Her Vengeance or His Love

First Day of Training

(Sadie P.O.V.)

The alarm went off and already I wanted to murder something. It felt like I had just shut my eyes and fell asleep. I groaned looking at the clock, it was 3am, I did just shut my eyes.Tossing and turning most of the night had me up till 2 in the morning. I was used to early morning practices at home but this was on a different level of crazy early. Who the hell starts practice at 4:30 in the freaking morning? The sun won't even be up for another couple of hours.

I grumbled and complained the entire time I crawled out of bed and on my way to the shower. I hated early mornings but I would still do them but I hated the cold even more. I soaked up as much heat the shower would give me before I forced myself to get out. Being up in the mountains at the cusp of winter meant it was not only cold but it was going to get colder as the months progressed. I should be grateful instead of bitching about the cold considering Benate was letting us stay and train. It may not be what we had originally agreed on but it sounded like it was a skillset that would be useful and like he said last night, whether I had the advantage of being an Alpha or not, if I can take down a bear anything other than that would be a simple task in comparison.

As soon as I was out of the shower I rushed to dry off and get dressed. My body was a sight to behold and I loved to show it off: with a year round tan, curves and muscles in all the right places why wouldn't I? But like I said winter was the enemy and I was planning on piling on the layers to insulate, at least until the sun was up, by then I'm sure the bears will have had us drenched in sweat. After putting on a sweater over my tee and tank top I wedged my feet into my running shoes, needless to say it was a snug fit because of the second pair of socks I had decided to throw on. I knew it was overkill but I wasn't even sure how long we were going to be training outside or what the training was going to entail yet.

'And what if he wants us to shift? You're going to take forever stripping, unless of course you want me to just rip through your clothes to save us the time,' Sage laughed, apparently she even thought the second set of clothes I had on was overkill.

'Fine, I'll just freeze my ass off instead,' I mumbled, removing the third pair of oversized sweats I had on and the second pair of socks. I kept the hooded sweater on and removed the long sleeve tee and opted for just an outdoor jacket.

'You're a wolf, you're not going to freeze.'

'You sound like my mother,' I said, blowing a raspberry at the mirror.

It looked like the oversized coat was a good call because it had started to drizzle as soon as I came out of my cabin, just great. Gemma and Jace were standing near a path leading to the house waiting for me.

"Cold?" Jace smirked.

"Bite me," I barked back.

Gemma laughed then abruptly stopped when we heard the sound of twigs breaking and leaves rustling in the distance. The hair in the back of my neck stood at attention as it alerted me to possible danger. Sage was at the surface and let out a low growl as a warning to whatever was out there to make itself known. A few seconds later three very large men stepped out of the tree line with Benate with their arms raised showing they meant no harm. Sage sank back into my subconscious when it turned out they were friend and not foe.

It was obvious that the three men were Benates brothers; they all looked like him if you looked at him at different stages of his life. They were each equally tall and broad and with the exception for the youngest they all sported a thick beard.

"Jace. Gemma. You two almost look grown up," the youngest mocked.

"Wish we could say the same Sammy," Gemma mocked a pout.

"And who is this lovely creature?" he asked, coming up to me to take my hand for a kiss but thought better about it when Sage flashed her eyes at his disrespect.

"Sam this is the Alpha-Luna Sadie," Benate said, intervening and introducing his brothers, " Excuse the moron, he's still young and unmated. This is Alder, the oldest of the six of us and this is Oliver, the next youngest before Sam. Boys this is our new recruit and we're going to teach her how to take out a bear," he said grinning.

(Benate P.O.V.)

The boys were not happy campers when I introduced Sadie to them and announced what we would be teaching them how to take down a bear. It's not like these skills were trade secrets or anything but I was basically teaching a wolf how to kill us.

"First thing's first, I want to see where your stamina is so we're going to jog up the rest of the mountain. We should be back in time for a breakfast break and then we can do a hand to hand assessment of your sparing skills."

Jace was ready for what was ahead while Gemma was sour about what they were about to go through. Sadie was stretching and trying to warm up a little. Sam was doing the same and trying to limber up, jumping up and down, "Ready to go through hell princess?" he laughed before running ahead. Sadie growled before following suit after the rest of them.

The hike was brutal. The pitch black of the night was not an issue since we could all see pretty damn good in the dark but it was still a b***h of a hike. Three hours later we finally made it back down the mountain to the cabin. I had forgotten how much I hated that mountain trail but I wasn't about to tell them that. Clarissa, being the angel she was, already had a feast waiting for us out on the back patio, her way of saying we weren't eating dirty in her dining room. We all collapsed and sat silently for a moment catching our breath before finally inhaling waffles, hash browns, mixed fruit, sausage and bacon. She was also sweet enough to have several pitchers of water and orange juice set out for us, probably knowing how dehydrated we would be when we all returned.

Everyone looked irritable and that was on me. The trail was already physically demanding as it was but a few weeks ago we had nonstop torrential rain. That had caused the terrain to change. It added several landslides, flooded spots that felt like small lakes and fallen trees that we had to either climb over, under or around, needless to say we all had a thick layer of mud caked onto us. If we shifted the terrain wouldn't have much of an issue but we were in human form and it was winter which also meant us bears were slightly weaker almost like a human but not quiet to the extent of a human. As if to add icing to the cake another torrent of rain hit and I suddenly had us unintentionally running the whole way up through the sudden storm making everything even more slippery when it passed on our hike down.

Sadie was the first to break the tense silence, "So do we have to do this every morning?" she asked after devouring some waffles and draining a full glass of water.

Damn that woman can eat.

She locked eyes, waiting for a reply and everyone else was waiting to see if I'd react to her biter tone.

"No. Like I said early this morning this was just an assessment of all your stamina," I said clearing my throat. Gemma snickered, even she could see all us bears struggling out there for a good while, even Sam with all his bravado was quiet, "If you'd like we can change the morning routine tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh, I'm sure you guys would like that," she grinned, "By the way, I always thought your bears hibernated in the winter, or is that a myth to throw off an opponent?"

Oliver choked on his bacon. My mind was in a bit of a haze so I hadn't gotten where her line of questioning was headed but apparently everyone else did because they were watching our conversation intently, "It's not a myth but it is exaggerated a bit. We are weaker and we are limited with some of the things we can do and if we decide to shift we can but it will take longer and be a little more painful than it would if we weren't in the middle of the winter solstice," I narrowed my eyes at her, "Why are you asking?"

"I noticed the power you should be emitting was a little subdued last night, thought it was because it was night time and bears are naturally more active during the day and that had an effect but now its day and the power you're emitting hasn't really increased, not by much anyways. I'm not trying to offend you and if I am I do apologize but how are you supposed to do a hand to hand assessment if you're not at your peak?"

My mouth opened to respond but I had nothing. I felt her power yesterday and could tell that if she wanted to hand us our asses she could, easily at that. Suddenly Jace, Sam, Gemma, Oliver and even Alder burst out laughing at my reaction. "Did I miss something?" I asked which only made them laugh harder.

"Dude, you just told her how to take out a damn bear without needing to go through a s**t ton of training," Sam said.

"I just have to wait till you're as weak as pup," she winked.

"You just try it," I scolded her with my fork and just laughed, this was going to be an interesting month.