Fated Fairy Tales - Beauty Sleep

Beauty Sleep - Chapter 4

Benson’s POV

“I thought this trip was about us spending time together, seeing the world, and bonding?” I argued with my dad.

“It is. But it’s also about preparing you for Alpha Academy.” He’s not wrong. I know this. But up till now, he had done nothing to prepare me for Alpha Academy.

I must be missing something. “So you’re sending me out into the forest in an unknown country because?” I asked.

“Survival training. It’s something you will do at Alpha Academy.” He responds with a smile on his face.

“But why here? Why in one of the wettest places in Europe? Why not while we were in Spain? At least it was warm and dry there.”

“Why would I make it easy for you?” He says with a smile on his face. “Besides, your mom is coming over. We’re having a bit of alone time.” He laughs suggestively. While my brain conjures a vision of my mom and dad having some alone time. I cringe, as that is something I don’t want to be around to witness.

I stood there and stared at the man. It has been raining in England since we arrived, and now he is sending me out into it. Can’t he send me to a spa somewhere, and we do survival training elsewhere?

Not long after my 17th birthday, Mom and Dad started planning this trip. As I will spend two years at Alpha Academy. They wanted to take me to see what the world offered. Now they fly backward and forward so that one of them is always in the pack and with my younger sister, Rhea. At the moment, Mom is spending more time with her as she is struggling with her emotions. Rhea was adopted as a baby and is going through some stuff. I was prepared to stay and support her, but Rhea demanded I didn’t miss out on this trip of a lifetime.

When I speak to her, she seems okay. But I worry she is lying to me. She knows I would drop everything and go home to help her. Mom wouldn’t leave her with Beta Arnold if she wasn’t okay.

Dad watches me as I pack a bag. “Nope, no waterproofs.” He says, smirking at me. I scowled at him.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, confused.

“I mean, when you are at Alpha Academy, you will be taking a change of clothes with you for survival training, and that’s it.”

“Dad seriously? When I am at Alpha Academy, I will have a wolf. Or are you forgetting that fact?” I have been training since I was born to inherit the pack from my dad when he retires. So I have pushed myself to be the best. Now all I need to do is graduate from Alpha Academy and find a mate. Finding a mate will be easy. Girls practically throw themselves at me. It would be nice to find my fated mate, but it’s not a priority. Graduating from the academy is the priority. Scrap that surviving a forest is miserable England is the priority. It never seems to stop raining here.

“Fine, you can have your waterproofs.” He says, caving in.

I look out of the window as he drives me to a destination of his choice. He drives through puddle after puddle down a dirt road to a visitors’ center of one of the many British National parks. He gestured for me to get out of the car. “Bye son, I’ll meet you here in 4 days.” I scowled at him in his dry, heated car.

I can’t believe he is seriously leaving me. This is ridiculous. I pull up the hood of my jacket and watch as he drives off. “I bet he never had to do survival training in the wet,” I mutter to myself as I stomp toward the forest, still not believing he is doing this to me. I grimace as my boots sink into the mud. There is no chance this would happen at Alpha Academy. Even if it did, I would have my wolf. Dad has abandoned me. He would never do this to Rhea.

No matter how much I complain, I have to succeed. I can’t let him see me fail. He would think I couldn’t cope. I suck up my anger and head inwards. At least in England, the deadliest creatures I will come across are deer or boars.

I found a hollowed-out tree and squeezed myself inside. I closed my eyes, hoping that the rain would eventually stop. But it doesn’t. It just gets heavier, and then the temperature drops. Thanks to the goddess, I wore some thermals under my clothes. Otherwise, I would freeze to death. I cuddle myself. Thankfully, no one from back home could see this. I would die of embarrassment.

“Stay back, I don’t want to hurt you,” a girl’s voice calls out in my dreams. I knew I wasn’t dreaming when I heard laughter. I get up from my cramped position and stretch. I’m cold, but my feet are freezing.

“You are going to pay for what you did.” A man’s voice calls out. No matter what the circumstances, I am still the son of an Alpha. Regardless of where I am, I should act like the man I want to be.

I ran towards the voices. “She started it.” A girl’s voice calls out. It’s clear something is happening. I don’t know what yet.

“And I am going to end it, orphan.” A man yells. Within minutes, I could see 6 men surrounding a single girl. They all seem to be around my age. Whatever is going on, it doesn’t look good. One man advances towards the girl from behind, wrapping his arm around her throat. I push off a tree and start planning how to reach her as fast as possible.

That’s when the girl does something I wasn’t expecting. She slips under her attacker’s arm, kicking the back of his knee. Forcing him to the ground, stomping on his shoulder blade. He screamed out in pain. That’s when the rest of the men ran towards her.

I pick up my pace, but I trip over a tree root, falling face-first into a pile of mud. I scrambled to my feet. But carry on running. No doubt she has been hurt by now.

When I make it to her, she is standing with her back to me and her hands on her hips. All the men are running away. What happened? “Hey,” I said, touching her shoulder. I wanted to check if she was alright. But for my valiant efforts, I got a kick to the temple.