Different.

Chapter 9: Training

"Figured a guy like you would've gone for something a little more..." I scrunched up my eyes as I searched for the right word. "Flamboyant. Like a Mustang or a Jaguar."

That must've been the last straw, because he stopped right in his tracks, making me bump into one of his shoulder blades and my wheel thump pitifully against his leg.

"Um, Ow?" I protested, taking a step back and rubbing my forehead with the hand that wasn't holding my bike.

"Are you done with the stupid jokes or do we need to wait around so you can get it all out?" He snapped, still facing away from me.

Damn, did I hit a nerve or something?

"I'm done," I whispered.

"Good," He said snidely, yanking open the car door for me and picking up my bike as if it weighed next to nothing to put it on his bike rack.

I ducked my head and got in the passenger side quietly, not wanting to piss him off anymore than he clearly already was.

I heard shuffling as Alexander clicked my bike onto the back before coming around and sitting in the drivers side, face still as a stone.

He didn't even bother to buckle as he turned the key in the ignition and the old Wrangler rumbled to life.

The drive back to Valerod was a silent one.

***

"You're late," Akshana said in her booming voice while inspecting her nails as if she hadn't a care in the world.

She sat at the end of the room, lounging in her throne-like chair, and didn't even look up until we were about a yard away from her.

"Sorry," Alexander shrugged casually. "I went to her house to go get her, but she wasn't there." He explained.

"Wait a minute how the hell do you know where my house is?" I asked, glaring up at him accusingly.

It was Akshana who answered.

"Kaylee, we know much more than you think," she said, dark eyes seeming to look right through me.

I opened my mouth to reply, but then frowned. What was there really to say?

"Now that you're here," she continued as if she hadn't noticed. "we can begin the training. Alex, take her to Asher."

"Who's Asher?" I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Akshanas dark features curled into a mischievous smile. "You shall see."

***

Apparently, Asher was a garishly tall broad shouldered woman who had the physique of a body builder and a tendency to grunt.

To say the least, she was unimpressed with my appearance.

"So this is Akshanas glory girl?" She snorted. "She looks like a weakling." She said as if I wasn't standing right in front of her.

Alexander sat at the back of the training room (which could've been mistaken for a gym, except that everything-the walls, the floor, even the ceiling-was made out of hard, uneven rock.)

"Toughens up the skin." Was Ashers gruff explanation.

"So what do I have to do for training?" I asked, stretching out my arms and cracking my knuckles.

"Well you're here late so we can't do the full regime, but let's see what you can do with those fancy shifter powers of yours huh?" She said, slapping my back hard enough to make me cough, earning a guffaw from Alexander that echoed off the walls.

"Are...you...a Shifter...too?" I choked out between coughing fits.

She laughed. "Do I look like one?"

Guess not.

"Let's just get this over with," I muttered, leaving her question unanswered.

"Alright shrimp. In the far corner of the room there are some tires, see what you can do with those." She instructed, pointing a beefy finger towards them.

"Seems easy enough," I said to myself, letting my energy flow to my fingertips as I raised my hands.

The tires were a bit harder to lift than the molding oranges, seeing as they were a lot heavier and strained my mind the way your biceps do when you try to pick up something heavy.

After I got the hang of it, I rolled about five of them out of the corner and into the middle of the room, where-with a little effort-I stacked them one on top of the other. But I didn't stop there. Once they were all stacked, I took the one from the very bottom and put it on the top, effectively rising my stack all the way up to the ceiling before letting it drop again.

"Not bad," Asher shrugged when I looked to her for approval as she walked to the center of the room and picked up a tire, turning it over in her hands. "But this is no time for parlor tricks." She added on, then suddenly lunged the tire right at my face.

I screamed and threw my hands up in an x in front of my face to block the oncoming blow, but when I looked up, the tire hung in midair just in front of me.

I didn't even realize I stopped it, but I was glad I did.

"Good, good." Asher said, finally seeming happy with my performance. "Your reflexes seem to be working just fine." She observed with a nod.

"Are you out of your mind?" I shouted. "You can't just go around throwing tires at people!"

"Well technically, she didn't throw tires at people," Alexander said thoughtfully from his vantage point in the massive rows of empty seats. "She just threw a tire at you."

"Fine. You wanna be a smartass?" I spat at him. "Let's see how you like it."

Then, before I had the good sense to stop myself, I shifted a tire right at his head.

At the last minute, he rolled out of the way, and it bounced off of one of the seats, rolling down the steps before coming to a stop once it hit the bottom.

Alexanders eyes flared furiously, and my heart thumped. Now, more than ever, he looked less like a teenage boy, and more like a hunter.

I held my ground, hands at the ready for the attack that I knew was coming, since there was no way he'd let that slide.

"Let the training begin," He growled.