The Hunter’s Alpha

Sofia

I expected the day to be no different than usual when I woke up on the edge of my mattress, under the threadbare blanket. The cuffs on the walls were all too familiar, as was the shabbiness of the few items carefully set in their places. But as miserable as it was to look at, I’d prefer to stay in the unkempt little room than face what was outside of it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of doing that. I swung my legs down to the floor and quickly dressed. I wasn’t fast enough.

“Sofia!” the harping screech of my name echoed from below. Not wasting time, I hurried down before she had a chance to get even angrier with me. I rushed through my door, down the hall, and down the stairs.

As I rounded the corner into the kitchen, Mrs. Lyndon was already in there, starting breakfast. One glance at her slightly greying brown hair and pinched face was enough to show what a bad mood she was in, which never boded well for me. I hurried to help her, hoping that I would not get in too much trouble for not making it down first.

Apologies wouldn’t help me if she was already worked up, so my best bet was to keep busy and hope she got sidetracked out of her mood. I kept my head down as I began chopping vegetables for the omelets. She cast me a dirty look which I studiously pretended not to notice.

Twenty minutes later, breakfast was ready and I brought everything out to serve the family. Mrs. Lyndon took her place at the opposite end of the table from her husband. Their youngest son Jesse, was off on some hunter business, and it was unfortunate that he hadn’t taken his older brother, jasper, along with him, because jasper looked me over in a way that made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I hurried back into the kitchen to get away before he could say anything. Or try anything.

He lingered in my mind like a difficult stain as I quickly ate a small portion of the food, enough to keep me going, but not enough to draw Mrs. Lyndon ire. Brown haired and square jawed with dark brown eyes, Jasper was a couple of years older than me and he had been cruel to me as far back as I could remember. He had always enjoyed putting me down or lording it over me, but the last couple of years he had been getting more personal than I was happy to tolerate. It was one thing if he said unpleasant things or hit me, it was another thing, a much worse thing, when he let those creepy, hooded eyes wander over me like a threat that I didn’t really understand but instinctively knew to fear.

I hated it when he did that.

I hated him.

I hated all of them.

Maybe, I even hated myself.

The Lyndon family were hunters of the supernatural, the group of extraordinary humans who stood between humanity and the monsters lurking in the darkness beyond the light of civilization. Growing up as an orphan in their midst, I had heard all the stories of the glory and power of the hunters, and I could easily recite the impressive tales from memory.

My own experience had been less glorious. The Lyndons had taken me in as a toddler, mistreated me as an unpaid servant as they allegedly raised me beside their sons, and none of the other hunters had ever lifted even a finger to intervene in my miserable existence.

How could the hunters protect the world from supernatural when they could not even protect me from the cold monsters in their midst?

Three times already I had tried to run away and leave the hunter life behind me, but each time I had been brought back to ‘safety’ and had been severely punished for daring to try to find my way to freedom.

I started washing the dishes.

“Sofia.”

I glanced towards the sound of my name. Mrs. Lyndon had a scowl etched across her thin face, the cruel eyes narrowed as she glared at me. not a good sign.

I tried to shrink down and look pitiful. It was easy, because after years of this misery I could not help but fear her when she got in a mood. Although my pathetic posture did not seem to have any effect on lessening my punishment, past experience taught me that any show of pride would be met with and attempt to break it And they had broken it, degree by degree, until I no longer felt I had the will to stand up to them. It wasn’t worth the fight anymore. All I could do now was bury my resentment and try to avoid more punishment by acting meek. And maybe, just maybe, someday I would get my chance to escape, even though I was having more and more trouble believing it would come.

She crossed her arms. “What did I do to deserve such disrespect?”

“Nothing. Mrs. Lyndon.” Everything. But telling her that would only get me slapped, or worse.

“Then why were you late this morning?”

“I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

“An accident? And you expect me to believe that?”

