hushed whispers and shuffles of feet. As my vision aligned, everything returned in flashbacks. Killing a black wolf. Diego and a woman forcing their way into my home. Almost getting strangled to death. Lightning reflexes. Regenerative healing.

Obsidian eyes.

A chill ran down my spine as I remembered that final bit, just before Diego had knocked me out. I pushed myself up, feeling a tug on my arm. An IV drip was lodged into my veins, and I jerked away in alarm.

Immediately, one of the monitor screens began to beep. A man rushed into the room. "Quinn, I need you to stay calm."

"Don't touch me!" I wrenched away from him. "What are you injecting into me?"

"It's just glucose," he quickly assured me, the expression on his face calm. He showed me the label on the bag and lifted his lips in a faint smile. "Keeps you hydrated and energised. You seemed very weak when Bianca and Diego brought you here."

I eased back a sob as he hooked the IV tube back into place. "Who are you?"

He pulled away. "No one important."

"Then will you at least tell me why I'm here?"

"I'll leave the explanations to Bianca."

"I'm not talking to her," I said, meeting his gaze squarely. "She and Diego tried to kill me – "

"They were protecting you – "

" – by kidnapping me!" I finished angrily, before pausing and looking up at him with raised eyebrows. "Wait, what do you mean 'protecting'?"

"Quinn – " the man paused, and he seemed to be having a mental debate with himself before he finally sighed. Reaching for the nearest chair, he pulled it over and sat, shifting it closer to the bed. "Quinn," he repeated, looking me in the eyes, his expression grave all of a sudden. "You are an eyewitness to a very important murder case. And it's our job to look after you, and ensure that no harm comes to you until the Hearing."

"What are you – " A sudden thought came to mind and I looked at him in disbelief. "You mean the wolves? I already told Diego, it was an act of self-defence – "

"No, Quinn, not what you did. What the wolves did. The black wolf killed the brown one."

I paused, my eyebrows shooting up high on my forehead. "You need a court hearing for the death of a wolf?"

To my surprise, he chuckled, shaking his head at me in evident mirth. "Put like that, it does sound plain ridiculous; but I assure you, it's not. That wolf, the brown one, was really important to our community."

"Your community," I repeated in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You will, Quinn. Soon."

His words were so ominous that I suddenly felt afraid, and abruptly drew away from him, shifting myself closer to the wall. "Who are you?" I asked again.

His laughter ceased and, after a moment's hesitation, he inclined his head politely, stretching out a hand for me to shake. "I'm – "

But the door was flung open that moment, and a familiar woman strode into the room, her eyes narrowing when she saw his outstretched hand. "Clayton, now is not the time to fraternise with our eyewitness," she said coolly, and he quickly stood up, scraping the chair back against the floor. Dipping his head briefly to acknowledge her, he quickly left, but not before smiling at me faintly on the way out.

I watched him leave; feeling distressed because he'd left me with her. I stared suspiciously as she sat down, crossing one leg across the other before looking at me.

"Quinn."

"Bianca," I matched her icy tone evenly.

"Luna Bianca, if you please," she corrected swiftly, pinning me with her cold eyes.

"What?"

She rolled her eyes in evident impatience. "Nevermind. I believe Clayton's told you why you're here? That we're not here to harm you; but rather, to protect you."

I shifted away from her. "I want to go home. If you let me go, I promise I'll go to your wolf-hearing, or whatever it is that your community carries out."

"That is out of the question," she replied swiftly. "It's true – I don't want you here. You're human, you're weak, you're a liability; and worst of all, you reek of him – "

"Him? Who – "

" – but you're an eyewitness, and your life is in jeopardy. Frankly, you need us more than we need you."

"I don't even know you," I countered. "I'm not going to trust you until I know what's going on or where I am. And even then, I think I'd be much safer back home than I am here."

Bianca stared at me for so long that I began to feel uneasy again. Then she stood up and grasped my chin in the same manner she'd done before, tilting my head up so that I was looking at her.

"I'm just going to say this once. I'm not going to say it again but know that I absolutely mean every word I say," she said, her fingernails digging into my jaw painfully. "You're going to stay here, period. If you try to run, we'll hunt you down and bring you back. If you try to contact someone on the outside, we'll find out and you'll suffer the consequences. But if you're good, and willing to cooperate, then I think you'd find your stay very pleasant here."

I dug my nails into my palms. I knew Bianca expected me to consider her words seriously, and I definitely knew that she meant it, if her tone was any indication at all. But all I noticed at that moment was the telephone sitting on a desk across the room.

