"Do you think he likes her?"
"Who?"
Kayla's body was twisted as she looked behind them and jutted her chin over her shoulder.
Sitting between her two friends, Kayla and Anwaatin, Chloe was waiting on the grassy knoll the pack houses were built on, where the land sloped down a few yards on the western side, to watch the warriors train. Summer vacation had just started after her junior year of high school and Chloe had begun watching the training sessions and taking notes in a notebook. The warriors trained at the bottom on the hill and she could watch them comfortably above without interrupting, along with Alpha Noodin and some elders overseeing the training.
The warriors were still gathering, waiting for everyone to assemble while Chloe's father whispered with Alpha Noodin off to the side.
She'd been studying their offensive techniques, having mastered all of the defensive techniques her father had trained her in over the last few years and was planning to ask him to start training her in offense. She hadn't felt challenged in the last six months, after learning all there was and repeatedly applying it with every offensive technique her father launched her way when they trained at dawn. She was swift and fast, but at the same time, learned to read her father and she began to predict his every move before he made it. She needed a new challenge, and as much as her parents bickered softly about her training sessions, she knew it was time to start offense, whether her mother liked it or not.
It was a mother's job to worry, she understood that. But next spring, Chloe wouldn't be a pup anymore and she didn't feel like a pup as it stood.
Craning her neck to look behind them, Chloe saw the future alpha speaking with one of the young females who escaped from the Donatta Pack last year a few yards from the dormitory. She had one pup on her hip—maybe eighteen months old—and another standing close to her side, about four-years-old. She looked to be a couple of years older than Animkii with pretty blond hair and sunkissed skin. Chloe had seen her around a few times—usually with Animkii.
The sight of them together left a bitter taste in her mouth and she forced herself to look away.
"Nope, not a chance," Anwaatin spoke up.
"You sure? The only time I ever see her is when she's with him—and they're both smiling."
"She's interested—for sure—but Anim is looking for his second-chance mate—and she's not it." The definitiveness of Anwaatin's voice made Chloe smirk as the younger female turned away from the pair dozens of yards away.
"Do you think he'll find her?"
The twelve-year-old shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows. My parents like Alana though. They're supportive of the possibility of him choosing her if he doesn't find his second-chance mate. Right now, they're just friends. She's still coping with the loss of her mate and not ready to make any moves on my brother... yet."
Kayla raised an eyebrow at Anwaatin. "Do you think she will someday?"
Anwaatin shrugged. "Hard to say. I don't know her that well. My focus is on helping the pups while Anim is helping the females."
"How's that going?"
Anwaatin swallowed, looking down as her hands in her lap. "I try to put myself in the pups' shoes... it's so hard. I can't imagine losing my papaw. I don't want to remember..."
She trailed off, the silence hanging between them. Chloe reflected on how hard that time had been on Anwaatin's family, and she tried to imagine how she would react if her father had been in Alpha Noodin's place. Goddess, it hurt so much to think about losing him. Those poor pups and females...
"Hey, Chloe." Kayla broke the awkward silence after a couple moments of silence. "Whatever happened between you and Alpha Animkii? You guys used to be really close."
Chloe fired a hard look at Kayla, who shrugged her shoulders before craning her neck to look behind them again.
"I told you. He said we couldn't be friends anymore."
"But why? It doesn't make sense."
"Because he's an idiot." Anwaatin heaved a sigh.
Chloe pulled her legs up to her chest, watching the gathering of male warriors get bigger. It looked like almost everyone was present and they would start any minute.
Kayla shook her head. "An idiot can't lead a pack and wouldn't help a dozen females overcome their loss. He seems very competent to me. And hot. Shame he's not my mate."
Despite Anwaatin's objections to her brother's "hotness," Kayla cast lustful glances at Animkii as he finished his conversation with the female and she bowed her head respectfully before he turned away to join the males on the training grounds.
His eyes caught hold of Chloe's and he flashed her a little smile.
"Oh, oh, oh my... Oh my, he's looking at me." Kayla giggled and raked her teeth over her bottom lip.
Anwaatin scowled before waving at him. "No, he isn't, he's looking at me. We have a date later."
His eyes broke their hold on Chloe's for a second as he waved to his little sister before his eyes flicked back to Chloe's. A burning sensation resonated in her chest.
Kayla groaned in envy. "Really? What are you guys doing?"
"We're going to see a movie."
Their voices faded a little in the background as Chloe's eyes continued to hold his for a few seconds before he turned away to walk down the worn path to the training area. Her heart beat faster in her chest. He was looking at her, the way he always looked at her when she was near.
Wherever Chloe went and Animkii was there, she could feel his eyes on her. She tried her best to ignore him and avoid meeting his gaze, keeping her head held high and her attention focused on the task at hand. She didn't know what to do about him but she knew, as long as she was a pup, he'd keep his distance. Until her eighteenth birthday, he couldn't come near her or touch her.
