The sun rose and set repeatedly as Hunter and I sank into a routine.
Hunter woke up before me. I'd awaken to the sound of him stumbling into the bedroom for clothes before leaving only to bang up a racket in the kitchen.
Though I didn't think he slept much, I always went to bed before him and some nights I'd wakeup for water or the washroom and he'd be awake at the coffee table going over folders or watching TV.
Our interactions were minimal and strained. After his little declaration of my love for him I started to worry if he was right.
I decided avoidance would be best.
The only time I was close to him would be our walks into town together in silence, but often Hunter would leave early without me and I'd be escorted by either Alex, Dimitri, Jayden, or Leo.
Training sessions were held twice a day at the Red Druid pack and pack members were only mandated to go once a day and allowed a by once a week. But Hunter ordered me to go everyday, two times a day without rest.
I trained with the elite warriors and they didn't know the concept of taking it easy.
Everyday I had to push myself beyond my limits. Tried to be the best student in the class. We mercilessly went through circuits, drills, workouts, things my body felt like I was ripping it apart. When we did ran, my goal wasn't to beat the other students to the checkpoint, it was to beat our instructor; Hunter.
Though I haven't been able to yet.
Hunter and Leo split the day between them. They alternate who'd teach morning and who'd do night.
I didn't want to say it, but I preferred Hunter as an instructor. Leo was too soft, he didn't push me like Hunter, didn't bring out my potential.
The rest of my days I'd often spend at the pack house cooking or chatting with the older she-wolves.
They loved to gossip.
I didn't mind. I felt everything I heard was like a tool I could store and possibly use for something later. It was strategic.
I once asked about what the pack was like before the incident that killed Hunter's parents and I saw a look of wistful nostalgia sweep over the old females eyes.
"To be fair not that much different than today, but..." Gina one of the more respected older wolves spoke. "I don't know, everyone just carried this sort of bliss around." She smiled, her eyes crinkling as her hands went to work making ravioli.
"Yeah it's called ignorance." Maisy cackled and grinned at everyone. "We were all very naïve back then, living in a safe little bubble."
"Oh shush." Gina chastised but chuckled.
They reminded me of my grandmother, always busy either moving their hands or their mouths. And they weren't shy to voice their opinions or their dislikes, but quick to sing their praise.
They didn't like rogues, two she-wolves with the names Dinah and Kelsey, and the weather guy on the news. They did like however Alpha Hunter, cooking, and as they repeatedly said 'me'.
"I can't wait for this mating season's pups, and to think the Alpha's own pup is going to be amongst them. Oh I can't wait!" They all beamed and clucked with glee. I forced a fake smile and nodded slightly, trying to hide the anxiety building inside.
As each day passed the pack's heat was drawing closer and I didn't know how to prepare.
I felt as though I was watching a wasp nest blow in the wind, waiting for it to fall and smash open. Every little development startled me and I grew more and more on edge.
It wasn't until Bella and I took me shopping after training one day that anything occurred.
We were in a clothing boutique looking at lingerie because as Bella stated 'Well at least one of us should enjoy mating season'. She said this after hinting that I should get something special for my first season with my mate, but I quickly shot that down.
Only there for at most ten minutes when the hairs on my body grew stiff and alert.
I turned and smelled the same she-wolves from the bar the other night. They stunk of sugary perfume and faint traces of the local woods.
They didn't sense me yet so I grabbed Bella's wrist and drove behind a rack lined with nighties.
"Aspen, what's wrong? Why are we hiding?" Bella asked and I didn't even tear my viscious gaze away from the four she-wolves as I jerked my chin in their direction.
"Oh." Bella almost groaned and I knew she recognized the group as well.
We watched them flitter through the store and coo over different scraps of underwear.
"Liz, isn't this cute?" She chirped to one of the others and held a hot red lacy bra up to her chest.
"Oh it's so cute! Red looks so good on you, Dinah" Her friend's eyes beamed and reached out to finger the material.
