by Emilia Rose
I smiled at Kerrie and Henry, two of the best warrior wolves. They were mated to each other, and each had their own personalized necklaces. I couldn’t wait until I found my mate who—I knew—would be a strong fighter like me. I had been waiting for my mate since I was a girl and used to watch Mom’s necklace sparkle in the moonlight every night. Just two more weeks, and I’d officially be able to find him.
The wolves walked down the stairs and tossed their training gear near the side of the house, then stood in front of us. I stared curiously at them, while Vanessa smiled seductively.
I took one look at her, leaned my forehead against Derek’s arm, and tried to stifle a laugh at how stupid she looked. It was childish, yes. But I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. It had always been senseless, childish drama with her.
If she didn’t try so hard, she could probably get anyone she wanted. She was beautiful. Tall, blonde, curvy, and I was all for flirting with people and self-empowerment, but this… this was too much.
“Is something funny?”
My eyes widened, and I sucked in a breath. Damn it. Alpha Roman stood in front of me, his grey t-shirt hugging his sculpted frame. He gazed at me with those dark sinister eyes, those same eyes that devoured my body last night.
“I asked you a question.”
Everyone stared at us, waiting for me to answer him.
“N-no, Alpha,” I said, trying not to inhale his minty scent and turn to mush.
“And you are laughing, why?” He crossed his arms over his chest, flexing his biceps. I glanced around, trying to come up with something that would get me out of this, but he gripped my chin and forced me to look him in the eye.
His pure dominance made me want to test him. I placed my hands by my side, holding them in clenched fists, so I wouldn’t do something stupid in front of the whole pack. But, then, because I couldn’t help myself, I shrugged.
He took a threatening step closer to me. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, you can leave.” He set his lips in a tight line. “I don’t need a pup like you wasting my time.”
The corner of Vanessa’s lip curled. I could just hear her hmmf-ing at me in that snobby way she always did.
Roman grasped my chin harder, his fingers digging into my skin. His golden eyes were smirking at me, like I was right where he wanted, like he had pure control over me. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Alpha.”
He released his grip and turned back to the warrior wolves, whispering something to his beta, Cayden. Cayden nodded and looked curiously at me. I let out a breath, fixed my gaze on the kicked-up grass under my feet, and clenched my fists behind my back.
Damn him.
“Five-mile run. Human form only.” Roman stared out at the thick green brush. “When you get back here, we will partner up and start the training.”
The warriors led the run through the forest, some peeling away and running faster than the others. I gazed at Derek, itching to sprint past everyone and to go at my own pace, but not wanting to be disrespectful. Cayden slowed down until he was running beside us. “Keep up,” he said to me, running faster. “If you can!”
I glanced at Derek and ran after Cayden, weaving in and out of the other warriors, jumping over fallen tree trunks, and pushing myself harder than I ever had. Cayden ran past Roman, and I followed.
My breathing was heavy, my lungs were full, my mind felt so free. I felt like the forest and I were one. Running had always been a way to connect with my wolf. When we were small, Roman and I would love getting lost in the woods, running for hours just to get nowhere.
Cayden slowed down when we reached the clearing near the packhouse. He peeled off his shirt, his abdomen glistening with sweat, and pointed to me. “You ready?”
I doubled over, placing my hands on my knees and gasping for air. “Don’t we have to wait for—”
He lunged at me, catching me off guard, and slammed me against the dirt. “No. Warriors don’t wait for anyone. They fight when they need to fight.”
Without waiting another moment, I hopped back up and crouched in my fighting stance. Well… I guess we weren’t waiting for them. I circled around Cayden, trying to find an opening to attack. But each time I went in to take him down, he stopped me and threw me to the ground.
As the others walked into the backyard, I watched Cayden’s ear continuously fly back—as if he was listening to them and not paying as close attention to me as he should have. I socked him hard in the stomach with my fist, stepped in toward him, and threw him over my shoulder.
It was the only takedown I had gotten in ten minutes.
Almost immediately, he hopped back up and smirked, turning his attention back to me. We continued to fight for the next fifteen minutes, and he didn’t let up once, pushing me harder than anyone had.
But it seemed like everyone else was getting a special treatment. Derek. Melissa from geometry. Even Vanessa who was trying hard to fight Roman. He actually let her work her moves—whether those moves were rubbing herself on him or actually doing some type of takedown.
When I was too preoccupied with her, Cayden slammed me down. I laid against the ground for a moment, taking a deep breath and envying how easily everyone else had it.
Roman jumped up from Vanessa’s takedown, helped her up, and looked over at me. My heart raced with anger, jealousy, a need to prove my worthiness as a warrior to him. I slammed my palms onto the ground and jumped up.
“Come on, Isabella. You’re stronger and smarter than that,” Cayden said to me.
I growled under my breath and stormed at him. After finding an opening, I came at him with everything I had, lifted him off of the ground, and drove him into the dirt. Hard.
When his body collided with the ground, he grunted. “Damn.” He took a deep breath, as if he had the wind knocked out of him. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”
After practice, I growled and hurled my sweaty t-shirt at my gym bag. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Nobody went easy on me—not that I wanted them to. I just didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what I was doing. Because I did know. I had studied and trained for longer than anyone. Yet they had gone harder on me—purposefully.
