The Hunters

Chapter Forty-Three

I wake but I don't open my eyes, but instead I intently listen to the conversation I am hearing. Kane's voice is clear and rough like he's upset about something and another person, a girl, perhaps the one that kidnapped me is annoyed by this.

"You wanted me to find her, so what's the matter?" the girl scuffs.

"The matter is that you almost tore her into pieces! She might get infection if we don't do anything-"

"Well what do you expect me to do when she looked like me?" The girl bursts but then they're quite and Kane whispers something I can't hear clearly, but then someone shakes me and pulls me off the ground and I realize it's the girl who tortured me out there, "Good, you're alive."

"Like you care," I spit at her foot.

She laughs maniacally like that was supposed to scare her, "Kane you really found yourself a feisty one, eh?"

Kane's features soften as he looks at me. I can only imagine how awful I look, "Where's Aramis?" I shiver at how damaged my voice sounds.

"Your friend isn't here," the girl bares her teeth at me and I look at her warily, she has the same dark brown hair as me and same nose and jaw, but everything else is different. She's more muscular and leaner than me and she holds herself with more confidence. And she has metal talons decorating her fingers, I can only imagine she used both her claws and those metal talons to scrape me up.

"What did you do to him!" I screech.

"Nothing," the girl pushes me in Kane's direction and he steadies me so I don't fall, "he's not here and that's that. You're the only human in here... for now." She has a smirk on her face.

"What do you mean by 'for now'?" I place a hand on the cool cave wall to balance myself but the world is spinning all over.

"Soraya, that's enough," Kane yells in anger and his eyes glow red. The girl, Soraya whimpers and obeys Kane without any hesitation. She drops to her knees and then bows at his feet. I look back and forth between the alpha and his beta.

    "Y-you can control them?" My voice waivers.

    He pulls at my arm and I follow him as he leads me deeper in the cave, "Control is not the right word, love. They obey me. Now let's get you fixed up before you die of an infection."

    I nod and he leads me for what feels like for so long down a thousand different passageways and I bet werewolves can make their homes as random and difficult as possible since they can probably direct themselves by smell. It's astonishing.

    But eventually he opens up a beaten up wooden door and pulls me inside what looks to be an infirmary. I go ahead and sit on a cot and then he tells me to lie down. I do as he says. It's uncomfortable but I don't know if it's my wounds or if it actually is the cot.

    "I'll try to make this as painless as possible," he says as pain explodes in my abdomen. I scream in agony, "Sorry, love," he smiles wickedly over me. I wish I had the strength to curse him for calling me love.

    He continues to aid my wounds and as I grip the sides of the bench I ask him, "Do you mind me asking you who Soraya is?"

    His eyes flicker with memory and his face darkens, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

    "Nobody believed the person who talked nonsense about werewolves and yet that was true," I remind me.

    "Very well then, Amaia," I feel off-guard when he uses my actual name and my heart skips a couple beats. He smirks knowing my exact heart rate. I lick my lips and wait for him to tell me who Soraya is, "Don't you wonder why Soraya looks so much like you? Don't you feel the unbreakable bond between you two? Amaia, Soraya is your sister."

    "I don't have a sister," I answer in denial, "I'm an only child."

    "False. She's your older sister. She's told me the story almost a million times. You were an infant at the time, barely a couple months old and she was an eight year old. My father thought it was a strong tactic to destroy your kind from the inside. By turning some of the most important people. And my father, who was the alpha at the time, turned Soraya while she was playing out in the woods. That night was a full moon and when she turned unknowingly your father threatened to kill her if she didn't leave immediately. She told me she'll never forget your mother standing behind your father holding you in her arms. The look in your mother's eyes wasn't disgust or anger. It was heartbreak because your father forced her to leave. And if she hadn't then... well she'd be long dead."

    I'm silent at the news of my newly found sister. I'm shaking but I don't know if it's the pain of the wounds or the pain of my father's actions. He never told me about Soraya, his first daughter. His daughter that would've been the one to lead back home if nothing had happened to her. My father wouldn't have chosen Cyprian during his dying breath. He would've chosen Soraya or whoever she was destined to marry.

    "Are you positive this isn't-" I stop myself. Of course he's positive. He would not be able to make all that up, "Kane- you said your father was alpha before you. Where is he know?"

    "In hell, I suppose. He was too awful of a man to be living out eternity in heaven," he answers honestly and casually.

    "How-"

    He doesn't even wait for me to ask, "I killed him, if you were wondering. That's how I became alpha after all. I was only fourteen when I decided to just kill him. He killed my mother after all so why wouldn't he deserve to be killed by his own son?"

    I can't help but think back to that monstrous look on Kane's face when he killed my father. I look at Kane as he looks and bandages my wound. All I can see is the face of a monster. Someone- no- something that kills.

    Anger boils inside of my and I dare to ask, "How many people have you killed? How many lives have you ended?"

    "Innocent lives?" He offers.

    "All of them," I demand.

    "Two then, I suppose. My father and yours," his hands drop from my stomach and shivers run throughout my body. I sit up without him telling me to.

    "Only those two?" I'm shocked.

    "They both deserved it," he barely looks at me.

    "I don't think my father did. He was an innocent man, and you killed him," I protest.

    "I beg to differ, Amaia. Do you not recall the way your father would treat you? Like a plaything that he could just sell off to whatever man was manly enough to be yours? The man he would want to lead after he died? Do you not recall how your father thought of women? He just pictured them as child bearers who were to keep the human race alive. And do you not remember your father choosing Cyprian over you! When you were obviously the one who should've been called to the role. Because, Amaia, you are braver and stronger and unimaginably genius than what those hunters make you out to be. Only I truly know what you are capable of."

    And now all I can be is silent. Because I know he's right.