Dinah gave a devilish smirk. "Good enough for the Alpha?" A loud girlish giggle erupted in her throat.
The one named Liz grinned. "Hell yeah, you're smoking hot. If he saw you in this he'd instantly forget about that little mate of his."
I listened to them all laugh and pick out panties and bras that they claimed would drive Hunter wild enough that'd he'd leave me for these wannabes.
They were actually talking about stealing my mate away from me in front of me. It was more then my mind could take. It snapped like a dry autumn leaf.
Magara at this point lost it and descended into a haze of fury and claws.
"The f*ck these b*tches think they are. They're acting like we don't even exist, like Hunter isn't ours."
"Let's f*ck them up." My mind too disoriented by rage to comprehend what I'm thinking.
I didn't recognize the snarl that scratched it's way out my throat. It was primal and uncontrollable.
I think I heard Bella curse but I didn't stay behind the rack long enough to care.
Like a animal hunting, I stalked out from my hiding spot and made my presence known. My shoulders stiff and my eyes challenging everyone who dared to meet them.
The four she-wolves looked shocked at first to see me, but quickly met my challenge with threatening stances, not backing down in the slightest which pissed me off more.
"What a surprise. The Alpha's pathetic excuse for a mate looking all tough. Looks like we don't even need to track you down anymore to kill your sorry ass." Dinah growled and her eyes darkened.
"F*ck you!" I snapped and felt my gums ache at the need to rip this person apart. I wanted to taste her blood on my tongue and see her cocky expression transform to one of terror. I itched to cause her pain.
Bella started to growl in defense of me and I turned my head sharply.
"Don't interfere. This is my fight." I commanded, my tone held an authority I've never heard it possess until now. Bella looked nervously at the four waiting she-wolves who were ready to tear into me, but nodded.
Without missing a beat I charged them, hoping to catch them off balance.
I targeted Liz first, she was the scrawniest and would be quick to immobilize.
I lead with two jabs to her face, but she blocked them with her forearms. Working fast I grabbed the back of her head, taking her punching full force in my stomach, and bring as hard as I can down on my knee.
The crack it made almost assured me her nose was broken.
Liz stumbled away, blood already gushing down her chin, her nose crooked and puffing up. Before I could finish her off a pair of hands pulled me back and threw me to the side onto a display table.
It broke and the second impact of collapsing to the ground stole the wind from my lungs.
Instantly one of the girls I learned to be Kelsey climbed on top of me and threw a hard right into the side of my jaw. I felt the inside of my cheek cut on my teeth and my mouth pool with blood.
She sat back a second and I then felt a hard foot collide with my shoulder. Pain bloomed everywhere, but it hardly mattered at the time.
I looked up and saw the fourth girl, Riley, gearing up for another kick.
Kelsey threw another hard punch into my right eye, I felt her knuckles smash the skin over my cheek bone and brow, blood vessels bursting, inevitably giving me a black eye.
My breathing was ragged and my chest thrummed with the excitement of a fight. Time to turn tables.
I pretzeled my legs upwards and wrapped them around Kelsey's waist, clenching my thighs tight around her diaphragm to make it difficult to breath. I then reached up and yanked her straight black hair to the side, causing her weight to shift and sending her tumbling over onto the ground next to me.
It was timed so that Riley's second, much stronger kick, was sent into the back of Kelsey's head inside of me.
Kelsey was lights out within a minute.
"Oh sh!t!" Riley exclaimed as she knocked out her friend.
Unhooking my legs from Kelsey I got into a crouched position before springing over the unconscious she-wolf and wrapped my arms around Riley's waist, linebacker style, and charging her into a table behind her.
The table again gives out as they were meant for holding skimpy underwear not two full grown fighting adults.
I remain on top of her and send a flurry of hits onto her face. Enough to knock her out but I keep going, sending blow after blow. Watching eyes swell up, a nose break, lip split, bruises form. Like I was sculpting my onw grotesque masterpiece.
