Red

Blake was sitting at the kitchen table with Monroe and Lucy when Red and Henry arrived at the packhouse.

There was no one else around, not a single other soul inhabiting the house. As if the word had gotten out that there was a human here and people had known, instinctively, to avoid the space until Henry gave the all-clear. And so it was just the three females who sat next to each other in the kitchen, the air thick with tension as they spoke with each other.

"—a brother," Blake was saying. Red heard the sound of her fingernails drumming against the hardwood table. "That's the only family I've got."

"Your parents?" Lucy asked.

"No." Blake's voice was dark and firm enough that even Red, still standing in the front foyer with Henry, knew that the avenue of conversation was closed.

Thankfully, Lucy and Monroe didn't push. Monroe only replied, "And your brother – he wasn't mad when you said you were coming to a werewolf pack for an extended stay?"

Red kicked off his shoes, depositing them on the near-empty mat next to the door, and padded further into the house. Henry followed suit, trailing a step behind.

"He doesn't know," Red heard Blake reply. "We're not close. Haven't spoken in years, actually."

"Is he a hunter too?" Lucy asked, fishing for a little bit of information. Henry had probably told her to do it as they tried to ascertain if Blake had weaknesses – a place they could target her if she caused a problem.

"No, my brother isn't a hunter. He's in medical school, actually. Harvard. He's stupid smart – a real black and white kind of guy. My job is the reason we're not close. He doesn't see the point in having a relationship if I'm so hellbent on putting myself into situations that will likely get me killed."

"You could stop hunting," Monroe suggested and as Red and Henry near the kitchen, he saw her offer Blake a one-shoulder shrug.

Red blanched, waiting for the cutting remark from Blake that was no doubt coming. He and Henry paused in the doorway, moving no further into the room as they looked to where the females were sitting. Lucy, at the far head of the table, flicked her eyes to where Red and her Mate lingered. Next to her, Monroe did the same. Blake had her back to them and didn't even move. Likely hadn't even heard their silent approach.

The human was reclined in her chair, relaxing into the wooden frame as if she were trying to appear at ease. Yet her shoulders were stiff, neck tight, and so he knew that it was all a front. An effort to keep her composure in the middle of enemy territory.

"And let all of the monsters roam unchecked? Not a chance," Blake replied darkly. She raised her voice and added, "I make it a rule to know where all of the monsters are in respect to myself at all times. So I know that you're behind me."

Blake cast a quick glance over her shoulder and there was just the slightest hint of humour in the depth of those grey eyes as she took in Red standing next to Henry in the doorway.

"How did you know we were there?" Red asked. He was confident that she hadn't heard them come in. They'd moved too quietly for that.

"I've got eyes in the back of my head."

Red scoffed. "How."

Blake only pointed to the water glass that had been set on the table in front of her. Red stared closely and there was just the faintest hint of an outline where he and Henry stood.

Smart, he thought and it was part pride and part horror. Red wasn't sure he wanted to know when or why she'd picked up a skill that taught her to find reflective items no matter the situation. To know what was surrounding her at all points. Had she learned it the day she'd gotten those horrible scars?

"What else have you hunted aside from werewolves? I'm curious to know what other 'monsters' you lump us in with." Henry strode forward and dropped into a chair next to Lucy.

His posture was relaxed but there was still a tightness to his shoulders that told Red that his Alpha wasn't taking any chances with Lucy's safety when she was in Blake's presence. Though he didn't think that Blake would try anything as stupid as attacking an Alpha wolf's Mate, he didn't blame Henry for being cautious. Especially as Lucy was with-child. It was a situation almost guaranteed to bring Henry's instincts to the surface.

Red followed suit but took up a chair that was between Blake and Monroe. Close enough to calm the roaring in his veins but far enough to give Blake the space that she undoubtedly needed.

"Lots of things. A few vamps, some vengeful spirits, a couple of faeries here and there. Though, the rarer creatures I've subdued include djinn, kappa, red caps, wendigo...I worked a demon case once with this guy out in Florida. That was a bitch. Some bored housewife decided to spice up her life by summoning demonic creatures. Things got hairy when one decided to possess her so then not only did we have hellhounds running amuck, we also had to perform an exorcism. That was a really bad hunt. One of the worst."

