26 Chapter Twenty-Three

My saddle bag is heavy in my hands as I stand in the long line leading to the building we recently took a few of our tests near. The air is chilly and i can see my breath in the air. My fingertips have turned pink and I'm sure my nose is too.

Luckily the cold air is numbing my leg which I'm thankful for as it hurt a lot when I woke up.

Thankfully it doesn't take long to reach the front as it only takes about fifteen seconds per person to get placed in a group, so within ten minutes I'm at the desk.

"Name and rank please" The male wolf asks me, not even questioning the fact I have no scent. When I got checked after the hunt the nice she wolf at the front counter gave me heat tablets. It helps keep the unmated males away.

"Ella Sterling" he quickly looks through a small filing cabinet and within seconds he's handing me a piece of paper. I take it out of his hand and quickly say thank you before leaving the line.

Name: Sterling, Ella    Rank: Runt

Pack: Dark Moon        Alpha: Alec Grey

Assigned squad: 01

Squad leader: Azaizal Lewis

A smile appears on my face as I realise I'm in Azaizal's squad. He and I seem close and we seem to be getting closer, especially after we started sharing a room. At least he and I now have a chance to talk about it.

Even though we aren't mates, there is something between us. I would have never played tag with him otherwise, especially when I found out he's a prince. I know he feels it to by the way he talks to me and how protective he is. 'He may not be our mate but he should be' Ally says suddenly, I laugh but agree with her.

No more than a few seconds later a very familiar voice fills my mind. "I would like to thank you all again for deciding to help save your queen and save our other missing members" Alessio says thanking us again.

"You are all to head to the training field where your squad leaders stand. They are in order of squad numbers left to right. You are to wait with them, with one bag of necessary equipment. You will leave when they tell you that you are leaving."

"To this those of you assigned to the training squads, I'm still so proud of you all, you are doing an amazing service to your king and kingdom. Please head to gym one to meet your squad leader." The link is then cut off.

I noticed early this morning my link had been cut from the kings pack. 'He must have tied us to our squad leaders instead' Ally thought. I couldn't help but agree.

Taking a deep breath I head towards the training field beside the castle. I immediately gravitate towards Azaizal. It's like I don't even have to see him, I can just feel where he is. I stand beside him and drop my bag to the ground since we'll be shifting and that's the only way I can put it on. Azaizal also has some sort of backpack. It's small enough that it seems it'll fit him perfectly when in wolf form.

He smiles when he sees me and I nod back smiling. There are already a few members with him and since I don't recognise them I just assume they were already in his squad. There are two males and one female with him.

They all wear the Kingdoms colours which includes an embroidered kingdom badge on their top. There tops are dark blue with the badge and there trousers are crossed between leggings and jogging bottoms. They too have the kingdoms badge on, which consists of blue and gold with touches of white.

Azaizal's top however was more like a shirt and holds medals and has a large printed number one on the front, showing he is clearly the squad leader.

Looking back at his team already here, it's clear that the two males are twins and are clearly identical. They both have dark brown hair and green eyes. They were also tall but not as tall as Azaizal.

I then moved my eyes away from the twins to the female and jumped in surprise as I saw she was looking directly at me staring, no glaring at me. I try to smile but she rolls her eyes and turns away.

I sigh expecting nothing less, she thinks I'm weak. Despite her act I couldn't help but help but admire her beauty. She was a lean blonde with perfect straight hair and making her look like a model, modelling an outfit.

I turn to see a few more wolves approaching us and I gasp at the familiar face. A huge smile covers my face and I run toward him. He laughs and holds out his arms as I leap into them.

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Looks like we are going to have to wait two weeks to find out just who 'HE' is...

"laughs evilly"

Surprise!! 😁

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"ZACK Oh my Goddess, it's really you?" I squeal, laughing as he spins us around. "Wow I've missed you little sister" I hold him tighter but then climb down realising a very angry looking female stood next to him, growling at me. He turns to her and hugs her tight, kissing her temple.

"Hannah, it's ok. This is my little sister Ella. Ella this is my mate Hannah" I smile and hold out my hand. "Nice to meet you, sorry for running up to him without you knowing who I am first." She shakes my hand and smiles.

"It's okay, sorry I seemed so crazy." I heard stories of how protective mates can be but I didn't realise how true it was. I waved my hand. "It's fine, don't worry." We walk back to the group, everyone looking at us with shocked faces. Azaizal speaks first.

"Ella, how do you know our head warrior?" I look at Zack in shock, laughing before turning back to Azaizal. "Zack's my big brother but I didn't know he was head warrior here, he never writes." I give him a glare. He looks down guiltily.

"I'm so sorry Elle, I just got so caught up here and was trying to forget our parents so hard that I forgot, I'm sorry forgive me?" I hugged him, surprised he remembered and used my nickname. "I forgive you"

All to soon Azaizal broke the moment by clearing his throat. "Right Ella, let's introduce you to everyone." I nodded and looked at the twins, the slightly taller one spoke. "Hey, I'm Jax and this is obviously my brother Noah the knucklehead." I just laugh and wave.

Jax continues to talk, "The one constantly glaring is Lexi. Just so you know it's not just you, she glares at us all and obviously you know Zack, Azaizal and now Hannah." I nod again, looking at all the faces to try and remember them all by face and name.

"Let's shift and I'll talk about where we're going." Azaizal says before disappearing. I head behind a tree but can't stop thinking about Zack and how long it's been.

It's been nearly four years since I've seen him and he hasn't really changed much. He was supposed to take over as Beta but when he got offered to train somewhere else he instantly took the opportunity. I didn't realise it was the kingdom though. I encouraged him to take the opportunity even if I would miss him because I knew he hated it at the pack just as much as I did.

He's four years older than me but because he left, our parents disowned him and because I'm a girl they refused to let me take over as Beta. Which is why I get all the abuse about them wanting a son.

I emerged from behind the tree and met back up with Azaizal who was waiting with three other wolves. With my saddle bag now on my back I trotted over and stood next to him, waiting for my brother and who I'm assuming is his mate.

I guess that the two almost identical wolves are Jax and Noah who are a Sandy colour with brown highlights going through there fur. While who I'm guessing is Lexi is a ginger colour.

I feel myself go bright red mentally as the twins turn to stare at me. While my scent pills hide my scent while I'm human, they don't completely hide it while I'm in wolf form. I pin my ears back and bare my teeth at them. They immediately step back and look away.

Finally my brother and his mate arrive. Zack was still a chocolate brown colour while Hannah was a gorgeous auburn colour.

We all look at Azaizal, he's looking at the twins with daggers but does nothing and turns, "let's go"

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Hope you all enjoyed this update guys and girls. Next update in 2 weeks.

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