The Wizard's Rogue Mate

Chapter 4: Electric Guitar

I wake up at the break of dawn, orange beams of sunlight pouring through the window in my room. The covers are wrapped around me so I look like a burrito. That makes me happy.

I stretch my arms out of the duvet, forcing myself to stand. Birds sing happily outside along with the wind blowing through the branches of the bare trees. For some reason, my wolf is non-stop humming in my head. Why is everything so cheerful?

Yesterday comes back to me in a rush; little glimpses of the mate I found, Liam’s drunken stupor and the late night visit from Grey. Suddenly, things aren’t so joyful anymore.

Before, I often thought about finding my mate. I would imagine a new rogue coming to join our group from overseas, and as soon as we would make eye contact at the initiation ceremony, everything would be complete bliss. He would have an accent… maybe English or French or something. We would be happy to lead the group to success, the pack would grow in numbers, pack wolves wouldn’t dare come near us anymore.

Maybe one day, we would have four or five little kids running around, all varying in looks between my mate and I. They would grow to be courageous and strong. It would be a beautiful family. I would love them till I breathed my last breath.

I still want that. Thing is, I met my mate in the woods and he hurt my entire pack. He tried to force me to go with him and abandon my duties as a leader here. He doesn’t have an accent, well, maybe there’s a slight bit of Italian somewhere in there, but it’s not noticeable most of the time. I can’t see myself having a gorgeous family with him. What would be the outcome of a hybrid and a werewolf? What offspring would even be produced?

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I wander into the bathroom and wash my face, brush my hair and teeth and apply minimal makeup. By minimal, I mean I’m wearing a bit of lip balm and some spot cream. Gorgeous, I know.

Even if Grey does show up, I’m not going to try and look nice for him. That could make his ass even more cocky, and I don’t think I could deal with that. And anyway, I’m training juveniles later, makeup would only get in the way.

I change into a pair of black leggings and an off-shoulder baggy sweatshirt with the words ‘Step Away’ written in bold on the front. After pulling on some converse and pulling half my hair into some sort of ponytail with a weird clippy thing I found in my bedside draw, I head downstairs to the kitchen.

I love waking up early in the winter mornings for two reasons: one, sometimes if I’m lucky, I can catch a glimpse of the sun rising before it disappears behind clouds. And two, there is always the smell of damp, cut grass in the air from the rain during the night. Obviously, actually pulling myself out of bed is not fun, but I can get over it.

The kitchen is still covered in a warm orange glow from the sunrise. I don’t bother turning on the light; I don’t want to ruin the effect. Instead, I cut a slice of bread from a few day old loaf and shove it in the toaster. I make myself a hot chocolate while waiting for it to pop up, and when it finally does, I smother it in jam and hop up onto the counter to eat it and drink the caffeine. It’s probably not the most hygienic place to sit and eat when there’s a table with four chairs literally directly opposite me, but I hate sitting at that table alone. I have memories of eating breakfast with my family there every morning, and eating there alone just makes me feel lonely.

*Flashback*

“Can you pass the butter?” Dad asks Tyler from across the table. My nine year old brother nods, shoving another huge mouthful of eggs into his mouth before passing over the dish.

“So, do you have a lot planned for the day, Little Owl?” mum questions, looking to me while leaning back in her chair and taking a gulp of her tea. Her emerald green eyes always mesmerized me; so much so that I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t inherit them. I got my hair from her though; tangled, curly copper red locks that refuse to ever be brushed or straightened.

Ever since I can remember, my parents have called me Little Owl. Something about it being symbolic to the Goddess of Wisdom.

“Vannah and I were going to head into town for a bit, if that’s okay? She needs a new dress for her Aunt’s wedding.” I reply, leaning back in my seat.

“I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea.” Dad intercepts, concerned wrinkles lining his forehead. I frown at him so he continues on. “There have been a few pack wolves roaming around that area lately. Those lousy scums would pick a fight with you if they saw you, no doubt.” He adds. I sigh in frustration. Those pack wolves always think they’re superior to us, but they’re not. Just because we’re not ruled by an Alpha and we don’t have as much money as them doesn’t mean they matter more than us.

“What if we take someone with us? Liam, maybe? He can fight pretty well, and Vannah really needs a new dress. The wedding is next weekend.” I argue, giving him those puppy dog eyes. He looks to Mum for help, but she just shrugs.

“She’s big enough to look out for herself now, honey. And Liam is perfectly responsible. He’d love to be sent out to protect the leader’s daughter, it would mean a lot to him.” Dad gives in with a sigh and picks up his empty plate from the table, along with his coffee mug, walking over to the sink and dumping them in.

“Okay, I guess. But you have to take Tyler with you and be back by three, and call me if anything happens. Even if you just catch the scent of a pack wolf, I want to know.”

“Yes! Thank you!” I squeal, standing up and following dad by picking up my dirty cutlery and plate and putting it in the sink. “Are you hunting today?”

“Yep, me and your mum are going to get a big stag this time. Denise wanted to make venison steaks for dinner tonight.” He smiles, kissing me on the cheek. Mum walks up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist.

