Mateo woke up to hear muffled voices,

"We should put him down, who knows what will happen when he heals and can transform? Just shoot him in the head and be done with it."

Mateo recognized the voice as Trudy's.

"Bullshit Tru, he's a captured Alpha, it's like finding a fucking white elephant, think how much we could get for him!" Cameron replied in a hushed whisper.

"What about the kids?" Trudy asked, Mateo could hear her shifting her position on the ground and swallowing nervously.

"Kill them," Bill's voice cut across. "I'm not even sure they're fully human, I've been watching them all day, something fishy about them - better if we just get rid of them now."

"What about Ruby?" Cameron whispered. "She'll never go for that."

"She'll have to," replied Bill, "or she's on her own. She's a sensible girl. She'll know what an Alpha could do for us."

"How do we do it?" Trudy hissed.

"Slit throats, quick and effective, no wasted bullets," Cameron replied. Mateo could hear the other two murmur in agreement. His heart started to quicken in his chest. He didn't know how to alert Devon and Kashvi without the hunters hearing.

He stretched out his foot towards Devon's sleeping form. Mateo bit down on the hiss of pain he wanted to let out as he strained against the wolfsbaned ropes.

Eventually he got his foot within reach of Devon's leg and nudged the younger boy hard. What he really should have predicted was that Devon would rear up like some creature from the deep and start moaning loudly in confusion.

The next few moments happened like a blur. Mateo heard the hunters swearing and reaching for their weapons. Ruby stood up quick as a flash, her cross bow poised and wearing a look of confusion, her eyes scanning the tree line for danger.

Kashvi crawled over to Devon before noticing the other hunters' guns trained on her. She let out an angry, shocked cry. There was a loud bang but no blood, the bullet must have missed its mark and ploughed into the earth instead.

"What are you doing?" Ruby screamed at the others.

"He should be our prize Ruby!" Trudy yelled. "Think of what this'll do for us!"

"Are you fucking insane?" Ruby shouted back, and quite frankly, Mateo was inclined to agree with her.

Kashvi leapt up and struck the gun from Cameron's hands. Ruby let an arrow fly, hitting Bill in his shoulder, he let out a responsive snarl of rage but dropped his own weapon. Devon scrambled backwards towards Mateo.

"Untie me!" Mateo shouted at him, Devon flicked his head round for a moment, his brow furrowed before Trudy was almost on top of him.

"Above you!" Mateo called out as Devon barrel rolled out of the way of a plunging handheld arrow. Devon jumped up, a small blade drawn, he jabbed forwards like a coiled snake and Mateo marvelled at how deceptively fast the kid was.

Mateo squirmed frantically, trying to shuck off the ropes but Kashvi had done a real number on the knots. He looked up again, Ruby had let one of her arrows fly and hit Cameron squarely between the eyes, he fell to the ground like a leaden weight. There was a slicing sound and Mateo watched as Kashvi's machete cut through Bill like he was butter.

Trudy wheeled around, horrified, before fixing her eyes on Mateo. "Dogs should die!" she screeched before advancing on him with an arrow. Mateo gasped as Trudy raised it above his head.

Suddenly, a blade thrust cleanly through Trudy’s abdomen, showering Mateo in spurts of blood. Trudy collapsed dead, leaving Kashvi stood behind her, retracting her blade.

"So should bitches." Kashvi announced drily. She looked down at Mateo.

"Thanks," he croaked, reaching up to wipe the blood from his eyes.

"Can't sell damaged goods," Kashvi retorted, turning away to walk towards Devon,

"Hurt?" Kashvi asked casually, but Mateo could hear the worry in her voice.

"Nope, but add hunters to the list of things I don't like," Devon grouched.

"Hunters should never kill humans," Ruby said quietly, her brows knitted in a frown as she surveyed the dead bodies.

"Well I guess they figured out we aren't 100% organic human." Kashvi replied in a biting voice, "What's your opinion on the subject?"

Ruby flicked her eyes up to Kashvi, her face softening, "I figured I'd made that pretty clear."

Kashvi nodded firmly then turned to Devon, motioning towards to Mateo, "Get him up, we need to move before all this blood attracts wolves."

Devon nodded and padded towards Mateo, stowing his knife back in the rim of his jeans.

"Thanks," Devon whispered as he crouched down and began fumbling for the rope and untying it from the tree, "for calling out a warning like that."

Mateo shrugged before he remembered Devon couldn’t see him, so he sighed, "Better you than hunters. I might actually stand a chance of overpowering you."

Mateo knew from the display he had just witnessed that Devon, Kashvi and Ruby were actually more of a force to be reckoned with than the hunters but he didn’t mention this to Devon.

The younger boy giggled as if Mateo had just shared a friendly joke and tugged on the rope,

"Okay - walkies!"

Mateo groaned and rose to his feet, it was going to be a long day.