Helena's POV
"What the fuck, Dad? How could you do this to me?"
I grabbed his half-empty bottle of beer from the table and hurled it against the wall. It shattered with a satisfying crash, brown glass and foam streaking down the cracked paint. My voice echoed in the tiny living room, too loud for the silence that followed.
"Just because you ruined your life doesn't mean you should ruin mine," I snapped, chest heaving. "I've been patient with you. So patient. But you just had to go and destroy everything, didn't you? You just had to make me hate you even more."
He looked up from the couch, giving me that same pathetic, slumped 'I'm sorry' look that used to work on me when I was younger. Not tonight.
"I didn't have a choice," he mumbled. "He told me it was either my life or yours. You wouldn't want your old man dead now, would you?"
For the first time in my life, I hesitated before answering.
At that moment… maybe I wouldn't have minded.
Yeah. That was harsh. But ever since Mom died, he'd buried himself in cheap liquor and self-pity, and I'd been the one keeping everything together. I understood pain — I was drowning in it too — but he'd made no room for mine. I never got to grieve. Not properly. Not out loud. Not like him.
And when the alcohol wasn't enough, he turned to gambling. With them.
With werewolves.
The very monsters who tore Mom apart like she was nothing. The same creatures we were raised to hunt and kill, not sleep with.
"We're hunters," I said, pacing now, fingers trembling. "We don't negotiate with them. We hunt the ones who go out of line. We stay off their territory and make damn sure they stay off ours."
He stayed quiet, too quiet.
"You sold me to their King?" My voice broke, but I powered through it. "He's fucking old, Dad. And he has a wife. You handed me over to be his concubine like I'm some piece of meat at a market stall?"
His face sagged with shame, but it only made me angrier.
"Why would you make that decision without even talking to me? I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a grown-ass woman. You had no right."
"Lena," he said, voice low, "I had no choice. You have to understand—"
"Understand?" I laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. "Mum would be furious if she saw you now. She'd be ashamed of what you've become. What you've done to this family."
He flinched.
"I need to get out of here."
"You can't leave," he said quickly, standing up and reaching for me. "Please. Just… do this for your old man. For me."
I stared at his hand as he grabbed mine, the same hand that used to tuck me in at night and teach me how to aim a crossbow. Now it felt like a shackle.
"No," I said, yanking free. "Watch me."
I turned on my heel and bolted upstairs. My heart thundered in my chest as I threw open drawers, stuffing the essentials into a worn canvas backpack. My hands trembled as I grabbed my ID, some cash, and the hunting knife Mom left me — the one with her initials carved into the hilt.
The house smelled like stale beer, mold, and regret. I had come home from school just a day ago. Now I was leaving again… maybe forever.
And this time, I wouldn't look back.
They would come for me. If my father sold me to the Alpha King, they would look everywhere. They'd sniff out my scent, track me down like prey.
So I ran before they could.
That night, I slipped out through the basement window and disappeared into the woods — the same ones I used to patrol with my mother. And with the help of a friend — someone who owed me more than a few favors — I vanished off the map. A new ID. New hair. New name.
Goodbye, Helena Marlowe.
Hello, Evelyn James.
That was two years ago.
Now I work as a waitress in a grimy little pub in a small town that people hardly hear about — the kind of place that smells like sweat and cheap perfume and where the beer's always flat. It's not glamorous, but it's safe. Safe enough.
The owner, Mitch, thinks I used to be a runaway from some rich family. I don't correct him. Let him think whatever he wants, as long as he keeps paying me under the table.
Hunters have an innate ability to detect supernaturals. It's in our blood — a tingling under the skin, a shift in the air, an instinct that's hardwired into every cell. I still feel it sometimes, like a static hum when something unnatural walks by.
But I never act on it.
Not anymore.
Hunting means attention. Attention means questions. And questions mean discovery. If I want to stay off their radar, I can't afford to slip.
So I stay quiet. Keep my head down. Work the night shifts. Smile when I have to. And when the full moon rises, when our abilities peak, I lock myself in the back office until the itch passes.
It's not much of a life, but at least it's mine, not owned by anyone.
I rented a room above a bookstore from old woman Irene, whose eyes saw more than she let on. She pitied me and gave me the room on rent. I slept on a lumpy mattress and ate instant noodles more often than I'd like to admit. But there's a peace to the routine—a numb sort of comfort.
Or there was.
Until tonight.
Because the moment the werewolf walked into the pub — tall, cloaked in shadow, his eyes like silver and storm looking around as if searching for something or someone—that feeling came back.
That old, unmistakable, bone-deep hum.
My skin went cold. My breath caught in my throat.
They'd found me.