The question was a trap with only wrong answers to choose from. I would either have to disagree with her which would make her angrier or admit fault which would make her feel justified in her anger. I kept my mouth shut and tried to make myself look smaller and weaker by sagging my shoulders and looking at the floor.

“Sorry.” If I were lucky, maybe I’d still manage to calm her down.

I was rewarded with a slap across the side of my face, but it was just one and not that had, so I might get out of the morning almost unscathed. She could have done more damage if she had wanted to. Hunters were far stronger than average humans.

“We took in a common human child, we fed you, clothed you, we raised you like you were our own, and how do you repay us? With sloth and contempt? All we’ve ever asked is that you pull your weight, but you can’t even manage that, can you?”

I stopped listening to her rant and tried to fade into the background. I hated her, but there was nothing I could do about that. I was outnumbered and overpowered amongst the hunters, and they’d proven they had no intention of letting me go.

Finally, she finished her diatribe so I could go back to my work. My cheek hurt, but it probably would not bruise, at least not much. It would be easy to cover it up for the assembly tonight. The Lyndons had no qualms about treating me harshly, but my supposed adoptive mother still insisted on me hiding the evidence of her behaviors. None of the other hunters wanted confirmation of the abuse, maybe because then they might have to acknowledge and rectify the situation if they did know.

Once I finished in the kitchen, I started cleaning the floors. Mr. Lyndon and Jasper had gone to deal with hunter business or something and Mrs. Lyndon had gone to meet with someone, so I let down my guard with the luxury of being left alone.

My chores took me the entire morning and half the afternoon. Afterwards, I washed up and put on my best clothing, my second-hand female hunter uniform. As a normal human, they had never bothered to actually train me in hunter techniques, but as part of the clan I had still been expected to wear the formal attire for assemblies ever since I had turned sixteen, or at least as close to sixteen as they could estimate without knowing my actual birthday. Sixteen, that magic age when children became adults in hunter society. Of course, in those four years since I'd been technically an adult, I had been granted none of the freedoms the others had gained.

I dressed in the standard stuffy black cloth that was somewhere between a business skirt and a military uniform. I hated it, but the consequences of disobeying made open rebellion not worth it.

I applied tan concealer to the spot on my face that was just faintly discolored until it matched my skin almost perfectly. There were other, older bruises, but they were covered by my clothing, other than the one on the side of my knee that was almost gone.

Since I was a reasonably fast healer, it might be faded enough that no one would notice if my skirt did ride up a bit, but it was not worth what Mrs. Lyndon might do if she caught me showing off injuries, so I applied more concealer there, too.

At last, I was ready. In the kitchen, I put the finishing touches on supper, and then I ate in the corner of the kitchen. The sounds of the family eating from the dining room reached me, but only made me happier to be alone.

Finally, they finished, and it was time to go. I obediently got into the backseat of Mr. Lyndon's car and spent the ride looking resolutely out the window while ignoring Jasper who sat far too close for my comfort. He was getting worse all the time. I much preferred those times when he was absent due to hunter missions.

I was relieved when we got there. I responded to anyone who spoke to me with quiet, noncommittal responses. I watched everyone covertly as we walked into the assembly hall and sat with my family.

The leader of the hunters, Sigmund Triste, walked to the front of the hall and began speaking. I could tell his words were supposed to be rousing and inspire pride in the hunters and maybe they did, but I was immune, because I was not really one of them. I was an inside observer, a second-class citizen, because my parentage was not of the lofty hunters like the rest of them.

For the millionth time, I wondered why they didn't just dump me in a human orphanage when they found me and be done with it. My life probably would not have been worse, and then they wouldn't have had to waste their precious resources on a useless normal human like me.

It was not my fault that I was not as strong as the pureblood hunters. It was not my fault that they had decided to keep me on a whim.

And then I noticed Mrs. Lyndon was giving me a dirty look. Could she tell that I had been daydreaming? I forced my attention back to the leader of the hunters and tried to look like I really cared about his hunter supremacy ideals.