"So," Bianca's red lips curved into a smile as she released me. "What's it going to be, Quinn?"

Without another word, I scrambled out of bed, the IV tube tearing from my veins in a sheer, agonising wrench. Blindly, I shoved Bianca aside, hearing her let out a vicious, angry growl from behind me – it was odd, but I barely registered it. My attention was solely focused on getting to the telephone, calling for help and getting out of whatever hell hole these people were keeping me in.

But the brief moment of hope didn't last long. I'd barely gotten my hands on the phone when I felt my hair nearly yanked out from their roots by a forceful backward tug. Then Bianca's fingers were wrapped around my throat as her nails dug crescent-shaped slits into my skin.

"Pathetic human," her voice was a deathly chill as she spoke into my ear, and my heart raced as her red lips curved up in a smirk. "When will you ever learn? You can't run from our kind."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The room was claustrophobic.

I lived in a studio apartment, but this was even smaller than my bedroom. The walls were jagged red bricks not lined with wallpaper and the floor was cemented and rough. My bed was a single, the mattress rough and scratchy, and the bathroom a pathetic stall with only a sink, no mirror. A closet stood along the other end of the room, and that was that.

The sudden click of the latch made me look up. Diego stepped in, his tall frame filling the doorway. My heart began to race with fear.

"You're needed at the Hearing," his voice was polite intonation he'd used on me the night before, but I wasn't buying it. Not when he'd had his fingers wrapped around my throat less than twenty-four hours ago.

"I'm not going."

"Yes, you are." He reached over to drag me off the bed and I yelped when I stumbled onto the floor.

"Let go of me!" He didn't say a word, but he pulled me out of the room after him. I was all but tripping over myself to keep up with his swift pace. "Stop it! You're hurting me!"

Before I knew it, Diego dragged me into a large room filled with people. The atmosphere was tense, but before I could scan the room, Diego pushed me down into a chair near the front.

"Luna," Diego dipped his head briefly to acknowledge the woman seated in the front. Bianca's gaze locked on mine and the tiny smile playing on her face seemed to widen. "The perimeter's secure."

"Thank you," she acknowledged, before turning to speak with the man beside her. I hadn't noticed the person she was sitting next to at first, but I felt my throat clam up when he looked at me.

It wasn't that he was familiar at all – he wasn't. But there was such intense coldness in his black eyes that I couldn't stop the chill racing down my spine. In the back of my mind, I had the niggling thought that he was like one of the Gorgons, or a Basilisk. Meeting their eyes meant certain death, and it seemed the same for this man in front of me.

I averted my gaze, staring down at my clasped hands on my lap.

"Alright," Bianca's voice sliced through the chatter. "Let this court come to order."

Instantly, the room fell silent, so silent you could almost hear a pin drop. I chanced a glance around – everyone's attention was fixed on her and not a single person met my eyes. Somewhere at the back, I noticed Clayton, the doctor who'd tried to fix me up earlier. I craned my neck to get a better glimpse of him – he was, after all, the only person who'd been remotely nice to me since my arrival – but a warning growl from Diego kept me in place.

"Now, as you all know," continued Bianca, her sharp gaze scanning the room. "The defendant will not be here today. But I think we can all agree that Jedidiah Trevino has committed too many crimes to be considered a defendant."

There were murmurs of agreement at this, and one woman suddenly sprung up from her seat, a murderous look in her eyes. "He killed my mate!"

"He doesn't spare women and children alike – "

"We need to kill him!"

"Silence!" Diego roared from beside me. I almost fell from my seat in a fright, and glared at him when he shot me a mocking smirk, as though sensing and revelling in my fear of him.

But my mind was buzzing with fresh information. There was a nagging suspicion that had lingered at the back of the mind for awhile now – it had everything to do with regenerative healing and obsidian eyes and the black wolf I had seen the night before.

My attention was diverted when Bianca began to speak once again. "Well, now that the court's back in order, let's call Quinn Reilly to the stands. As most of you are aware, she's a very – " Bianca paused, a cruel smile tilting her lips as she looked at me. " – valuable asset to the community. Not only is she the sole eye-witness to the murder of Caine Trevino, previous Alpha of the Titans; but she also happens to have a particular, shall we say – affinity, with the defendant."

I suddenly found myself under the scrutiny of about a hundred pairs of eyes. Diego yanked me up and dragged me to the witness stand.

