Making her own path

Chapter 10 - Who is a sore loser?

“What kind of scam is this?!” Jian’s voice cut through as he got up and strode to the field towards Aysha, who was turning in her weapons.

“I assure you, Alpha Jian, that this is not a scam,” Matthew said, trying to calm the raging alpha down.

“You expect me to believe that she, who doesn’t even hold any rank, managed to score more than me, an alpha?” Jian said threateningly and stopped right in front of Aysha, looking her straight in the eyes.

She did not even bother answering him, she just stood her ground, her arms crossed, and gave him a small smirk. The gesture making him even angrier. 

“You forget,” Matthew said and placed himself between them. Aysha did not like how it looked like she could not fight her own battles but knew that Matthew was also doing it to make sure that her father did not have to rip his head off if something were to happen to her.

“Women can’t have an alpha rank,” Jian said dangerously slow.

“Maybe not. Then I guess that just means that you should put a few more hours into training, isn’t that right Alpha Jian?” Someone else said.

Jian looked behind him, ready to fight whoever was interrupting, but backed down when he noticed Zayne standing behind him. 

“I think an alpha should be gracious enough to admit defeat when he losses fair and square.” Zayne continued, and Aysha could hear the threatening tone in his voice, making her hair stand on end. She had heard about how scary Alpha Zayne was, but to witness it for herself was something else.

Now with Zayne in the middle of this, and everyone else staring, Alpha Jian backed down and walked away.

“Just wait.” He muttered and shot Aysha a glance. 

“Alright, then the only one who’s left is Alex,” Matthew said, ignoring the threat from Alpha Jian, but shooting him a glance.

Aysha and Zayne walked to their seats as Alex got on the field.

“You, ok?” Zayne whispered, making sure no one else heard them except for Jeremy who sat behind them.

“I’m fine,” Aysha shrugged. “It’s not the first time someone doesn’t handle losing to a girl.”

“But it’s not a good thing to anger an alpha.”

“I can handle him,” Aysha said and crossed her arms, and could see Zayne smirking. “You don’t believe me?” she added, expecting him to doubt her like everyone else with a high rank.

“Actually, I believe you could,” Zayne said to Aysha’s surprise.

“You do?” she asked, not used to people, especially men, taking her seriously. Since she met Zayne, he had never made her feel like she was inferior to him, nor spoken in that way. He really was something else.

“There’s just something about you that tells me that you don’t give up easily,” he said and leaned back in his seat, watching Alex who was waiting for the dome to turn on.

Aysha could feel herself blush a bit, and tried her hardest to think about something else to keep herself from turning completely red.

“You killed it out there,” Jeremy exclaimed and leaned forward in his seat.

“Thanks,” Aysha chuckled and looked back. Thankful for the distraction from Zayne.

“You’ve done this exercise a lot?” 

“You could say that. Although I’ve never passed on the hardest mode.” 

“Well, congratulations on that,” Jeremy said, and Aysha could tell that he was an open guy when he was not fighting. “What made you choose daggers?” he added, and she could see Zayne glancing at her, curious about what her answer was going to be.

“Well, I like the bow, but it does come with flaws. I have always felt comfortable holding those small knives and it feels like they are a part of my arm when I swing them. And I feel like they make up for what the bow lacks. Such as attacking multiple close enemies and quick attacks in different directions,” Aysha said and noticed that Alex had finished his test.

“Damn, remind me not to piss you off if you have knives on you,” Jeremy said and chuckled.

Score: 39. 

Aysha looked at Alex’s score. That score put him in fifth place.

“Alright, that was a good start everyone,” James said and walked to the center of the field. “The top five scores are Zayne with 47, me with 44, Aysha with 43, Jian with 41, and Alex with 39.” 

Aysha could feel Jian glare at her from the other side of the field as James told the scores. She did her best not to roll her eyes since she did not want to provoke him any further and make her father angrier.

“Now, while everyone was taking their turns, we randomly paired everyone in the next matches and made sure that you don’t compete against anyone twice,” James said and took out a piece of paper. “We’ve decided to end with sparring, so next up will be sprints and an obstacle course.”

Everyone stood up and walked up the steps. They turned to the left where there was a large obstacle course and a running track. The obstacle course used the entire width of the training grounds, two kilometers, and then went into the forest next to it, where it circled back, and you had to run through the field again from the other way. The running track was just a simple dirt path that also used the entire width of the grounds, and right next to it was a swimming pool that was half a kilometer in length. Since it was right next to the track the alphas had decided to use it as part of the sprint, so instead of running the entire track, you could turn slightly right and jump into the pool.

“Alright, as we mentioned before,” James spoke.” In human form, we will be running half a kilometer with half a kilometer swim. Then in wolf form, we will do a regular 2-kilometer sprint and an obstacle course.”

James read from his paper who would be competing against who and Aysha was up first, running against Jeremy. As they walked to the track, Jeremy took off his shirt and threw it to the side.

“Take it easy on me?” Jeremy said as they got ready at the start line.

“You can quit now if you want,” Aysha said and shrugged.

“No, I want to see what you can do,” he said and gave her a small wink.

Before she could answer back, the bell rang, and we ran off. Jeremy was fast she would give him that and he was starting to get a little ahead. When they reached the pool, Jeremy was at least five seconds in front of her and she knew she needed to catch up. She dove into the pool and started swimming as fast as she could.

