Chapter 30

30

" F or this to work, you need to be honest," Avery states, setting the ground rules for this interrogation I just agreed to cooperate with. It's not as if I have much of a choice. For every question I answer about The Guild, she'll answer one of mine about werewolves, which is the reason I came here in the first place. I need to understand what I am before I can even begin to wrap my mind around what's next for me, if I have any future at all.

At least she brought a pair of chairs into the cell for us to sit in. Not that I'm complaining about my accommodations, since I've been treated far better here than any prisoner of The Guild ever was in our cells, but it's nice to get up off the ground. Sleeping on it last night sucked. Given my militaristic training, it wasn't the first time I've spent a sleepless night on a hard floor. I put in a few of them outside of Avery's cell, too.

"I'll know if you're lying," she continues, my gaze dropping to her long tan legs as she crosses one over the other. The tiny cutoffs she's wearing are so short they're criminal. "Shifters have a built-in lie detector."

My eyes ping back up to meet hers. "Bullshit," I scoff.

"Ah, see?" she remarks, smirking. "Yours is working. "

I roll my eyes. "You think you're funny?"

"Seems like a waste of a question, but yeah, I do."

I frown, already knowing that with her, this isn't going to be just a simple interrogation. No, she'll poke and taunt and bait me until my head is pounding and I feel like I want to claw out of my own skin.

Shit, is that the wolf inside me?

"So, you said it's called The Guild, right? You and your dad started it?"

I nod, ignoring my intrusive thoughts about the beast lurking beneath my skin and re-focusing on the task at hand. "After my mom died, yeah. It was my dad's idea, but I went along with it."

Her lip curls in distaste. "Why?"

"Guess he needed a new purpose," I shrug.

"No, I mean why did you go along with it?"

I level her with a stare, arching a brow. "Isn't it my turn?"

She huffs out a breath, flopping back in her chair. "Fine, ask away," she mutters, waving a hand.

I roll my lower lip between my teeth, trying to figure out where the hell I should even start. "Are shifters and werewolves the same thing?"

Avery snorts a laugh like I just asked the dumbest question on the planet. "Yeah. Well, basically. The term ‘werewolf' was perpetuated by fiction, but we prefer to be called shifters, and that term encompasses more than just wolves. Foxes, bears…" she trails off when she realizes I'm looking at her as if she's speaking a foreign language. "What?"

"Bears?" I repeat, my brain still struggling to absorb the information.

"Mhmm," she hums, flipping a hand over and absently inspecting her freshly-polished nails. "I met one, once. It's rare to come across a bear shifter, they pretty much keep to themselves. They aren't about pack life like we are." Her eyes flicker up to meet mine. "How many hunters are there? "

"Thirty in the field, including the nine reinforcements that just arrived," I reply. "Well, twenty-nine without me. How many werewolves in your pack?"

"Nuh uh," she tsks, shaking her head. "I said I'd answer questions about being a shifter, not about my pack or territory. For all I know, you're here as a spy."

My lips twist in a scowl. "You really believe that? I told you what they did to me when they found out what I am."

"You've lied before," she shrugs, picking a piece of lint off her shirt. Then she glances back up at me, a spark of deviance flaring in her eyes. "Remember when you said you didn't wanna fuck me?"

"Remember when you tried to act like you didn't enjoy it?" I fire back, holding her eye contact.

The corner of her mouth ticks up. "Touché."

Goddamn, I swear we could suffocate with how thick the sexual tension in this room just became. My throat works with a hard swallow as I try to pick my mind up out of the gutter and think of a different question to ask to stay on target here. "Do all werewolves need a pack?"

"Pretty much," she replies flippantly. "Wolves don't do well on their own. Without a pack, they can go feral and become rogues. Well, unless they're an Alpha type, which…" she lifts a hand, gesturing vaguely in my direction.

"Is that what I am?"

"It's my turn," she points out, folding her arms over her chest. "A question for a question, remember?"

I jerk a nod.

She tilts her head in consideration as she studies me, her legs still crossed and the toe of her sneaker bouncing. "What's your body count?"

My brow furrows. "Like how many werewolves I've killed?"

She nods, and I suck in a deep breath .

"Honestly, I didn't keep track," I mutter. "Killing has never been a thrill for me. The hunt, I like. But the kill, not so much."

