Lunar Wolves: The prophecy (Book 3)

Chapter 7

“Your mom tells me you are going to the coven today. You must be excited. I wish I could be there to support you.” Erik’s smile makes her knees go weak, and she hates it that he can do that to her with just a damn smile.

“Mom, can Erik come with us today? He is my mate, after all.”

Her mom looks surprised but nods. What else can they do? If she is meant to be this powerful witch, it’s not like any of them can say no.

“Good. It’s arranged then.” She smiles at Erik, and his eyes sparkle with excitement.

“Hey! I don’t even get to go there!” Frank pipes up and they laugh at him.

“That my darling husband was before our daughter became someone important, and I’m sure they won’t mind having you there now.” She pats him on his shoulder.

“What? How about spending the day with you lot? Nope. I’m happy to sit on my porch and read my paper, thanks.” He folds his arms and mom laughs before winking at Erik.

“I wouldn’t mind joining you girls.” Gareth shrugs.

“Yeah, we can use you for target practice.” Glinda giggles and he frowns.

“WHAT?” His eyes wide, he looks at his mate.

“Yes, you can run fast, can’t you?”

They all burst out laughing at Gareth’s panicked face and sit around the table to have breakfast before leaving for the coven grounds.

The two men shift as the women step onto their brooms. Gareth runs ahead to show Erik the way. As they run through the thick forest. Tabatha watches them from up high and can’t believe that her mom agreed that they can come with them. She wonders how the coven is going to react as they see the temple and coven grounds come into view.

They descend so they can escort the men in. The coven, to her surprise, is happy to see them all and, more specifically, to meet Erik and Gareth who are mates to their strongest members. Their power grows with each match, and although they are a small coven, they are strong because of these matches.

***

After introductions and a tour through the grounds, they gather in the temple to start Tabatha’s lessons. With Erik around, it almost feels as if she can focus better. She starts with the earth again. Calling it up from the ground, she makes Erik and Gareth jump around while she tries to attack them.

At some stage, she can swear that Erik gave control to Lykos because his wolf was excited, and it turned into a game for him, which makes it an even bigger challenge for her to capture him. She focuses more on catching him and doesn’t even notice the roots from the trees start to move with her hand movements until she has him caught and hanging from a branch.

“Wow! You went all out!” The high priestess laughs.

“Now you just have to figure out how to let him down without breaking his neck.” Her mom smiles at her and pats her on the shoulder.

“I think we found your focus, sister.” Circe grins as all of them look at Erik hanging upside down.

“I don’t know how to put him down!” Tabatha suddenly feels panicked, and the branch lets go of him, dropping him on his head.

He shakes it off, takes a couple of steps looking like a drunk, and then looks like he’s better.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She runs over to him and hugs him around his neck.

He nuzzles his snout in her hair, making her giggle, and then licks the spot where her mark will go. Then the priestess gives Glinda a chance and Gareth yup-yelps. It almost looks as if he is ready for the challenge, and they laugh. This is turning into pretty great exercise, and Melissa jokes that she should have brought Frank to be her target, but she might have burnt his butt, and then he would be grumpy forever.

After practicing all morning, they join the coven for a light lunch before returning home.

***

They return home with exciting stories making the warriors that are with Frank in a meeting laugh until they cry.

“It’s good to know that my girls can protect us against a pair of strapping young wolves.” Frank grins, making Erik and Gareth look down at the ground.

“Okay, enough of this.” He laughs, “We have pack training this afternoon, then we will see who is stronger.” Frank sticks his tongue out at Melissa.

***

Erik knocks on the Alpha’s office door and walks in when he is commanded. He doesn’t have to follow his command, but he still respects the hierarchy of a pack.

“Sit down, Erik. I had a chat with your Alpha, and I have a couple of questions for you.”

Oh, boy… What did his uncle Anthony tell Frank and how deep in trouble was he!

Frank asks him about his background and how he grew up, then about his friends, and out of the blue, he asks about the training challenge where Erik pinned Christiaan. He wants to know why Erik didn’t step up and take over as the future Alpha when he is meant to be one.

Erik sighs, shaking his head before telling Frank about his troubles with Lykos and that although he has control over him, he didn’t think it would be the right thing to do.

Frank nods while Erik tells his story, and when Erik is done, he thanks him before getting up and walking outside with him. His hand was on Erik’s shoulder.

The warriors meet them outside and, to Erik’s surprise, Frank instructs him to take up the spot next to Gareth, officially making him one of the pack gammas!

