WHYS AND SUDDENLYS

8 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, AFTER DINNER

Savy finished eating pretty quickly after that. As a reward for my earlier arguments, she redid my hair again, this time with what she called a fountain braid. She finished up with the blue heart hair clip, "Lizzy and I are going to wear this for the rest of the week."

Wait, so me too? I had to wear this everyday too?

But Savy left the table before I could clarify. She put her dishes in the sink and walked out the kitchen door.

We watched her without a word, not even a goodbye. Then I realized people seated at the table was in some kind of multiple-mindlinks.

All except Sabre. But she was also very quiet. I looked at the little human poking at her food, and then I realized she was still wary of Fluffy.

And then Fluffy stood up, his usual smile in place and left.

I blinked. Dad, Mum, and Ki exchanged looks. WTH!

"Was everyone mind-linking over the table without me?" I demanded. ROOD!

"I wasn't!" Sabre yelled, now that Fluffy was gone.

"Where's Fluffy going?" I demanded.

Ki smiled ever so gently, "For a run, goddess."

Eh?

He gave my parents an apologetic look, "In the woods behind the pack house."

"You sent him to go running with Savy and Lizzy?" I asked. Savy wasn't going to like that.

"Not exactly, goddess. Don't worry. Savy won't even know he was there." Ki smiled again, and then quickly excused himself to clear the dishes.

I looked at my parents, "Who's idea was that?"

Dad looked at Mum but said nothing.

"Why did you have to do that?" I demanded.

Mum said, "Why would Savy suddenly go running with make up?"

Was that a riddle? Why was she asking me something like that?

"Cos she felt like it?" I hazarded.

Mum smiled, "When you can answer my question, I'll answer yours."

I flared and crossed my arms to sulk. Whatever.

"Luna Bell is here." Ki informed us just as Bell stepped into the dining room.

"Ah, son, have you eaten?" Dad asked.

Bell nodded, "Yes, Alpha. Thank you."

"Why are you still calling me Alpha? I told you to call me Dad." Dad said.

For some reason, I felt like Dad had really been taking a shine to Bell. Which was good because he was my mate, but also weird, because Dad usually did not show affection to outsiders. But I guess since Bell was my Mate, he was an insider. But...

I was just going around in circles.

Why did Savy decide to go running with make up on out of the blue?

Why did Dad like Bell so much?

Mate touched my hair when I got up to meet him. Then he suddenly leaned over and pulled my head closer to his shoulder.

JUST LIKE BEN DID. Except that this was MATE, not just Ben. I flared in panic and pulled away. He let his hand trail down my hair like always, but I barely noticed from shock.

"What? Why did you do that?" I asked Mate. I looked at my parents, and then at Mate, and then at my parents.

Why did Mate hug me (was that even a hug?) in front of my parents suddenly?

So many whys. So many suddenlys.

"I can't?" Mate asked.

I shook my head hard. No! I mean yes? I mean... I kinda just short circuited and my wolf took over. Luckily, or unluckily, it was Wolfie.

Wolfie, who was ecstatic to see mate again. She pounced, "Mate!"

Bell caught me by the waist before we collided. I had to give it to him, the guy's got good reflexes.

He put me down at arm's length even as my teeth shifted. Oh boy, I'm never going to hear the end of this.

"Sam!" Mum scolded, "No biting!"

Wolfie retracted her teeth, "MINE!"

"Don't bite boys." Sabre told me, "They'll give you cooties."

Wolfie regarded the little human, "Fun!"

"Okay!" The little human got off the chair.

I picked up Sabre from behind, instinctively not reaching out for her from above.

Sabre squealed. I put her on my shoulders.

Ki returned from the kitchen to excuse Bell and himself to change for the training.

"Giddyup!" Sabre ordered. Wolfie obliged by running out to the hallways.

"Go left!" The little human yelled, "No! Left! THE OTHER LEFT!"

Wolfie recalibrated and turned "the other left".

"Right!" Sabre said.

Wolfie turned the other right.

"No! Left!" Sabre said.

Wolfie gave up following her instructions and made a turn to the living room and then out to the porch. It was snowing.

From out here on the long porch, we could see Mum and Dad still in the dining room. Sabre waved at them. Mum looked panicked. Dad opened one of the sliding doors separating us, "Don't stay out too long."

"Sabre would catch a cold!" Mum worried, "She's just a human child."

"A little cold never killed anyone." I told mum meaning to go look for fun... Wolfie was itching for fun. Maybe to the running trail behind the packhouse to play spies with Fluffy?

Hahaha

"Ahchoo!" Sabre sneezed and sniffed over my head.

Okay, point taken. I stepped back into the dining room with my parents and reached above my head to grab Sabre off and push her back to Mum's outstretched arms.

Ki and Bell returned, both in in training gear. Ki was in a darker shade of grey. Bell was matchy with me.

But in Wolfie's eyes, this was the uniform for fun, "Let's go!"

Training!

I led Bell and Ki to the training hall. To my delight I found more fun people there. Ben and Harvey, Gamma Endo and Gamma Harry, Flynn, Hank, Titanium were warming up on the side. Even Beta Gerald was there, but he was hosting the three trainers from Black Forest, helping them set up a projector for their laptop.

