Marking Territory: An Awakened Novel (The Rising Storm Book 1)

by N. L. Paradox

  “You think you’re such hot shit,” I snarled around the quickened panting that had started to blast out of my mouth, “prove it asshole.”

  “Aiden, Edward!” Mr. Earnest shouted, but by this point the beasts had taken over… or at least, they had on my end.

  Whether he was experiencing a similar loss of control like I was or he simply thought he was more than capable of putting an ‘upstart’ in place, his grin was wicked and cruel… just before it disappeared.

  If I was still thinking rationally, I would have been shocked to see him disappear and find a huge fucking bear in his place. The thing went up on its hind legs and let out a challenging roar even as the other three, Mr. Earnest included, scrambled back away from him in fear. When its head lowered and the bear looked at me, I saw exactly what I was dealing with.

  While for the most part I was staring at and smelling a bear, the eyes were what gave him away. They weren’t those dark, nearly black orbs that all bears possess. Instead, they were dull, blue and very much the eyes of a human. Even without really examining his scent in more detail, it was pretty clear that it was still very much Eddie on the inside basically wearing a bear suit.

  Which was all my wolf needed. Even as the bear came charging at me, I kicked off my boots and dove to the side, rolling several times before coming up in a crouch and yanking off my top, tossing it aside. When he charged again, I was already unclasping my bra. I managed to get it yanked off and out of the way before I needed to leap up and over the charging beast, using its back as a kind of pommel horse while it swiped ineffectually at where I had been. As I landed and stripped off my leggings and panties in one, swift movement, I had all the information I needed about Eddie and his ability.

  Bears were fast, no question about it. In the wild, a bear was capable of not only chasing a human being down, but ripping them to shreds before they even knew what was happening. One on one, a regular wolf wouldn’t have a chance. This particular bear, however, lacked a certain very important factor to make that happen. Eddie didn’t have its instincts. There was a human mind in that thick skull making human decisions on what to do. He didn’t have an animal upbringing that taught him what his body was capable of and how to use the weapons at his disposal. He knew that he had claws he could slash with and teeth to bite with, but he’d never been taught how they were used by a bear in combat.

  Which was why he was so damn slow wheeling about to face me while I let my wolf out.

  The false bear charged again while the foolish two-legged made pathetic noises to try and bring us to a halt. It was pointless. False bear had issued a challenge of dominance and it would not pass.

  He had just turned when I attacked. Those oh so two-legged eyes widened and delicious fear filled my nose as I clamped my jaws onto his snout. It was only because of my two-legged’s plea that I did not simply rip false bear’s face from his skull. It was because of that same plea that I did not follow my action by tearing out his throat and feasting on the delicious meat that I knew lay beneath.

  Instead, I clenched down only enough that False Bear knew what I could do before leaping away. If my two-legged did not wish me to feast on False Bear, then he would be treated as he should be: a foolish cub in need of a lesson. When he charged once again, I leaped to the side and snapped at the back of his front leg. Not enough to sever the delicate flesh strings that allowed False Bear to walk, but enough that he would know it was possible. His roar of pain sounded oh so sweet.

  Not stopping the lesson, I leaped over the clumsy swipe of claws he knew not how to use and landed on his back. Without any hesitation, I clamped my jaws onto that thick flesh on the back of his neck, hard. The pain sound False Bear made said he might finally be starting to learn. Though he could not understand the language of the wild, my snarl and clenching of fur and flesh between my teeth would be understood well enough.

  Showing he wasn’t completely stupid, False Bear lowered himself to his belly, making pathetic pain and submission sounds even as I hopped off his back and strode before him. Looking directly into those weak, pathetic, two-legged eyes, I snapped my jaws in front of his face once more as a reminder who was truly dominant in this territory. The lesson was learned and he ceased to be False Bear, becoming two-legged once more.

  With the challenge complete, the smell of prey all around me was strong, too strong. So many choices, so much delicious meat. The hunt called so loud I could hear nothing else.

