Page 13 of The Huntress and the Blood Moon (The Huntress #1)

T here’s a notable shift in the air as Carmen steps through the open door leading into the cavernous factory, everything growing heavy and dank.

Without the moonlight it’s difficult to make anything out in the darkness, but she senses movement in the building, can hear the faint rustling of not just one but multiple beasts.

Hugging her body close to the cement wall, Carmen takes one silent step at a time, careful not to blow her cover.

It would only take one misstep for this whole plan to crumble—everything is resting on her shoulders.

There’s no one else here to help her, but there are plenty of monsters who’d gladly see her killed, who have a much better sense of sight and sound and smell than she does.

She knows the odds are highly stacked against her, that getting out of this alive would be damn near impossible.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t plan on it.

The wall she moves against opens into some sort of room or alcove on the left in just a handful of yards.

Carmen holds her breath to listen for anything that might be waiting for her around that bend, carefully moving her right foot in front of her left to take another step.

She freezes when she hears the unmistakable sound of someone’s ragged breaths.

“Please,” a female voice says from somewhere in the distance. Carmen’s heart strikes hard against her ribs as adrenaline shoots through her. “Please don’t?—”

There’s a deep thud and a low groan. “Quiet!” someone else shushes. A male, by the sounds of it.

Carmen forces a deep breath into her lungs, begging her heart to cooperate and slow the hell down.

Setting the tanks on the ground, she takes another long step forward, and then two more, until she reaches the threshold of the opening.

Leaning forward, she takes silent inventory of everything she sees.

The room looks like it once might have been an office space.

A long wooden table is pushed up against the far wall, three stacks of chairs tucked in a row beneath it.

In the corner is a thick iron anchor jutting out from the wall with a long chain attached to it.

Carmen follows the length of the chain with her eyes as they continue to adjust to the utter lack of light.

On the ground is a rounded shape that moves . . . seems to breathe.

It appears to be human—the girl she heard. With a chain wrapped around her middle.

“Please,” she says again, her voice dry enough to break.

It’s only now that Carmen notices the figure looming over her, his back hunched as he inspects the chain. He straightens and cocks his leg back before shooting it forward, right into the girl’s stomach. “I said be quiet !” he mutters.

Every cell in Carmen’s body goes still, every muscle growing taut.

The girl whimpers once before curling in on herself, hiding her face from the man as he again bends to fumble with the chain.

Carmen takes a slow step back and leans her head against the wall, taking another deep breath in.

She never imagined that she might find anyone being held captive inside the den, never planned for something like this.

Werewolves usually kill their victims where they find them—she’s never heard of victims being taken.

Everything she’s worked toward has led to this moment, and all she needs to do is get as close as she can to the heart of the building where she can light the whole place up.

Where she can finally enact her revenge for everything these wolves took away from her in that desert.

To be distracted by this girl is a risk she’s almost not sure she’s willing to take, but the alternative means the likely death of another innocent.

Of another victim to be mourned by people who love her.

Carmen can’t stomach the thought. She thinks of who might be out there wondering where this girl is tonight. If there’s someone who loves her just as fiercely, just as bravely, as she loved Lacie.

Footsteps suddenly sound from inside the room, and Carmen ducks down deeper into the shadows just as the man stalks out, turning right down the hall and away from her.

He doesn’t seem to notice that she’s there, whistling out a flowery tune as he meanders on.

His long dark hair is tied back with a scrap of rope.

She decides right then and there he’ll be the first one she kills tonight.

Carmen waits until he disappears, until she can’t hear him anymore, and then carefully rounds the corner into the room toward the girl.

She’s still curled into herself, face hidden beneath her shoulder.

Soft cries escape from her, and Carmen’s heart sinks.

This close, she can see the fingerprint-sized bruises that snake down the length of her arm, the deep and still-bleeding cut on her knee, her missing right shoe.

Carmen’s eyes have better adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to see every scrap of evidence on the girl’s body that she tried like hell to escape, to avoid being trapped like this.

And yet, she was still overtaken. Still overpowered.

She’s not as young as Carmen originally thought, maybe early twenties?

What could these wolves possibly want with her, to hold her captive like this?

Too many thoughts fill the space in her mind, all the ways those wolves could find use in her. A low, simmering rage builds in Carmen’s chest. She gently taps the girl on the shoulder once. Twice.

On the third tap, the girl freezes, possibly realizing it’s no longer the male in here with her. She pulls her tear-soaked face away from where it’s tucked beneath her arm and looks up and . . .

Her eyes . . .

For a moment that seems to stretch around them, the past utterly snares Carmen, taking her back to that campsite where her heart was still full of love and her hands full of Lacie. To round sapphire eyes that gave Carmen purpose.

Carmen blinks and looks at the girl again. Not Lacie’s eyes, but so close they might have been plucked from her face and settled into this one. The likeness is uncanny, and it sends Carmen off-balance. The girl studies her back, her brows furrowing in confusion. “Who are you?” she whispers.

Carmen shakes her head, pressing her pointer finger to her mouth. They can’t risk talking—the wolves around them can hear a rabbit burrow from miles away. That she’s even taking this risk to let herself be known to this girl is . . . well, she doesn’t want to think about it.

Looking at the chain, Carmen eyes where it disappears beneath the girl’s belly, reappearing at her back.

The links are thick and undoubtedly heavy—there’s no way Carmen will be able to cut her loose with anything she has on her.

She gently pulls against it to see how much wiggle room the girl might have to shimmy out of the loop, but there’s none.

The chain practically digs into her flesh.

The girl shifts further onto her stomach, revealing a padlock at her back where the chain is locked in on itself.

Carmen looks around for a key but doesn’t see one.

The girl looks pointedly toward the hallway, where her guard just disappeared into the darkness, and Carmen understands: he holds the key.

She sighs. This is getting more and more complicated by the minute.

She’d have to be out of her damn mind to think she can chase down that guard, somehow retrieve the key from him without him killing her first, and get back here in time to set the girl free before continuing with her original plan of blowing this place to smithereens.

But as Carmen’s eyes catch hold of the girl’s, as her familiar blue eyes seem to beg her for help, Carmen knows there’s no possible outcome that includes her walking away from this.

She will not watch life flee from those eyes. Not again.

Carmen just has to make this work.

She leans down over the girl, their faces only inches apart, and whispers as softly as she can into the girl’s ear, “I’ll come back for you. Hang tight.”

The girl nods, and Carmen sets off again, out to where she’s left the plastic tanks of propylene carbonate on the floor. She quietly carries them back into the room and tucks them in the corner, hoping the male won’t notice them if he comes back before she does.

She looks once more at the girl who eyes the tanks warily, and tries to give her an encouraging smile. Tries to assure her that she’s going to get her out of here. And with one last look at those eyes—those eyes —she leaves the girl behind, chained in the room.