"Now, Quinn," Bianca began, her cold eyes boring into mine. "Could you describe to us what you saw last night between the two wolves?"

When I continued to keep silent, Diego shifted close to me, leaning down to speak in my ear. "You want to go home, don't you?" He said, his voice loud enough only for me to hear. "Then tell us the truth and you get to leave."

Hope rushed through me. This was the reason I was here, wasn't it? Once the Hearing was over, I was free to go. "Okay," I said. "I was on my way home from work when I saw a black wolf and a brown wolf engaged in a vicious fight. The black wolf killed the brown one – "

"How did he kill the brown wolf?"

"The black wolf – " I swallowed. " – it tore out the throat of the other."

There were quiet gasps at this. But one warning glance from Bianca sent a hush falling upon the room. "Continue."

For some reason, I didn't want to. The words remained stuck in my throat as I recalled how the black wolf had looked at me with bright green eyes afterwards.

"Quinn," Bianca's voice was firm. "Continue."

I took a deep breath. "Then I turned and ran," I concluded simply. "That's all."

Her gaze sharpened, and she glanced down at her notes. "Our analysts have found blood samples belonging to you in the snow. How would you explain that?"

I met her gaze calmly. "I tripped. Scraped my hands on the ground."

"And how would you explain the pool of blood next to where you fell?"

My breath caught. "I stabbed the wolf," my voice was barely audible, ignoring the wave of surprise that swept through the room. "I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry I did – it was just an act of self-defence."

"Would you consider the stab-wound you inflicted on the black wolf to be a major one?"

"It seemed dead to me." I frowned. "Wasn't it?"

But Bianca had heard enough. She looked away from me and turned to the man beside her. After conversing in hushed tones for a minute or two, she looked back up. "Diego," she directed her command to the man standing stoically beside me. "Escort Quinn back to her quarters."

"What?" I shifted away from Diego. "You said you just needed me for the hearing! Why can't I leave?"

The look she gave me was levelled and calm. "I'm not the one who makes the decisions," she said blandly, with a quick glance at the man by her side. She didn't have to elaborate further for me to know who ran things around here.

And I swore I could feel his chilling grey eyes watching my every move as Diego dragged me out of the room.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It was sometime in the middle of the night when I heard a howl.

I had been tinkering with the lock using the blunt fork that I'd been given during dinner. The wood of the door was jaded but somehow held, and I knew I needed a lever to pry it open. Unfortunately, there was nothing else I could use, save from a ragged cloth that I used to keep the wood splinters from lodging in my fingers.

But the howl made me drop the fork. When no one came in, I sucked in a deep breath and continued chipping away at the wood.

Then – another howl.

I faltered. The patter of feet had me shrinking away from the door. Then there were yells and screams, sounding desperate and frightened.

My heart raced in fear. It was herd mentality – when one panicked, everyone else did. And perhaps it was a good time to panic. Perhaps there was an emergency, like a fire, and if there were one, I needed to get out of here. Effective immediately.

Climbing to my feet, I tugged on the doorknob. "Hello?" I called. "Let me out!"

More howls. More screams.

I couldn't decide whether I wanted to get out or stay in. As the howls grew closer, I backed away. I grabbed the fork and glanced around. The room was bare and small. The shower stall didn't have a door. The bed was too low to squeeze under.

The only other option – the closet.

I raced to the closet and threw myself inside, before pulling the door shut. Instantly, I was enveloped in darkness, just as loud pounding threatened to break down the door of my room.

My breathing grew erratic as the knocking grew louder, which was quickly followed by a loud crash. I could practically picture it. What was originally my door was now splintered into tiny wooden fragments. And all that was left separating me from whatever lay out there, was just the doors of this tiny closet.

Hugging my knees tightly to my chest, I let out a terrified exhale and clasped one hand over my mouth to prevent myself from screaming, the fingers of my other hand wrapping tightly around the fork. Just in case.

The doors of the closet swung open a split second later, and I found myself face to face with a man who stared down at me with an indefinable expression, his black hair falling roguishly into his green eyes.

Wait.

Green eyes?

Bracing an arm against the closet, he reached into the pocket of his jacket with his other hand, only to retrieve a familiar shard of silver. My eyes widened when he held my knife up, long fingers sliding against the sharp edge.

The faded bloodstains that tarnished the gleaming surface were unmistakable.

His green eyes met my gaze squarely and when he spoke, his voice was the kind of smooth, deep velvet that was barely audible. "Hello, Quinn."