by G. Bailey
Then she growls. A possessive growl that I don’t like. Some part of me forces my eyes to meet hers, and I stare her down. Something I’ve never done before, but I can’t stop myself. Soon I feel my hands shaking, and a strange deep wolf-like sound is escaping my lips.
Ragnar steps in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders, and like a light switching off, I startle where I’m standing. He smiles kindly at me, but I see the tension in his eyes. “I will deal with Eleline. Your room is the third on the left when you go up the staircase. Meet you there?”
“What was that?” I quietly question.
“Your wolf is coming out, with or without Silas’s permission. Seems you are stronger than anyone thought, Mai,” he gently says and lowers his hands. “Now, see you upstairs.”
“Okay,” I shakily answer. I walk around him and past Eleline, who turns to look at me, but I refuse to meet her gaze for a second time, even when my body itches to do so. She growls at me as I pass, her growl nothing short of a threat. Making enemies on my first actual day in the pack isn’t the best idea I’ve had, but I’ve done it now. She hasn’t challenged me, which she could have done, so I have some luck.
My hands shake with the need to turn back, to do something insane and very wolf-like to someone my wolf clearly sees as a danger. I force my shaky body up the staircase, barely even taking a second to take in the wooden staircase below my feet. I take a left down a cream-carpeted corridor and find the third door, which is slightly ajar, and I push it with my hand until it swings open with a long creak. The bedroom is round with a square glass ceiling through which I can see tree leaves and the rock top of the mountain above.
The double bed is made of light wood with pillars in each corner, and a thick mattress on top. Three pillows and a thin blanket are in the middle of the bed, all of them a light purple colour and look like they’re made of silk. The room is carpeted and it’s soft, I discover as I walk further into the room and wrap my hand around one of the wooden pillars of the bed. The room has nothing else in it, and a part of me misses the small room I had at my foster home. It might not be as grand as this place is or have a double bed, but it was personal. It was my home, filled with drawings I did of Jesper and Daniel and anything I found to draw. It had the stones I collected from the river, all of them different colours, and some of them I painted over the years. This room is for a guest, but I will find a way wherever I go next to make it like home.
“Sorry about that,” Ragnar’s voice nearly makes me jump. He moves silently, I didn’t hear even a footstep. I turn around as he steps through the doorway with a plate full of meats, cheeses and bread. “I thought you might be hungry, so I grabbed some quick food.” He places the plate on the bed for me. “I’m moving a wardrobe in here for you in a moment, as this is just a spare room we had. We only have two bathrooms, and there is one next door. Valentine and Trey share it with you on this side of the corridor, so make sure to lock the door.”
“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my hands together. “For everything so far. You’ve been too kind.”
His eyes search mine for a second. “Mai…it’s no problem.”
I tilt my head to the side. “You sounded like you wanted to say something else.”
“Just that we are happy to have you here.”
“Why would you be happy? You don’t know me at all,” I ask him, watching as he takes several steps back towards the door. The wolf would run for it to escape this question.
“Why wouldn’t we be happy to have a beautiful woman living with us?” he counters, but I think it’s a lie, even if his compliment makes me smile. “I won’t have to look at Valentine’s ugly mug over the table every morning and night.”
I chuckle as he walks to the door and looks back over his shoulder. “Silas will be here in an hour for your first training session, and dinner is later on. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I reply as he leaves my room, pulling my door shut for me. I sit down on the bed and lie back, staring up at the unmoving tree hanging over the glass window and the beams of light I can see through the holes in the stone.
The alphas of Fall Mountain Pack have welcomed me into their home…but why does it feel like I’ve just walked into the dragon’s den and I’m not escaping as easily as I planned?
The house, despite having five people live in here, not including me, is quiet as I wander down the stairs and have a look around. I didn’t notice before, but the banisters of the staircases are literal wolves carved out of wood, their bodies pouncing down ready to attack. I run my hand down the middle of the banister, the wolves’ backs, until I get to the head of the wolves, which I can only just reach the sharp teeth that are the size of my hand.
“Careful, he bites.”
I jump as I spin towards Henderson, who’s filling the doorway to the left, his body taking up all the space with his wide shoulders. Henderson’s hair looks damp like he must have taken a shower, and I don’t know why, but I imagine myself brushing it.
“How the hell do you all move so silently?” I question, placing my hand on my racing heart.
“Habit born from training as a kid to be silent,” he answers, running his hand through his hair, just like I was thinking about doing a moment ago. “I’m sure moving silently will be easier for you when you’ve shifted for the first time. Wolf senses make it easier.”
“I’m still not used to the idea I can shift without a mate controlling when I can. I was taught—”
“Taught wrong,” he interrupts. “Apparently, you almost showed a little wolf with Eleline earlier. That’s a good sign.”
Something in me bristles at the mention of her name from him. I furrow my brow, looking away.
“I felt...well, more. More angry, more possessive, more feral. Is that what it’s always like?”