"What made it worse than the others? Did you get hurt badly?" Monroe asked.

Blake shook her head and Red's eyes caught on a stray strand of midnight black. He had the urge to reach out and tuck it behind her ear but commanded his hands to stay right where they were on the table.

"No, I walked away with little more than a bruise," she said nonchalantly. "What made it bad was that the demon-possessed woman ordered the hellhounds to rip the throats out of her two children. We – I – couldn't stop it from happening. The demon left the woman as soon as the kids were dead. She didn't stop screaming and when I left the house, I heard her put a gun to her head and kill herself over what happened. The papers reported it as a murder-suicide but I knew what really went down."

Horror raced through Red. Not just at the story but at what she'd seen. The role she'd played and what she'd been unable to stop. "How old were you when that happened?"

"It was four years ago. I was nineteen."

Lucy murmured, her eyes wide with horror, "I can't believe you've had worse than that."

Blake shrugged and Red didn't know what scared him more. The lack of utter feeling in her face, as if she'd closed off every channel of emotion in her body at the memories of that story, or the words that followed.

"The worst is always the first one. Because the first monster you encounter is often the one that gets you into the hunting business. Before that happens, the world is just rainbows and fairy tales. Maybe the occasional monster under the bed but always make-believe. Never real. And then one day you realize that it's all real. Every single nightmare. Every single creature lurking in the shadows is fucking real."

"The first being you came into contact with," Red asked. "The one that got you into hunting. What was it?"

She looked at him. Stared him right in the eye and challenged, "Guess. I bet you can get it in one."

"Werewolf."

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner."

"Is that where the scars on your back came from?" Henry asked, his tone purely factual. Inquisitive. "That first hunt?"

Red's heart went still in his chest. His entire body freezing as he waited for the response. He knew that she had many scars from all of the beings she'd hunted and killed over the years yet it was the ones she'd received from werewolves that sickened him the most.

In the forest on the day that the hunters came, Red had retaliated without thinking about it. The hunters had attacked – Blake had attacked – and Red hadn't paused to consider that he had heightened strength to go along with the claws and the teeth. Humans seemed fragile in comparison, their skin as frail and thin as paper compared to his.

And slow-healing. Gods, it had taken Blake only minutes to get injured and would have taken weeks and months to heal all of those ailments had Dwayne and Ejo not stepped in to fix her with their medical knowledge and magic.

The injuring and the killing hadn't bothered Red. Still didn't, as a matter of fact. He had protected his people from an imminent threat. That was his job. What bothered Red was that had Blake not been his Mate, he would have been in that cell torturing her for the information he wanted to know. Quite possibly, he would have added to the scars on her body. To the werewolf-inflicted mutilations on her ravaged back.

It disgusted him – that thought of what he could have done to her. To a woman who had come on someone else's orders to put down a very real threat to humans.

Red was thankful it had never come to that. Glad that he hadn't needed to make that call for surely Henry would have left the interrogations to him. So many things had changed that day. From the moment that first bullet had been fired, Red's entire world had shifted.

It was poised to shift again as he waited for Blake's answer. Waited to hear how deep those scars ran in her hatred against his kind. Waited to hear if it had been someone like him that had brought her into a world that should have looked like a fairy tale with magic and creatures of old but instead was a nightmare of monsters and creatures of the dark.

"Yes," Blake said as she locked eyes with the Alpha. She didn't back down, not as a wolf might have at the dominant stare of the wolf. She only looked at him as if he were a man asking her an intrusive question. Her eyes slid to Red. "Now you know why I didn't ask many questions when I was asked to come exterminate a problem before."

Yes, he thought. I understand.

"Well as long as you don't plan to exterminate any of us while you're here, you're welcome to stay and help Red with his investigation," Henry said as he rose to his feet. The chair scraped against the hardwood floor as he shoved it back. "I've got some work to do but give me a report tomorrow once you've had the chance to think things over," he added to Red who nodded at the Alpha as he and the Luna walked out of the kitchen.

Monroe followed a moment later, leaving Red alone with his Mate. He glanced down at Blake. "Ready to get to work?"