“Even though my daughter can’t seem to make up her mind. It seems that Erik here isn’t going anywhere. Erik, I’ve spoken to my warriors and the elders, and we would like to welcome you to the pack as a gamma member of the pack, if you want it, of course.” Frank grins, and Erik doesn’t know what to say for a second.

“I think this is where you say yes,” Gareth whispers next to him, shoving his shoulder.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Erik grins.

“Good. Your Alpha has already given permission, and we will have a proper ceremony for you as soon as one can be arranged. We need you to be able to communicate with all of us.” Frank gives everyone a nod before shifting and taking the lead.

They follow his example and make their way to the training grounds. Erik’s mind rushes with thoughts of how his parents are going to react and move here officially even if Tabatha rejects him… What if she rejects him, then he is bound to the pack, but he will still have to see her every day?

“We will just have to make sure she doesn’t reject us!” Lykos growls and Erik rolls his eyes at his wolf.

***

Tabatha is feeling a little corner, but at least they have wolf practice, and she can concentrate on that for the time being. Besides, if her father feels he can trust Erik, she should be able to trust him… At least a little.

Dib is overjoyed and can’t wait to shift and run with Lykos.

Tabatha decides to keep control and not let her out. Dib might be her wolf, but she is still a human, and she still has a say in all of this. She takes her position next to her sisters, running in formation. She can’t help feeling guilty, however, about not letting Dib out. Is she being selfish because of a decision her father made?

What if things between her and Erik don’t work out?

“If you give him and Lykos a chance, we might find out?” Dib pouts.

Tabatha rolls her eyes and Circe moves in next to her, ordering her to hand over to her wolf. She is falling behind, and it’s messing up their training session. She gives control to Dib and rolls her eyes at her older sister. It’s ridiculous that she can’t train in wolf form! She is sure that they are all doing this on purpose to get her to accept Erik and Lykos.

Her dad gives orders, and they split into two teams. One will track and one will defend. She is part of the trackers and Erik is with the defenders because although he has done border patrols, he isn’t that familiar with the territory yet, and that is also her fault. She should come out here with him more often.

The trackers wait while her dad takes the defenders to their position. Her mom hides their scent to make things a little interesting. When they get the signal from her dad, they start tracking. He never takes them in the same direction and hasn’t once taken them to the same place that she can remember.

They always leave false trails to try and confuse the trackers, so it’s a fair game. After the war with the witches, her dad felt that they shouldn’t just train in hand-to-hand combat but also in possible attack formations. The defenders can be in groups, or they can be together…

The trackers spread out in groups of two, and they start looking for their opponents. Dib loves these exercises under normal circumstances, but today she’s more excited than ever because she gets to hunt down Lykos. From what she’s heard and told Tabatha, he is one of his pack’s best warriors.

What? She had to find out who she was dealing with, so she asked around a little.

Besides, they are mates, so it should be easy to feel the bond drawing them together…

One of their groups picks up a trail, and they start moving in that direction to figure out if it’s a fake track. Before she even reaches it, her partner is pounced and taken out of the game. It happened so fast that she didn’t even see where the defender came from or where he went. They should be defending! Not attacking! She alerts their leader to what just happened, and Gareth bursts out laughing.

“Oh, so Alpha decided to mix things up. There is only one wolf I know of that could move like that.”

“It can’t be. He doesn’t know the territory.”

“I don’t know, Tab. He might surprise you if you give him half a chance. Dammit!” He cuts their link, and she rushes over to where the rest should be. Three of them were tagged and were out by the time she got there.

This is impossible! He can’t be that good. The defenders have to be working together to do this.

“Damn, he’s fast!” Dib hears one of their members near her comment, and she has had enough.

“He is going to make us chase our tails! I say we stop trying to catch him and find the defenders.”

Gareth agrees with her, and they retrace their steps finding another clue to where their defenders could have gone. They aren’t three meters away when two more from their team call out that their tags have been grabbed, and they are out.

“WHAT? This is ridiculous! Gareth! We need to regroup.” Dib angrily shouts.

“He must know our positions, and he is picking us off one by one. There is no use in regrouping. We have to take him out first if we have any hopes of winning this… Dammit! I’m out! Dib… You need to take charge… That little bastard got my tag!”

“Oh, it’s on!” She runs to where the rest are, and they huddle together.

It’s clear that he is watching them and is close. He is using the wind to his advantage, which means he can only be to their one side. They need to draw him out, and staying in the brush of the forest isn’t going to work, so they decide to move to the clearing. They move as one group keeping their eyes out for him on the side, they suspect he might be coming from until they reach the clearing.