Eyes black as coal and tinged with firelight. They stared at Hannah unwaveringly as she struggled to pull herself upright. Again.

"How's your neck?" her captor asked her in an emotionless voice.

She glared at him. "Sore."

He offered her a feral grin, exposing his cracked teeth. "Good. Maybe this time you'll stay where you're supposed to."

She bit her lip, suppressing a sigh of frustration. Three days. Three days she'd been locked up in her cramped little cell with no natural sunlight and little idea of anything happening beyond her, now heavily, guarded doors.

The thick stone walls cut off all sound and seemed to loom inwards, holding onto her as tight as a straight jacket holds a patient in a padded room. Every minute trapped within them felt like an hour.

If it weren't for Fenrik's frequent visits, she would barely be aware of the passage of day and night. He came to her cell often, as if his presence somehow lent an air of civility to her captivity.

He always arrived laden with food, and took care to sample each dish before setting it in front of her, to prove there were no drugs hidden amongst the spices.

She glanced hopefully towards the heavy oak door, craving the draft that swept into the room whenever it was opened. Unfortunately, Fenrik had been smart enough to close it firmly behind him once he'd entered.

Her chest tightened with disappointment, but she didn't blame him. Since her first desperate escape, last night had been the third time that she'd attempted to flee her captivity and, by the dangerous look in his dark, piercing eyes, his patience with her antics was wearing thin.

"You said I wouldn't be here long," she accused him, rubbing her neck yet again in a futile attempt to numb the pain.

He shrugged, but the fire in his eyes glowed brighter. "I said how long you were here would depend on your Alpha. Plans changed."

There was an emphasis on his last words that made her take a sharper look at her captor. His demeanour had changed. The differences were subtle, but she sensed a heightened tension in his words that defied his civil tone.

Her relationship with Fenrik had become, for lack of a better word, complicated.

He seemed to enjoy the illusion of civility he had created around her, and their meals were lengthy and filled with random conversation.

From everything she'd learned during her time here, the mercenaries hovered precariously somewhere between the structured life of a pack, and the savage chaos of the rogue world. Civil conversation was hard to find.

There was little to be gained by railing against him, he held all the power here, and she was quick to realise that the control he wielded over his group of rogues was all that kept her out of harm's way.

So, she let him talk, gleaning what information she could from him and answering his never-ending stream of questions with polite restraint.

For a brief moment, while he'd quizzed her about her time in Blackridge, the horrifying thought had occurred to her that the rogues might have deliberately released her and sent her barrelling in the direction of the pack to act as some sort of unconscious spy.

She'd dismissed the idea just as easily.

For one, such a plan would involve far to many ifs, buts and maybes for a man like Fenrik. And for another, none of the questions he asked about the pack seemed to focus on any information useful for an invading army.

No details of layouts, or positions. No information about the warriors or the safe house. Nothing but a barrage of questions about her time with the Hunters, and her lost memories -- two subjects he seemed particularly fascinated with.

Still, she kept her answers as vague as possible and, in between their polite conversations, she plotted her escape. To the rogues guarding her, Hannah appeared little more than helpless. Therefore they wrongly presumed her to be lacking in intelligence due to the nature of her memory loss.

She'd carefully strengthened their opinions over the last three days; putting on a timid front to the guards outside her door and asking dumb, inane questions wherever possible.

Every escape attempt taught her a little more about the area she was being held, and every frantic dash for freedom saturated more of the abandoned corridors with her scent.

Even if she never made it out into the open air, she knew her scent alone could draw her rescuers in the right direction - cracks, where the tangled weeds penetrated the thick stone walls became a breach in their defences where it could seep out into the surrounding forest.

It hadn't taken her long to realise that her scent was unusual in more ways than one, and even less time to realise it could be utilised to her advantage. It sat heavier in the air than most scents. Unlike the natural aromas that drifted like thin mists through the trees, her scent was a heavy fog sat just above the surface of the forest floor.

Stronger than both wolf and human alike, it lingered long after she had left an area, clinging to the walls like cigarette smoke, permeating everything it touched.

It was a long shot. But it was all she had.

Until now, Fenrik had regarded her repeated acts of defiance with amusement; tolerating the disruption with the malicious delight of a man who enjoyed the challenge she presented him.

She was under no illusions that he'd fallen for her little act, and almost certain that he saw through each and every escape plan before she even attempted them. It was a subtle game of cat and mouse... in many ways, he reminded her of Asher.

Whoever she had been once, whoever she was now, Hannah had proven herself an extremely intelligent woman. More importantly, her recent experiences had moulded her into a quick learner. In a matter of hours she knew which rogues were intellectually challenged enough to manipulate, and which to avoid provoking at all costs.

In a day, she'd memorised their rotations and habits, counted the number of steps they took between her cell and the crossways and knew that they had a bad habit of gathering near the warmth of the braziers, out of sight of her prison.

With the hastily erected door to her cell proving ridiculously easy to bypass, it left the eastern passages free for her to make a run for it.

In reality, her repeated attempts to break free revolved less around a spark of defiance and more around a desperate desire to be free of her room. The lack of natural light cut the tiny cell off from the outside world, and when the door sealed tight, the dust hung heavy in the air enclosing it in a claustrophobic blanket of numbing stillness.

