The Hunter and the Hunted ✔️

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Arlis had moved to the door of his cell, the black wolf staring at me with beastly eyes. He was growling at me, baring his teeth. I was at peace with it, the thought of the wolf tearing into Konrad was a beautiful thought in my mind. However, the growling was quite annoying.

"Oh shut up, mutt." I murmured, chuckling to myself. "All great and powerful Alpha Arlis Barron. Chain—" I turned my head at him. "How did you shift? Werewolves can't shift if they're chained down."

He didn't even recognize that I had spoken to him. Why would he? He was Rogue, Atrax. Or, as I was supposed to say... No Soul. His ears didn't twitch, his vacant and soulless eyes just stared at me. It's like he was blaming me for something. As if it was my fault that we were in this.

Perhaps in a way... it was. I was careless. I should've been more on top of things instead of on top of someone.

I wonder if that was Colin's plan all along. Trick me. Get me to show my neck to him, fool me into believing I could trust him.

"I guess I'm the weak mutt between us." I said to him.

Again, he didn't respond.

But someone else did. Someone I really wish hadn't.

"You're not weak and you're not a mutt."

I laughed. "Weakness means death, and I'm obviously laying in my own coffin. I might as well be a mutt, it's how I'm being treated." I stood up, my bones aching. My skin was disgusting, smeared with red that may or may not have been my blood. Dirt covered it, making me feel and probably look homeless. Rips and tears scattered my flesh like canyons.

I found the irony in my family motto. Fear means weakness and weakness meant death. I  was going backwards. I was dying, and so I was weak, and so I was scared.

Everything in my life went backwards for me. The MOMENT Colin appeared in my life, forward was wrong and right became left.

Colin came closer to the bars, resting his hands on the metal. "You're not dying."

I took a step towards him. When Konrad wasn't around, I found that my chains gave some... slack. They didn't loosen in strength but they did seem to almost grow if I wanted to walk. Not that that detail would help me escape.

But it did let me get closer to Colin, to smell his scent. That strange wash of mint and metal.

"And who says?" I questioned, stopping a foot or two away from the bars. I didn't want to get too close to him. I couldn't.

"Me." His eyes softened as he looked me up and down.

"Your word means about as much to me as any other plain fucking Hunted." And on that note, I reached my hands through the bar and smashed his face against the bars. "You want to put me in a cell that's fine. I'll treat you like any Hunter would treat any Hunted." I spit on his form that had slid to the ground, blood gushing from his nose and head.

He looked up at me with the familiar dark brown eyes and although my world was crumbling, I kept on going. Let my world burn, I'd just walk on through singing a happy little song.

"Eve..." The way he said my name reminded me that he meant everything. That he was my everything. We didn't need a rose to tell us that, we didn't think we'd ever be here. But here we were, on different sides of the war.

"Don't "Eve" me. That's not my name to you." A name shouldn't have had that much power over me and yet... all I could do was feel weaker as every letter fell off his lips.

"You don't understand." He sighed. "Or maybe you do... I don't know!" He didn't give context but he didn't have to. The questions he asked right before the betrayal answered my own questions. He was doing this for Sophia.