Chapter 6 Landon

• After very little sleep, I had done well to be able to maintain the level I needed, but I had done it. I followed on with the training session, pushing myself until every part of my body burned. Until I ached and felt sick. I knew I was pushing myself harder than I needed to, but I took pleasure in feeling myself feeling this way. I knew I was working myself, and my wolf, Dex. But this was the way I kept myself on top form. I may not want to be an Alpha, but it didn't mean I could not have the body and fitness of an Alpha wolf.
• “That is all for this session.” The chief warrior in training spoke loudly from the front of the room where we were training today. “Back again this afternoon for more.” And with that he was walking away, without even so much of a second glance in our direction. This guy did not ease up, he was training the toughest warriors in the country, and that was why this new Warrior Training Facility they set up was proving so popular. Within a month, the facility was full, and there was a waiting list. I was fortunate enough that it was run by my family, well, sort of my family... on my grandmother's side, and they always ensured there was space for me.
• Kent and Joey, two of my cousins, and two of the current warriors in the pack wandered over to me. “You free for a bit?” Kent asked, knowing I would often head out to the forest for a run once training finished.
• I shrugged, undecided yet whether I needed to let my wolf out. I needed to let my anger out, I knew that much… well, maybe not so much anger, as much as allow my mind to wander. Things were getting me down. Constant messages from my Grandfather requesting me to come home were becoming more than a little bothersome. I was intentionally not opening them, so I could easily just say my phone was not working right, and that I didn’t receive them. That way he could not try to accuse me of ignoring him, when in truth that was exactly what I was doing...
• I just wish more than ever now that I was getting older and more pressure was being placed upon my shoulders to become this Alpha they all expected me to, that they had forced my mother to terminate the pregnancy. Or had decided to give me up for adoption when my mother had given birth... sent me away to a family that were completely unaware of who I was, or what I was... That way, I would never have been faced with being forced to take on a title I was never made for.
• Hell, it was more than evident my father was never made to be an Alpha. I had heard the stories of him growing up, and they were far from flattering. They only got worse as I got older, and they were also far from the stories my grandparents told me. Ultimately, my parents were not good people. There was no other way of saying it... no making excuses. I was the result of the meeting of two evils.
• And being a bad person was ultimately what brought my mother to her own demise. She was punished for the things she did, as she should have been, when I learned of her crimes. Yet, still she didn’t learn, causing trouble whilst in prison once I had been born. It seemed in her mind she never believed she did anything wrong. She was simply defending what was hers. You’d like to think having a child might change a woman, but no, not my mother. She continued to be pure evil, and it eventually brought her down. To the point it resulted in her being attacked in her cell, and she wasn’t found until morning. By which point, she was too weak and there was nothing the doctors could do. Not that it was much of a loss for me. She was never in my life, and never wanted to be.
• What filled me with fear whenever I allowed it to take over my thoughts, was with parents like mine, what if I turned out like them? I was made by evil, so surely I was destined to be evil too?
• “Lan, are you coming for food with us?” Joey asked this time, and I snapped out of my wandering thoughts. Maybe food would be a better idea…
• I nodded in response. Thinking of my parents only brought me down. I should have known that by now. Nothing was going to change that, or how I felt about them, I reminded myself… All they did was make me. They certainly did nothing else for me. Unfortunately, it was my grandfather that had decided that I would be lumbered with the title of Alpha the moment I was old enough.
• “How long are Kal and Dax away?” Joey asked as we walked through the corridors of the training unit toward the dining area, which would no doubt already be filling up with people, and I shrugged.
• My two closest friends, other than my cousins, were Kaleb and Daxton, as they were close family friends, and had always been around when I was growing up. A few years younger than me, but when they had begun appearing at the training facility here, it had been so good to see familiar faces. We had bonded all over again, and it made me realize just how much I missed all the friends I missed by not going home.
• “Not sure. I think they needed a break. You know what it is like, family wanting to see them, and all that stuff. Usually no more than a week or so when they get called home.” I explained, thinking back to the other times they had returned home. I have to admit I missed the two of them when they weren’t around. They were almost like brothers to me, and were incredibly close.
• “They get called back a whole lot more than you do, considering you are the upcoming Alpha of your pack, and they are just the second borns.” Kent said with a smirk, and I knew exactly what he was getting at, and I simply scowled, shaking my head. I quickly moved forward to get away from them, not needing to have them on my case too. No doubt with the usual warnings that I should allow my grandfather to retire. If he wanted to retire, he should have allowed my Aunt and her kids to take the Alpha title years ago…