want to lash out at one of the only people in the pack who genuinely wanted to like her and help her.

"So I'm just supposed to take her crap?" she cried. "Let her walk all over me in front of the rest of the pack? I'm not weak, Liam!"

Liam folded his arms over his wide chest. "I know you're not weak, but, for once, can you please just think before act. If you keep this up, my brother will have no choice but to send you to stay with the Alpha Prime."