ENDURING {Sequel to Everlasting}

Chapter 28

"This is boring, can't we do something fun?" Lotti gasps for breath, barely jogging as she holds her waistline.

She has a stitch.

"This is how I started, before I even had my wolf. You'll be thankful for speed when the enemy is too strong." I tell her, sweating but not out of breath like she is.

"You didn't learn how to fight first?" She asks, breathless as she forces herself to work through the fact that she has no energy left.

This is how you get strong, you keep pushing even when your limbs are numb and you can barely stand.

"No, Hardin was the one that trained me. He taught me the basics to take on Kade during my graduation ceremony, and after that I trained with the pack." I explain to her.

"Who's Kade?" Lotti's curiosity somehow pushes her to catch up with me, and it's then that I realise just how I'm going to train her. Everyone is different when it comes to training.

"My father." I give her a half smile.

"You had a fight with your dad?" She asks in surprise, with that excited gleam in her eyes.

"Beat him too." I brag, deciding that she's too young to know about why I needed to learn to fight against my own father.

Clearly, this opens many doors for Lotti's overly curious brain, but it does keep her distracted enough to keep jogging. She even picks up her pace once her stitch wears off.

We run for close to a whole hour before I let her go home, being so young it's not good for her to run off more energy than she's consuming. So for now one hour a day is enough, just until she can run multiple laps of the field without collapsing.

"Hey, sorry I didn't want to interrupt you with the kid." Adrian says as he gets out of his truck.

"It's fine, I'll go get Apollo and Aurora." I smile, and quickly head off into the woods.

Given that they're still in the open stable, I tack Apollo up with ease and use voice command with Aurora as I lead them back to Adrian. As much as I'm going to miss them both, this is for the best.

"I emailed you everything you need to know about them both. I'm comfortable with you training him as long as you stick to my ways, and I don't want strangers riding him or working with him. I want to know everything that happens, ok?" I list off in a single breath, hating that I have to say goodbye.

Adrian just gives me a small smile. "I'll take good care of him, Kali and I'll keep you updated on his progress."

"Thank you." I say quietly, turning to Apollo and pressing my face into his broad neck. He snickers softly, and I smile a little as I scratch his cheek.

God I'm going to miss him.

"I'm sure the time will fly by, he'll be back before you know it." Adrian attempts to ease my worry.

"What's going on?" Hardin's voice is a little disheartened as he approaches us.

"You're sending them away?" Hardin asks me gently, staring down at me with guilt. He always blames himself for the actions of his pack, it's an alpha thing.

"He's at risk here, and I should never have brought him here knowing he'd never be comfortable." I say.

Hardin let's out a small sigh, his attention turning to Apollo which tells me that he understands why I'm doing this. Apollo's safety is important to me, and it was selfish to bring him here.