“Only when you’re protecting what is yours. Wolves are possessive and stubborn bastards about anything they consider theirs,” he answers me, but that doesn’t make much sense. I wasn’t protecting anyone, and I definitely don’t think Ragnar is mine. He is a stranger. Deciding to drop the subject because these answers are just making me go in circles, I ask something else.
“Any chance you’re free for a tour?”
He smirks as he walks over to me. “Sure, Mai.”
“So you’ve picked up the nickname from Ragnar?” I ask as he leads me towards an archway door on the right side of the staircase. He holds it open for me, and I step through, my arm brushing against his hip, and nothing but pure heat burns through my skin from the touch.
He chuckles, a deep chuckle that sends more chills through me. The good kind of chills. “I can call you Irin or your full name if you wish.”
“No, Hens,” I tease back, using a shortened name for him that I don’t know where it came from. He stills for a second, looking at me strangely before he blinks and looks away.
“This is the primary room. We play pool, watch movies, drink at the bar. It’s where everyone can usually be found,” he tells me, his voice warmer than I’ve heard him before. The main area is vast; at least half of the house is in this one room, and I don’t know where to look first. Right in the middle are five sofas and two chairs, all the same, deep blue fabric with a few brown fur blankets resting on the backs of them. In the middle of them is a massive wool rug with a wolf design in brown with the rest of the rug a deep blue that matches the sofas. On the wall is a big television, much bigger and flatter than the ones we had back in my old pack. A pool table is further down the room, and on the other side is an area with five massive bookcases, one large deep wooden desk and an old armchair all fitted into the corner, making it look cosy and dark. Two big fireplaces are lit on the other side of the room, casting warm light across the space, mixing with the light coming from the seven large windows, which are designed to catch the light beams in the mountains.
“Did you design this house?” I question. “It’s beautiful.”
“The old alpha of this pack was a monster who treated th
e wolves in his pack like nothing more than toys to amuse himself, but he designed this house. The pack built it though, and it’s their blood soaked into the walls of this entire mountain. We claimed it when we took this pack,” he explains to me, passion and anger leaking through his voice. “This pack embraced our forbidden god, us as their alphas, and we know they are better for it. They are thriving now.”
“Where did you live before?”
His eyes take on a strange look, but before he can answer, Silas walks into the room and clicks his fingers at me. “Time for training. If you pass out, I am just waiting for you to wake up before we continue. Think on that.”
He turns and walks out of the room, and Henderson sighs.
“He is joking...I think.”
I give Henderson a nervous smile before jogging after Silas, having a sinking suspicion he isn’t joking one bit. Silas moves so quickly that I only just see the back door behind the stairs swing shut by the time I get across the entrance hall. I jog to the door and push it open to a massive empty room that reminds me of the gym from my old pack school. The floors are made with soft yellow tiles, and the walls are white with thin windows lining the top of the room. There is a door on the one side that has three big padlocks on it, and there isn’t much else to see in here.
Silas is standing dead centre in the middle of the room. His muscular arms are tightly crossed, and he looks angry at the entire world, like they have done something personal to offend him. Although he looks so angry, I walk all the way across the massive open room that echoes every single footstep that I make until I’m standing right in front of him.
He looks down at me like I’m a little bug under his shoe that he would like to squash. I’m used to strong asshole men like this, dominating me with a stare. The betas of Ravensword had fun doing it to me because they knew I could never fight back. I could never give the alpha a reason to kill me. But apparently, things are better in this pack, not that I have seen much of it so far.
“Have you ever had any training before?” His coldly spoken question makes me almost smile. Does he know I was a foster kid? Can he see that I’m a woman, and women don’t fight in Ravensword? They certainly aren’t trained. I arch an eyebrow for a response, and he glowers at me. “Have they ever taught you how to fight at all? How to defend yourself? How to even be a wolf in the first place?” I look up nervously, knowing that I’ve had pretty much no training. I lived with Mike my entire life, who couldn’t train me, and that wasn’t his fault. The alpha would never have let him train me, but I saw him occasionally pick up a sword in the yard and swing it around expertly. The only reason Mike stepped down as a beta was because his wolf refused to fight anymore, a normal thing that happens to wolves of a certain age. Mike would have still been a beta if he had his way.
Eventually, I gather the courage to actually reply to Silas, knowing I need his help with training and he is unlikely to hurt me. If these alphas wanted me dead...I would be. “No, I have had no training, but I know how to defend myself or at least how to run fast when people are coming at me.”
I chuckle a little, but it dies off when I realise he does not smile at my joke. In fact, if anything, he just looks more disinterested in me than when we both came in here. We’ve got a long way to go before he gives me permission to be a wolf, to be who I’m actually meant to be. He stares down at me, and then he finally looks away. Silas moves quickly; with loud footsteps, he stomps across the room towards the locked doors on the other side, and I jog to keep up with him, questioning what exactly he is doing now.
Part of me expected to get my ass kicked in here from the beginning, if I’m being entirely honest with myself. I was not expecting to feel this much disgust from him. The annoyance rolls off him like the way he smells like the forest and a deeply masculine scent that lures me closer to him. I want to push off his distaste for me, but it reminds me too much of Ravensword, of the place I have just survived. The alpha who just tried to kill me for being his mate.
