“Alright, I’m dealing this time.” 

“No way, you always win when you deal. I’m dealing.” 

“That’s cuz you can’t cheat unless you deal, and then you win.” 

“Bullshit.” 

Amber lifted her head from her knees and stared out through her messy brown hair and the metal bars of her cage. Marshal and Russell, her regular guards, smelled like they’d had a few beers already. Good, it made them sloppy and more likely to be too tired to beat her for amusement. “Ah fuck, I’m out.” Russell held up his empty bear can and tossed it to one side. It clanged loudly on the concrete floor and rolled off to one side. He rubbed his hand across his cleft chin and his glassy brown eyes tried to focus on his cards. He was sat at a small wooden table that had seen better days with the youngest recruit to their cause. The younger man, a redhead with a full fluffy beard and buck teeth managed to deal the cards and waited for Russell to deal. “Go get more beers, kid.” 

“Fuck you, old man.” 

“No, fuck you, carrot-top.” 

They both drew hunting knives, and Amber sank back like a reflex. Normally when she saw one of those knives, the pointy end was facing her. She absently rubbed at her left forearm where the most recent wound was healing. This morning Doug was guarding Amber, and decided she’d looked at him with her mismatched eyes for too long. He opened her cage and smashed a glass bottle across her arm. He’d been aiming for her head, but Amber got her head up to defend herself, so her arm was sliced instead. She traced her fingers over the sore raised lines from her healing wound. This one will fully heal. It’s only when they use the special knives against me that my wounds scar. Her hand lifted from her left forearm to touch her lips at the right corner. She followed the scars with her middle fingers, up to her cheek bone, over her broken eyebrow, up her forehead, and over the arc of her skull to the back of her head. Her thick brown hair never grew over the scars, and she hated them. Marked by lesser males like these? Pathetic. Amber was 11 at the time, and exhausted from her first ever shift, when the hunters pinned her down to skin her pelt. 

If it wasn’t for their leader, Keith Langley, stopping his men, they would have killed her. No, Keith suggested a better use for the young werewolf, and she’s lived in a cage ever since. The scars were, therefore, a reminder of what the hunters were going to do to her, and would do to her, once she outlived her usefulness. 

“Here, more beers.” Amber peered over at her guards again, shivering against the cold sting of the bars at her back. “Now? Bet, call, raise or fold?”

“Raise.” Russell dropped another $1 bill onto the table and smirked around his yellow teeth. Marshal stared at his own cards, deep in thought, when the door opened to the dank concrete basement that was Amber’s prison. Amber cocked her head to one side and sniffed at the stale air. She recognised the smell of motor-oil and cigarettes. Shawn Patterson, another regular guard, walked down the wooden stairs from the door, turned left, and joined his fellow hunters. He didn’t play poker, but he did sit with his back half turned to give him eyes on both his companions, and on Amber. In fact, he smirked over at her, and she growled at the disgusting rise in desire coming off the man. Humans probably thought he was pretty, with his high cheek bones, trim figure and thick thighs. He had the body of a model, for sure, but the eyes of a murderer. Amber absently thought of the empty cage beside her, where she’d witnessed many werewolves being thrown in there, a hexed blade stopping them from shifting back as they were skinned alive for their pelt. Shawn always smelled like he was getting off on the whole thing. He also liked to help himself to ‘pet’ her when they took Amber out of the cage to put to work. When she tried to bite and claw him away from her, he carved a new scar into her back or legs to punish her. Even last night, he stood at the bars and stroked his cock at the bars and came while staring at her. Unblinking, grinning, and telling her things like ‘you like that, don’t you bitch?’

No, she didn’t, but she knew better than to snap her jaws at him or say anything. Her body was already a canvas of scars. If he was inside the bars, well, Amber may have tried to rip his throat out. But outside the bars where he could use a cattle prod before she could get close enough to reach for his neck? No. It was better to sit in the furthest corner and look away while he played with himself. A couple of heats ago, he tried to come into the cage to tie her down and use her. He thought she’d allow him to mount her? A human? I’d die before carrying your pup. She was bitterly disappointed she only managed to claw at his thigh, and not even deeply enough to scar. Shortly after that, Keith turned up and beat Shawn with his belt repeatedly for touching the dirty dog like that. She was bait, an animal, not a woman. 

Still, Shawn still looked at her like he wanted to try again. And I will rip his throat out if he tries. She held a secret smile behind her knees as she watched the three of them play poker and drink beer. One day I will kill all of you. Her smirk was almost as sadistic as Shawn’s. And I will enjoy every single moment.