  Nothing except my two-leg. She wanted control, but I wanted to hunt. My jaws were wet with hunger from the potential meals all around me in the wilds beyond the two-legged territory. My muscles tightened in preparation to race into that wild before I felt myself wrest control away from my wolf, easing her into the background of my mind with the promise of a hunt in the near future. She wasn’t happy about it, that was for damn sure, but she had given up control. Thank God.

  Of course, that left me in quite the situation. Here I was, crouched in the middle of the athletic field, completely naked, with not only my shifter class staring at me in a mixture of disbelief and fear, but at least a dozen other students who had clearly been nearby and had come to check out what was happening.

  Scrambling to gather up my clothes, I started yanking them on as fast as I could while trying to minimize my, ahem, exposure. It was pointless since eyes were looking at me from pretty much all around, so I forwent the underwear and just pulled on my pants and top. Grabbing up my bra and panties, I shoved them into my bag and started working on getting my boots back on. Since I hadn’t pulled off my socks before shifting, they had pretty much been shredded to nothing by both the shifting and the combat that had followed.

  I had just gotten my second boot on when I saw Dr. Wellman storming across the field towards our little gathering, and he was not happy.

  Shit.

  ****

  Sometimes, having wolf-enhanced hearing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Case in point, I got to hear Mr. Earnest and Dr. Wellman tear into Eddie in crystal clear HD quality. Now, you might think I’d be sitting there giggling with delight while rubbing my hands together like Dr. Evil. Well, you’d be wrong. My heart was actually trying to pound its way through my ribcage and out my chest in an effort to get away before at least three-quarters of my ass got chomped off.

  Why, you may ask? Well that be largely in part because I could expect at least as bad of an ass chewing as what Eddie was currently receiving. In my panicked, teenage mind, I was already envisioning Dr. Wellman telling me how royally I’d fucked up and that I was getting booted out of Tearmann for what was clearly a blatant violation of the rules.

  See, one of the first things we learned when arriving and getting settled in was there would be not fights between students using their fey abilities. Unless it was a sanctioned and carefully staff monitored sparring match, any instances of this kind of fighting would mean instantaneous expulsion. No trial, no jury, just your ass out the door and on the way to the airport.

  And I’d managed to accomplish this remarkable feat in only two days. Yay me.

  I felt myself grow tense when the voices inside Dr. Wellman’s office went quiet and I heard Dr. Wellman himself tell Eddie to get out and for Mr. Earnest to bring me in. Like any frightened animal backed into a corner, I tensed with the urge to take flight and get away from the danger that currently loomed ahead of me. Was I the big bad wolf who wasn’t scared to back down from anyone? Bet your ass I was. Was I scared out of my mind about what I would find behind that frosted glass door? Hell yes!

  From the expression on Eddie’s face as he shuffled out of the office, he looked like a whipped dog slinking away from its angry master to go hide and lick its wounds. When he lifted his eyes to me, I saw him wince slightly before ducking his head once more and hurrying out of the outer office. Since I was so preoccupied with my own rampant imagination about what kind of punishment I was about to receive, I’d failed to hear what Eddie’s was. I had no idea if he was heading back to his dorm to
pack his stuff or just sulk for a while.

  “Aiden.”

  The surprising calm and even… gentle?... voice had my head snapping up and slightly back in apprehension. Standing in the doorway of the inner office, Dr. Wellman stepped to the side and gestured that I should join him and Mr. Earnest inside. Like Eddie, I couldn’t help but shuffle my way through the portal that almost certainly contained the end of my unique and once in a lifetime chance of an education.

  Man, Dad was going to be pissed, and that honestly scared me more than anything.

  Sitting down in the single chair before Dr. Wellman’s desk, I neatly folded my hands in my lap and tried to do my best ‘good girl’ impression, a.k.a. Ashley. For a minute or two, neither man said a word as Dr. Wellman looked through some paperwork and Mr. Earnest stood leaning against the wall with his arms folded and a completely neutral expression on his face.

  “So,” Dr. Wellman said out of nowhere, making me jump, “care to tell us your side of things?”