Soon enough I'm dragged back by my hair and feel a shin being launched twice into my side. I'm pretty sure I heard my ribs crack but was too hopped on adrenaline to honestly tell.
Dinah had dragged me off Riley and through one eye, as the other had already swollen shut, I saw Liz's face, drying blood smeared over the bottom half, in front of me.
Dinah scrunched my hair tight until I felt like my scalp my peel off and hooked her legs under my arms to keep me from moving.
Liz revved up for a hit. "F*cking b*tch." She spat and then sent a hard punch into my temple, jarring my senses for a prolonged time. Long enough for her to get in another couple.
I waited until she got careless and slammed my heel into the center of her stomach.
Liz kneeled over, clutching her gut, and coughed up a dry sputtering sound. I took the opportunity to use my other leg and kick the side of her head.
She collapsed like the other two and didn't get up.
I grinned, but was short lived because Dinah tore my head down and sent it cracking onto the floor.
I groaned, a sharp headache flourishing at the back of my skull.
I felt a stinging force on my injured side and knew Dinah had just kicked me.
"Stay. The. F*ck. Down." She gasped in between kicks, breathing hard.
"Hunter is mine!" She snarled and sent her big toe crashing into my ribs.
Like a shot of liquid ice was catapulted through my veins, my temperament metamorphized into a murderous accumulation of a single need.
To defend my claim to Hunter.
A roar escaped, strangling it's way out of my throat, so deafening that it caused Dinah to stumble, halting her next kick.
Faster then I should've been able to move I flipped to my side and planted a palm onto the tile ground and used my hipbone as a pivot point.
I swung out my legs and swept Dinah's out from her. Her face morphed into that of fear as I hoisted myself atop her.
Something in me had changed and we both knew it.
I fell into the same crazed state. Delivering blow after blow, listening to the sickening noises as my punches connected to skin and bones. My knuckles were bleeding but that didn't stop me, neither did the fact that Dinah had passed out a minute ago.
"He's mine." I muttered at first, but after the fifteenth hit I was screaming it.
Her face was so badly beaten up it didn't even look like person before I fell back with exhaustion.
She was still breathing, faintly, but even that made me mad.
Before I could do anything I'd regret I hoisted my body up and looked around out of my one okay eye.
The boutique was a mess.
We broken two tables, ripped up dozens of bras and panties, blood was smudge all over and I didn't want to think about how much the damages would cost.
The clerk must've booked it a while ago because there was only me, Bella, and four unconscious she-wolves in there.
I felt the blood filling my mouth. I spat/coughed onto the floor and a bright scarlet splatter appeared.
Looking up I saw Bella standing in a look of disbelief and panic.
Oh boy.
I stumbled, clutching my bad side, and dragged my broken body out the door.
Bella chased after. "Aspen, are you okay?" She ran in front me and stopped me before I could make it any further down the side walk. People began to notice and I hear gasps and whispers.
"Aspen that was crazy! What the hell was that?" She cried, her worried eyes scanning my bruising body.
"That was my teaching those b*tches a lesson they won't forget." I croaked and sternly meant her eyes, daring her to question me.
I wasn't myself at the moment, but I also didn't feel not like myself either.
A new authoritative role unlocked within me and I didn't know how to handle it.
Bella recognized my tone and realization hit before she nodded and quietly said. "Okay."
"But we need to get you to the pack house the doctor can look at you. Alright?"
I looked at the curious and concerned faces gathering and passing by, meeting each with a look of defiance and violence.
"Alright." I agreed and we headed down to the pack house.
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What!? Actually updating without an insane amount of time going by? Impossible!!
Yeah I know, it's been a while so I thought I'd hunker down and give my adoring readers another well deserved chapter because y'all have been patience.
Hope you enjoy and don't worry the next chapter won't be far behind. Don't forget to vote and comment! Bye my loves!!!