by C. J. Cooke
“Yey, food.” I smiled. “What exactly is this though?” I said looking suspiciously at the glass.
“It’s danari juice.” She smiled. “It’s good, try it.”
I suspiciously sipped it, it wasn’t too bad. It was kind of like fruit punch but it definitely had a kick to it. I was going to have to be careful, I wasn’t a massive drinker. By the looks of it the others had had a few already.
I dropped into the empty armchair just as another knock came at the door. Britt swung it open and Nix and Mae came in. They helped themselves to some drinks and Mae sat down on the bed and Nix made herself comfortable on the floor. “Right, now that we are all here down to business.” Britt said seriously before turning to me. “So exactly how yummy and the shifter trio?” And I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh.
We spent the next hours, gossiping, laughing and generally just having a good time. By the time that I was getting ready to go my nails were painted red and I had a feeling that I might actually be good at this having girl friends stuff. It was nice to let me hair down and the girls from the fighting team were easy to be with. I almost felt like all of the stuff we were dealing with at the moment was put aside for a moment and I got to just be myself for a while. I didn’t know if it was the comradery that we had developed from training together but it felt like we were becoming true friends and we all got on together so well. It also helped me learn about the different groups and how they could have a future together. Aeryn was the only witch in the group, but as we all sat around laughing and talking, you wouldn’t know that there was any difference between all of us. We were just a group of girls, admittedly getting a little drunk, and having a good time together.
Chapter Sixteen
Combat class came around again quickly. I met with Caleb after I had my run in the morning. The girls were doing well. They all made it around the full five miles this time. Granted they all looked like they were about to drop dead by the time they finished but they were still adamant that they would be there every morning and they had to be hurting now that we were three mornings in. The others had gone in to change into fresh clothes and eat some breakfast before combat class. Personally, I didn’t think a full stomach so close to combat class was a good idea but I supposed it was a lesson that they needed to learn themselves.
“I heard you had some people join you for your morning workout” Caleb smiled at me like it was the best joke ever.
“Only those that had enough guts to come.” I grinned back at him. “Anyway, I managed to get five miles out of them, how many did you get them to do?”
“Impressive. I don’t think they even did one mile in the gym.” Caleb sat back in his chair thinking. “This group lacks motivation. The first year that came onto the new program were excited about the change but this one doesn’t seem to care.”
“You can’t really blame them Caleb. If you don’t tell them what is coming for them what are they even fighting for?” I sat in the chair on the other side of his desk and glanced around his tiny office. It was like a typical gym teacher office minus the dodgeballs. There was nothing in here but a tiny desk, a chair on either side and a filing cabinet in the corner. There was nothing on the desk, nothing on the noticeboard on the wall. It was actually pretty depressing.
“The headmaster has decided to keep the situation under wraps for now. He thinks it will only lead to panic. He wants to wait until we have more solid information.” Caleb explained.
“And what do you think?”
“Does it matter?” He shrugged.
“You’re training his army, surely your opinion counts.” I countered. Something just didn’t feel right about this.
He sighed in defeat. “There’s no changing what is happening now and I fear we are too late to inspire the masses to stand beside us. In the ages gone by the pack stood strong. All of the shifters stood together in one pack under one alpha. There were no secondary alphas, no satellite packs. We all stood together. But we’ve lost sight of the old ways. We became complacent and lazy. Once the treaty was signed and the wars ended, we stopped training. We stopped making ourselves stronger. Perhaps we have brought this upon ourselves.” He shrugged.
“Has the headmaster spoken with the Prime Alpha about what he believes is happening.”
“Yes, the pack has started training again but I doubt we have time to reach the level that we need. Yes, we need an army. But an army that doesn’t know what it is doing is no use at all.” He was right. Basically, they had been caught with their pants down. If there was some evil plan under way, it had already started and there was no time left to prepare for it.
“I want to train my women.” I said forcefully. My magic flared at the thought. They were mine, in a way. I knew that they could do this and even without Caleb’s help I was going to train them.
“We need to train them all Aria. Not just a few.” He actually looked down at me as he said it like I was about to be told off. It was pretty funny really.
“You were going to train them all by yourself before I came along, you can do that still. Follow the same plan. Let me take my running buddies off your hands. I can train them not only to fight but to fight together. If it works, and we have time, we can expand the model across the rest of the year, break them down into units and train them together. If it doesn’t work you haven’t lost anything.” I bargained.
“How many do you have in your group?” He asked and I knew I was about to get my way.
“Six.” I grinned.
“I tell you what. I’ll give you four weeks. If you can have them fighting like a unit and good enough to take down the same number of my guys then we roll out your training plan across the year. If you can’t, then we go back to training them all as a class. You’re going to have to at least offer to take others into the group as well. I’ll let you take up to ten.” He grinned back at me. He clearly thought that he was going to win this.