Fenrik had reacted with amusement, verging on delight, marvelling on her ingenuity after every recapture, and she heavily suspected she had become his newest form of entertainment.

But not, it seemed, anymore.

He sat, as still as always, watching her return to consciousness with burning eyes. In his hands he toyed with a small, silver knife - the blade wickedly sharp as he rolled it around his fingers.

As she struggled to shake off the drug induced fog, she thought back to their last conversation, running it over in her mind, seeking a clue to the difference she sensed in him.

"Did you ever ask my uncle for a ransom," she'd asked curiously during their last meal. "Last time, before Blackridge, I mean."

"Your uncle?" As always when she brought up her past, his eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth as he mulled it over. "No. I didn't. Why?" He gave her a sidelong look. "Do you think he would have paid one?"

"He's rich enough," she murmured, toying with the food on her plate.

He chuckled and poured himself another drink. "Did you know, this place -" he gestured around the room with the water jug " - used to be a monastery once upon a forever ago?"

She shook her head.

"No?" he smiled again and took a swig of his water. "This room was one of the original penitents cells. I've always been fond of religious buildings - don't look so surprised!" His grin had widened at her raised brows. "There's a delicious irony to the supernatural and the human's virtuous rhetoric mixing together."

She raised her eyebrows. A constant source of contradictions, Fenrik never failed to challenge her preconceptions.

"Besides, Werewolves are the only supernatural beings able to set foot on holy ground, and I like to reduce the amount of enemies that can get at me wherever possible. Especially nowadays. Our last camp was particularly sublime..." He placed the cup back on the table and shrugged. "Not close enough for our current needs though."

"And your point is?"

"My point," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Is that this monastery was once brimming with wealth. Wealth they horded. Wealth they eagerly grasped with their hypocritical little hands. Look at it now. Nothing but stone and dust. Hinges that rust as soon as you bolt them down and walls that collapse if you lean on them in the wrong place."

Yes. She'd used the rusty hinges to her advantage during her last escape. But weakened walls? She quickly scanned the room. How much further could she get if she found a way to go through the wall instead of around them? Perhaps where the weeds were most prolific? She schooled her expression into one of polite interest, filing the new information away for later.

"The trouble with wealth," Fenrik continued. "Is that people who have it, like to hold onto it. Tell me, do you think you're worth more or less than the price of your ransom?" he asked her with a grin. "Every now and then the rich have to be taught a lesson in wealth distribution."

"By people like you?" she asked sceptically.

He let out a burst of mirthless laughter and his grin turned savage. "Not exactly. I'm usually the one they call when the lesson doesn't sink in."

She stayed silent, her fork scraping along the surface of her plate as a faded memory poked at her from deep in her mind. She frowned.

Lying Fenrik... he promised me I coulds stay there, but then they came...

Our last camp was particularly sublime...

"The mad rogue!" she exclaimed.

"The what?" he asked with a furrowed brow, his fork paused half-way to his mouth.

"The mad rogue," she repeated. "He followed me... He said you left him behind, but... someone else threw him out. His name was... was..." her face screwed up as she tried to pull up the memory.

"Elrin?" Fenrik asked, with a soft growl, placing his fork carefully back on the table. His face was twisted into a scowl, sharpening his features in the artificial light. His uneaten food, forgotten.

Startled, she looked at him with wide eyes. "Yes, how did you -"

"What happened to him?" he interrupted, his eyes suddenly pools of velvety darkness.

"He - died," Hannah stammered uncertainly as his face twisted again, this time with anger. "He attacked me, and - "

He slammed the palm of his hand down on the table and she jumped - her entire body momentarily leaving her seat as he unleashed a slurry of swear words that turned the air blue.

Once he'd run out of words to use, he passed one hand wearily across his forehead and slumped back down in his chair, sighing heavily. "My apologies," he said eventually. "His death was - " He broke off, his eyes suddenly glazed. Standing abruptly, a feral grin returned to his face.

She knew that look. An icy shaft of fear shot through her.

"Showtime," he taunted as he made his way to the door.

"Blake," she'd whispered as he left, her voice filled with desperate longing.

She'd attempted her fourth escape later that night.

*

Hours, or maybe days later for all she knew, she regained consciousness for the fifth time, to face two smouldering eyes and the addition of a second, darker pair, his second in command, Berrik.

Since her first escape attempt, Fenrik had placed Berrik in charge of guarding her. Heavily muscled and sublimely stupid, his was the face of a vapid, arrogant man.

In just three, short days it had quickly become clear why Fenrik kept him on such a short leash - tinged with the first hints of feral madness, and devoid of compassion or even simple decency, he would have been uncontrollable left to his own devices.

Hannah found it fascinating he followed Fenrik's orders at all, and she avoided aggravating him at all costs.

Today however, the harsh lines in his face had inexplicably softened and he stood in the front of the door with a glazed expression on his face, showing her little to no interest, his black eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, near his feet.

She watched them both warily.

What had changed?

"What happened?" she asked Fenrik, her eyes flitting between the two of them.

