The Betrayed Hunter's Comeback

CHAPTER 4: THE ALPHA'S BITE

Valen's POV

I cannot stop staring at her.

She is pinned to the concrete beneath my wolf, her dark hair spread across the bridge like ink, her brown eyes blazing with fury. She should be terrified. Any human would be terrified. But she is not. She is glaring at me like I am the one who should be afraid.

And something about her scent is wrong.

It is human... mostly. Sweat, blood, wolfsbane, gunpowder. The smell of a hunter. But underneath all of that, buried so deep I almost missed it, there is something else. Something different. Something that makes the wolf inside my chest howl with recognition.

"Get your hands off me," she snarls.

I release her jaw and stand up. My wolves circle us, their eyes glowing like the light of the day. She scrambles to her feet, breathing hard, one hand pressed against her bruised ribs. She reaches for her waistband, but there is no weapon on her to use to defend herself against me.

"You are unarmed," I say. "Do not bother."

"I am never unarmed," she says. Her voice is steady, but her hands are shaking.

I study her. She is small. Too small to be the hunter who slaughtered fifty werewolves. But the kill reports do not lie. Fifty confirmed deaths. The youngest, deadliest hunter Michael has ever produced.

"Fifty," I say quietly. "Fifty werewolves. Some of them were barely adults. Some of them had families."

"They crossed into human territory," she says. "They knew the rules."

"Rules," I repeat. The word tastes bitter. "Tell me, hunter. Who made these rules?"

"Your kind kills humans," she says. "We protect them. That is all there is to it."

"Is it?" I take a step closer. She does not flinch. "Last month, your Cleaners burned a den of twelve wolves near the river. Three of them were pups. They were not attacking anyone. They were sleeping. Michael, your father, oversaw the operation himself."

Her face flickers. Just for a second. A c***k in the mask.

"That was not my mission," she says.

"But you did not stop it," I say. "You knew about it, and you did nothing. So tell me, Elena... who is the real monster here? The wolves who cross a border to survive, or the humans who burn children in their sleep?"

She opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.

"I have killed humans," I admit. My voice is cold, honest. "I will not pretend otherwise. But I have never killed a child. Every human I have taken was a hunter who came into my territory with silver bullets and fire. I defended my pack. That is all."

"You are a werewolf," she says. "Your kind cannot control the bloodlust."

I laugh. It is a short, bitter sound. "Is that what your father taught you? That we are mindless beasts? That we cannot think or feel or grieve?" I gesture to the wolves around us. "Every single wolf here has lost someone to your hunters. Mothers. Brothers. Mates. And yet here they stand, holding back their rage because I told them to. Does that sound mindless to you?"

She stares at me. Her brown eyes are wide, and for the first time, I see doubt flickering behind the anger.

"You are different from what I expected," she whispers.

"And you are different from what I expected," I say. I step closer until I can feel her heartbeat. It is racing, but not from fear. From something else. Something that mirrors the strange pull in my own chest. "Your scent... it is not right. You smell human, but underneath..."

"Stop," she says sharply. "I am human. I am a hunter. I am the woman who killed fifty werewolves, and if you let me go, I will kill fifty more."

The defiance in her voice is impressive. Foolish, but impressive.

"I cannot let you go," I say. "You are too dangerous. As long as you breathe, my pack is not safe."

"Then kill me," she says. She lifts her chin and stares directly into my eyes. "Do it. But know that my death will not end the war. My father will send a hundred hunters to replace me. He will burn your forest to the ground."

"I know," I say softly.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

I look at her for a long moment. I see the exhaustion behind the bravado. The betrayal she just endured. The husband who sold her. The sister who watched. She is broken, and she is still standing.

My wolf howls inside my chest. Not with rage. With something I do not understand.

"I am sorry," I say. And I mean it.

I shift.

The change takes less than two seconds. My bones c***k and reshape, my skin erupts in dark fur, and my jaw extends into a massive snout lined with fangs. I am enormous in wolf form, twice the size of any other wolf on the bridge. My pack steps back.

Elena does not run. She stands her ground, fists clenched, eyes locked on mine.

"Do it," she whispers.

I lunge.

My jaws close around her shoulder, and my fangs sink deep into her flesh. The killing bite. The bite that ends even the strongest werewolves. I feel her blood flood my mouth, hot and metallic, and the taste of it sends a shockwave through my entire body.

Her blood is not human.

It burns like liquid fire against my tongue.

I release her and stumble back, shifting into my human form so fast it hurts. I fall to my knees, gasping, my mouth stained with her blood.

Elena collapses onto the concrete. Her eyes roll back. Her body goes completely still.

"No," I whisper.

The bridge is silent. My wolves watch, waiting. The wind dies. The river stops. Even the moon seems to hold its breath.

She is not breathing.

"Alpha," one of my wolves says nervously. "Is she..."

"Quiet," I snap.

Crack... Crack

Then her fingers twitch.

A sound rips from her throat... not a scream, not a gasp, but a howl. A deep, primal, earth-shaking howl that vibrates through the concrete and rattles the bridge railings. My wolves flatten their ears and drop to their bellies. I feel the sound in my bones, in my blood, in the deepest part of my wolf soul.

Elena's body begins to change.

Her bones c***k and reshape beneath her skin. Her dark hair turns white... pure, blinding, impossible white. Her skin glows like moonlight. Her limbs stretch and shift, and within seconds, the woman lying on the bridge is gone.

In her place stands a wolf.

She is massive. Her fur is pure white, glowing in the moonlight like fresh snow. Her eyes are gold, burning with an ancient power that makes every wolf on the bridge whimper and bow their heads. The air around her crackles with energy, and the ground beneath her paws trembles.

I stare at her, my heart hammering against my ribs, my mind refusing to accept what I am seeing.

A White Wolf.

The bloodline that was supposed to be extinct. The bloodline my father told me about in stories before the hunters slaughtered the last of them twenty years ago. The bloodline that was supposed to be gone forever.

She is standing right in front of me.