Love Rising

Training

Marie POV:

Alex and I raced to the field so we could be the first ones there. Since he is Gamma, he is in charge of the warriors and training.

Alex keeps telling me that if I play my cards right then they could make me a lead warrior, which doesn't sound too bad but I don't think that I'm ready to be a leader of anyone. I'm only 17 and won't be 18 for a couple of weeks, so in everyone's eyes , I'm still a child. The pack thinks that when we turn 18 we are a full blown adult, I really think they say that because at 18 we can find our mates. Alex is fixing to be 20 and still hasn't found his yet, at least I don't think so anyways. Unless his mate is younger than him and can't feel the bond yet. If that's the case then it has to be kept a secret, it's pack rules. I do wonder if his mate will be a male or female though, Alex is bisexual. "Hey Marie! Earth to Marie!" Micah waving his hands in front of my face to get my attention, apparently he has been trying to talk to me for a while now. "Hey Micah, sorry I was zoning out! Did I miss anything?" "Um no not yet, but I was trying to tell you about my morning and you weren't paying attention to me at all.. geez woman, I thought I was suppose to be your best friend?" He pokes his bottom lip out at me and I smile really big at him. I nudge him with my elbow and tell him "You know you are my best friend, I just have been getting easily distracted this morning. I must have a lot on my mind or something." He looks around the field as everyone starts showing up and leans into me whispering, "I know your probably nervous about training with other people, so try to stay by me and hopefully we can be partners.. Just don't kick my ass too badly, I'd like to not have to explain to my dad that I got my ass whooped by his best friend's daughter." I can't help but roll my eyes at him and giggle a little bit. Although I do know why he said that last part. His dad is really hard on him, he wants Micah to be the lead warrior so he can have some type of power since his brother is now Beta. His brother, Dylan, He seems nice enough although I don't really associate with him. Every time I go over to Micah's house his brother has an excuse to leave, or when I see him around the pack and just try to be nice by saying hi, he turns the other way. It seems that Micah and Dylan are complete opposites..

Once everyone finally showed up for training, my brother stepped up to the podium to get everyone's attention. "Good morning newbies! I'm thrilled that so many of you have volunteered to train to become New Moon warriors. I must warn you that this training will hard on your body, we want you to get to your breaking point. During the training we will be going back and forth between our human form and wolf form. Not only does our human side need to learn to defend ourselves but so does your wolf. At the end of the month, we will select 6 people who have exceeded expectations and have them compete against each other for the lead warrior spot. Please keep in mind that not everyone here will become a warrior, so show us what you got! Everyone will need to pair off and start training techniques, then we will spar. Alpha Michael and Beta Dylan will be here shortly to observe the training."

Micah and I paired off, we took turns with who was being on offense and defense. We didn't use power swings or kicks since it was just practice. We wanted to conserve our energy for the actual sparing.

After about an hour or so, I noticed that Micah's face looked like a tomato and he was sweating profusely. "Micah, are you okay? Your face is really red and you're sweating.. Do you need to take a break for some water?" Micah looks up at me, immediately runs to the water tank and starts chugging water. After what felt like forever, he comes back to where we were practicing and rubs the back of his neck and says, "I don't know how you do it Marie, Its really hot out here. I'm kind of embarrassed now.. I thought everyone would be running to the water tank and that maybe I wasn't the only one out of shape." His cheeks get red and so does the tips of his ears. Of course, I'm just gawking at him. I don't see not a single spot on his body that is out of shape! He looked like he was sculpted by the gods! Perfect 6 pack with deep v-lines, a nicely trimmed happy trail that leads to my wildest fantasies. He had slight stubble on his face and his hair is a beautiful dirty blonde color that matched so well with his ocean blue eyes. I just want to lick him from head to toe, he is completely drool worthy! I'm busy licking my lips when a towel comes flying at my face. I end up catching it at the last minute and look up to see my brother, alpha and beta, standing there staring at me and Micah. My brother smirks at me and says, "Wipe up that drool Marie, you didn't come here to stare at men's meat!" OMG! He did not just call me out like that! I can feel my face and body becoming red from embarrassment.. I can feel everyone's eyes on me and girls snickering at me for getting caught. I slowly look up at Micah to read his reaction and he is smiling at me. He then grabs me by my arm and pulls me into a big hug. He starts whispering to me that it's okay and that he didn't mind that I stared at him because it made him feel good about himself and gave him a confidence boost. When he started rubbing his hands down my back, loud growls come from my brothers direction. We both looked towards their group to see all 3 of them having a stand off... WTF?

Everyone seems to gather around the 3 leaders to figure out what is going on, me and Micah manage to make our way to the front of the crowd. We stand there stunned as all 3 have their claws out and ready to pounce on each other. Micah takes a step towards his brother with his arms in the air to show that he isn't a threat to any of them. "Dylan, What is the matter? Why are all of you acting this way?" Micah starts making his way closer when his brother snarls saying, "No one goes near her and that was the agreement!" Beta Dylan is looking back and forth between my brother and Alpha Michael. Alex starts pacing back and forth, you can tell that something was said about a girl apparently.. Could they be fighting over a girl? What girl has all 3 of them pissed off at each other? I walk towards Alex and slowly put my arm around him... "I don't know what is going on with you 3, but you all need to calm down and talk it out civilly. Ya'll are best friends and have been for a long time, you can't let a girl come between you." Alex slightly looks down at me, I can see the wheels turning in his mind before he starts to mind link the other two. Everyone's claws slip back in and Alex tells all of us to get ready to start sparing. Once we all go back to pairing up, I notice that they are all back together again and whispering to each other. I wish I knew what they were talking about and apparently Micah does too because he also stopped sparring to watch them. Micah and I looked at each other at the same time like we both had a plan.

