Chapter 3 ~ Savior, of sorts

As Higgins broke his restraint, silence reigned supreme.

His speed managed to shatter the sound barrier in a fraction of a second.

This was the hunter without a legacy, whose heart-shattering only strengthened his determination to escape his island prison, forcing him to overwork himself in order to be strong enough to handle it.

Alas, this also made the needed force to his own death to be insurmountable.

As he heard the clattering of chains, the inquisitor's gaze was drawn to him, but his head did more than turn to his will.

"Clack!" As Higgins drew his zenith and jaw in opposite directions, the inquisitor's neck snapped, maintaining its turned position.

"What in the world did you do?" Rayla wailed, clearly thrown amiss by the sight and sound of the inquisitor collapsing on the floor.

"Better question, who the hell are you?" Higgins stroked his wrist, attempting to restore the flow.

He talked condescendingly to the unique entity who, for the first time in several years, had him at a loss for words simply by looking at her.

She also delayed his death, which invoked his taking action in the first place.

"Is he dead? Vladimir, wake up!" She began to mope about his apparent death, ignoring Higgins in that stead. "Help him!" She then looked to him and urged that he render what little he could in the form or revival.

"He's a beta; one snap won't kill him." But do that to an omega and..." As he turned his gaze to the lying body, Higgins spoke out against her overreaction.

"What's the deal with your stare?" He inquired, seemingly piqued by the tenacity in her imagined grin.

"So you're the hunter that Rachel kept telling about. Paul Higgins, the renowned and experienced warrior hunter who became stranded on this continent and incorporated magic into his..." She was led to confess everything she knew about him, at least the scratched surface information that she had been exposed to.

"Shut up, little girl." Higgins blurted in a clear-cut manner.

As he strutted to the door, he walked over the inquisitor's laying arm, listening for an incoming sound.

"The guards, on the dungeon floor? They seem unconscious! Someone had to have knocked them unconscious. They're in the dungeon!" A voice trailed from beyond the dungeon's hearing range, but Higgins' sharp senses managed to pick it up.

"Who are you calling, 'little girl'? I'm the same age as you." Interestingly, she wasn't exactly wrong, at least Higgins realized that; it was an insult that wasn't meant to mock her age.

"I'm afraid I don't have time for you right now." Higgins muttered as he made his way back to his cell, raising the chains that had fallen to the floor and attempting to wrench them back onto his hand.

"What are you up to?" Rayla inquired as she observed the string of activities Higgins had began to do.

She sought an answer, especially because her concern for the inquisitor's life had not subsided, while fighting the single tear that tried to fall from her eye.

"I'm returning to a position that will ensure I get what I've had coming for a long time." Higgins stated his firm intention.

"Wait, do you want to be killed?" Rayla inquired, as doubt began to gather around the erroneous story of a hero or something resembling a crusading hunter that she imagined him to be.

He chose not to respond to her concern, instead opting to look her down with a heightened expressionless glare.

She seemed perplexed by his determination to put an end to his life, but she also narrowed her visage in an attempt to declare that she would not let him do so.

"You can't die, Higgins, there's so much you haven't done. Why would you wish to perish when..." Rayla began telling the story of an unheeded attempt.

"Look, I don't know who you are or why the heck you stopped Vladimir over there from nipping my life supply in the bud, and I won't say I appreciate your assistance as much as I should. Leave me alone and..." Higgins supplied every unspoken explanation he could think of to argue Rayla's assistance.

The hunter wanted to put an end to it all, and prolonging his death just added to his anguish for the years of misery he had endured.

Higgins' unexpected halt in his statement was not caused by Rayla's interference, as one might expect, but rather by the lauded thuds of a familiar Delta's feet.

"Are you a fool? If you think there's something in the dungeon, then go investigate. Vladimir is keeping an eye on Higgins, but what if he is unable to handle whatever is there?" The steps turned to words as he declared and appeared to speak down on one of the betas who followed him to validate their suspicions and confirm its potency.

"As you wish, Delta Ramsy." Higgins peered through as the beta announced his determination to do as he was told, which included raiding the site.

Both Rayla and Higgins had their heads turned in the direction of the speakers, but their reactions were nullified by the other's command.