"Good question," Fenrik spat out, his irritation clear. "Which time?"

"I don't - "

"I would have thought you'd be curious why your Alpha hasn't come to retrieve earlier than this," he mocked. "Perhaps you've been having too much fun with us?"

She frowned, ignoring his taunting tone. If not because of Fenrik's game-playing, why else would they have been delayed?

"A rogue skirmish right before the drop took us all by surprise last time, and we had to change plans - damned inconsiderate of them - but I can't really blame your Alpha for that." A rare look of confusion crossed his face. "This time though..."

She flicked her eyes back to Berrik.

He was absentmindedly clenching and relaxing his fists, his muscles flexing to alarming proportions under his skin. He was totally engrossed in the rhythmic pulsating of the muscles in his arms that Hannah wasn't sure he was even aware there was a conversation taking place around him.

It was very distracting and, try as she might, her eyes kept drifting back to him.

He's the perfect soldier, she mused to herself. A slab of muscle with his mind completely inviolate by any hint of intelligence.

Her surprise must have shown on her face.

"Oh, don't mind him," Fenrik said dismissively, sparing Berrik one exasperated glance. "He's just had his latest shot of Lycenol. He'll be a little... self- absorbed for a while. It's a short but amusing side effect, though not overly convenient, right now."

Berrik showed no signs he knew they were talking about him.

Hannah's brow furrowed. Lycenol?

"Only Gamma's can create Epsilons," Fenrik continued conversationally, almost as though she'd asked her question out loud. "Did you know that?"

She offered him a withering look, not even bothering to shake her head.

Fenrik allowed himself a brief chuckle, the sound harsh and raspy as it echoed around the room. "Of course, I keep forgetting... you don't know much of anything, do you?"

"Be civil," she murmured.

"And miss your witty replies?" he mocked, a hint of his usual demeanour poking through. "Now, where's the fun in that, Red?"

Her eyes narrowed further and she pressed her lips together to hold in the bitter retort.

His chuckle deepened, as always her defiance pleasing him in some way.

"Epsilons are super-soldiers," he lectured. "A werewolf, but twice as strong and a thousand times more volatile," he mused. "There aren't many in existence - Alpha's distrust them, and the Elders set heavy restrictions after a few unfortunate incidents..." He glanced again at the mesmerised warrior. "They should have known we would eventually figure out a way to emulate the process."

"Witches, again?" Hannah assumed, watching the rippling muscles with an almost morbid fascination. Her mind flew back to the rogues from the hospital, their increased strength and speed, the way their muscles flexed far larger than they should have for men of their size.

"Oh, no." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny vial, full of purple liquid. In the firelight the contents seemed to swirl and shimmer.

"Lycenol," he swirled the contents around. "A very powerful little drug. Entirely scientific, no magic involved. Think of it as a kind of steroid for werewolves."

He tucked the little glass vial away in his pocket and snapped his fingers in front of Berrik's face, watching as the man raised his bloodshot eyes to blink at them owlishly. His dark eyes were slightly glazed and purple flecks seemed to dance across the coal black pupils. After a short moment of silent contemplation, Berrik's focus returned to the flexing of his muscles.

Hannah definitely preferred him this way.

"The euphoria lasts for only a few hours," Fenrik explained. "Once it wears off you're left with a werewolf gifted with heightened senses, increased strength and the ability to withstand twice as much pain. It's highly addictive as the after effects can last for weeks, if not months and the more you top up, the stronger they become. It's expensive but, still... one of Lykoscorp's best failed experiments," he mused to himself.

So that's how Fenrik keeps him loyal, she thought. Fenrik has the drug... and Berrik has the addiction.

"Did you know the Blackridge pack had access to masking powder?" he asked her abruptly, turning the knife in his hands and fixing her with an intent stare.

"They've been using it for weeks," she informed him blandly. "His brother, Ethan acquired it."

He jabbed the knife into the table, a thoughtful expression running across his face. "I must admit, they managed to slip that one past me," he sniffed, moodily spinning the knife on it's point.

The tip ground ever deeper into the woodwork. "It's stronger than ours. On its own it wouldn't be that much of an issue. A large black wolf with an absence of scent is as distinctive as the stench of an Alpha, and just as easy to follow."

"I don't see the problem then," she said, her eyes on the spinning knife.

"The problem," he said slowly. "Is that my men, while loyal to a fault, have an unfortunate habit of following orders to the point of stupidity." He let out a bark of humourless laughter, slamming the tip of the knife deeper into the table, cracking the already stressed surface. "I thought I had him. But he's somehow managed to wriggle free."

"I don't understand."

"I told them to follow the Alpha. Easy to find. Big black wolf. Looks like an Alpha. Smells like an Alpha. And that's exactly what they've been doing. Following a big black wolf with the Alpha's scent smeared all over him," He grimaced. "Just not the right black wolf."

Her heart skipped a beat, her throat suddenly dry and hoarse.

"I sent him clear instructions, Red." Fenrik complained. "I sent men to watch him. I thought he was smart enough to follow them. He was not, however. Apparently, he's not as fond of you as I thought."