Ben and Harvey were just putting down the training mats.

So many fun people! Wolfie wanted to shift and lead the hunt! Let's go run or something.

"Alpha Princess and Luna Bell are here." Ki announced.

"Yo Princess!" My betas and deltas shouted and also, "Good evening Luna!"

I grinned and walked over to the newcomers. Beta Gerald made a polite bow, "Alpha Sam, these are the instructors Alpha Solomon has sent to us."

"Good evening, sirs." I said, "We look forward to your guidance."

I looked at the three warriors. They came in three sizes, M, L, and XL.

Trainer M was the Delta, he would be assisted by Trainer L and Trainer XL.

Beta Gerald did introduce their names, but my Wolfie was never cared for names and I figured we'd all be calling them Sirs anyway.

Wolfie did note they were decent warrior wolves though. Nothing like Gamma Endo or my betas... I'm quite sure even Titanium was a stronger warrior.

But that wasn't really fair to say. The guys here were the A-list of our pack's fighters. Whether due to their experience, skills, physical strength, pure wolf power, or all of the above.

And if warriors like Trainers M, L, and XL could make it in the specialist fight teams, then their vampire fighting technique had to be pretty neat.

Maybe most, if not all our elite warriors could be trained in it.

Dad and Beta Lucas came in to join us too.

"Alpha is here." Beta Lucas announced at their entry.

"Good evening, Alpha." Everyone chorused with a bow.

I was surprised that even Dad was joining us, but come to think of it, I guess it made sense.

Vampires were really rare on the Green Packlands - and by rare I really meant, nonexistent. So it's not like any of us would be experts.

I did hear a "bedtime story" about how Dad and Beta Lucas had snuck into a vampire's coven once. It was back when they were still in Night Forest. They only made it out alive because Dad had grabbed Beta Lucas by the collar and ran and ran. They literally ran for their lives.

"I never want to go near one of those monsters again." Beta Lucas (the bedtime story teller) jumped from the beginning of their adventure straight to the conclusion.

But he was the one who told me never to let a vamp get into your head. And it was from this story that I learned that the vamp had to see you physically to control you mentally.

He was also the one who told me that the gamma from Morning Light had to fight a vampire once upon a time. "It was total annihilation!" Beta Lucas continued, "Endo was barely alive when we found him."

So these training sessions were not just fun, they were seriously necessary.

Now that we were all here, Beta Gerald introduced Trainers M, L, and XL. He read all their credentials.

Delta M was the youngest Delta in Black Forest. His academic results and warrior placement ranking were far beyond his peers. He was also the youngest Team Leader of their specialist fight teams.

L was a full time sergeant of the Black Forest Army, and the oldest active specialist fighter. He had been training specialist teams for years now.

XL was one of the top vamp slayer in the A Team. His team was currently on their rest cycle. It seemed that the teams had to be given paid rest-time where they were kept out of action for their mental and emotional health.

We clapped politely to welcome them.

Trainer Delta M then took over. He invited us to sit at the bleaches and face the side wall to view their slide presentation.

And without further adieu, we went into our first training session proper.

Trainer M began with some theory to set the foundation right:

"The number one rule to remember - even if you forget everything else we teach you, you have to remember this one rule - when you are facing a vampire, always put on your 3 masks!"

"There are three masks you put on every time you meet a vampire. Yes, you heard me. Three masks. Number one, a real physical mask. Vampires can communicate not just words, and thoughts, but feelings, and what we call 'mental snapshots'. If you kill and vamp and he sees your face, you can be sure there is a wanted photo of you in every vampire's mind in his coven."

"The second mask is a mental mask. We call it a 'Mind Seal'. The concept is simple. You need to seal off your mind to all mindlinks. Sounds easy right? But it's very hard. A wolf needs a very strong sense of control to keep a mindseal on for the time needed for each mission. That's why timing is critical. Each mission lasts 3 to 4 hours. Nothing more, or our mindseal might laspe and then they will turn you against each other for their own sick pleasures. But I was talking about mind seals, the second mask. Later, if we have time, I can tell you more stories about fighting vamps. Back to the three masks."

"The third mask is the scent mask. This is probably the most complicated thing to cover. Vamps have a very keen sense of smell, and especially acute to the scent of blood. They can tell Lycan apart from human just by the difference in our pheromones. We have invented some suits to cover our scents. We have also invented some sprays that masks our Lycan pheromones. We'll show them to you and teach you how to used them in one of our later sessions."

I can't remember the rest of the theory session, mainly because I fell asleep. (It wasn't me, it was Wolfie.)

Mate was sitting next to me, faced to the side so his broad back was in front of me. At first I did try to fight the sleep from taking over, but Ben who was on my other side had simply pushed me forward a little so that my face touched Mates back.

Mate turned his head slightly to look, and then he turned back front again without a word. I could feel a calm flooding through our mate bond. The steady beat of his heart, the comfortable roughness of training jacket on my cheek, the fresh smell of our household detergent that Ki favored. As usual, my dream-travelling mate was scentless but Mmmm....

And then I fell asleep. I guess it's okay. Harvey would've taken notes. I was also taking my rest cycle. Hahaha.

I'll wake up when the action starts.