Fighting Instincts

Chapter Twelve - Lessons

“Are you listening?” Zen snapped, slamming the book in his hands onto the table between us.

“I was, but then you were droning on. I do a lot better reading for myself and teaching myself too. Can't you just assign reading chapters or something?”

The room was dim, natural light found a difficult path in becasuse of the piles of books. This room needed some TLC and I was going to be the one in charge of it, if I could make sense of the lesson being taught. Hell had come to the library. I was trapped with an uninteresting tone reciting pages from a book I could read with my own two eyes. The only appeal in the situation was Zen was easy to look at. Plus he had graced me with a full suit, since he had somewhere important to be this afternoon and doubted there'd be time to change. I teased him anyway about getting dressed up for little, ole me, but he scoffed.

“This is impossible,” he grumbled, rising from his seat.

“You're impossible,” I muttered softly. Unlike myself, and the suppressed skills I worked on all my life, Zen was at the peak of his game. Naturally he heard the little snippet and glared.

“You should be grateful we are teaching you about yourself at all.”

“I never said I wasn't grateful, but not everyone learns the same. How can you expect me not to zone out when you can't even manage to add a little kick to your story telling.”

“This is not story telling!”

“It would be if you read it correctly,” I growled out, on my feet so he was no longer looking down on me like a small child in trouble. “You should tell it with a little more finesse since it is your history. Do you expect children to learn this way? Let me lecture you on this piece for thirty minutes then I will aim to send you to sleep and quiz you again," I said, mocking the very steady tone his voice had taken while reading.

He shoved the book across the table and stormed out of the room. For the last two hours I had tried to listen to him. Tried to keep up with what he was saying, but I couldn't. I picked up the abandoned book and opened the cover. There was no title page, no title, just a book full of words. An unassuming book, full of history most of the world thought was nothing more than a fairy tale. I flipped to the first page.

In a time beyond the mortal realm, a time of uncertainty, the first spirit created a companion. This would become the first mate and together they formed the first pack. With the birth of a child the world was introduced to weres.

I continued to read the history. A were was not a werewolf in the same sense of role humans wrote them as. They were a product of a god. Or rather a half god. After years the werewolves had become less immortal, though there are some with enough immortality to live longer lives. Driven by more instinctual needs the werewolves found it easier to stay within their packs and hide from humans than to show themselves. Especially because the occasional human had taken advantage of the benefits of werewolf blood when they learned of the existence of supposed fantasy monsters.

So legend twisted and soon vampires were named a monster of the dark.

I glanced back up the page. Vampires didn't exist. They had been formed from a misconception of the werewolves. The heightened senses made some wolves sensitive to strong scents like garlic. Wolves preferred the night and often were paler if they had switched to a nocturnal schedule. A stab in the heart would kill any wolf, be it stake or otherwise. Silver was a weakness, slowly it had grown to be little more than an irritation, but in the past it was an issue. Silver crosses were often the culprit of why Vampires didn't like crosses. Should those crosses be of a different material a werewolve was fine.

Well that's one less bump in the night to be frightened of. I flipped the page, enjoying some of the sketches. Done in black and white I could see the details and effort taken in shading. Some of the wolves looked to jump off the page. Another flip of the page and my eyes landed on the details of an all white wolf. There was something about this one. I stared into page dead eyes, trying to find out why this picture seemed familiar. I sighed and heard the door open as there was a rap on the door.

“I hear you are giving my Beta a hard time.”

“I'm afraid you're wrong, he is giving me a hard time. Its hard to concentrate when he doesn't engage like a proper professor.”

There was a chuckle and quick shake of the head. “I've been a little too lenient with you Sylva. You need to learn your place in the pack. It means you obey the Beta's orders as if they are my own when I am not around.”

“No disrespect but I didn't disobey, I merely gave a suggestion in his teaching method.”

There was a sigh and pause. Derek closed his eyes, clearly holding something back. “Must you push his buttons so?”

“Does he have to push mine?” I sneered, eyes dropping back to the book. “I don't do lectures well.”

“Very well, I can have Zen create a lesson plan for you to follow. You can learn on your own and bring any questions to him. At the end he can quiz you,” Derek ordered.

I didn't accept it but I knew there was no choice. One of the new agreement terms meant I couldn't go home unaware of my history and expectations of being a werewolf. I didn't argue only because I was hoping to find a means to keep the beast suppressed.

“In the mean time you have missed breakfast and now lunch. Let's go,” he ordered.

“I'm not hungry,” I said flipping to the next image in the book. It was the centerfold and as a reward for getting half way through the book there was an assortment of images to study.

“It was not a request,” he growled lowly. I bit my tongue and pulled my lips together to prevent something I might regret later. I had already felt the force of the alpha's orders when I had been unwilling to shift for the healer to take a look at my wolf. Well maybe not so much a disobeyed order as a lack of willingness to even try to shift without the pull of the full moon. In return the alpha refused to order me back. I had to use the same means I had before to shift on my own, returning to human hadn't been as quick as the last time but I had triumphed. I needed more control. Why was Derek demanding I eat, what was it to him if I didn't have a meal, or two? I looked up at him and softed to the request. It could be a lot worse. Besides, I had some questions.