Mya: Night Chaser

Step One

"Whoo-hoo! Fifty recruits come in and only twenty left!" Tenebris shouted at us after a year of training as if it were a big joke. He pushed his hands to his chest and faux-whined, "Sometimes I lie awake at night I wonder if it was something I did!"

He marched up the rows and inspected us while yelling, "I'm just f*****g with you! I sleep like a baby because," he turned to another recruit. "I don't give one s**t if you stay or go home!"

"Why are you here?" he looked each of us in the eye. "You need to ask yourself that every day! Why are you here," he stared down one of the recruits who came in with an attitude only to be taken down a peg every time he opened his mouth. "Are you here because you think you're the best?"

The recruit didn't bother to answer. His face went bright red. He had in fact thought he was the best. He bragged about it all the time. Unfortunately for him, he was no longer the first one to finish all the time. He'd peaked at fifteen. It was only a matter of days before he'd leave.

"Is it because you have something to prove?" he stared down an Alpha's son. The recruit also blushed bright red.

"Or is it because you want to protect and serve our species?" he asked Marcus who stood at attention.

"One and two are bullshit!" he called out. "So if you're here because you're some pompous pimple on the armpit of wolfdom who thinks they can waltz into year two with your head up your ass be aware! I will extract your head in the most painful way possible! Tea time is over boys and girls!'

He leaned down and yelled at me, "Let the party begin!"

We'd learned how to spot the ones who were the next to go. Usually, it was when Tenebris decided to focus on that team. Every day, he'd dig at them a little deeper. Then a little deeper. Then a bit more until the recruits got so sick of it they refused to do one more pushup and marched off the physical training field.

In the beginning, Tenebris seemed like he was solely focused on Team Eight. He had followed us on the field and continuously yelled at us every chance he got. We messed up more than we got right and it seemed like it would never end.

But Trent and Marcus knew I'd die if I left. They knew it would be a matter of time before Edmond the Fearsome caught up with me. One particularly bad day, they offered to let me go with them to their Pack and live. It wasn't until I asked them point-blank if they thought their Alpha would ever allow me to live with them knowing the Woodlands Pack had a bounty on my head.

"I can't do that to either of you, your mates, or your family. If you want to leave you can. I won't get mad. I'll join another team and keep training," I looked them both in the eye. "No hard feelings. Yeah?"

Marcus's jaw went tight and Trent scowled. They sucked it up and took whatever s**t Tenebris threw at them without complaint. 

Then one day, Tenebris ignored us and focused on Team Ten. Then it was Team Five. Then Seven. Four. Two. And so on until every team had a good dose of Tenebris's attention. 

"Is it f****d up I kind of miss him yelling at us?" Trent asked one night out of the blue.

"Yeah. That's f****d up," Marcus assured him.

"He told me to keep going," I announced to the group. "When I first got here. He said that I could make it if I trusted him."

Trent's head shot up from his bed, "No s**t?"

"No s**t. And he put me on your team. So that means he probably thinks you both can make it, too," I pulled my blanket over my body. 

"Damn," Marcus said softly. "Maybe we can. We lasted a year."

"And we're first on nearly all exercises," Trent mused.

"Just trust him," I yawned. "That's what I do. Tenebris is a Night Hunter. A commander at that. He knows what he's doing. I mean, yeah. We're sore. We're tired and we have to work through the pain. But he hasn't made us do anything dangerous. Did you notice he does whatever he asks us to do? Exercises. Obstacle courses. Everything. He never asks us to do anything he doesn't do himself."

"You have a point," Marcus murmured. He paused, "It'd be awesome if we became Night Hunters. I mean, it's kind of been a dream of mine."

"Since when?" Trent snorted.

"Please," Marcus snapped. "Don't act like we didn't play Night Hunters damn near every night as kids."

"Yeah," Trent was sheepish. "And mates dig Night Hunters. We're all hot and s**t all dressed in black with secret tattoos."

"Tattoos only other Night Hunters and our mates can see," Marcus added. 

