Chapter 35
Eve POV
Since Conrad and I kissed I have been avoiding him. I know he notices but he has given me space. I think it’s just nervous energy. I let someone, an Alpha no less, past one of my walls, and now I felt naked all the time. How are relationships meant to work anyway? Every nerve in me is telling me to run but there's a force telling me to stay.
I needed to burn off some steam and I have finally been cleared for training.
I get to the gym at 6 as most wolves go after 9. I’m glad to find only one other person. I start jogging to warm up, do some weights, and finish with some boxing. The other wolf is a young male and he hasn’t left the boxing area since I arrived. He keeps mumbling to himself “Be better, you have to be better”.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I go over to him.
“What exactly are you trying to be better at”.
He jumps at the fact I’m talking to him. And starts to try and pack up.
“I’m sorry for interrupting you lady Eve. I will go so I’m not in your way”.
“Firstly, no one has ever called me Lady Eve. Just Eve is fine. Secondly, I interrupted you and asked a question. Care to answer it”.
He paused for a second. He was trying to work out how to get in less trouble as he was worried about not answering me and telling me.
“I’m in guard training. My whole family is Beta’s and I’m expected to be strong and a good fighter like they are so I can protect the pack”.
“And you don’t think you are”.
“I know I’m not. I rank last”. He seems very saddened by this.
“Walk me through what you are trying to do and I will give you some pointers”.
One thing is very obvious from fighting the guards here. They train their male egos more than anything. It’s all about looking big, standing your ground, and using fists. Nothing about being agile and manoeuvrability. This pup was stick-thin and lanky. He had the power of a beta but wasn’t being trained to his strengths.
As many of the guards and soldiers train with the same solid wide stance and then throw punches with full force they are easy to knock off balance. If you're close enough and you can dodge the punch you can knee to face, kick out the back of their knee to drop them. If you keep your legs strong and can spin you can build up momentum to kick the face or soft part of the gut.
These are just the basics but he seemed excited to learn them. We trained for about an hour on these.
“What’s your name pup”.
“Ewan. And I’m 17, hardly a pup anymore”.
I just smiled. “When’s your next training session”.
“Today at 1. It’s with Beta Lewis. He’s the worst”.
I laugh at this, “Why is he the worse”.
“He keeps telling me I fight like a girl and I will never be good at protecting the pack. My two older brothers are both in the guards and he keeps expecting me to be like them”. He was very nervous telling me this.
This really upset me. Everyone should know how to defend themselves and not feel lesser because of who they are. “Knock him on his ass today in training. When he complains tell him that because you fight like a girl you started training with one”.
This puts a smile on his face. “There are rumours in the pack that you took out a rouge Lycan by yourself and that’s why you were in the hospital. Is it true”.
“Nope. I took out 9”.
His face dropped and his eyes went wide. With that, I walked out to breakfast. I wanted to see how much of it stuck so I messaged Michelle.
“Guard training today at 1 and Lewis is running it. Want to watch with me”.
“Hell yeah. I love staring at that man”.
A few hours later we go into the training arena. As soon as Lewis sees Michelle he starts showing off his muscle and she is swooning all over him. I see Ewan and give him a nod. We take a seat and watch the show beginning.
Lewis is doing the very predictable man routine when he yells something and they yell back. Then they start a warm-up of running and basic weights in a circuit. They then get to the combat fighting. The aim is always the same. Getting the other to submit to you by knocking them over.
A few succeed but not many. Lewis is good but too predictable. Using the same moves over and over again. Then he calls out.
“Ewan. Front and centre”.
You can hear all the taunts. Bet he won’t last 5 seconds. At least training will be over soon. Why does this guy bother turning up? I can see the look on his face and how he is trying to hide that he is upset. He looks up at me and I just nod towards Lewis.
He takes the stance I taught him and Lewis immediately criticizes.
“Seriously, how are you going to attack like that. At least this will be quick and you will learn a lesson”.
The thing with fighting though. A defence can work just as well as an attack.
Lewis launches a predictable attack and Ewan completes the moves I showed him this morning sending Lewis to the ground with a loud thud.
He looks stunned. I whole gym is quiet and I’m trying to stifle my laughter. He gets up furious and yelling.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT RECRUIT”.
Ewan was shaking and rapidly spurted out “You told me I fight like a girl so I trained with one”.
Lewis pauses at this realizing what he meant. He slowly turns to look at me. I just wave and smile back.