“Growling will get you nowhere,” Roman said, standing a few feet to my left. Most of the warriors and recruits had disappeared into the forest to return home for the night.
I pressed my lips together, wanting to do nothing more than to sink into my sheets and release all the tension from today. I tossed my bag over my shoulder and clenched my fist around the strap, turning to him.
Covered in a layer of sweat that made his whole body glisten, arms crossed over his chest, biceps swelling from the sheer amount of pressure put on them from training today, he stared at me with his head tilted to the side and a smirk on those damn plump lips.
“You seemed to be struggling today. Maybe being a warrior isn’t for you.” His golden eyes shimmered under the setting sun.
My nostrils flared. All that talk about being a good girl because good girls get rewarded. I growled lowly. Fuck being a good girl for him. I wanted to be bad.
Vanessa, the only other pack member still here, walked to her car. “Bye, Roman! Bye, Izzy!” She wiped a towel across her breasts, wiping off sweat, and I scrunched my nose. “See you tomorrow.”
Roman nodded, offering her a smile and a small wave. I narrowed my eyes at him. Who did this man think he was? Why the hell was he going easy on her?
When she pulled out of the driveway, I brushed past him. He snatched my wrist and pulled me back. “I didn’t dismiss you.”
“I don’t need you to dismiss m—”
He snaked a hand around my throat, squeezing tightly, and pressed me against the side of the house. “What did I tell you about disrespecting me?”
I grasped his hand, my fingers tingling. “I don’t need any reward from you,” I said between clenched teeth.
He pushed me harder against the siding, pressing his hardness into my t
high. Warmth pooled between my legs, and I cursed myself for reacting like this. He moved his hardness farther up my leg until it was pressing into the front of my leggings. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, my core pulsing.
His lips brushed against my ear. “You don’t seem too sure about that.” He rubbed two fingers into the front of my pants, massaging my clit.
I parted my lips, my head falling back slightly. Don’t give into him so easily, Isabella.
“You’re not even… fucking… good at this.” I pushed his hand away.
He stared at me, eyes darker than ever, canines emerging under his lips. He gripped my chin and shoved it to the side. His fingers slipped into my panties and thrusted into my wet pussy. “Not good at this, huh?”
“Cayden could probably please me better than you could.”
His fingers roughly pounded into my pussy, sending me further and further against the side of the house with each thrust.
“His hand around my throat,” I said. Roman tightened his grip on my neck. “His fingers—those long, rough fingers—destroying my tight little pussy.” Roman entered a third finger into me, and I clenched. His hand travelled down my neck, and he roughly grasped my breast. Holy…
I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped onto his wrist. “His fingers… Moon Goddess, his fingers tugging on my nipples.”
Roman pinched my nipple between two fingers and tugged on it. I rested my forehead against his shoulder, whimpering, as my whole body trembled. And when Roman’s canines brushed against the sensitive part of my neck, I couldn’t stop myself from moaning. Wave after wave of ecstasy rolled through me. I had never felt so good.
After a few moments, he shoved me back—harshly—and stepped away from me, trying to gather himself. Though he was furious, his eyes were tinted the lightest shade of gold, just like the early morning sunrays.
I smoothed out my leggings and took a deep breath, hiking my gym bag onto my shoulder. Roman was… he made me feel…
We stood there staring at each other for the longest moment. No, I had never felt this way before, but nobody had ever made me feel the way Roman did. Being with him was dangerous and oh-so-exciting.
He didn’t leave me in the yard alone, like he did at the school. Instead, he glanced down, clenching his hands into fists. “What’s this?” Roman asked, noticing and grasping the keychain on my bag. In a moment of realization, he widened his eyes. “My mom’s keychain? You still have it?” His face contorted into one of strain.
I gave him a shy smile and looked down at it, a feeling of warmth washing over me. “Yes.”
It seemed like it was yesterday when she thrusted it into my palm, curled my small fingers around it, and told me not to tell anyone because this keychain was our little secret.
He curled his lips into a small—a very small—smile and stayed quiet for a long time. “You know that she always loved you.” He looked as if he wanted to say something more about it, but then he shook his head. “Even more than me sometimes.” He chuckled to himself and looked down at his feet. “Always told me to take care of you.”
“Of me?” I asked, brow raised. “Only me?”
“Of everyone, Isabella.”
“But especially me?” I teased.
He gazed at me, eyes lighting up. “Especially you.”
After another moment of silence and a torn expression crossing his face, he grabbed my hand. “Come on. I want to bring you somewhere.”
Isabella
He held his hands over my eyes and led me through the woods, making sure that I didn’t bump into any twigs or trees.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to peek around his fingers.
“Patience, Isabella,” he said. We walked for five more minutes with me in complete darkness. And then he suddenly stopped.
When he peeled back his hands, I gasped. “You brought me back to the cave?” I asked, walking around it. We hadn’t been here since we were pups, when Luna Raya would invite me on playdates with Roman and we’d get lost in the woods.
It had been so long. So fucking long.