"Badass," Trent muttered before whispering. "I think we can do this. I actually think we can." 

The next day we trained with renewed energy. It wasn't about my death anymore. It was because we honestly began believing in ourselves. If Tenebris commanded we run fifty laps, we did a hundred. If he commanded the obstacle course be done in ten minutes, we hustled to finish it in five. We listened to every syllable he uttered like it was from the gods themselves.

"Recruit!" he shouted at me when I was scaling down a fifty-foot wall with just a rope. "Do you trust me?"

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" I shouted back.

"Then slide down, recruit! What are you waiting for?" he shouted.

I sucked in a breath and loosened my grip. Instead of inching my way down, I slid at lightning speed while keeping my eyes on the man above me. 

I was certain I was going to break my neck when I heard him yell, "Stop!"

I tightened my grip on the rope and slid to a stop even though my hands were burning.

"Look down," he said right into my ear.

I looked down and saw the ground about two inches below my feet. I half-laughed, half-gasped, and looked up at him.

"See what happens when you trust me?" he asked me quietly.

I nodded and let go of the rope.

"Recruit! Do you trust me?" he asked Trent and then Marcus. Both men slid down until Tenebris told them to stop.

"You just shaved two minutes on your obstacle timing," he informed our group at the end. "Enough time to get past year two. Just because you trusted me. The first rule of the Night Hunters is you have your teammates back. The second rule is you trust your teammate. You do those things, you'll succeed. You forget either of those lessons, you die."

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" the three of us shouted and continued on our course.

One afternoon I was sitting on my bed during phone time. Normally, I would try and take a nap. Instead, I smelled something all too familiar. I looked under my mattress for an undiscovered envelope. I looked under my bed thinking maybe the trash got spilled and it was lingering there. I looked on the surfaces, behind lockers, and through my own belongings. 

"What are you doing?" Marcus asked as he got back from his phone conversation with Breann.

"I smell Patrick," I announced as I kept looking around. "Like I missed a letter or something."

"What's going on?" Trent asked as he walked up to the bunks.

"I smell my mate," I looked up at him. "I know it's crazy. But I smell him. I must've skipped a letter or something. Ugh," I grunted as I looked around myself. "It's strong, too."

"Yeah. About that," I looked at Trent who had narrowed eyes at Marcus.

"About what?" I turned to them fully.

Marcus straightened to his full height. To anyone else, he'd be massively intimidating. 

"Do you trust us?" he asked in his baritone voice.

My jaw dropped as I looked from him to Trent and back to him.

He took a step forward and said in a firm tone, "Need to know this right now, Mya. Do you trust us? Because if you don't, we need to pack it up right now and head into the commander's office because we'll never make it."

"I trust you. You know I do," I whispered. "How can you even ask me that? It's not that I trust you with my life," I pointed to Trent. "I trust you with his life and," I turned to Trent, "I trust you with his life," as I pointed to Marcus. "If that's not complete trust, I don't know what is."

Marcus nodded and he took a step back, "Then you'll know deep in your bones we only did this because we love you and want you to be happy."

"Did what?" I asked slowly.

"This," Trent motioned to Marcus as he opened his trunk.

Inside the smell of Patrick overwhelmed me. I stared with my mouth hanging open as I saw stacks of letters in plastic bags.

"I must've forgotten to close the bag last night," Marcus announced as he handed me four bags filled with letters. "Although I have no clue how you smelled it over my clothes and through the plastic."

"You kept these?" I looked up at him and blurted. "Why? You know what he did to me. I told you everything," I hissed the last word. "Everything, Marcus. Why in the world would you keep his letters?"

"Because I have a mate," he said simply. "Love her with everything in me. The only way I'd do what he did was because she was in danger. Danger that I didn't see a way out of."

"You know the royals are f****d up, Mya," Trent put in carefully. "And the Woodlands Alpha is as sadistic as they come. Our guess," he wagged a finger between himself and Marcus. "Is that your Alpha had something on you that he held over your mate. And your mate didn't see a way out of it unless he rejected you."