  The fact that I was being given a chance to explain myself at all left me blinking dumbly for a few moments. Weren’t they just going to ream me out, tell me to pack my shit, and get out? “Uhhh, my side of things?” I repeated stupidly.

  Leaning back in his chair, Dr. Wellman folded his hands on his chest in a surprisingly casual gesture. “Typically speaking, there are two sides to pretty much everything. We’ve heard Eddie’s side so now we’d like to hear yours.”

  Okay, so I had a chance to basically plead my case. That was good. I could tell my side of the story and let them know that Eddie had been an ass who had goaded me into the fight because he thought he was hot shit and…

  “I lost control,” I said quietly.

  What the fuck are you doing!

  Ignoring that little voice in my head, I took a deep breath and lifted my eyes to both men. If I was going down, I would do it with my head high. “Eddie basically challenged me. Well, not me per se, but my wolf.”

  “Your wolf?” Dr. Wellman asked in mild confusion while a look of understanding started to appear on Mr. Earnest’s face.

  “Yeah,” I continued, “he basically challenged me as the dominant animal in the territory. When he changed into a bear and charged me, my wolf instincts pretty much just took over.”

  “So, you responded like a wolf would respond to an attack,” Mr. Earnest sort of finished for me with a nod. “But you didn’t kill him,” he noted with a raised finger, “and that’s not the typical response for a wolf being attacked.”

  “My wolf knew he wasn’t a real bear, and not a real threat, so I was able to stop her.” I said, drawing surprised looks from both men.

  “Not a real bear?” Dr. Wellman exclaimed in confusion. “Randall, I thought you said Edward’s transformations were complete.”

  “They are,” the biology teacher and shifter trainer agreed. “Eddie has been able to master three forms: bear, dog, and cat, and every one of them is a complete transformation.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  I wondered who said that for a moment before realizing the words had come out of my own mouth, once again drawing and focusing the attention squarely on me. Based on those pointed looks, there was no way I was getting out of this without explaining what I’d meant. “He was mostly bear, but not completely. His eyes were still human, which meant his mind was still human, too.”

  Mr. Earnest nodded slowly. “That’s true. It’s the primary reason why I’ve been able to teach him while in animal form. But how does that not make him a threat?” he wondering in my direction.

  I couldn’t help it, I really couldn’t. I was trying as hard as I could to be a good girl, but the snort of derision just came out before I could stop it. I’ll just blame it on my wolf; that usually worked. “Just because he has the form of a bear,” I said quickly to cover my rather rude noise, “doesn’t mean he knows what it means to be one. He didn’t grow up as a bear,” I explained when my opening statement was met with confusion, “so he didn’t get the education of a bear when it comes to understanding what his body, and weapons, can do or how to use them. He could probably kill someone if he caught them with a swipe or got his teeth on them, but he doesn’t have the life experience or instincts to be able to do it anywhere near as good as a real bear. In fact, if he met a real bear, it would probably rip him apart in seconds.”

  “And how exactly do you know all this Ms. Connors?” Dr. Wellman asked in a casual voice that belied his intensely focused stare.

  Trying to stay casual myself, I shrugged my shoulders. “Because I’m a wolf, not a pretender in a wolf suit. My wolf,” I explained further, “is as real of a wolf as you can get before losing the human part of my mind. We may not have a ton of experience, but when I’m a wolf, I think like a wolf first and foremost and I’ve actually gotten trained by the local wolf pack back home to fight. When you combine that wolf instinct with human reasoning, well, it’s pretty effective.”

  “And also dangerous,” Dr. Wellman pointed out, though not angrily or worriedly like I expected. “If you lost control like you say you did, you could seriously injure or kill someone in your wolf form.”

  “Well that’s because of your stupid rules,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  Even as I blushed from the outburst Mr. Earnest raised an eyebrow. “What rules?”

  “The no hunting one unless I can get some friggin’ license,” I clarified. “I haven’t been able to let my wolf hunt for over a week, and she was beyond caged animal status. When Eddie pissed me off by challenging me like he did, it was pretty much the last straw and my wolf just took over. I was able to get just enough control so she just taught him a lesson instead of actively trying to hurt him, but that was the best I could do,” I said, my voice having become plaintive almost to the point of begging by now. My wolf wasn’t at all happy about that, but thankfully, she recognized the situation for what it was and didn’t make a whole lot of noise.