“I’ll just go and grab my boots.” She whispers into his ear, pecking him on his neck and wondering off upstairs. I can only hope my mate and I will be like that when I find him.

I leave to my room and grab my bag and a jacket. Savannah knocks on the door shortly after with Liam in tow, and I drag Tyler out the house with us. We catch the bus into the city.

I never thought that would be the last time I saw my parents. Well, I did see them again twice after that, but once was when I found them drowning in their own blood near an oak tree outside of the border, and the other was at their funeral. Open casket.

*End of Flashback*

When I’m done with breakfast, I grab my key and leave the house, locking it behind me. My brain hasn’t forgotten what Grey said last night, about ‘accompanying me throughout the day’. Half of me wants to think it’s sweet that he would give up his time to get to know me, but I can’t help but think that if he follows up on his suggestion, he’ll do nothing but distract me the whole day. Maybe I can use it as an opportunity to figure him out a bit more. The most intimidating thing about him is the mystery behind his cloudy, brooding eyes, and I don’t like being intimidated. 

The walk to the training field is only about ten minutes long. It gives me time to stretch my legs. My wolf is still humming in my mind, and the sun beating down on my pale skin is relaxing. I find myself singing softly to myself, the lyrics to a song that was playing off my phone this morning while I was getting ready.

Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light

Those days are over

You don’t have to sell your body to the night

“The Police? Isn’t that a little before your era?” I jump when I hear Grey’s voice sounds from beside me, ripping me out of my happy trance. I stare at him for a few seconds, now standing still with raised eyebrows. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him or knee him in the jewels, it’s an instinctive habit of mine when I get scared. He’s wearing blue jeans this time, and a maroon coloured sweatshirt that looks great on him. I don’t even feel bad for thinking that until he grins at me, almost like he’s reading my thoughts. Once recovered, I frown at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you I was coming, did I not?” he replies, putting on an innocent façade. My mind drifts to what happened last night, and I get angry all of a sudden, punching his shoulder. He groans, rubbing the space where I hit him. I can’t see underneath his sweater, but I’m sure they’ll be a bruise in a few minutes.

“That is for stealing my cookies.” I snap, picking up my pace. He matches it with ease, smirking annoyingly. There’s no one around right now, which I’m glad for. One, because they would’ve heard me singing, and two, because there’s a hybrid walking next to me and I’m not even flinching as he talks.

“Chocolate chips are my favourite, I don’t know what you expected!” He counters in fake irritation. I growl lowly at him, not taking the joke.

“Well they’re my favourite too, and you owe me a new packet.” I grumble, folding my arms as we walk across the grass. “And a tub of Ben and Jerry’s as compensation.” Grey mumbles something under his breath, but he doesn’t say no, so I plant a smile on my face and put a little skip in my step, imaging ice cream. Okay, it might sound sad, but I have a busy day today and I haven’t eaten cookie dough ice cream since last month. I start humming ‘Roxanne’ under my breath again as we walk along, and after a few seconds, Grey joins in, but gets the notes mixed up.

“That was the George Michael version, not The Police version.” I state after a minute of thinking. For the first time, I see him smile. Not a smirk or a frown, but a real smile, with teeth and all. This makes my wolf hum impossibly louder in my head so I can hardly hear myself think.

“My dad used to love that song. Played it all the time when I was a kid. My step-mum liked stuff with lots of electric guitar, though, so there were a lot of arguments in my house where music was concerned.” My mind takes a moment to process this information. Step parents are basically unheard of in the werewolf world; you have kids with your mate, and most don’t marry again if their mate dies. It just doesn’t happen a lot. Then again, it shouldn’t surprise me since he is a hybrid and all. It makes me wonder what happened to his mother.

“My mum used to love guitars; the look and feel and sound of them. She couldn’t play one to save her life, though.” I chuckle lowly, picking at a loose thread on the hem of my top. “She probably would’ve loved to meet your step-mum.”

“She’s dead?” Grey asks bluntly. I stay silent and don’t answer him as we continue walking to the field, letting it hang in the now tense air. I don’t trust him enough to spill my life story. I’m surprised I actually had a half decent conversation with him a few minutes ago. When we’re within a few minutes of the training field, I stop and turn to him. His once smiling face is now stone cold, almost bored. I nearly feel guilty before I realise that I have nothing to feel guilty about.

“Can you do that disappearing thingy again now? I have to check no one’s slacking and everyone’s okay.” His eyes snap to mine when I speak, obviously not thinking I would after what he said. A glimmer of amusement flashes through his eyes, overtaking his cold exterior for a second. 

“Disappearing thingy?” he chuckles back with a shake of his head. Nevertheless, he’s gone afterwards. It’s funny; there’s no trace he was ever there at all, but from what happened last night, I know he is. With a sigh, I make my way over to the field where everyone over the age of fourteen is currently separated into groups doing various training exercises. It’s what we all do on Sundays, and after the kids have finished school, they go into training every day for their chosen role. I often train at night, or early every morning during the week.

I walk over to my best warriors. There are about twenty of them training together, separated into pairs, sparring. After learning the basics of fighting, everyone gets to train on their own without a trainer with them. I believe it gives them independence. Rogues are not built to work as a pack; we are testing the limits by having them all here together, and there have been times where fights have broken out because of it. By giving everyone as much freedom as possible, it helps keep the peace.

