The Birth Of The Beta

4. CAN YOU NOT FEEL THAT?

Pepin followed Aoife across the Atrium, down a set of stairs, and past the culina, where the aroma of a rich stew had his stomach gurgling. She continued down a corridor where there was a number on each uniformed wooden door that led to a rectangular room. He couldn’t help but think they looked like cells, and the doors had the hoops for locks, but the bolt was missing. He couldn’t help but wonder if he had been deceived.

“Don’t worry, they look small, but when you buy your fabrics and materials it becomes really cosy and homely, like a nest. The lock hoops are there from when Cornelius’ great grandfather was in charge, he trained human gladiators, and they were locked in at night,” Aoife explained to Pepin. He thought she could read his mind as she answered all his inner concerns. She thought he needed to work on his obvious body language that revealed his feelings like an untrained teen in an arena.

“Aren’t you worried that you will be bothered in the night?” Pepin asked her, feeling disturbed about his mate’s safety.

“Any person who walked into my room without permission, wouldn’t be alive long enough for me to worry about them,” She smiled with deadly certainty and a little warning. “If you feel scared tonight, there’s a deadbolt inside your room,” She teased.

“Our mate is a feisty one. Very cheeky. I like her answer, I will help her kill anyone who comes into her room without an invite…if she leaves me any,” Clovis pranced in Pepin’s head, too excited to calm down.

Pepin smiled back at Aoife. He really didn’t know whether to be fearful or aroused, and Clovis was in the same predicament. Eventually, they both decided on the latter.

Turning the corner, there was an abrupt thump caused by a small collision. Aoife had crashed into a guard. Immediately, Pepin stood in front of Aoife to shield her from any punishment, and block her from the worst of it. In his experience, there was no way a wolf bumped into a human and it would not be the wolf’s fault. Aoife ignored his protectiveness, frowning at his misplaced heroism and walked around him, holding her hand out to the young man on the floor.

“Are you OK, Caius?” She asked, while looking over him for bruises.

On closer inspection, Pepin could see that the guard was very young and scrawny, his arms were so thin he thought they looked like two pieces of cotton dangling from his tunic sleeve.

“Yes, sorry Aoife. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Congratulations on your win today, you’ll be a legendary trainer,” Caius blushed at the end of his apology, and Pepin struggled not to growl.

He was already feeling possessive of his mate, even though she had only been paid a well-deserved compliment from a young man who looked no older than sixteen at most.

“Thank-you Caius, you be careful next time, I don’t want you to get hurt,” Aoife said softly, patting his shoulder as he walked by.

Finally, Aoife opened the door of his cell. It was dry and warm, and a little fire was cracking in the pit, keeping the chill of the evening air away. It was cosy. Stepping inside, he took a minute to absorb everything. His first home. He could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Not realising how close Aoife was standing to him, he turned and brushed the back of his hand on her forearm. Even after she had moved, the same sensation on his hand where they had connected lingered. They felt like the vibrations a bee must feel as it fluttered its wings, the feeling was the buzz of excitement for the future he would have with her.

“At some point this week Cornelius will host a feast to celebrate your arrival, but it will be in a day or two. We train tomorrow from the call of the cockerel, before it gets too hot. Don’t be late!” Aoife commanded him, confused about why he stood there, with his mouth open, staring at his hand. By the time Pepin had broken out of his mysticism, she had left. All he could obsess over was why she couldn’t feel what he felt? How could she not feel something so overwhelmingly strong?

The next morning couldn’t arrive soon enough, and Clovis had managed to confuse the cockerel’s call with the wolf’s howl, waking him up far earlier than he needed to be. Pepin had hardly slept at all thinking about the seductive sensations that had taunted him all night, as he chased them into the echoes of his memory. He jogged into the atrium, where long bench tables filled the space, and the food was piled high being served by the kind and generous she-wolves that worked in the kitchen. The gladiators were chatting to the women as they served them and the conversation was bursting with talk of Aoife’s first day as trainer. Some were doubtful of her skills, and Pepin made a point to watch them in training to make sure they didn’t cause any unnecessary issues. After getting a bowl of porridge, covered by a hill of walnuts and an indecent amount of honey, he found Aoife settled on a bench seat and decided to sit in front of her, his smile shining unconsciously. He couldn’t help but notice that her eyelids seemed heavier than yesterday. He hoped she had dreamed of him, and it was so unbearably romantic that she was unable to rest again afterwards.