  “So,” Mr. Earnest said carefully, pinning me with a speculative look, “you’re saying that if you had been allowed to hunt before today, you would have had more control over the wolf part of you because it wouldn’t have been in such an agitated state?”

  “She,” I corrected tartly, letting my voice carry not only my weight, but my wolf’s as well. I could overlook a lot of things right now, but I was done letting these… men… continue to refer to my wolf as a thing. Besides, it made her happy to be able to exert some influence right now which meant she was less likely to encourage me to kill them. “And yeah,” I continued, “I would have. Having a wolf as a part of me means I have the same instincts on some level, and one of those instincts is to hunt. I can hold it back for a while by eating plenty of meat, but eventually, I have to let my wolf out so she can hunt prey down. She prefers to have her meat… fresh.”

  While Mr. Earnest considered what I’d been saying, Dr. Wellman stood and came around his desk, crouching down in front of me so we were eye level. “Aiden,” he said gently, “why didn’t you tell me about this when you first got here?”

  “I meant to,” I told him sheepishly. “I actually promised Ashley and Kitty I would come see you today but I kinda… forgot.”

  Shaking his head, whether it was out of frustration or humor I couldn’t tell, the man rose and leaned back against his desk. “Well, in the future, please inform either myself or Mr. Earnest about any ‘special needs’ that need to be considered when it comes to your wolf.”

  I nodded in agreement before I realized just what he was telling me. Actually, it took about ten seconds for my brain to kick into gear and actually translate what he hadn’t said. “So, I’m not in trouble?” I asked in a small, unsure voice.

  “You didn’t initiate the attack,” Mr. Earnest told me, “and you inviting him to only came after he was pretty insulting towards you. We’re inclined to call this ‘self-defence’… this time. We can’t have any other incidents of you losing control like that. The safety of the other students is pa
ramount.”

  Translation: you wolf out like that again and you’re gone. I could live with that. “What about Eddie?” I wondered.

  The shift in subject caused a pair of eyebrows to rise. “What about him?” Dr. Wellman asked.

  “You’re not kicking him out are you?”

  “He did violate the rules,” the headmaster pointed out.

  “Look,” I sighed, “was he an asshole and did he pull a dick, misogynistic move? Hell yeah. But if you think about it, he learned a pretty important lesson.” I could hardly believe what was coming out of my mouth. Was I actually defending that jack-off?

  “And what lesson might that be Ms. Connors?” Mr. Earnest said. I blame my somewhat heightened emotional state for missing the smile in his voice.

  “There’s a lot more to being an animal than just changing into one.”

  “And would you be willing to teach him?”

  This time I didn’t miss the subtle hint in the question and immediately shook my head. “I’m a werewolf, not a shifter. The way he and the other two use their power is probably totally different from me.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” the biology teacher said with a smile. “I meant would you be willing to teach Eddie, and Kate, and Vinnie as well, about what it means to truly be the animal they shift into? And no,” he said, interrupting my objection that hadn’t even left my mouth, “I’m not talking about Eddie’s bear form or some of the bird forms that they’re able to shift into. Every one of the students in our training class can shift into a canine form. None of them are wolves, but I’d say when it comes to learning how to embrace the animal side the similarities are close enough.”

  What he was saying wasn’t one hundred percent off base. When I’d first Awakened as a werewolf, I’d done quite a bit of research to better understand what I’d become. While there hadn’t been a whole lot of material on werewolves beyond bullshit fable stories, there was a ton of research on wolves. Part of that included some facilities that raised wolf pups abandoned in the wild with dogs until they were old enough to be introduced to an established pack either in the wild or in an animal sanctuary. It was pretty academic that dogs’ ancestry traced back to wolves, so they were close enough from a behavioral and social standpoint that they were able to mix quite effectively and teach one another.