“Deal, but hand to hand only, four weeks isn’t enough time to factor in weapons.” Caleb nodded in agreement. We were going to wipe the floor with them.
As we were finishing off the last of the terms for our deal the rest of the class slowly filed in. My running group came through first, they looked tired but they looked more on the ball than the rest of them. I waved them over to the punching bags. The rest of the class, including Sex Shop Barbie wandered over to where Caleb had them stretching out.
“I hope you are all feeling warmed up and ready to train because shit is about to get interesting around here.” I said grinning at them and it only widened when they all grinned back at me.
We wandered over to the rest of the group and sat down beside them stretching out more. My running girls had learnt the importance of stretching after all of the running that they had done. The rest of the class was just pretending to be trying. I almost laughed at the look on Caleb’s face. He knew right then and there that he had made the wrong bet.
“Okay everyone change of plans. We are going to split you into two groups. One group is going to train with Aria and the other with me. After four weeks Aria’s group and the same number in my group will face off against each other. Whoever comes out on top will determine how we are going to train for the rest of the year.” Caleb addressed the class.
The girls looked nervously at me. They were starting to question themselves and I shot them a confident grin and a wink which seemed to settle them down a bit.
“Aria has six in her group. I’ve told her that she can increase that number to ten if anyone wants to change sides on me.” He joked. “Any volunteers need to stand up and Aria will wave over any of you that are going into her group.”
My three guys shot up like someone had lit their ass on fire and I laughed and waved them over. There were several groups sat whispering but no one else stood up. I was fine with that, I didn’t need a full group of ten. I ushered my group back over to where the punching bags were hanging while Caleb started his group with a warm up run. My girls
were already warmed up but the three guys were going to need to put in some laps. First though, we needed to sort out a training schedule.
“Okay, so this is probably a bit of a surprise but basically you’ve been sucked into a bet between Caleb and I. I wanted to train the girls and it all basically spiralled from there.” I said, spinning one hand in the air. The guys just laughed at me no doubt knowing exactly how it had spiralled from there. “Anyway, we need to talk schedule and this is the part where you’re all going to hate me. Two sessions a week is not going to get you ready to fight, or give you any kind of skills in just one year, let alone four weeks. If you want to do this seriously, I want you to commit to five sessions a week in the gym. Two of those, while we are sharing the space with the other group, will solely be on conditioning. We can’t let the dirty spies be scoping out our awesomeness. Three evenings a week we will work on what fighting skills you already know and build from that.” Everyone was nodding along and murmuring in agreement. Time to turn my serious face on. “They’re all laughing at you right now, mainly me, but also you. They don’t think that we can do it. So, lets prove them wrong.” I grinned at them and everyone else grinned back. This was going to be good.
The guys were not happy when I set them off running around the gym and demanded ten laps out of them. If they weren’t happy about that they were definitely going to hate me when I explained their new daily 5:30am run to them. I snickered to myself at the thought of what they were going to say. The girls however didn’t even complain when I set up some circuits and set them to work on it. I was impressed with how committed they were to this but it would be interesting to see if they still felt this way when we got to the half way mark of this four-week challenge.
Combat class was always three hours long and by the time the other group was dragging itself around the gym doing a cool down run I had my group down on the floor going through a stretching routine. I explained the muscle groups that they were working and the importance of stretching them all out after any training. I also explained how they would feel better if they could keep stretching out their aches through the day and then finish off the day soaking their muscles. This first week was going to be hard on them. Maybe I should try to convince the headmaster to get a sauna installed. For totally charitable reasons of course.
After combat class was finished, I ran back to my room for a quick shower and change of clothes. I was running out my door with one thought in the front of my mind, food! That was when I ran straight smack into a wall of muscle that gave a deep masculine chuckle as I literally bounced back off it and nearly fell back through the door. Thankfully Liam had quick reflexes and scooped me up and back on my feet before I crumpled to the floor.
“Good lord man, knock or something, don’t just stand there. Your muscle wall is a hazard to all unsuspecting passers-by.” I snarked rubbing my nose which had impacted with a rock hard peck. It actually hurt, or maybe I was just started to get hangry.
Liam, being the gentleman that he was, just laughed at me, grabbed my hand and started pulling me along. Normally I wouldn’t allow such man handling but he was heading in the direction of the cafeteria and I hadn’t had chance to have breakfast. I was so hungry I was pretty sure that my stomach was eating itself. “The other guys are going to meet us in the cafeteria.” Liam said yanking my hand so I stumbled into him and he tucked me into his side.
“You’re lucky you’re snuggly cat or I’d object to all this manhandling.” I said keeping step with him and tilting my head down onto him. He was always so warm and I couldn’t help the little sigh that came out of me. What was happening to me, I was turning into some kind of loved up girl. This was not going to do my bad ass image any good. But he was soooo warm!
