Cover your scent
I wake to the sound of pounding at my door, and I groan because I can barely hold my eyes open enough to glare at the offending noise.
"Go away!" I shout at whoever thought it was a good idea to wake me this early. The pounding in my temple is starting to throb in time with the knocking, and it's incredibly irritating. I roll over and put my face in my pillow to try and forget that a crazy person is vying for my attention. Clearly, they must be off their rocker.
I think I hear someone shouting, but I'm getting quickly pulled back into the embrace of deep sleep that's so comfortable it almost feels like a real hug. Especially with Mr. Snuggles the stuffed pig that I'm burying my face into.
A crash startles me back awake and I jump out of bed in slight fear of what fresh hell I will be subject to today. When I see someone walking into my room through the now broken door, my feet start moving automatically. I race to the side...and suddenly I'm flying. Or sailing. Or..why is the world tilting? The room blurs by me as I tip backwards and it takes too long to realize I've been bested by my sheets.
My entire body is jarred when I hit the ground and my breath is forced out of me with a pained grunt that leaves my lips.
"That was something else," a voice says, startling me when I remember what I was running from to begin with. My head tilts to the side and I see the worst professor to ever exist smirking at me. Even upside down, his smug smile grates on my nerves. "Thank you for the morning entertainment," he adds unhelpfully.
I try to unravel myself from the sheet, and it takes me a few moments before I can get back on my two feet and look to Professor Florentino, who seems to be holding in a laugh.
I look him in the eyes and point to his face, "Don't you dare" I warn him, leveling him with a cold look. But that just seems to set him off even more.
His escaped laugh gets abruptly cut off when he glances down my body. I look down too, and freeze when I realize I'm only in my bra and underwear.
Shit!
I fall back to the floor and wrestle with the sheets once again, before popping back up with a flaming red face.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night and stripping out of my clothes, but I was too tired to grab pajamas. Luckily I was even too tired to take my bra off, or my breasts would have been bare as well.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask him.
He is looking to the side and clears his throat before answering. "I decided to go for a morning run, so I came by to bring you along." He tells me, while straightening his shirt.
It's a snug shirt, and now that I take a moment to look, he does seem to be in running gear. He has paired a nice athletic shirt with running shorts and sneakers, leaving his toned and tanned calves on display. I idly notice that he has tattoos on his hands and his forearms.
"Mo- I mean, Headmistress Nacht said we have training starting tonight…" I saw, dragging the last word out to emphasize my confusion.
He nods distractedly. "That was the plan, but I usually run in the mornings and decided at the last minute to bring you along. Wouldn't want you to combust during your morning classes today, now would we?" He asks me, and I bristle on my feet.
"Okay…" I say, savoring the word for a moment while I collect my thoughts. "I could probably use a run, though I would not have chosen to go at this ungodly hour. Gods! Do gods exist?" I ramble on with a nervous chuckle before seriousness takes over my expression. "That doesn't explain why you barged into my room though."
He shrugs dismissively. "I told you to get up or I would be coming in. I assumed by your shouts you had heard me."
"Obviously not. Seriously, do gods exist?" I ask him, stuck on that thought. Without caffeine I can sometimes have a one-track mind.
Finally turning his head back towards me, his eye catches on my bed as he battles yet another grin.
"What is that monstrosity?��� He asks while pointing his finger at my fuzzy pig.
I glare at him. "Mr. Snuggles."
He shakes his head. "You have two minutes to get dressed and be outside this door!" He barks suddenly at me, quickly reminding me of exactly who he is. My professor. He's a shithead, but still my professor.
Less than a heartbeat later, he has rushed out of my room and lifted my door back to its frame, where it's hanging at a weird lean.
I'll worry about that later.
With 8 seconds to spare, I'm hopping from one foot to the other to put on my shoes when I join him in the hallway.
"I'm adding those two minutes to your drills later tonight." He tells me, and I roll my eyes at him. "Make that 10 minutes extra." He adds, and I grit my teeth to prevent myself from mouthing off to him.
I am especially grateful I remember to take a sip of the lilax tea before walking out of my room. I'll need any reprieve I can get.
A loud noise echoes down the hallway, and we both turn to look behind us.Looks like my door isn't hanging on the hinges anymore and has fallen to the ground. Professor Florentino merely looks forward again and continues to walk down the hallway, completely ignoring the door he ruined. I shake my head and decide to follow him without commenting on it.
Before we exit through the doors, he grabs a long jacket out of the coats hanging nearby on hooks. He hands me the jacket and I stare at it for a moment waiting for him to explain.
"It's to cover your scent," he tells me. "It won't last long, but it will help make sure that a certain nipper doesn't smell you while we're walking through the courtyard. Next time get up earlier, and we won't have to worry about it."
He was almost considerate, and then he kept running his mouth and had to add that last bit, ruining it. I put the jacket on before following him out the doors and into the brisk morning air.
He leads me to the end of the courtyard and into a short passage through the rock. On the other side, there is a pathway to the forest.
"Hang up the jacket on a branch," Florentino says over his shoulder to me.
I move to do just that, while he takes off in a sprint and I hurriedly break into a run to catch up to him. For nearly an hour, we run through the forest on a trail before making it to a clearing where I find a race track, hurdles, and weights. He takes the next two hours to put me through the ringer. I sprint, jump and lunge. I do sit ups and push ups. My body is trembling and when I feel on the verge of passing out, he motions for us to run back through the forest to the academy.
Hands on my knees and bent over at the waist, I'm gasping for breath and trying to calm my racing heart. Professor Florentino, however, looks rather put together considering the last grueling few hours we spent together.
"H...h-how," I pull in a large breath and start again. "How are you not tired?" I ask him, completely bewildered.
He looks at me intensely for a few moments. "You aren't tapping into your werewolf abilities yet. You shouldn't be this tired either."
I frown at that. I remember Ryker mentioning that my eyes were glowing when I made that leap - is that what Florentino's referring to? Is there a way to turn it on? Like a switch or something?
"How do I do that?"
"Some of the abilities should come naturally. The rest, you will learn. But you should have already gotten faster, have better hearing and sight…"
My frown only grows. There have been random times when I have felt stronger or faster, but generally speaking - I feel the same.
Great. Only a few days in as a werewolf, and I'm already falling behind.