I could not wait to get back to my room once we got back to the house, but before I could hide for the night, I had to clean up the rest of the mess from supper. The car I rode in got back first, so I hurried to the kitchen and hoped that she would decide not to interrupt my work with a lecture or worse.

Relief washed over me when the sound of her sharp voice, accompanied by the sound of Mr. Lyndon's, faded as they went up the stairs.

The house grew quiet other than the sounds of the dishes as I placed them in their proper locations. Hopefully she would forget her irritation by tomorrow and let me work in peace.

I was about to hang up the frying pan when a noise behind me made me jump. I spun around and saw Jasper standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Tall and broad and classically handsome, I had heard girls whispering about how much they liked his curly brown hair and his dark brown eyes.

They did not know him like I did.

"Do you need something?" I squeaked. Let him be here for a glass of water or something, I desperately hoped.

"Oh, definitely."

His tone of voice set off warning bells in my mind. It reminded me of when he used to push me around when we were little, but the expression on his face was even worse than those days.

He was like a brother to me, if a brother meant someone familiar to me who I feared and loathed.

He was not looking at me like he was my adoptive brother.

Jasper stepped closer and the sound of blood rushed in my ears.

"Well, please don't let me stop you," I said. My voice was unnaturally high. I backed away, cognizant of the location of the back door, just in the hallway outside the second entrance to the kitchen behind me.

"You definitely won't stop me," he agreed.

I did not wait for him to move; I dropped the pan as I dashed to the door. Since I had caught him off guard, I gained a split-second head start.

He was a hunter, but I had always managed well in the darkness and there was some light from the partial moon. If I could get to the trees, I might have a cha-

Sofia 

His hand grasped my wrist and pulled me to a stop. I lurched backwards and almost fell down. 

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"Trying to escape again? I thought you learned your lesson last time."

"I did, I'm not running away from here."

"Seems like you were," his voice was silky.

I shook my head.

"You never learn."

Somehow, he maneuvered me around so I was facing him and he planted his lips on mine. I froze in my shock and even though I had sensed he had been angling in this direction for some time, the reality of his unwanted advances was difficult to comprehend in my shock.

I turned my mouth away. "Let me go, Jasper," I said, trying to be firm without drawing his ire.

"Why? So, you can run?” His eyes were black in the darkness.

"No, so I can go to my room."

He grinned and the expression was horribly familiar. It was the same look he had worn while tormenting me as a child. Not much had changed since then. I tried to yank my sore wrist away.

In response, he started pulling me towards the trees.

"I'm going back to my room," I told him, trying to pull in the opposite direction to no avail.

"Doesn't seem like that."

"Jasper."

"What? Give me one good reason to take you back to your room."

It sounded so horribly suggestive when he said it in that tone.

"I'm tired and I have a lot to do early in the morning."

"We won't be that long," he said. It was a threat, not a promise.

I hoped beyond hope that he was just messing with me, that he was only trying to scare me.

Maybe, if I satisfied him with my fear, he would tire of his games and leave me be. A whimper that felt all too real escaped my throat.

"Quiet, Amber."

"I'm scared."

"I'm not going to hurt you if you don't fight me."

I didn't want not to fight, and even though they had forced me to bend to their wills for years and punished me whenever I did not perfectly comply, I was not going to let him do whatever he wanted to me so easily.

My usual survival strategy, my pretense of compliance, began.

He must have noticed that I had relaxed my muscles and stopped yanking against his wrist, because even though he did not let me go, his grip loosened just enough to be perceivable, as he continued to drag me along.

I did not fight as we stopped in a clearing and he turned to me, pulling me up against him. I stayed limp while he groped me and when he finally pushed me on the ground.

So focused was he on his own crime against me, he paid no attention to what I was doing. My arms were loose and I felt around the ground with my hands, hoping to find something I could use as a weapon against him while he was distracted.

