Chapter 3:

• Flora’s P.O.V
• It was 11.30 at night and my house was unusually quiet as I lay awake in bed, tossing and turning, unable to get the vision of Clay and Ms. McKellar out of my head.
• Avery McKellar was the Principal of ReedStone College and she was also one of the packs senior soldiers with extreme discipline and she was one of the wisest people I knew. She was also well over forty years of age, which meant nothing for a wolf who could live up to four hundred years. Our Alpha Nicholas was almost three hundred years of age and he looked more like a man in his mid sixties with salt and pepper hair, ripped muscles and a face that could turn every head in the vicinity when he went out for a stroll. He was also happily mated with two children well over hundred years of age who were senior soldiers at Lindersay.
• But Avery wasn't mated. She’s one of the very few in our pack who hadn’t found their mates yet and were open to casual dating. Although I wondered if anything was casual with Ms. McKellar. She took everything seriously and was never shy about her sexuality. At least that’s what I’d once heard my mother say to my father when I’d been a bit younger. Avery and my mom were friends and they worked on the same unit. Avery was my mother’s senior depending on her dominance, even though my mother was thirty years her senior in age.
• Wolf births were erratic. No one knew how many pups you’d have and at what age, but my mother was one of the few to have given birth to two pups at such a short interval. Usually, wolf pup births were spaced wide apart, like my dad and his twin older sisters who were almost one hundred and sixty years olds while my dad was only seventy nine. But both my parents were soldiers in the ReedStone army and they protected our people from the rogues and patrolled the borders to keep enemies at bay.
• It was almost midnight when I heard my phone going off with an incoming message and since both my parents were on patrol duty, I wasn't in any danger of one of them poking their noses into my business. Matthias and Lily Argentine were wonderful people and great parents, but they were also extremely overprotective of their submissive little daughter who wanted to wrap me in cotton wool and store me at the top most shelf so no one could ever get to me.
• Which is also why a wide grin spread over my face as soon as I read the message that had arrived on my phone.
• Got two hours off from patrol duty. Meet me at the usual spot? That is, if you’re up for it. –G.
• The words were a code and it had me jumping out of bed and running to get changed out of my pj’s and into more comfortable sweat pants and a tank top in a dark green colour and top it off with a black hoodie. It was chilly out tonight but not enough to make me freeze if I took the hoodie off. As for my hair, I braided it at the back of my head to keep it out of my face. I got ready in record time because right now, every second counted.
• I didn’t bother going out the front door. I simply snuck out of my bedroom window and ran into the woods just behind my house. Our den was right in the middle of a forest, like most wolf dens, with easy access to greenery on all sides. Wolves loved nature; we are creatures of the wilderness, which is why most houses were built near the forest and from environment friendly material. We also utilized the natural resources like sunlight, wind and water, to generate electricity, based on the areas each pack lived in. Wolves were also social animals and loved to cluster together, hence all the houses were in close proximity.
• I arrived at the location only five minutes later and crashed onto the floor panting as I waited for my partner in crime to arrive.
• “Eleven minutes and thirty nine seconds.” Garrick Scott’s hoarse voice spoke from the shadows as he came towards me from the opposite direction with only his shorts on, meaning that he had been patrolling in his wolf form. “You could’ve done much better if you didn’t take the month off.”
• “I couldn’t help it,” I told Garrick as I stood up from the ground and dusted off the dirt from my sweat pants. “Riley was getting suspicious. We can’t risk him finding out until you want to be mincemeat.”
• “That, I can’t argue with.” Garrick sighed, running his hands through his night dark hair before placing those big hands on his hips. “He’d skin me alive for teaching his baby sister how to fight.”
• My breath was still a bit shallow from my run as I took in Garrick’s form. He was twenty years Riley’s senior but he wasn't as dominant as Riley. He was about six feet tall with bulging muscles and a skin as dark as the darkest of chocolates and dark hair cut to an inch of its life on top of his scalp. Garrick was also a low ranking soldier who was also my friend and one of the said ‘spies’ that Riley had left behind when he went off to train. Garrick however, had come right up to me when no one was looking and told me about Riley’s little plan right away.