Silas’s shoulders are tense, and I admire his muscular back in the black T-shirt he has on, tucked into loose joggers that outline the rest of his body way too well. I wonder if he knows he looks good? Or are these alphas so sure of themselves that they don’t care? It’s clear they aren’t lacking in attention from females, judging by Eleline, and I don’t know why I care so much. I don’t even know them. Not really.
Silas unlocks the padlocks one by one until they fall to the floor with a massive clunk, and he kicks them out of the way with his foot before pulling the massive doors open that look heavy and possibly made of metal as they scrape across the floor. He flicks on a light switch by the door, and the room is flooded with the small beams of light reflecting everything. Silver and gold swords, daggers and everything else that looks sharp and deadly line the small room. Every kind of weapon you could possibly imagine is in this tight little room, strapped to the walls or in boxes and barrels on the floor, and they are littered absolutely everywhere.
The most concerning of all is that some of them are left with blood, as they clearly have never been cleaned, and the smell coming up from them is metallic enough to make my senses twitch in disgust. God knows what it’s doing to his wolf senses. Silas walks right to the other side where the dirtiest of weapons are and pushes them aside. The loud clatter of them on the ground makes me jump once until he picks up two long thin swords at the back. He grabs both of them by the handles and walks back to me, gently slapping one into my chest, not caring if I drop it as I struggle to grab it from him. The sword, though smaller than his, is a lot heavier than it looks like it is. But it’s clean of blood. Small bonus. Silas storms out, not waiting for me or looking back once.
I grab hold of the sword and carry it straight out into the main training room that he has gone back into. Silas goes back to the middle of the room where he pauses and waits for me, curling his hand to call me over. The whole movement is overly sarcastic, and I ponder whether he’s going to kill me now with these mini swords, because I don’t get this guy. It would make more sense for Henderson or Ragnar to train me, they actually seem to like me. Not with Silas.
This sword is not quite mini. I dragged mine across the floor, lifting up just so it doesn’t scrape across the floor to make an awful noise. Eventually, I get to him with the heavy sword and glance at it. The sword is quite plain. The silver handle is cold metal with no grip, and I glance at Silas’s sword, which has a leather handle, no doubt making it easier to hold. I wonder if he purposely gave me the crap one that, quite honestly, looks broken and is hard to use. I wouldn’t be that surprised.
“So what do we do?” I ask.
He sighs. “Hit me.”
“With the sword?” I ask, double-checking. Everything about the idea of hitting an alpha with a sword feels so wrong... I have been trained for so long in pack laws, and attacking the alpha is a law I wouldn’t ever think of breaking. But now everything is different.
“Yes, with the sword,” he replies. “Imagine I’m that prick of an alpha. You know the one you’re meant to be mated with?”
“The moon goddess was wrong,” I counter, lifting the sword up. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know he was fucking insane,” he replies, swinging his sword around in his one hand.
I blush at the compliment, not expecting it from Silas. “What if I hurt you?”
“Tell you what, Mai, if you manage to draw blood, I will give you permission to shift. Actually, I will help you shift,” he replies with a smirk, because we both know I’m a long way off that.
I meet his eyes. “I accept your deal, Silas.”
“I knew you would,” he replies with a tilt of his lips that could be confused with a smile. “You don’t seem like the type to back down. I’m going to teach you to fight, and you can grow out of the messed up lifestyle the Ravensword Pack taught you. Learn to be yourself here, and then you tell me if your old alpha deserves to breathe.”
“I already know that answer,” I
reply.
He nods and waves his hand. “So do I. Fight me, Mai. Try it.”
I suck in a deep breath and use all the strength I have to slam the sword at him. He blocks my sword with his own, the smack of our swords vibrating down my sword, and I nearly fall over from the impact. I stumble back, and Silas rubs his chin.
“Decent move. I can work with this.”
“You can?” I ask. “I kinda got the impression you don’t like me or want me here.”
“I don’t like anyone, Mai, don’t take it personally. As for wanting you here?” he pauses and lifts his sword up. “Well, I don’t mind that all that much.”
Then he swings at me. I just about jump out of the way and look at him in horror, but he is already moving to swing his sword again. This one, I block by lifting my sword up. He hits my sword so hard that the force knocks me straight onto my back on the floor, my sword slipping from my hand across the floor. Silas’s sword is under my chin within seconds.
“Now you’re dead.”
I stare up at him, breathing hard with a mixture of anger and frustration. His eyes flash with something, and he moves his sword away just seconds before the door opens and Henderson walks into the room. I climb to my feet as Henderson rests his back against the wall by the door and has a stare-down with Silas.
“You aren’t needed.”
“I’m here to observe, nothing more,” he responds with a too-friendly smile. “Carry on.”
Silas growls, and I hurry to pick up my sword right before he swings at me one more time. This time, I barely dodge out of the way. He hits at me again and again, and each time, I dodge until I get brave enough to meet his sword with my own.