It still unnerved her whenever their eyes would catch. For a split second, her heart would clench within her chest and she'd suppress a whimper. The next, she'd be pissed. Angry at herself for reacting that way. For some incredibly disturbing reason, she missed him. After all the heartache he caused her, her heart still ached to be near him.
How sick and twisted was that?
As Animkii joined Mik and the warriors in the valley, her father turned away from Alpha Noodin to approach the group and a male in his twenties approached her father. In a loud and assertive voice, he challenged her father for the Head Warrior position.
Her breath caught in her throat, her heart jumping up and blocking the airways. Kayla and Anwaatin gasped as Chloe set her notebook down on the blanket they'd been sitting on and rose shakily to her feet.
"What?"
She couldn't believe her ears. Someone was challenging her father? No, that couldn't be right. He was the best, the strongest warrior of the males.
Adrenaline surged through her and she ran down the slope toward her father thirty yards away.
"Chloe," her father growled, yanking her aside as she snarled at the challenger.
"He can't challenge you!"
"He can and he has." Her father lowered his voice and gripped her shoulders. "Look at me." He waited until her heated eyes met his as she raised her clenched jaw. "I'm forty years old. I've been Head Warrior for ten years. My time is up. It's okay. I welcome the challenge."
"I don't," she growled.
"This isn't about you, Chloe."
The assertiveness of his tone was one he rarely used and she might have flinched if she didn't have so much adrenaline pumping through her veins. Nevertheless, memories of Alpha Noodin in the infirmary struck her and fear wrapped itself around her chest. Tears stung the back of her eyes and she struggled to swallow. "But what if you get killed!"
The hardness of his face softened. "I won't. I know my limitations."
Releasing her shoulders, her father turned back to the crowd of warriors gathered before them and stepped forward toward his challenger. "I accept your challenge."
Turning to Alpha Noodin, her father waited for him to join his side and address the warriors. "We will re-assemble here in an hour with the pack in a fight to submission. As always, no pups are permitted to watch."
All eyes turned to Chloe and her friends as they took their places on her left and right.
How could this be? How could her father be challenged and she couldn't watch? Couldn't cheer him on from the sidelines?
What if he lost? How could she watch him get his ass kicked?
She couldn't bear the thought of her father getting hurt. Not after what happened with Alpha Noodin two years ago.
This must have been how they felt when Alpha Noodin was challenged and beaten so badly that he had to hide a limp and drink a special herbal tea to ease the pain in his hip and knee that never completely recovered.
True, her father's battle was a fight to submission and not death, but she still couldn't help but worry. Someone could slip up and bite too deep or gouge out an eye or any number of terrible outcomes that he could never fully recover from. Younger wolves could heal better than older wolves—and her father was forty now. Not as young as he used to be but still the strongest male she knew—after Alpha.
Through the strangling emotions wrapping around her throat and chest, she held her head high as her father turned away from the group and headed home to break the news to her mother. Anwaatin and Kayla followed at a distance, giving Chloe and her father space as they marched in tense silence that Chloe broke when they were about fifty yards away from the house, begging him not to fight.
He snarled at her. "This is the way it is, Chloe. You either win or you lose. There's no honor in running from a challenge. You know that."
Her eyes stung as her throat closed up, her thoughts drifting once again to Alpha Noodin in the hospital bed covered in bandages.
He was right. She knew he was right. It was different when it was her own father risking his life to maintain his position or be driven down from it.
Turning, she ran into the forest as a few rogue tears slipped from her eyes. About to shift into her wolf, she saw the sycamore tree with the treehouse a hundred yards away and sprinted toward it instead.
Climbing up the trunk and into the house, she retreated to the corner and sat down with her back against the wall and her knees pulled up against her chest. Anwaatin and Kayla followed, climbing up the tree and sitting on the floor beside her, holding her in a silent show of support.
She wasn't ready to see her hero get beaten to a pulp. Even if he did win, he'd get challenged again someday.
It is what it is, she told herself. The way of the wolf is one of power. Only the strongest survive and thrive. Daddy was the best warrior for ten years. If he loses his position, at least he loses it with dignity.
She stayed up there until she heard the howls announcing the victory of the challenger. She let the tears fall freely then.
She tried to tell herself that he would be okay, but the pride she held in her father was torn down. He'd never be number one again.
But he can still be your number one, she told herself. He'd have more time for her and her family and that was a good thing.
It took a few minutes for her to gather herself and stop the flow of tears before climbing down. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she could smell Animkii's musk lingering in the forest around her. Looking around, she couldn't see him. Maybe he had been passing through here and was already gone?
She and Kayla looked to Anwaatin for answers and she shrugged her shoulders.
"Whatever. We don't need him," Kayla retorted, wrapping her arm around Chloe's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go see your father."
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Copyright Jo Lee Hunt ( Joflower ) 2020