• “I’d prefer you being able to protect yourself rather than depending on others to save you.” He’d told me that day. “And if Riley believes you weak, it’s a shame on him.”
• And so, he’d taken it upon himself to train me whenever he could. We were mostly working on my speed and my ability to dodge attacks rather than an all out offensive strategy. I was a healer by birth, my bones weren’t as strong as the dominant wolves and I was smaller in size even in wolf form. It did give me advantage during a fight so I could turn tail and run, which I had been disappointed to learn, but Garrick had told me that it was best for me to get away from trouble if it ever rose, because that’ll allow me to help heal wounded soldiers in battle.
• “Rogue attacks are getting more erratic. If an attack does happen, we’ll need more healers. Rogues are also known to go for the healer first, so save yourself while we hold the front. Your skills will come in handy in the aftermath.” Garrick had told me after he had shoved me to the ground for the hundredth time, but his words had given me the courage to get up again.
• Garrick had been the first person in my life to make me feel like I wasn't just a liability to everyone, a thing to protect and keep under lock and key. He made me believe that I was a person who could do a lot more than just hide inside the closet when the monsters arrived. So when I had turned sixteen and the Heat had finally stuck, I had turned to him for comfort. He’d been as gentle a lover as he was strict in training and after the urges had ended, so had our relationship in bed. Now, it was only training and that’s how both of us preferred it.
• Garrick made me do some hard and fast running routines as warm ups before we got down to combat. But I was getting tired faster now because of the month long lapse in exercise. I’d tried to follow some of the exercises that Garrick had specially designed for me at home, but it was like Riley had a suspicion that I was getting trained, so he kept on interrupting me more than once a day to check up on me. His excuse was that he’d returned from training after ten long years and he wanted to spend more quality time with his little sister. But I was also his sister, I was getting a lot better at picking up his tricks than when we were children.
• My hoodie was on the ground by the time it came down to avoiding blows, my tank top plastered to my skin as sweat dripped down my brows. I was panting hard as I dropped down into a crouch to avoid a hit to my face and then jumped up a foot to avoid Garrick’s foot as he swung at me.
• But I’d miscalculated my recovery time as I stood up, ready to defend myself from another blow as Garrick’s arm flew towards my abdomen. And even though I saw him slow down, he was too close to me for me to spin out or stop an attack. He was going to hit me hard and it was going to leave a nice bruise on my abdomen, no way to avoid it.
• I closed my eyes instinctively but the blow never came. The only thing I heard was a low menacing growl that didn’t belong to Garrick and a scent that was all too familiar, too ingrained into my memory. Earthy with a hint of spice, cinnamon maybe? I opened my eyes in shock to find the last person I’d expected to find in this part of the territory.
• He had one had around Garrick’s throat while the other blocked Garrick’s attack. He had also somehow shifted them both backwards so that I was no longer at a risk of getting hit. Garrick looked momentarily stunned before he regained his composure and tried to get out of his grip, but that grip only got stronger.
• “Clay!” I rushed over at that instant to place my hand on his shoulders. “Release him! It’s not his fault.” I spoke through the tingling sensation on the tip of my fingers, inside my stomach, as I touched Clay over the thin Tee he was wearing.
• It took him a second to release Garrick, but he eventually did and I realized that he had been holding him about a foot above the ground. Garrick’s hand went to rub his throat upon his release but he didn’t complain. As the future Alpha, Clay outranked him a hundred times over even if he was much younger in age.
• “Go,” I told Garrick when Clay didn’t turn to face me. “I’ll call you later.”
• Garrick didn’t need any more encouragement and Clay turned at that instant to face me, his face a storm barely contained. His gemstone eyes were aglow from within and rage swirled in the depths of them, making me gasp in shock and take a step back.
• A growl tore through the night, angry and wild and it made the tiny hairs at my nape stand in fear.