Liam did that panty melting man chuckle that I loved so much “I’ll always keep you warm sweetheart.” He smiled down at me. When we reached the top of the stairs Liam pulled me into his arms and I snuggled against his chest. He lightly ran his nose up my neck and gently sucked on my ear lobe. I had one sexy mate and all thoughts of food flew out of my head. “Sweetheart, will you go on a date with me?”
“A date?” I grinned, no one had ever asked me out on a date before. That was the one side effect of never making any connections with anyone.
“Yeah, a date. We’re stuck at the academy for a while but I thought you, me, maybe a picnic in the woods? If you want to that is.” He asked trailing off and looking down.
Awww he actually looked nervous right now and I think I felt my heart beat in my chest for a second then, he was so cute.
“I would love to go on a date with you Liam.” I smiled at him and the smile that he gave me in return melted my heart on the spot. Whatever it took, I would make sure that he always had that smile on his face.
“Really?” he said, as he nuzzled back into my neck.
“Of course, but only if you feed me right now because I may starve to death before our date if I don’t get food inside of me in the next five seconds.” I answered seriously.
He laughed and took my hand, setting off down the stairs. “Come on, Kyle and Sykes said they’d grab food for us while I got you.”
When we walked into the cafeteria it was less like the first day. Less people turned to watch and there were significantly less whispers. Maybe I was finally settling in somewhere. Kyle and Sykes were sitting at a table with two extra trays of what looked to be like some kind of stew. I ran to one and immediately started eating. It was definitely not a pretty sight and if anyone had been stupid enough to try and take it from me, shit was gonna get ugly. We were definitely going by prison rules here.
“I think she might have been a bit hungry.” Sykes faux whispered to Kyle who was just plain laughing at me. He didn’t even have the decency to try and hide it.
Liam literally swaggered up to the table and sat at the other tray, grinning over at the other two. “What? What happened?” Sykes said looking suspiciously between the two of us. Kyle literally stiffened and I swear I saw him inhale deeply before he relaxed.
“Did you just smell me?” I asked incredulously while trying to also smell myself, you know, just in case.
“It’s not like that,” Liam immediately answered. I couldn’t decipher the look on his face. “You know I would never do that.” He actually looked sad now and I couldn’t help but feel out of the loop on something.
“What’s going on?” I asked looking between the three of them. There was definitely tension in the air but over what I had no idea.
“How could you even think that?” Liam said looking at Kyle. “We’re brothers.”
“Think what?” I definitely felt out the loop.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why.” Kyle looked down at his plate and his shoulders slouched in defeat. “I suppose it’s because this is so damn hard and I don’t know if I would be able to resist the urge myself.”
“I was gone for like two minutes bro, give me some credit.” Liam laughed. Kyle looked up at him and a look of relief flickered across his face before he smiled as well and laughed.
“AM I EVEN HERE!” I shouted at them. “Why are you ignoring me? What the hell is going on?” All three of their heads suddenly snapped to me.
At the same time as Kyle started with “I’m sorry Aria, I just got … “ Sykes just flat out came out and said “He thought you’d banged.”
“Eloquent as always there Sykes.” Kyle said pointedly looking at him.
“And why would that be such a drama?” I asked genuinely confused. “If we’re mates aren’t we supposed to … you know …” I huffed out an awkward breath “… ‘bang’.” Sykes bust out laughing, I wasn’t sure if it was because of my awkward question or the fact that I couldn’t think of a better word than bang. Even Liam and Kyle started chuckling at me and I just shuffled awkwardly in my seat. Thankfully most of the tables around us were empty and no one was paying us any attention.
“Yes, for want of a better word, we are of course supposed to bang.” Kyle
chuckled. “But we are a pack and the first time that we bond with our mate we will do it as a pack.”
“I’m sorry, that sounds like … “ I had no follow up words and just started circling my hand around the table. “You know … at the same time.” Jeez was it just me or did it suddenly get hot in here.
“Yes, my beautiful mate,” Kyle said sliding closer to me. He took one of my hands and kissed the inside of my wrist. If sex could have a look, he was giving it to me right now and I could feel myself grow wet just from the look on his face. I rubbed my thighs together as I shifted in my seat to try and subtly get some kind of relief. I found myself leaning in to him. Maybe the group idea wasn’t too bad. I was just about ready to try it out here and now. “The first time that we take you it will be all of us. All of us there with the sole intention of pleasuring you in any way that you wish.” He pulled me closer to him by the hand that he was holding. He placed a kiss at the base of my neck where it joined my shoulder and it was like the breath suddenly left my body. As Kyle kissed me, I locked eyes with Sykes who was watching him kiss my neck. I couldn’t help the whimper that came out of my mouth. I was officially going to check in my bad ass card, and right now, I couldn’t care less about that. But if this was really what was going to happen I needed to tell them the truth, it’s not like it’s something that I need to be ashamed of but still, it needs to be out there in the open.