Not-So-Fated Mates

Chapter 2: The Warriors

7 years later…

    Layla growled as she closed her powerful jaws on the throat of the brown wolf that lay at her feet, bloodied and gasping for air. It would be so easy for her to kill him. He’d fought well, but not well enough to earn her respect. The fight hadn’t even lasted more than five minutes.

    She pulled away, leaving his throat intact, and walked back to her clothes, shifting back to her two-legged form without a care for who could see her body. Nakedness was par for the course among shifters, and any reservations she’d had before about walking around in the buff in front of the males of the pack had died a long time ago. Now, she couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. After she’d clothed herself, she turned to the men and women on the sidelines with her hands on her hips and a deeply unimpressed look on her face.

    “Had I been an enemy, Greg would be dead. Five minutes,” she said, pausing for effect. “He could’ve died in five minutes. This is not acceptable. We defend our pack from all manner of enemies. Other werewolves, vampires, witches, and humans. If another of our kind is able to kill us in five f*****g minutes, what good are we to our pack? Do better, be better.” She sighed, rubbing her temples to get rid of the headache these new recruits to the pack’s warriors were giving her. “You’re dismissed for today. Tomorrow, at five in the morning, you are to meet me here for more training. Greg, get your ass to the doc and make sure you’ll be ready for tomorrow. That’s all, you may go.”

    Listening to the recruits sighing with relief made her smile to herself. She knew she was a hard ass when it came to their training, but compared to hard she’d trained to get where she now was, it was nothing. Besides, they needed to train hard if they really wanted to protect their pack. One didn’t become a warrior simply by participating in the relatively easy training that the normal pack went through twice a week. While their pack had known mostly peace for the last fifty years, with only the occasional confrontation with rogues, vampires and witches here and there, it was imperative that at least the warriors be well-trained enough to take on a multitude of enemies should a war start.

    Just because a pact had been struck between the races didn’t mean that it would hold forever. She understood that those races had good and bad people, just as hers did, which meant that, at any point, an evil vampire or witch or even other shifter could show up and challenge the tentative peace between the races. Hell, wars between wolf packs and different species of shifters were fairly common, especially when there was a dispute about territory. Sometimes, when a pack had grown too large for their territory, the alpha would fight a nearby pack to claim them and their territory as his own. Luckily, for the last couple hundred years, there’d been a lot less of those occurrences as the alphas in each human country had resolved to work together in managing their packs’ population and territories, often making alliances with one another when situations like that occurred. That didn’t mean it would never happen, it was just less likely.

    She looked around the training grounds, making sure the trainees had put everything up as they were supposed to. Thankfully, it seemed as though they’d listen to her lecture about proper care of the training grounds and equipment. Though, since they came with their own weaponry in the form of fangs and claws, there was a smaller need for actual weapons. Not that they didn’t use them, they just didn’t get into weaponry until they completed their training on using their both their full wolf forms and partial wolf forms. Partial wolf form training tended to last longer than wolf form training, since not everyone could easily master the partial transformation. It used to be that only higher ranked wolves could manage that, but she had always refused to believe that lower ranked wolves could never get the hang of it, and through the past three years of being in charge of trainees as the best warrior in the pack, she had helped even omegas to master it. Not everyone had success with it, but enough of the warriors and even the normal pack members, whom she also trained, had gotten it that she knew most of the pack would be able to sufficiently defend themselves should the worst happen.

    After double-checking everything, she started heading towards the pack house, in desperate need of a shower. She always made sure to work herself twice as hard as the trainees, which often meant that she trained twice a day, everyday. After training in the morning with her fellow warriors, she also made sure she trained alongside the recruits. It helped with establishing them as part of the unit, which was necessary, as the warriors needed to be able to follow orders without question as well as be able to move as a unit. Seeing their leader training alongside them, doing at least as much if not more of the work they did helped them not to feel bitter towards the chain of command as well.

