Hidden Within

Try-outs

We ate in silence except for the nagging to take my medicine, followed by a quick goodbye, and Jax was off to his meetings. I showered and got myself ready, throwing on some comfortable leggings and a purple tank top. The feeling of new clothes on my body is wonderful, I smile while doing up my shoes. I am excited to go see what's outside.

A brisk knock on the door and in came a woman I think about my age.

"Hi, I'm Jess, Alpha asked me to show you around today." she tells me with a beaming smile plastered on her face.

She is beautiful, with dark skin and short dark hair, about a foot shorter than me and oozing confidence.

"Hi," I smile back at her.

"Are you ready? It's the warrior tryouts today, and I want to watch some sexy men run around." she says with a wink.

I let out a little chuckle, "Sure." I answer her. I can't help but smile at her positivity.

"I am Dalia, by the way," I tell her while following her out the door.

"I know," Alpha said. So what's your deal? Why are you here?" she asks while we fall into step with one another.

"It's a long story," I sigh, not wanting to tell her details. "Short version. I was lost in the forrest and got attacked by some wolves and ended up here."

She stops for a second and looks at me before walking again. We are almost at the front door when she says, "You don't really look like a threat, so I guess that's why you were let straight into the pack house." I frown at her, not understanding what she means.

"Usually, newcomers spend a few weeks in the holding cell." She explains probably from the confused look on my face.

"Oh." is all I respond with. It felt so good being outside. I was too busy looking around. The place is huge, there's smaller houses scattered around the open fields. We pass by them all and head to what looks like a huge arena.

"Good there about to start." Jess tells me while hurriedly walking to a bench right up front.

There are lots of people watching, spreading around the arena on the benches. About twenty men in the centre, waiting for their names to be called. I recognised Jay, who was the one calling names out. Once two men were called forward, they started circling each other. When Jay blew on a whistle, they turned into their wolves in an instant. I felt myself pale at the sight. They were huge big wolves. One was black, and the other was a mousey brown colour. They lunged and swiped at each other until the black one grabbed the brown one by the neck and held him down. Jay blew the whistle, and they shifted back. I avert my eyes from their nakedness, feeling my cheeks heat up.

"Breathe girl, they are only sparring." Jess laughs at me. I realised I was holding my breath the whole time.

"Sorry, it's just so strange to see people turn into wolves." I explain embarressed about my shocked expression when everyone else seemed fine, like this wasn't the most bizarre thing ever.

"Huh," Jess frowns while turning and facing me directly. "What do you mean it's strange?." she says like she doesn't believe me. "You are a wolf, right? I can smell you!"

"I grew up with humans, I only found out about wolves and me being one three days ago." I try to explain while sounding casual about it.

Jess puts her hand on her chest, shocked. "So you had no idea we exist? that's wild." she says while looking at me in disbelief.

"Yeah, this is all so crazy to me, I hadn't even been allowed out my house until I ran away." I say while toeing the ground. "I think I'm going to wake up, and this just be some weird arse dream!" I laugh, not being able to help it from how increasingly more shocked she looks at my every word.

"Holey, no wonder Alpha didn't think you were a threat, so you've never shifted? she asks.

Before I can respond, we are interrupted by a high-pitched laugh as the woman from dinner comes up behind me.

She shoves me in the back, and I fall forward from the bench. "Of course, that would be right, a pathetic helpless loser." she snarls. "You had to make up some sorry lies to get the Alpha to bring you back here." She spits. "I bet you sucked them all off, so they'd bring you back!" she says with a smirk while the girls behind her laugh.

"What the f**k?" Jess growls while helping me up.

"Shut up, omega. I am not talking to you!" she yells at Jess, then turns back to me. "Cut the act b***h, it ain't cute and stay away from my man." She says pointing a finger at me. "You will never be luna so go back to being a w***e and get lost!" she snarls at me.

"I'm not lying and I don't want to be Luna I don't even know what that means but you need to get the idea of being Jax's girlfriend out of your head, because he told me you mean nothing to him!" I growl back at her, not sure where my courage came from.

SLAP, she hit me across the face with so much force I fell into the railing. I stay down expecting more hits to come.

"How dare you attack your Alphas mate!" I hear a very angry sounding Jay. Where the heck did he come from I think to myself.

I look up and see him standing inches away from her face.

"She is not his mate!" she spits in Jay's face.

"You know damn well she is and what you've done is punishable by death, do you want to die, Courtney?" he growls back at her. "I suggest you and your little crew back the f**k up and not let this happen again or I will make sure you spend a week in the dungeons." he tells her with dangerous tone to his voice.

Jess helps me up once again and Courtney turns on her heal and leaves in a huff, screeching something to her friends.

Jay turns to us and reaches to grab me and I flinch back away from him.

"Sorry," he says putting his hands up in the air, "Are you ok?"

"Yes, I think so!" I say while touching my face. It stings and I am sure it will be red but it actually wasn't to painful. "I've had worse done to me, thank you for getting rid of her." I say.

He smiles at me and without another word he jumps back over the railing and runs to the center again to continue the trials.

"She is such a b***h, but seriously, Jax's mate, you kept that quiet." She laughs. "No wonder she's pissed. You just stole her dream. What a looser!" she laughs out loud.

"I don't even really understand the whole mates thing really, so I don't know what the big deal is and I didn't steal anything. Jax told me last night she was nothing to him. He doesn't even like her!" I tell Jess angrily at the thought of that b***h touching him.

Jess chuckles, "I can see the mate bond is already making you jealous." She smiles. "Ok, girl, while we watch these sexy hunks I'm going to tell you all about Mate bonds and how they work. You can thank me later." She grabs my hand and sits us back down on the bench.

We sat for hours while watching the try-outs and she chewed my ear off, my head was overflowing with new information from what she explained to me.

The try-outs concluded and we head back towards the pack house, planning to watch a movie and eat popcorn.