“Alastair, how’s it going?” I greet a huge, muscly guy who I’ve known since I was a kid. Alistair has shoulder length, brown hair pulled into a low ponytail at the base of his neck. His eyes are the same shade as his dark complexion.

Currently, he’s only wearing a pair of khaki trousers, showing off his sweaty six pack. He’s a year younger than me and we don’t know each other well apart from in meetings. He often leads patrol groups and sometimes helps train the juveniles.

“Good thanks, Athena.” No one in my pack calls me Alpha, Luna, or any other title meaning power. We don’t lead like a regular wolf pack. Everyone is equal, I’m just the one who has to make sure everything is running smoothly.

“It’s nice to see you back, Jacob.” I turn to another one of the fighters, who’s walked over to me to say hi. The rest of them are fighting in pairs; Alastair and Jacob were sparring together before I came over here. “Is your leg healed fully now?” he’s been off for the past few days sporting a fractured leg he got from a fight with a pack wolf at the border.

“Yeah, it’s okay now. Can’t say the same for the wolf who thought picking a fight with me would be a good idea, though.” He chuckles.

“I guess he was too cocky for his own good. You don’t challenge one of the pack’s best warriors and get off lightly.” I reply. “Anyway, how’s Miranda?” Miranda is Jacob’s mate. She joined us as a rogue a couple of years ago, and she’s currently pregnant with a little girl. Jacob’s smile is blinding as he thinks of her, and it makes me think about Grey, and how he could be anywhere right now, and nobody knows it but me.

“She’s doing great, only a couple of weeks left to go now.” he chuckles excitedly.

“I have to take her fighting class with the kids in an hour or so.” I say, causing Alastair to laugh loudly at me. I glare playfully at him. “I hope they’re not too much of a handful.”  We all say our goodbyes before I move onto the next group of slightly older warriors.

When I’ve gone around all of the twenty odd groups on the field, I make the mistake of checking the time on my phone. I’m meant to be teaching a group of nine year olds defence techniques in five minutes… s**t…

“I’ll see you tomorrow in the meeting!” I call over my shoulder to one of the female patrollers, fast walking off the field to the training centre. It only takes me a few minutes running to get to the training centre and into the hall. I don’t know where Grey is, but I hope he’s not causing too much trouble.

Pushing open the double doors to the hall where seventeen nine and ten year olds are already gathered, I tell them to run a few laps of the room before we get started while I set out some mats on the floor. Once they’re done warming up, they all gather in a semi-circle in front of me, ready to learn some fighting moves.

“Hey guys, your teacher is off having her little baby right now, so I’m going to be taking your lesson today.” There’s a mixed response; some happy to have a supply teacher, but most annoyed that Miranda is not taking the class. She is a great teacher, but you can’t really teach a bunch of kids how to fight when you’re heavily pregnant. I wouldn’t have let a pregnant teacher teach them if she wasn’t a werewolf. “So, I need two volunteers up here to start with, please.” Hands go up all over the place, and I pick a blonde haired girl called Rebecca and a similar height brunette named Sammy.

They stand facing each other on the mat, wearing matching black shorts and t-shirts and look expectantly up at me.

“Okay, so I want Rebecca to defend, Sammy is going to try and hit her. Remember, not in the face or downstairs area please.” A few of the kids watching try to stifle their giggles when I say that. I guess they’re allowed to be immature since they’re only pre-teens. “Ready?” They nod. “Okay, go.”

Sammy goes in immediately with a solid punch to the shoulder. Rebecca winces, and rubs her shoulder, but recovers quickly thanks to wolf healing.

“Stop.” I say, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “First pointer, can anyone tell me something that the girls need to improve on?” No one says anything. “The eyes are the window to the soul, knowledge, personality.” Looks are blank. “You need to be able to sense the move of your opponent, and to do that, you need to make eye contact first. The eyes hold everything. So, girls, I want you to do it again, but this time, take a few seconds to look into each other’s eyes first. Rebecca, try and work out what Sammy will do, and dodge it, or defend yourself.”

They nod at me and make eye contact, concentrated looks on their faces. Rebecca looks slightly scared, but determination sparks in her eyes. She’ll be a good fighter when she’s trained and older.

“Go.” With that one word, Sammy lifts her leg up to land a kick on Rebecca’s thigh, but Rebecca steps to the right and grabs Sammy’s foot before it can make contact with her flesh. With new found confidence, she tugs Sammy towards her and twists her arm behind her back, dropping her leg to the ground and holding Sammy in headlock.

“Release.” I smile. “And that, guys, is how to do it. Well done girls, that was brilliant. Everyone, find a partner and a mat, practice finding the next move in their eyes and defending it. We’ll switch roles in five minutes, off you go.”

Kids scatter everywhere, fighting in pairs. I’m about to start walking around to give pointers when the door of the hall opens, creaking as it does so. I move my eyes over to the figure at the door, who walks straight over to me and embraces me in a bear hug.

Then there’s a growl from behind me, and all hell breaks loose.