-

I don't like eavesdropping on anyone, but I'm so curious right now that I feel like I need to know. Micah's plan was silly, but if he got away with it then I would give him props. There is a long row of trees that was left to outline the training field. The biggest tree is near the podium where the guys are at. Micah said he is going to climb the tree closest to us and then swing from limb to limb like a monkey until he gets to the biggest one, then he will silently climb up and listen in on the conversation and mind link me what he hears. I'm fine with it because I just have to stand here and be look out. Watching Micah swing from limb to limb was hilarious to watch and even worse, I couldn't laugh out loud without drawing attention to myself. My hand was over my mouth holding back my fit of giggles the whole time. I mind link Micah, "You don't even understand how hard it was to not laugh at you.. you really did look like a monkey swinging around! By the way, you lied.. you are not out of shape!" I can see Micah's shoulders start shaking from where I'm at, he must be silently laughing at himself for the show he put on. "I'm going to be starving after this, that was the training in itself. Tell your mom that I need a big meal when we go back to your house after this.. I feel like I'm dying!" I just shake my head at him.

-

20 minutes pass by and Micah hasn't reported anything besides that he likes Alex's shoes. Seriously!? "Micah, you need to tell me something, you're leaving me hanging over here and I don't like it." If what he tells me is not exciting or even entertaining, then I wasted away my training day..

Micah POV:

After swinging from tree to tree, I'm pretty tired. I keep trying to control my breathing so my brother and his friends don't catch me up here spying on them. I lean forward a little bit to hear their conversation better. Marie's brother Alex is speaking in hushed tones but luckily, from where I'm at, I can still hear him. "You guys need to keep your mouths shut! We are supposed to follow the rules of the pack.. you both almost blew it! I'm starting to think that maybe we should've kept that information to ourselves instead of telling each other." God! I wish I knew what he was talking about! The only pack rule that I can think of is that we can't tell anyone our wolves names until we are 18,because our wolves can't fully speak except for a few words.. When we turn 18 is when we are fully mature and our wolves will be too, so then they will be able to talk like we do. Obviously, they aren't talking about that rule though, because all 3 of them are fixing to be 20.

Alpha Michael starts sighing and goes on to say ,"Look, I was just joking when I was talking about her.. I wouldn't actually try anything. I know that she has a mate and it was just rude of me to even say anything like that. I'm just a little jealous.. but it will never happen again. I promise. " Again, who in the hell are they talking about? Is it someone here in warrior training? I wish one of them would be more specific and open their mouth! I can't go back to Marie with this useless info, it would make her even more curious than she already is right now. Speaking of which I forgot to mind link her back, "Marie, They are giving up anything useful just yet. Alpha Michael apologized for talking about a girl and that he was jealous.. and your brother was talking about some pack rule.. I'm not getting anywhere with this information. I'm going to stay up here a minute longer but then I'm giving up if I don't get anything juicy." Not even a second later Marie answers and tells me to just give up because she is sure the guys won't spill any names just in case someone can hear. Maybe she is right, but what if I miss my chance? Alex clears his throat and I immediately turn back to the conversation like I'm watching my moms soap opera as the wolves turn or is it the young and the furless? I can't remember the names but I'm addicted to the drama now. Alex looks at Michael and says, "There is nothing to be jealous about.. You will find yours soon Mike, you just got to have patience." Alpha Michael obviously doesn't feel the same way because before he even realizes it he blurts out "Yes, It's super easy for you to say that Alex. You've slept around with not only males but females as well, and it feels like me and Dylan are getting punished for not finding our mates even though we decided to wait instead of sleeping around. I wonder how Dylan's brother is going feel once he realizes that his mate didn't save himself for him!" I can literally feel the world around me spinning, I think I'm going to be sick. I think I heard him wrong.. I'm suppose to be mated to my best friend's brother? I knew that he wasn't a virgin, and that's not what bothers me.. I just thought that me being attracted to the same s*x was just a phase and that once I was mated to a female then the desires would go away. Now I know that he's my mate and I'm so confused about everything. My brother knew and didn't even tell me! Maybe he thought I would freak out, kind of like how I am right now. If I didn't feel so sick, I would be pacing back and forth on this tree limb. I need to get down from here, I need to talk to Marie and tell her what's going on! She's my best friend and I can tell her anything, I know that this information would be safe with her.

I turn around real quick so I can walk from this limb to the other without having to swing in the trees again. I take a step forwards then hear a loud snap, before I can register anything the limb snapped off and I fell to the ground in front of Alpha Michael, My brother and apparently my mate...