"Maybe it was your inner wolf revolting against you taking out your own kind," she suggests, giving me a pointed look.

"Maybe," I sigh. "Now that I think about it, I did get headaches a lot after missions. I thought it had something to do with the letdown of adrenaline, but they got worse after you were brought in, so now I'm thinking they might've been my… wolf ." I can't help but cringe as I speak that last word. The truth is, I'm still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the pounding in my head I've been experiencing for weeks isn't some undiagnosed medical condition, but rather a supernatural beast that can push itself through my skin.

Fuck, part of me almost wishes it was a brain tumor.

"I used to drink a lot after a successful mission, and the booze seemed to help the headache," I tack on, thinking aloud.

"Mmm, yeah, liquor dulls your inner wolf," Avery muses, chewing on her lower lip. "Also, shifters metabolize alcohol differently than humans do, since our bodies heal themselves. It takes us a whole lot more to get drunk."

I snort a laugh. "Well, that explains some things."

"You clearly still managed it just fine," she remarks.

"I was going through something."

She narrows her eyes on me assessingly. "Who did you lose?"

My pulse falters, my throat tightening. "I've lost a lot of people in my life," I grumble.

"That may be true, but the night of the full moon, when the hunters attacked… you lost someone important, didn't you?" She keeps her stare trained on me, clearly not giving up this line of questioning until I give her a straight answer.

I swallow thickly.

"Who was it?" she presses.

I'm not sure when exactly we started veering into personal territory with these questions rather than sticking to a generalized exchange of information, but I'm not opposed to answering her. I'm just having trouble choking back my emotion to get the words out.

"My best friend," I rasp, averting my gaze. "Ben."

Avery nods slowly. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and I glance up to meet her eyes again, finding them rounded in sympathy. "For your loss," she clarifies. "I wasn't there during the attack, and I'm not sorry that the hunters were taken out. They attacked us , and we did what we had to in defending ourselves. We lost people, too. I'm not sorry the threat was eliminated before they could do more damage, but I'm sorry you lost your friend."

"I'm not," I murmur, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. "At least now I can remember him as he was. If he was still around when I turned into this..." I trail off, shaking my head.

"You don't think he would've accepted you?"

"No," I admit, swallowing past the growing lump in my throat. "Ben was all Guild, all the way. He helped me get my head on straight whenever I strayed from the mission statement or started second-guessing things. He believed in the cause. If he knew what I was, he wouldn't have been able to get past it."

"But you did."

I tip my head forward, burying my hands in my hair. "I'm still working on it."

She clucks her tongue. "So even though you're a shifter, you still hate them."

"I was taught to," I mumble, lifting my head to meet her eyes. "But honestly, I don't know how to feel anymore."

For someone who devoted their life to hunting werewolves, I never actually spent much time around them, until Avery. It seems ridiculous now that I spent so many years bent on exterminating a species that I never even tried to understand. I could probably count on my hands how many times I conversed with one of them, because the truth is, I didn't care to. I didn't consider or accept their humanity. I only saw them as monstrous beasts that needed to be destroyed, choosing to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Becoming Avery's handler changed things. The more time I spent around her, the less I could rationalize her being more monster than human. Especially when the other hunters around me started acting a whole lot more monstrous than she ever did. Even now, I still feel human, and I'm technically a werewolf.

I heave a sigh, shifting my weight on the chair as I lean back. "Alright, my question."

She nods, gesturing to me with an open palm.

"Does it always hurt when you... change ?" I ask tentatively.

"No." Her lips curve into the ghost of a smile, like she's reflecting on fond memories of her own experience. "There are definitely some growing pains with the first few times you shift, but once you start integrating with your wolf, it gets easier."

"And how do I do that?"

"Like I said, you have to accept him. Open your mind and let him in. Acknowledge that he exists." She leans forward, leveling me with a hard stare. "You're struggling with your wolf right now because you're clearly still in denial. Once you accept who you really are, things will go a lot smoother for you."

"Easy for you to say," I grumble. "You've always known what you are."

Even though I've spent days trying to wrap my head around this whole thing, it feels like I'm no closer now than I was when I started. Every answer has just given way to more questions.