    As she walked, her train of thoughts were interrupted by the scent of Kristan’s beef stroganoff, one her favorites. Her mouth began to water, but she tried to shove the hunger that rumbled her belly aside, in order to keep herself from ditching on the shower and heading straight to the mess hall. As soon as she got to the doors, she walked briskly to her room, her stomach angrily growling at her for betraying it. Once she had shut herself in her room, she quickly stripped down and walked into her bathroom, turning on the shower and jumping in without waiting for the water to warm. She didn’t mind cold showers, and pretty soon the water would get warmer, anyways.

    After she’d fully cleaned herself, she stepped out of the shower and toweled herself off, grabbing a clean pair of shorts and a tanktop and throwing them on as quickly as she could. It was her typical choice for an outfit, since she liked the freedom of movement they allowed her. In winter, she’d wear jeans and a t-shirt, unless the bipolar Colorado weather decided to add a little summer to its winter, in which case it was back to her preferred tanktop and shorts combo.

    Just as she reached for her doorknob, Alpha Richard called to her through mindlink, saying, “Layla, I need you to come to my office.”

    “Yes, Alpha Richard, I’ll be there in just a second,” she responded immediately, closing the mindlink before heaving a sigh and quietly lamenting the dinner she had to wait even longer for. Ah, no rest for the wicked, she thought to herself, with a soft laugh.

    “Layla, thank you for coming,” Alpha Richard greeted as she walked in. He smiled softly, a knowing look in his eyes as he continued, “I know you were probably about to go eat, and I’m sorry for pulling you away from that.”

    “It’s no trouble, alpha, my duty as your commander comes first,” she replied.

    “Thank you for such dedication,” he replied, laughing a little at her formality. He never had been strict about formality, as he thought of his pack as his family and thus, while they had to show him and his Luna respect at all times, especially in front of other packs, he didn’t care to be formal most of the time. “The reason I needed you to come in is to let you know that another alpha will be coming to meet with me tomorrow.”

    “Tomorrow? That’s rather short notice,” she replied, wrinkling her brow. With how territorial alphas were, meetings between alphas tended to be planned at least a few days in advance, sometimes even a week or more ahead of time. Only a day ahead was pretty much unheard of.

    “Yes, I know,” Richard sighed, moving some papers around his desk mindlessly before looking back up at her. “But the alpha I’m meeting is Alpha Drake, and you know as well as I do that he does things his own way.”

    “Alpha Drake? He hasn’t visited our pack for any reason in…ever, right?”

    “Yes, in his five years as alpha, he has never once sought to meet with us,” Richard confirmed. “However, it seems that he has heard of a certain female warrior who has not only been promoted to commander of our troops in only four years, and has had the highest success rate in training not only the more powerful wolves of her pack in partial transformation, but even some of the omegas, and would like to discuss a few things with her.” He finished his sentence with a smile full of pride for her.

    “Oh,” she replied rather lamely, a slight blush creeping up her face. She knew Richard was really proud of her, but she had no idea that word of her training had gotten around the packs. She personally didn’t think much of her accomplishment, she was just doing her duty to the pack, after all. Yet Alpha Drake, who led the Black Shadow pack located to the southwest of her pack, who also happened to be the most formidable alpha currently in the U.S., had apparently taken an interest in her. Shaking her head to pull herself out of her shock, she took a breath and organized her thoughts, then looked at her alpha. “Well, whatever you or he needs from me, let me know. I will let the warriors know to expect him tomorrow. Do you know what time he’ll be arriving?”

    “Yes, he should be here around noon. I would like you and Hector to accompany me, my wife and your dad and mom to greet him when he arrives,” Richard said as he grabbed some paperwork from a file on his desk and looking it over. He set it down and grabbed a pen from his pen holder, then looked back at her with a grin. “You may leave now and settle that hungry stomach of yours.”

    She smiled back, tipping her head in respect as she replied, “Yes, alpha. I’ll be sure to be there.”

    “Thank you, Layla. I hope you enjoy the stroganoff.”

    “I will, sir.”