Page 7 of Fated to the Hunters
“We should wait until we see his victims arrive. He has to feed somehow.”
They took Vince’s silence as agreement and while Ezra drove, Mateo kept an eye on the villa. They’d learned quickly that a plan was useless. Their best bet was to wing it, to take the situation as it came.
The only goal they had was to kill their prey.
Chapter Four
Scarlett
Scarlett let the door fall close behind her, half expecting a hand to slip into the crack and yank it open. Only once it clicked shut did she relax—somewhat. She didn’t run upstairs like last time, instead listening to two of her mates.
The one with the brown hair sighed, his voice slowly growing quieter. “You didn’t have to be a jerk, you know?”
“She was lying.”
“Maybe part of her does want us to disappear…”
She couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence, but they were both right. Shehadbeen lying. She wanted them to return, feeling much calmer from their simple presence. But she couldn’t give into them more than she already had. Not only would her father have her head on a platter, he would expel her from the pack. She knew she couldn’t keep the lie forever, but she didn’t want to lose her family. Not for three hunters she barely knew.
Slowly she ascended the stairs to the patio on the fifth floor. There, she could access the elevator to the penthouse. The building was for Moonlight Wolves only. It was monitored byher pack, and they rarely let outsiders in. Anyone was able to leave whenever they needed to go to their private land to spend some time with their wolves, but pack life was spent here. There was a floor dedicated to the warriors alone, and another for the kids to play and be watched. A third housed a commercial-sized kitchen and dining room for gatherings, and every family had a spacious apartment with gorgeous views over the city.
She inhaled deeply and stepped out of the elevator into her family’s private space. She tried to sneak into her bedroom, but her brother, Maximilian, caught her eye. “C’mon sis!” he called from the game room tousling through his copper-toned hair. “Want to join us?”
She stopped in her tracks, seeing him, John, Paul, and Denise playing a racing game while Kurt scrolled his phone. “Not tonight. I’m kind of tired.”
Before they could bombard her with questions, she slipped into her room. She hid the burner phone in a junk drawer deep in her closet, then curled up in bed. Since meeting her mates, she’d tried to keep up her usual self, but every moment she spent apart from them only made it harder.
A familiar knocking rhythm let her know that she had one second to fix her sad face before Kurt stepped into the room. Sure enough, her best friend stepped in as if this was his own personal space. “You okay? You’ve been different lately. Ever since the mall actually.”
He sat on the bed next to her, leaning against the headboard. Kurt was her everything. He was the only reason she’d survived being cooped up in this golden cage for most of her life. It had been fine when she’d been home-schooled like the other kids, but when everyone had gone off to public high school without her, she’d started to feel left out. Her father was strict about keeping her home, something about her being kidnapped and held ransom by the hunters lurking the streets.
Ironic.
“I don’t know,” she finally responded. “I just feel off.”
“Maybe he’ll let you go out again soon.”
“Great, long enough for me to stay happy and compliant.”
“And soon we’re out of here for the Wolfmoon too.”
“Yeah.” She’d always loved celebrating the night their goddess was closest to them. Humans called it the supermoon and every year when the moon was closest to the earth, Isis blessed boys with their wolves and made them men. But ever since meeting her mates, she hated the idea of leaving Brighton—of leaving them.
“It’s going to be fun.” Kurt started to massage her scalp, his head rolling back with his eyes closed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You’re not the one holding me hostage. You’re the only reason I’m allowed to get out once in a while.”
“I don’t know how else to help.”
Scarlett closed her eyes, immediately asking herself which of her mates would enjoy massaging her scalp the way Kurt did. The one with the black eyes most certainly wouldn’t, but maybe the one with the big, brown puppy dog eyes would, or even the quiet one—the one that had been missing tonight.
Kurt sighed and jumped off the bed. “I’m always here for you.”
“I know, and it’s why I love you.”
“Don’t say that too loud, you don’t want me to get in trouble now, do you?” he chuckled and quietly closed the door behind him.
Sitting up, she pulled her sketchbook out of the drawer next to her and chose a soft charcoal pencil. Kurt was right: she couldn’t stand how her father treated her like she was fragile, but she wasn’t frustrated enough to run off with three hunters who scared her.