Perhaps it was the only window's being coveted with a coated steel bar, but the tension in their deciding gazes radiated throughout the entire room.

"Did you hear that, Higgins? This isn't the time to be fooling around." We have to get out of here." Rayla exclaimed. "They'll be down any minute now," she added.

"Does it look that I'm messing around?" Higgins had been trying in vain to reattach the shattered chain's buckle to his mitts. "I'm trying to get this piece of shit back unto my hands."

He strained, with his tone indicating a greater longing to be tied to the dungeon once more.

Rayla appeared dazed and was now sure that the reason she had risked so much to return to the prison would rather be hung by the heads in his regalia and perish by the lot of his plunder than help her.

"Please, Higgins, you can't go through with this. I've been through so much already, all for the sake of finding you. I need your assistance..." Her cries simply revealed the actual amount of her desperation for him to assist her with something.

"Look..." Higgins began to speak out as Rayla straightened herself and her bent head that had sunk.

She had collapsed to offer him an empathy-seeking plea, merely to see how he reverberated her tears.

"Stop looking at me like I'm some sort of saviour or something, I'm a scumbag who can't even..." He was cut off by the anthem of increasing foot clapping, which thudded down an array of steps leading to the confinement.

At this time, Rayla's wails and relentless moans knew no bounds; she couldn't stop herself from drowning Higgins with enough reason to refrain in his attempts at allowing Ramsy meet him as he left.

"They're nearly here. So, either you help me claw these restraints back onto my hands, or you stay and see if I'll be as eager to knock out Ramsy as I did that cunt." He call out on her to either aid him, broker his silence, or have her exposed to Ramsy as a threat.

With the choice she was forced to make, Rayla was thrown off guard. Put her reason for coming in jeopardy, help Higgins, or face Ramsy's fury.

Nothing seemed right, as she peered into a huge abyss that cloaked her undetermined fate for a brief period.

"I recommend that you hurry up with whatever decision you make because..." Higgins rushed her thinking, aiming to introduce more variables to sway her decisions.

"I know they're on their way; it's just..." Her face became grey; she had reached a decision, but what was it?

"I'll help you." She declared her decision.

She then finished by getting to her feet and walking towards him with her gaze expressionless.

He was once again entranced by her person, but this time he was also stricken with a bewildered feeling as to why she would make such a choice, forcing him to snap out of it at an early stage.

"Have you given up on trying to force me to help you with whatever it was you sought out for in the beginning?" He began with a query in order to confirm his deficient fears.

He lusted for her in a profound way, but he wasn't as quick to react to it; in fact, he didn't want to feel it at all.

"I haven't, but being who I am, there are more than one ways to get what I want." Her dreadful tone instilled fear, one that was unrivaled yet boundless.

"What are you trying to say?" He spoke, drawing little emotions from her unmatched gaze.

"What I suggest is, what if you were bitten by a half-breed, the offspring of an Alpha werewolf and a human?" She revealed, probing even deeper into an unspoken reality.

Her gaze had finally met his as she raised her head to his unwavering look at this moment.

They remained fixated on each other's gape, probing deep into their eyes as though on a soul-searching mission.

Hearts began racing, as both had made up their minds about what would happen next.

They drew like a pair of drawbridges towards each other, slowly but steadily, to explore an unknown, newly discovered region, in a feat that appeared to be the consequence of a lever being pulled.

Their lips were nearly in contact as a sharp voice exclaimed, "What the hell!" A Beta barged in ahead of the troops, signaling their impending arrival behind him.

Higgins and Rayla both had their attention drawn to the Beta's rage when, very instantly.

Rayla became the first to return to her prior attention's driven hold as she met Higgins' turned gaze, but it wasn't to finish what she started.

She drew closer to him and flexed her canine that unretracted to led forth a bite to Higgins' neck.

"Shit!" Higgins yelled as he felt the bitten-down grasp on him.

"Get off of me!" He pulled her jawed down grasp away from him, causing her to stumble to the floor, with a sneer etched onto her face.

"What did you do?" He asked, as he massaged the region of his neck where her bite mark scarred him.

The scene in his wake slowly began to round, before finally diming, Higgins' moment of heightened feel in a long time was short-lived, so was his consciousness after that.