"Lead the way, wolfie."

Red strode from the kitchen, Blake following in his wake, as they cut through house towards his office. He held the door open for her, allowing Blake to pass over the threshold before he entered and closed the door behind them.

Blake took it all in, eyes darting from the armchairs to the simple dark wooden desk and white rug. She traced her way along the sparse navy walls, turning in a slow circle before they landed on Red still lingering by the door.

"Nice," she commented. Blake twirled a finger around, indicating Red's belongings. "I couldn't imagine a homier space. Looks like you spend a lot of time in here. I love all the personal touches."

He snorted at the sarcasm. The only personal touch he had in this room were the pictures on the notepad Annalise had been drawing earlier. It had been deposited on his desk, dropped the moment that he'd heard Henry and Toby arriving with Blake. His desk chair was still shoved back against the wall from where he'd hastily stood and rushed from the room.

"It's a workspace, not a bedroom," Red told her. "The only personal touches I need in this room is the paperwork I have to do."

Blake raised a brow. "Werewolves do paperwork?"

"More than you'd probably expect. Managing accounts, buying things for the pack, writing reports—"

"Investigating murders?"

Red's mouth tightened into a thin line as he passed by Blake and angled for his desk. He slumped into the chair and jerked his chin towards the two empty seats across from him. Blake perched on the edge of one and there was something in her eyes that seemed wary and tense, though her posture was more relaxed than he'd seen it.

"Yes, though that is a fairly recent addition to my workload."

"Can I see what you've done so far?"

He nodded and reached into his desk to pull out the files he'd hidden when Annalise had climbed into his lap earlier. Red pushed the notepad with Annalise's drawings off to the side but not before Blake noticed it.

"You have a kid I don't know about or do you just like to draw?" she asked.

Red murmured, "No kids of my own. Just a young pack member who decided to visit me earlier when I was working." He handed Blake a folder, one of the few he'd been working from these weeks.

Blake flipped it open, concentration filling her face as she studied the crime scene photos and victimology profiles that Red had amassed with cool scrutiny. She turned the pages, reading everything through once and then again. Not speaking until she'd read the entire file twice.

The photos she spread out along his desk. Horrible, gruesome images. Limbs ripped from bodies, blood pooled and sprayed, faces frozen in a last scream of terror.

They'd been playing on the backs of his eyelids with every blink since he'd started accumulating the photos but Blake studied them methodically with the eye of someone who had done this many times before.

Gods, he thought. She was only twenty-three and yet the wall of ice she'd built up around herself felt decades-old. Blake should have been in college partying with friends or studying at coffee shops. Maybe travelling the world or doing literally anything else other than hunting down supernatural beings and staring at crime scene photos with as little emotion as if she were reading the morning paper.

Hell, Red had seen people read the daily newspaper with more emotion than what Blake had in her eyes. It was a cold and clinical study and damn if it didn't pain him. Red didn't care that she was a hunter or that she was filled with hate and covered in scars that would never fade. What he cared about was that this woman before him had known so much pain in her life that she was able to shut everything else down. To not allow herself to show even an ounce of compassion over the dead humans in the photos.

"Have you found any similarities amongst the victims?" Blake asked at last, raising her eyes from the photos to Red's face.

"None. Seems like they were victims of opportunity."

"There's no geographic hunting ground either unless you count the entirety of Denver and all the way out to your pack here. It'll make it difficult to catch whoever doing this in the act, even with your superhuman senses."

Red nodded in agreement. It wasn't anything he hadn't already thought about. He reached into his desk to the side drawer that he'd started to lock whenever he wasn't in here and pulled out a piece of paper with names written in a quick scrawl. He almost handed it to her but then paused and added his own name to the bottom before he held it out for Blake to take.

Blake's fingers wrapped around it and her eyes darted from his face to the list as she quickly read it over. "Is this a suspect list?"

"Yup."

"You've got over two dozen names on this thing."

"I know that," Red muttered. "I wrote it. It's everyone in the pack who has a concrete reason to hate humans before your group attacked us since if I included that event, then the list would be more extensive. Used to be longer but I narrowed it down by excluding people who were on pack territory during every murder. I'm not ruling out the idea that there is more than one person behind this."