She had always loved swimming and learned at an early age. She could see herself catching up to Jeremy and before long they were head-to-head. She could see the end of the pool coming up and she put some extra power in her final kicks before she grabbed the side of the pool, dragged herself up, and rang the bell at the end, two seconds before Jeremy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jeremy gasped out of breath. “Do you have fins or something?” He wheezed while he got his breathing under control.

“Not when I last checked,” Aysha laughed and heard the bell ring again as another pair started running. They walked back to the starting line and saw Zayne getting ready to sprint against Alex. Zayne had taken his top off and Aysha found herself staring at his chiseled chest and abs. But what caught her attention were four scars on his left side, they started just below his left shoulder blade and reached over his ribs. She could tell they were claw marks and looked at least a few years old. 

“Rogue,” Jeremy said.

“Huh?” Aysha said uncertainly.

“A few years back, there was a rogue attack,” Jeremy said with a serious voice. “He got that while trying to protect the young ones from one of the rogues.”

“But wolves usually don’t scar so badly.”

Aysha watched Jeremy sigh, and she could tell that he was wondering how much he should share with her.

“No, we don’t usually scar,” he said. “But the rogue had tinted his claws with silver.” he said with disgust in his voice. 

Aysha was shocked. She of course knew that silver could be deadly to her kind, and wounds inflicted with silver tended to scar, but to think that someone went to all the trouble and probably pain to tint their claws just to inflict suffering upon others made her sick to her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said. “I didn’t mean to make the conversation so sour.”

“No worries,” Aysha said. “Thank you for telling me.”

Jeremy gave her a little smile as they heard the bell go off and Zayne and Alex took off. It did not take long for Zayne to take the lead, and when he reached the pool, Alex was way behind. Zayne was no slower in the water and soon he was standing at the end ringing the bell while Alex still had two hundred meters left. Zayne waited for Alex to finish and then shook his hand. 

Aysha did not doubt that Alex was disappointed in losing but winning against an alpha was next to impossible.

On Aysha’s team, only she and Matthew, who competed against Jian’s beta, Wang, won. Now they were getting ready to sprint in wolf form. 

Even though nudity was not taboo among werewolves, there were tents to go into to shift. Since you had to take your clothes off if you did not want them ripping to shreds. The first four runs all resulted in victories for the alphas and their betas, and now Zayne and Isaac were getting ready to run.

Aysha could not help but be a little excited to see Zayne’s wolf and watched as he went into the tent. When he came back out, she could not help but stare.

His wolf was one of the largest ones she had ever seen, and he could probably reach her shoulders without standing on two legs. His fur was midnight black, making his hazel eyes stand out even more.

“Sweet mother of…” Mel moaned in her head, and Aysha could not help but agree. 

“By the way you are reacting to him, are you really going to argue that he’s not our mate,” Mel purred in her head.

“Maybe I’m attracted to him,” Aysha said while regaining her composure. “But if so, I’m the only one feeling it. He at least doesn’t look like he feels the same.” 

“You know what you can do to fix that,” Mel practically moaned in her head, and Aysha shook her head at that tone.

“Do you mind keeping it in your pants while we are competing?” Aysha tried reasoning with her.

“Fine, at least for now,” Mel sighed. “But I’m waiting to see what we will be competing against him in.”

“Crap,” Aysha thought. Forgetting the fact that she was going to have to compete against him in one of the remaining competitions, and that might result in them touching. She did not want to do it here, what if they were not mates? Or what if they were? Her thoughts were going in million directions as she heard a bell go off.

She forgot her dilemma for a moment as she watched Zayne and Isaac take off. Isaacs’s light brown wolf was at least a head smaller than Zayne’s. He never stood a chance against him as Zayne’s wolf ran at an impossible speed, leaving Isaac in the dust, and Aysha with her mouth agape. 

After winning they both came back, went into their tents, and shifted back.

Zayne came back out of the tent in his human form, of course not bothering with putting a shirt on, making Mel extremely happy, although Aysha could tell she liked his wolf better.

“Something wrong?” Zayne asked as he walked towards her, and Aysha noticed that her mouth was still open. 

“What… no… I’m good,” Aysha said and coughed in embarrassment, making Zayne chuckle and Aysha could feel her cheeks turn red. She wondered just how many times he had made her blush in the day she had known him.

“Well. I’m up next, so I have to go,” Aysha said promptly and walked quickly to the tent.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Aysha groaned and covered her face with her hands as soon as she entered the tent. Mate or no mate, no one should feel this way after only a day!

She sighed and started taking her clothes off and placing them on a bench that took up one side of the tent. She started to link with Mel and soon after, she could feel and hear her bones start to break as they grew and rearranged themselves. She fell on all fours and her skin started to grow fur and her face started to change, before long she stood there in her wolf form.

---

Zayne was talking to Jeremy as he waited for Aysha to finish shifting. He could feel Xan’s excitement over seeing her wolf form, and Zayne had to admit to himself that he was also waiting to see her.

“You seem to be warming up to the princess,” Jeremy said and raised an eyebrow with a smug look on his face. “I seem to call that you hated this arrangement.”

“I still do,” Zayne grunted. “But I’ll admit that there’s something about her that I just can’t put my finger on, and Xan also likes her.”

“Wait… The one and only grumpy Xander… Likes someone?” Jeremy asked surprised.

“Yeah, caught me off guard too.” 

Jeremy continued to say something, but Zayne’s attention was elsewhere. His focus was solely on the most beautiful she-wolf that emerged from the tent that Aysha had gone into.

“Woah…”