Chapter 56
DAKOTA’S POV
We returned to the house in a much better mood. Akela and Adam were in the kitchen eating. I stood at the entrance and just stared. They looked quite cozy. I squinted at him and resisted the urge to call him sly.
“Hi…”
“Oh, hey. You guys are back.”
“Yes. We are.” I looked between him and Adam, willing him with my eyes to tell me what was going on.
“Did you two have fun?”
“Yes. Seemed you two had fun while we were away.”
“Adam is a cool guy.”
I stood and watched as my mother walked over to Adam and planted her lips on him. I resisted the urge to puke and went up to my room. She was my mother, but there was no way I wanted to see that.
I closed the door behind me and lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of my next line of action. One thing I was sure of was that I needed to challenge Odin as soon as I arrived back home. I had postponed it a little too long.
I wondered if I would win. I wondered if my mother would want to return to the pack when I won. She seemed to have settled here. And coupled with the fact that she had now found her mate, she might want to spend the rest of her life here.
I sighed and took a deep breath. I thought about Akela; we were both turning eighteen soon. And even though I’ve never mentioned it to Akela, I want to bear his mark, and I want him to bear mine too. But I’m waiting for us to reach that ripe age. It was some sort of milestone for me.
My mind drifted to my father’s mate. Was she still in my grandfather’s pack? How was my brother doing?
I’d always wanted a sibling, and all this while, I’d had one. I realized that this was a whole more complicated than I had initially thought.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, forcing all the troubling thoughts to leave my mind and allowing sleep to seep in. I needed the rest.
The next morning, my mother was the one who woke up Akela with an angry knock on our door. I groggily got out of bed and walked to the door. Half-awake, half-asleep, completely pissed. I opened the door with an angry jerk and muttered a greeting to my mother.
“Good morning.” She tried poking her head into my room, but I refused to give her room for that.
“Where is Akela?”
“Sleeping. Not everyone wakes up at ungodly hours like you, Mom.” She gave me a deadpan look.
“It’s 6:00 AM, Dakota.”
“Yeah, like I said, ungodly hours of the morning.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I wanted to yell at her to not give me attitude.
“You and Akela have ten minutes to meet us downstairs, ready for training.”
“What training?”
“Orion called yesterday. He said that he was going to oversee your training.” My eyes opened in surprise.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t know that.”
“Well, now you do. So, get Akela and hurry up!”
She excused herself and walked back the way she came. I sighed and walked back into my room. Resisting the urge to jump back into the bed with him, I yanked the duvet from him and dumped it on the floor. Akela jerked awake and looked at me with wide eyes.
“What?”
“Wake up…”
“I am awake, thanks to you. What did you wake me up for?”
“Mom said we should wake up and be downstairs for training.”
“It’s 6:00 AM.”
“That’s what I said!”
We were finally able to get our act together and go join my mother in the backyard.
She wasn’t alone. Adam was standing behind her like some sort of bodyguard. We had a little stare-off before Orion cleared his throat. I gave Adam one last once over before turning to Orion.
“Good morning.”
He nodded and smiled at me.
“Good morning.”
“I’m guessing you slept well?”
“I did. Would have slept better if it weren’t for this…” I waved my hand around the spacious backyard. Orion laughed and shrugged.
“Well, serious situations require serious preparations.” He stood upright and folded his hand across his chest.
“Now, to begin with, let’s warm you up. Shift and run the perimeter of these woods five times.”
“What?”
“And while you’re at it, I’m warning you to pay attention to your surroundings. You never know where your opponent will strike from.”
I looked skeptically at Alpha Orion. That last line sounded more like a threat to me than an instruction. I entered the woods a few feet from the house, hid behind a huge tree, and stripped. I took in a deep breath as I felt the bones in my body begin to re-align themselves to take a new shape and form. I sighed at the sweet agony of changing from human to wolf.
Once my shift was complete. I stretched my limbs and shook out my fur. My senses were now sharper. I stepped out of the woods and waited for my signal to begin the race.
“Are you ready, honey?” I nodded. It didn’t escape my notice that Adam wasn’t standing next to her, but I brushed it off. Maybe he got tired of playing bodyguard and went back inside.
“Okay. Go.”
I didn’t wait to be told twice. I ran off into the forest, letting the wind brush through my fur. My paws thumped on the forest floor, enjoying the dirt against them. I must have forgotten Orion’s last instruction because I only remembered when I felt another wolf ram into my side.
I found myself flying into a tree, but I quickly got to my feet and shook my head. I growled at the offending brown wolf that stood at the corner with its tongue hanging out. I could tell it was a male because of its size. Males were bigger than female wolves. I lowered my head and growled a warning at the wolf, but he simply barked at me.
I growled even louder at the disrespect and began to circle the wolf, trying to size him up. He quickly picked up on this and began to move as well, so we were walking in a circle, with no one stupid enough to try to present their back to their opponent.
My adrenaline was through the roof because of the run I had just enjoyed and wanted to continue, so I decided that we had played enough. I lowered my head, hunched my forelimbs, showed my teeth, and growled at him before leaping. I aimed for his forelimb, but he quickly moved out of the way and kicked my face with his paw. I got to my feet, quite enraged now. Deep in my mind, I was wondering how long this was going to take because I wanted to continue my run.
Okay, then. We will have to fight.