She scanned the list again. "Toby's name is on here. Is that why he was so fun to talk to on the car ride here?"

Red licked his lips and said, "His younger sister was killed by hunters. We have a few pack members who remain affiliated with the pack but don't live on the lands. Usually, they're the ones who handle our accounts and investments or do other jobs for the benefit of the pack. For some reason, they often feel more comfortable amongst humans. Toby's sister, Katie, was like that. She always wanted to see the world.

"At eighteen, she went to college. After, she was wanted to work for one of the supernatural law firms we use if someone gets noticed by the human authorities. Katie was in her third year of college when she started dating this human guy. He didn't know what she was but he took her to his parent's house for the weekend and the kid's dad was a hunter. He could tell there was something off about Katie so he gave her silver cutlery at dinner and it burned her. They tortured her for about a week and then left her body behind a dumpster.

"When Katie didn't check in with her family," Red continued. "Her parents went to look for her. They found the body and using what she'd told them about the guy she'd been dating, they tracked down the hunters. After they finished butchering them, his mother went mad with grief over Katie's death and what she'd done to the humans so she killed herself and then Toby's father did the same at the loss of the Mating bond. It drove him insane so he hung himself and left Toby and Lucas behind."

"Lucas?" Blake asked.

"Toby's younger brother. He's eighteen."

"He's not on the list."

Red shook his head. "No, Lucas has never even been off pack lands. What happened to Katie terrified him. He's a good fighter and would be able to defend himself if he went but he has no interest in going near human settlements. Toby wasn't there when those humans died but he's hated all humans since Katie's death."

Something akin to sorrow bloomed in Blake's eyes but she masked it well, shoving it down and out of sight only seconds later as she turned her attention back to the paper.

Blake murmured quietly, "Your name is on the list too."

It wasn't a question but...almost.

Red answered it like it was one anyway. "Well, there wasn't a point to me having my own name on there when I was investigating this thing alone since I know where I've been and what I didn't do. But if you and I are going to be working together then I expect it might come out at some point that my mother was also killed by hunters. She never hurt anyone – she just had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She digested that with the same quiet coolness that she'd had when she'd been examining the crime scene photos. "What about your father?"

"Alive but I haven't spoken to him since I was ten. Pretty sure he thinks I'm dead and that's how I'm happy to leave it." Red's tone was firm but not bitter. Matter-of-fact and nothing more.

Curiosity pooled in Blake's eyes now but she didn't press the issue. Only murmured, "I'm sorry about your mom. My parents...I lost them when I was a kid too."

Understanding passed between them. Perhaps the first honest and pure emotion that they'd shared at the same time. It wasn't the kind of thing that Red wanted to have in common with his mate – no he'd hoped for brighter, happier things. Not knowing and understanding each other's pain but perhaps this was better. More true.

"There are twenty-six people on this list," Blake said as she held up the paper again, breaking the moment. "Twenty-seven if I include you on it. Is that twenty-seven people who are going to try and kill me while I'm here?"

Red didn't see the point in lying. "Twenty-six might. I won't."

"Is that because I'm you're...soulmate?"

The word sounded so foreign on her tongue. Stiff and awkward and not believed. Red didn't think that she would ever buy into it – the concept that they were predestined for each other. It wasn't in her nature. Humans couldn't comprehend it. Yet against all odds, she was back.

That had to count for something.

"Yes," Red told her simply. "But besides being my Mate...You are a guest of the pack and that means that I won't hurt you and I'm going to work like hell to make sure no one else does either. The room that Henry had Monroe and Lucy set you up in is across the hall from mine. No one will be stupid enough to try to harm you with me so close but I can't guarantee that someone won't try elsewhere. But in this house, Blake, I will keep you safe."

Blake stared into his face, reading his eyes. The fierceness in his face, perhaps a bit of the feral-ness too. The animal instincts that he couldn't keep entirely at bay. Not where she was concerned in any case.

And whatever she beheld in him, it was enough for her to reach across the desk and pluck up the pen that he'd discarded. With deliberate precision, she crossed Red's name off the list.