Moonflowers hung from the top of it, growing through rocks and dirt and twinkling softly. I grinned at them, bringing one to my nose and inhaling its scent.
“Roman,” I said breathlessly.
He stared at me, trying to suppress a grin, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you remember this place?”
“Of course, I do!”
His grin widened, and he walked to one sides of the cave, drawing his fingers across the stone and over the stupid little drawings that we used to create in here. “My favorite part about coming here was drawing these things.”
I walked over to him, gazing over his shoulder, and sighed softly. “Is that a turtle?” I asked, trying to make out the disfigured animal carved into the rock.
“You tell me,” he said. “That was your drawing.”
“Was not!”
“Was too!” He walked a few feet forward to the last drawing that we ever made here. Though they were all ruined just a little, this one was clearer than the others. “This one is mine.”
It was a beautifully detailed carving of a full circle—representing the moon—and a silhouette of a woman in front of it. I stared at it for a long time and smiled. “The Moon Goddess.”
He tensed and stared down at me, parting his lips to speak but no words came out. Instead he leaned down, picked up a small rock, and handed it to me.
“You want to draw another one?” I asked.
“For old time’s sake,” he said, cracking a smile. He sat down on the dusty ground, taking a stone in his hand too, and I sat next to him.
“What’re you going to draw?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder and inhaling his minty scent. He pushed the rock into the wall and carved. I watched him with excitement, blurting out guesses now and then. He chuckled each time, asking me if his drawing was that bad when I guessed he was drawing a stick figure, and continued.
I stared between Roman and the drawing, my heart racing. The way his eyes shifted effortlessly around the rock, the way he moved his hand so smoothly, the spark in his eye… it made me feel young again.
He glanced over at me, and I knew he felt it too. It was like those tingles he had given me but something more, something deeper.
His eyes drifted to my smile, then to the rock in my hand. “Let me help you,” he said, scooting closer to me. He rested one leg beside my thigh and one behind me, so I sat directly between his legs.
When he grasped my hand, we both tensed. But then he leaned closer to me and placed my hand against the stone wall, moving my wrist in all different directions to create a carving of a werewolf.
His breath was on my neck, his heart was beating against my back, his scent was enveloping me. We were close and not close like we had been earlier.
I shifted slightly, letting him rest his chin on my shoulder and enjoying when he took a big breath of me.
After we finished the drawing, he reluctantly released my hand and put down the stone. We didn’t move for a long time, just stayed close, stayed so close that we could feel each other breathing.
And I never wanted the night to end.
Isabella
The next day, I slumped onto the ground, back against the packhouse, legs stretched out in front of me. Everything hurt. My back, my legs, my arms, my abs, even my neck. But, of course, Vanessa and everyone else didn’t have this problem. They had all been treated like normal werewolves with normal abilities. I was pushed. Hard.
Two tan and muscular legs came into my line of vision. “Sore?” Cayden asked, his black Adidas gym bag hanging from his shoulder. He tossed it down and sat in front of me.
“What gave it away?” I asked, tracing the bruises on my quads. At least they didn’t hurt as bad as they did last night. After my night with Roman, Mom had made me sit in a warm bath with Moonflowers floating around the top to help with the pain. It worked a bit, but… not as much as I had hoped.
Cayden rummaged through his bag and smirked. “That look of misery on your face.”
I raised a brow at him and pointed to my face. “Oh, no. This look of misery is not because I’m sore. I just don’t want to go through another day of hell while everyone else takes a fucking walk in the park.”
After he peeled off his shirt, he scooted closer to me. “Alpha Roman likes obedience.”
Roman liked obedience.
I stifled a laugh. I would disagree. Disobedience seemed to turn him on. I tested that many times, and each resulted in the same way: him pushing his hard cock against me any way that he could.
“I think you handled it yesterday the best way you could,” he said.
The scent of mint drifted into my nostrils, so I inched closer to Cayden—knowing that this would surely be an act of disobedience in Roman’s eyes, and smiled. “Well, I do take punishments very well.”
Roman growled, and my heart raced. But I didn’t turn around. Instead I sat, smiling at Cayden, suggesting something more sinister than mere punishment.
Something about getting on his nerves, about getting close to Roman any way that I could always excited me.
“I’m serious, Isabella,” Cayden said—completely oblivious to my flirting. “You’re strong as hell. Training with us will give you that extra umpft. You’ll be kicking my ass in no time. You’re close to it.”
Roman walked over to us, and Cayden’s eyes lingered on me for a quick moment, then they snapped to Roman. “Cayden,” he said, jaw clenched. “Lead the run.”
Cayden stood and held out a hand. “Come on. You can make it.”
I grabbed his hand, raising my brow at Roman to test him. Oh, boy, did I love testing him.
Roman eyed us, his hands clenched into tight fists. When Cayden released my hand and started walking to the crowd, I followed. But, before I could lead the run with him like I did yesterday, Roman caught my arm. “You’re not going.”
Cayden gazed at Roman, nodded his head, and disappeared through the woods. The rest of the warriors and trainees—except Vanessa—followed, their feet pounding against the dirt like a thunderous echo.