I found nothing but dirt, so I grasped as much as I could, handfuls of damp soil and sand.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I brought my hands closer to his face while he hovered above me and fumbled with our clothing.

And slowly, then suddenly, I shoved the dirt into his eyes, grinding it into his eyeballs as hard as I could. I hoped I would blind him so he could never look at me again.

He shrieked, sounding little like the brave hunter he thought that he was. I tried to knock him off and squirm away, but even blind, he grabbed me by the hair and stopped my movement away from him.

"You little bitch," he snapped, and then I was pushed back on the ground and his hands somehow found my throat.

Colors danced in my vision as he continued to crush my neck with his hands with all his strength, strong by nature and strong from training. I stood no chance against him and had reached my end, but I found I did not even care.

In death, I would escape all of them. Why hadn't I thought of that before? I wanted to live, but years more of this didn't seem worth it.

I met his eyes by the dim light of the moon. As much as the hunters hated the supernatural creatures they fought against, he looked more beastlike than any creature I had ever heard of.

My eyelids fluttered down, blocking me from even my last dim vision as darkness swept me under.

*****

My first thought when I awoke was the grim relief that I had survived. So much for my grand escape.

My second thought was to wonder what they were going to do to me next. Surely, I would not escape what I had done to Jasper unharmed.

Mrs. Lyndon would see to that whether or not I deserved it.

My third thought was the realization that I was gagged and tied up with my arms behind my back. My heart began to pound frantically in my chest at the loss of free movement. This was a whole new level of captivity.

I opened my eyes and cautiously looked around.

I was still in the forest, although it was almost dawn judging by the light of the sky. I must have been out for hours. I was not alone, but I could not see Jasper and I was not sure whether that realization relieved or upset me.

I focused on the five people nearby me. I had never seen any of them before in my life.

They were clearly large and strong and they moved like fighters. Then there was me, small, untrained, and restrained on the ground.

I was absolutely screwed. I started working my wrists back and forth, trying to loosen what bound me.

"She's awake, Alpha."

Oh, no, Alpha? That meant werewolves. I was even more than absolutely screwed. What were they going to do to me? I had heard nightmare stories of what these brutal beasts did to humans. Torture, rape, murder, cannibalism, I had jumped out of the frying pan and somehow landed in the fire. I moved my wrists more quickly, my sweat dampening the bindings. I had to escape, somehow.

"Don't waste your time, Huntress. Even if you do escape, you know that we can track you by scent," one of them said. He was frowning at me fiercely and I shrunk under his gaze, eyes lowered. I had so many years of practice trying to diminish myself that it came to me instinctively.

If I challenged, I only increased my punishment. Meekness was my trusted shield.

I could practically feel his gaze burning into me for a long moment. I stayed very still, not even moving my hands. Finally, he turned away from me. I exhaled in relief.

I listened to my captors, whoever they were, moving around. Finally, the one who had spoken to me, probably the alpha, spoke again.

"Alright. Move out."

I was yanked roughly to my feet. There was a loose length of rope attached to my hands and it was grabbed by one of the men—no, by one of the beasts in human skin. He pulled me along and I had little choice but to follow at the rapid pace they set.

As we moved, my mind whipped through what I could remember, and caught on the horror of Jasper's assault. What had happened to me after I blacked out? A shot of paralyzing fear hit me at the memory.

I took inventory of my wellbeing. My face was still a bit tender from where Mrs. Lyndon struck me the previous morning, I had various pains from Jasper's rough treatment, and my neck and throat ached where he had tried to strangle me, but the place he had been trying to violate seemed untouched.

Relief washed through me and I exhaled deeply through my nose, since my mouth was still gagged. Unfortunately, my relief was short lived. The fact that the worst had not happened did not answer my other questions. Who were these werewolves and how did I fall into their clutches?