Honestly, it's a wonder I haven't just snapped and gone insane. My whole world was just flipped upside down. I've found myself on the other end of the extermination agenda I helped start, and now I'm seeking help from the person I kept imprisoned solely because of what she is; what we both are.

It's so ridiculous that it'd be funny if it wasn't happening to me .

Come to think of it, being locked away in this room might be the only thing preserving my sanity at the moment. With only these four walls to stare at, I've had plenty of time to think… though admittedly, I'm still struggling with whether it's even worth trying to wrap my head around what I am or whether I should just end it all. I mean, what's the fucking point? My mom's dead and gone. The man who raised me isn't even really my father, and he's completely turned his back on me. The only other person I had was Ben, but he's dead now, too. I have nothing and no one.

"Do you know who your real dad was?" Avery asks, gazing at me thoughtfully.

I shake my head. "No clue. I mean, my mom kept a lot of secrets. I always kinda got the feeling we were running from something since we moved so often, and now I guess it makes sense. But I still don't get how she even knew about werewolves in the first place, or how she got involved with one. Something bad must've happened to send her running scared."

"Maybe she was just scared of what she couldn't understand," Avery suggests.

"Or maybe he threatened her."

She shrugs a shoulder. "It's possible." She pauses, tilting her head in contemplation. "Do you want to know who he was? I mean, even if you don't want a relationship with your bio-dad, maybe he could help shed light on some things and fill in the gaps for you."

I blow out a shallow breath, scrubbing a hand over my face. "I wouldn't even know where to begin looking."

"I could help, if you wanted. A couple of my girlfriends are IT geniuses. They could do some digging, maybe at least figure out where your mom was living around the time you were conceived. If we can pinpoint the pack in the area, we could reach out to them and see if anyone knows anything."

"Guess it's worth a shot," I shrug.

She nods, and the ensuing silence that falls between us feels oppressively stifling.

"Is it my question again?" I ask, desperate to move past the topic of my family- or lack thereof- and onto something that doesn't make me want to put a bullet in my brain.

"Sure," she replies, uncrossing her legs and re-crossing them the opposite way.

My gaze lingers a little too long on those legs before it lifts to meet hers again. "How long are you gonna keep me locked up?"

"That depends," she muses. "If the info you're giving me checks out, then it'd probably be safe to let you out." Her lips curve into a devious smirk. "Though I think you should probably put in at least two weeks' penance down here, like I did in your cell. Maybe even longer since I had to find my own way out. That sounds fair, right? How long were you planning on keeping me, anyways?"

I arch a brow. "Honestly?"

She nods.

"As long as I could. While you were locked up, you were safe."

"Safe?" she scoffs.

"You saw what happened when Griff and Adams got into your cell," I say, scowling. "They're not the only ones in The Guild who are like that. They're all a little fucked up."

She cocks a brow. "But you're not?"

"I'm just fucked up in a different way."

She snorts a laugh, tossing her hair back. "Aren't we all?"

We stare into each other's eyes, some silent understanding passing between us. She's seen the depths of my depravity while holding her prisoner. I've seen her volatility while being locked up with nothing to lose. We've both given each other our worst, and the fact that we can even stand to look at one another only speaks to the level of fucked up we both must be.

"Do you regret it?" she asks, wetting her lips with her tongue.

That simple action sends my brain spiraling. Suddenly I'm remembering exactly how those lips looked wrapped around my cock, how that tongue felt swirling against my shaft as she sucked me to the back of her throat. "Regret what?" I choke out, shifting my weight on the chair as I reach down to subtly adjust myself in the borrowed sweatpants I'm wearing.

"Kidnapping me," she clarifies. "Think about it, if you never did, then maybe your life would still be perfect. You'd still be a hunter, still have a dad…"

"And I'd still turn sometime," I finish for her. "I'd still be living a lie."

She chews on the inside of her cheek, her gaze flickering away. "Maybe not."

"I don't have time for regrets," I mutter ruefully. "Can't change it now."

"I suppose that's true," she sighs, reaching up to comb her fingers through her hair. "But still, you have to wonder about the what-ifs. Like, what would it have been like if you'd always known you were a shifter? If you'd grown up with other shifters, maybe the two of us would've met under different circumstances."

I nod slowly, part of me wishing that were the case.

"How are all those dog jokes landing now?" she teases, smirking.