After breakfast, Pepin followed all the wolves onto the training yard, feeling the gritty sand shift under his feet. Aoife stood on a small platform, ready to address the gladiators. She hid it well, but she had been so nervous that she could hardly sleep in the night, and Neve had been bashing against the block she was trapping her in, that fight had exhausted her.

“Today we will be sparring. Any mistakes you make will be noted, and you will be taught how to correct them. Once you have been taught, you will repeat the countermove until it becomes as natural as breathing. Pair up and begin!” Aoife ordered, and all the gladiators moved without hesitation, but the same men who had doubted her this morning were smirking with open disrespect now.

Aoife circled each sparring pair, drawing pictures on a piece of parchment, so she could report the strengths and weaknesses of each wolf back to Cornelius. Her likenesses of each gladiator were so comical that they boarded on the offensive, and the men who were reluctant to be led by her had been portrayed as having obscenely large heads. Although she was appraising them, she was still able to teach them the countermoves to every mistake they made. Imperceptibly, the misgivings about her suitability to train them began to subside in the stubborn wolves. Surprisingly, this also included the sudden flip in attitude from the majority of the short-sighted wolves, but she knew there would be one who would cling to his own misconstrued grandeur, and it wasn’t too long before she found him. The wolf was in his late fifties, and although he had been a gladiator for a long time, he was relatively new to Heaton House. Cornelius and Aoife had saved him from a grizzly execution, which he had been sentenced to for having a rebellious attitude. In his case, experience wasn’t providing him with a wealth of skill, instead he had fossilised, becoming dangerously outdated.

“Fight me!” Aoife instructed the arrogant wolf, not waiting for a response as she jabbed a straight punch at his cheek bone, causing a hollow, thudding sound to stop the other fighters.

“I wasn’t ready!” he protested.

“You need to always be ready,” Aoife responded, with an inflection of disappointment.

The wolf attempted to side kick her knee, and displace her balance, but Aoife raised her knee and swung it to the right, blocking his leg. She rolled her eyes at his efforts.

“You displace balance like this,” She spoke softly, but encouragingly to the keen observers.

Side kicking his knee, she twisted her body so all her weight was forced through, and he toppled to the ground. She sat astride him, arm drawn back like a poised bird of prey, ready to strike. The wolf was already wincing in anticipation of the blow. Rather than hitting him, she stood up and offered him her hand, which he reluctantly took.

“There is so much you could learn from me. When you start to remember what I’m teaching you, I’ll start attempting to remember your name,” She whispered, making her thoughts on his performance clear for all to hear.

Annoyingly, she couldn’t stop her eyes floating over to Pepin at every possible opportunity. She was assessing his personality as much as his combat skills. He was overly confident, but still a lot more skilled than she had anticipated based on his fight in the alley. A lot of his mistakes came from the fact that he was a risk taker, but unfortunately, luck was no weapon in a gladiator fight. He had lots of potential, it was only hindered by the fact that he thought he was better than he actually was.

“Throw that punch at me again,” She instructed, wanting to test Pepin’s strength. She caught his fist in her hand, pleased with the power behind it, even though she could tell he was holding back. She adjourned her teaching, before she noticed the wide-eyed look on Pepin’s face. She then realised she was still holding on to his fist tightly in her palm. Suddenly the contact seemed intimate, enticing and exciting to her.

“Can you not feel that?” He asked breathlessly, seemingly tired from his sparring.

“Feel what?” She answered, only half interested in his answer.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait until you do,” he replied cryptically.

“Why didn’t you fight in the alley? I can see you know how to,” Curiosity ripped the question from her mouth, before she could stop it.

“Sometimes it’s easier to take the beating, than to suffer the consequences of being the victorious wolf,” he gently explained.

They had instinctively closed the gap between them, whilst she still held onto his closed hand. Now it seemed he was clenching in order to maintain control, and the lesson had been forgotten.

“My turn to ask you a question. Why are you blocking your wolf?” He probed, cautious of her reaction.

“I’ll be thirty next week. I keep my wolf locked inside until the date has passed,” She briefly responded, but looked uncomfortable about sharing this information.

“What day is your birthday?” He tried to keep her on the topic a little longer, but this last question broke the orb of fascination they had created between them. She dropped his hand and recoiled as if she had been bitten by the snake of inquisitiveness.

“I don’t have a birthday,” She uttered despondently, “I just age,” She offered a small smile. The momentary glimpse into her raw misery, stilled Pepin.

At that exact moment, Pepin and Clovis both agreed that they would do everything in their power to save Aoife from the melancholy she was enduring, and if they failed to do that, they would join her in perpetual privation. Their suffering would only be relieved by knowing they were completely hers.