Rain
ELARA's pov
My entire body—and then some, even all the way to the strands of hair on my head, my nails, my toes—everything ached like a motherfucker. I collapsed on the bed once I got back, forgetting to even take a shower. Aside from the fact that Lucas had all but humiliated me during the entire workout process, I felt as though my bones were on fire. Muscles I didn’t know I had or used ached in places I didn’t know could ache. I slept off probably before my head hit the pillow.
When I woke up, it was so late at night I didn’t even want to get up to take a shower. Once I did, however, I felt better with the hot water massaging my sore muscles. I fell asleep quickly after, my mind going mostly to the dreams I had before and hoping I wouldn’t have any again. Luckily, I didn’t.
The day after, whilst I thought I’d get the day off simply to recover, Lucas came again in full swing. He was dressed in a similar manner as the day before: sweatpants and a tight-fitted T-shirt. Most of his hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, while the shorter tendrils escaped on all sides of his face. If not for the strange tension I felt in my chest when Killian was there, I’d have thought Lucas was a good looker. Damn, the man was pretty. And then there was that assertiveness that he had. Maybe it was a furry thing, but it was damn pretty.
Instead of putting me on the treadmill like he did the previous day, he immediately had me do jumping jacks and all manner of funny cardio stuff. When he was done with that, we moved on to squats.
“I don’t need a bigger butt,” I said. I bent down and, once again like he said, using my core to stand, I leaned on my heels and tightened my butt as I stood up.
“It’s all about your butt,” he said. “It looks good, though, but it’s not about your butt. It’s about your core—it’s about your center of gravity.”
His voice thrilled in my mind as he spoke about that kind of stuff again. He had said it the day before. Jesus, I didn’t need him to repeat himself. I did several more sets and what felt like a million reps.
Afterward, he took me somewhere and told me to do a deadlift. I’d seen stuff like that on videos. It wasn’t so hard to do, I thought, as I bent forward, grabbed the barbells, and stood up.
“No,” he said, hitting my back. “Your heels,” he said. “Use your heels to stand.”
I rolled my eyes and did as I was told. I stood and once I did, I felt a burning sensation I had never felt—the back of my legs all the way up to my back.
Once again, by the time we were done, I felt muscles I didn’t know I had ache like a fire that burned from a thousand hills.
“You’re better today,” he said just as we were leaving. “Yesterday I don’t think you would have managed to do ten jumping jacks, but you did a hundred today.”
“Yesterday you made me run five miles.”
He raised his eyebrows. “More like you stumbled through five miles with about the grace of a pregnant peacock.”
I frowned. “Peacocks are male,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You know, it’s a cock, not a hen. You know—cock,” I said again. “I guess that doesn’t help you. Perhaps dick.”
He rolled his eyes. The small pinkish coloring on his cheeks was obvious. He was blushing.
A part of me felt proud—so proud I could do a skip—until my body began to ache immediately again.
“Yeah, whatever.” I rolled my eyes as I began heading toward my room.
“What, no snarky response? You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were getting quite used to the chain of command around here.”
I stopped and turned. “Chain of command? Yeah, right, because this is like the military or something. I have so many things to say. That was one of those.”
But thinking about it—this was not my world. The way I knew things simply did not apply here. I simply settled on waving him off.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, pushing open the door to my room and letting out a squeal when I found Kendrick.
Kendrick sat in the living area of my room with one leg crossed over the other, a cup of something steaming in his hand. In his other hand, he had what appeared to be a book. Once I entered, he said nothing.
“You should take a shower,” he said. “I could smell you after you left the gym. You smell like a thousand soldiers and burning testosterone.”
I scrunched my face and looked down toward my body. I took one whiff of myself and decided I smelled bad. Of course, I knew that. But he didn’t have to put it like that.
I waddled to the bathroom and took a quick shower. Once done, I pulled on a nightgown and a bathrobe over it before I went back outside and found him still seated.
“What do you want, Doctor?” I plopped on the chair opposite him.
“To check on you,” he said. “Imagine my surprise when Lucas told me that you were doing a little workout session?” He dropped his cup and the book and looked straight at me with a beaming smile on his face.
“Nothing makes me happier than when someone decides to take charge of their lives.” He lifted his nose in the air and took a long whiff. “Smells like hope and shower gel—but hope mostly.” He chuckled. “So tell me, what’s the point? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m weak,” I said. “I think that much should have been obvious. I almost died, and no thanks to you. But I understand now that this me isn’t going to get anywhere in the world—not in this world, at least.”
He smiled, raising a hand to his chest. He pouted his bottom lip and gave me the perfect representation of puppy dog eyes. “Oh, my poor baby,” he said. “She is finally grown up.” Leaning back, he began to clap. “A character arc, if I do say so myself. Bravo. Bravo.” He clapped several times.
“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself, Doctor. Once I’m strong enough, I’m leaving.”
He stopped clapping. “You do know that you can’t. You can’t leave. At least not with him like that.” His voice darkened slightly.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from him, toward the window. Most of them were open, allowing the soft, cool breeze from outside to ruffle the chiffon curtains. With the breeze came the scent of grass and rain. It was raining somewhere, I thought. Having lived on the streets for so long, I learned how to smell the changes in the weather.
“Why does everyone always say that? ‘When he is like this, when he’s like that, when he’s like blah blah blah.’ I don’t care when he’s like anything.” I looked at Kendrick.
“It might sound strange and rude, but this is new to me. No one has decided to give me a crash course on furries and the Amazing World of Gumball, or Alice in Wonderland, or whatever the heck this is. Game of Thrones? Lord of the Rings? Heck, you’ve got wizards and sorcerers—what next? Harry Potter?”
He smiled. “Add in some Percy Jackson, um, Magnus Chase. Put every mythology together as one. We have every single mythology and super story and outlandish tale you can think of. We have gods, goddesses, we have drugs and all the likes. And here you are—tiny pony human. I understand why you’re trying to get stronger. At least for now, it’s to conquer your arch-nemesis, Selina, isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t care about Selina if I wanted to. And she’s not my arch-nemesis. I don’t have an arch-nemesis. At least before, death was my arch-nemesis. And now—” I shrugged. “I don’t care.”
The door suddenly opened. Whoever it was that came in, came in as though they owned the building. Maybe because he did, ’cause he stood behind Kendrick with a low growl protruding from his lips.
“Get out,” he said to Kendrick. And Kendrick didn’t waste any more time. He left—in less than a second he was there, and suddenly he wasn’t.
And suddenly the big bad alpha wolf was in front of me, his eyes glowing.