I shake my head with a low chuckle. "Probably shouldn't have called you beastie."

"Kinda funny that you did, actually. My mom's nickname is barbie beast. She's a tall blonde like me, and a badass fighter. "

"So, the apple clearly didn't fall too far from the tree, huh?" I remark.

She rolls her eyes, the faintest blush rising to her cheeks. "I'm just saying, if you ever meet someone who looks like an older version of me, watch your back. She's a hit first, ask questions later kinda person."

"And your dad?"

"He asks all the questions," she laughs. "They're yin and yang, a perfect fit."

My brow furrows in confusion. "He's still around, then? I thought your brother was Alpha."

"He is. My dad retired a couple years back."

"Huh. Didn't realize that was a thing."

"Well, you didn't know much about the inner workings of shifter politics, did you?" she replies smugly. "I don't know where you guys were getting your information from, but it was clearly lacking."

"Every time we learned something, it'd get flipped on its head," I murmur, recalling all the times we were left scrambling to put the pieces together. "Like the healing thing. We knew werewolves could heal themselves, so when we saw one with glasses, we were completely thrown off."

Avery chuckles to herself, shaking her head. "It's a recessive trait. I actually carry it, but my eyesight isn't affected. My mom wears contacts, though, and my aunt wears glasses. My cousin, too."

"Any weird recessive traits where a wolf can die from cancer?" I mumble.

Her smile fades, eyes rounding in sympathy. "Not that I've ever heard of, sorry. Plus, if your mom was a shifter, she would've guided you when your wolf came in."

"That just happened, though," I point out.

She shakes her head again. "Your wolf was already there; he was just dormant. Most shifters get their wolves around puberty. You just kinda wake up one day and there's something else sharing your brain. It's weird, but cool when you think about it. And for us, it's exciting. We know it's coming, so growing up, we're all anxiously waiting for our wolves to make their appearance."

"So everyone who lives here is a shifter?"

"Yep," she replies, popping the P. "And I just answered like ten of your questions in a row, so it's definitely my turn." She pauses to chew on her lower lip again, considering. "Are all the rest of the hunters human?"

"As far as I know," I say with a nod. "Is that redhead who brought me in your ex?"

"Who, Ares?" she laughs. "No, he's just a friend with a crush."

"No mutual feelings there?"

"I'd eat that boy alive," she comments, waving a hand dismissively. "Besides, I still have like nine more questions to catch up." She leans forward, narrowing her eyes on me. "Do you think my friends are hot?"

"Not as hot as you," I deadpan.

She clucks her tongue, rolling her eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"You didn't say they weren't."

I roll my eyes, huffing out a breath. "Well I'm not fuckin' blind. I don't want to fuck them, if that's what you're asking."

"Just like you didn't want to fuck me ?"

"You know I wanted to fuck you," I growl, holding her stare. "Still do, if we're sticking to the honesty thing." I lick my lips, my gaze dropping down her body, then slowly climbing back up. "I can't stop thinking about you, Avery."

Gold flecks flare to life in her eyes, and I'm momentarily mesmerized by the way they glow against the deep brown of her irises before she darts her gaze away, abruptly pushing up from her chair. "I think we're done for now," she snaps, kicking the chair out of the way and turning to start for the door .

I rise to stand across from her, my pulse kicking up a notch. "No we're not, I have more questions."

She whips around to face me, her brow furrowed and a scowl on her lips. "Fine, here's shifter one-oh-one." She holds up a hand, ticking each thing off as she goes. "We're fast. We're strong. We're human, but better. Superhuman ."

"Which is exactly what makes you so dangerous," I mumble, reciting the indoctrination that's been ingrained in me for the past decade.

"Hey, you're included in that now too, buddy," she scoffs, pointing a finger in my direction. "And you shifter hunters are dangerous in your own right. I mean, who gives a bunch of psychos a gun and a vendetta?"

"I was wrong!" I admit, raising my voice as I advance a step toward her. "I know that now, but I…"

"It's too late," she interrupts, and I can practically see the walls in her mind slamming back up to shut me out. "The damage is already done, and now we just have to deal with it."

I reach out for her, but she flinches back, spinning around and pacing toward the door. Before I can even get another word out, she yanks it open and steps through, the loud slam echoing off the cinderblock walls as she shoves it closed behind her.