I would have liked to ask, but obviously I could not. They kept walking too fast for me to keep up easily, and I nearly had to run to avoid being dragged along by the rope. They seemed completely oblivious to my fear and suffering. I wasn't surprised by the harsh treatment. Who had ever cared about my misery before?

As they pulled me along, I stumbled more than once. The domineering one seemed especially irritated every time I tripped over my own feet.

I supposed my human clumsiness was inconvenient for him, just like it had been for the hunters. I tried to hurry and I ended up me the previous morning, I had various pains from Jasper's rough treatment, and my neck and throat ached where he had tried to strangle me, but the place he had been trying to violate seemed untouched.

Relief washed through me and I exhaled deeply through my nose, since my mouth was still gagged. Unfortunately, my relief was short lived. The fact that the worst had not happened did not answer my other questions. Who were these werewolves and how did I fall into their clutches?

I would have liked to ask, but obviously I could not. They kept walking too fast for me to keep up easily, and I nearly had to run to avoid being dragged along by the rope. They seemed completely oblivious to my fear and suffering. I wasn't surprised by the harsh treatment. Who had ever cared about my misery before?

As they pulled me along, I stumbled more than once. The domineering one seemed especially irritated every time I tripped over my own feet.

I supposed my human clumsiness was inconvenient for him, just like it had been for the hunters. I tried to hurry and I ended up me the previous morning, I had various pains from Jasper's rough treatment, and my neck and throat ached where he had tried to strangle me, but the place he had been trying to violate seemed untouched.

Relief washed through me and I exhaled deeply through my nose, since my mouth was still gagged. Unfortunately, my relief was short lived. The fact that the worst had not happened did not answer my other questions. Who were these werewolves and how did I fall into their clutches?

I would have liked to ask, but obviously I could not. They kept walking too fast for me to keep up easily, and I nearly had to run to avoid being dragged along by the rope. They seemed completely oblivious to my fear and suffering. I wasn't surprised by the harsh treatment. Who had ever cared about my misery before?

As they pulled me along, I stumbled more than once. The domineering one seemed especially irritated every time I tripped over my own feet.

I supposed my human clumsiness was inconvenient for him, just like it had been for the hunters. I tried to hurry and I ended up saved from a face plant by rough hands on my arms.

I kept my face impassive at the angry expression in the grey eyes that were all too close to me. I steeled myself for the coming strike.

His brows furrowed even deeper. I cringed. I wanted him to stop looking at me. Looking off to the side, I kept my gaze lowered.

He released my arm abruptly as if my skin had burned him and stalked away. It was increasingly obvious that he was the leader of this band of wild mutts. He occasionally barked orders at his men, but mostly we travelled in silence.

We continued moving until I was exhausted and my accidents became more and more frequent in my exhaustion. I tried hard to keep up, because I did not want to push them too far.

They all seemed tense and unhappy, and the silence other than the sounds of the woods unnerved me. Werewolves could communicate inside their minds, and that did not make me more at ease. 

Who knew what they were talking about amongst themselves? What did they even want from me?

Before I could start to figure it out, my left foot slipped into a hollow. Twisting muscles and ligaments at an agonizing angle, I yelped through the gag before I could stop myself. The rope pulled taut and pulled me over, flat onto my face on the dirty forest floor. I pulled out my leg and rolled onto my side.

My ankle began to throb its protests and tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. I held them back as best as I could and struggled back up to my feet.

Pain shot through my ankle as I limped forward.

The werewolf who I assumed was the leader strode back towards me. I held myself still and wondered if this was when he would finally lose his temper on me. I would have apologized to him quickly to try to calm his ire, but they had taken that ability from me with the gag. The best I could manage was a pathetic whimper.

He swore and I waited, keeping my gaze low.

Then in a swift, fluid motion, he swept me up with one arm beneath my back and arms and the other under my knees.

I could barely think in my surprise. I did not struggle. Instead,I just hoped that this new inconvenience I had caused would not be held against me later.