"But," I looked down at the letters. "Why?"

"Because Edmond the Fucksome can? Who knows why the royals do what they do?" Marcus pointed to the letters. "And you'll never know what happened unless you read those."

"There's something else," Marcus glanced at Trent before looking back at me.

"What else?" I tried my best not to inhale Patrick's scent.

"We have his number," Trent announced quickly.

"How?" I sputtered as Marcus fished in his personal bag and handed me a piece of notebook paper with a number scribbled on it. I gasped when I saw the familiar area code.

"I gave Breann's number to him. He called her. She gave it to me," Marcus explained. "He's been calling her every day to learn how you're doing. We've been giving him updates on you."

"Every day, Mya," Trent said quietly. "Every day right after we get our calls, he calls her and asks how you are. Without fail. Never misses a day. Never bitches you're not writing to him. Never complaining. Not telling us to demand that you call him or he'll reject you. Not saying we should give up, therefore making you give up. All he tells us is to take care of you."

I looked down at the letters and said softly, "I don't know what to do with this."

"Whatever you want," Marcus put his arm around my shoulders. "Keep them until you are okay enough to read them. But Mya," I looked up at him. "That man is crazy right now worrying about you. I know you're hurt. I know he's an asshole for doing what he did. But we," he pointed to Trent. "Both think you should hear him out," he held up a hand. "Five minutes, Mya. Five minutes on the phone. That's all you have to do and we'll drop all this. I'll throw away the letters and tell him to f**k off myself. Even encourage you to reject him. All I'm asking is that you give him five minutes."

I glanced over my shoulders at the phones. There was a line at each one that was two people deep.

"Here," Trent moved his hand under his bed and pulled out a phone code. "I saved this."

He handed it to me. 

"Five minutes, Mya," Trent reiterated. "What do you have to lose?"

"Go on," Marcus pushed me toward the phones.

"Five minutes," I muttered as I flipped the phone code in my hand. 

"I can't believe I'm doing this," I sighed as I held up the phone code to each of them. "Five minutes," I warned the both of them. "And then we'll talk about you meddling."

"Fair enough," Marcus looked supremely satisfied and Trent smiled outright.

"Gods, you are a pain in my ass," I rolled my eyes to cover up the fact my heart was hammering in my chest. On shaking legs, for the first time in a year, I got in line for the phones. I almost turned around and announced I wasn't ready when the recruit in front of me handed me the phone.

"Your turn," he muttered through tears running down his face.

I swallowed and put the phone to my ear. 

"Five minutes," I kept muttering as I dialed the number. I looked to the ceiling and prayed that Patrick wouldn't answer.

And then I prayed he would answer.

When it started ringing, I thought about the voicemail I'd leave.

Finally, after three rings, I heard a voice I hadn't heard in a long time respond, "Lo?"

My heart jumped to my throat.

"Hello?" he said again firmer this time.

I opened my mouth to talk.

"Look, if you're trying to sell me something or tell me my computer's been hacked, you can," he said.

"Patrick?" I asked quietly.

There was a pause.

"Mya?" his voice immediately went soft.

A robotic women's voice came over the line and said, "Four minutes left."

"Yeah," I cleared my throat. "Yeah. It's me. Marcus gave me your number."

"You called me," I could hear the wonder in his words.

"Yeah. Well," I glanced at Trent and Marcus watching me with stupid smiles on their faces. "Bribery was involved."

I narrowed my eyes at them.

"How are you?" Patrick asked quickly. "Are you okay? Do you need anything? Have you read my letters?"

"Good. Yes. No. And not yet," I answered quickly. "We only have five minutes. Sorry. I can't talk long."

"Three minutes left."

"Yeah. I know. Your teammates only give one-minute reports to their mates about you," Patrick's words were rushed.

"Yeah. Well. Things are different here," I turned back to the phone on the wall and twirled my finger in the cord. "I wanted to call and let you know that Marcus kept your letters. He kept them and, well," I blurted. "He's convinced me to read them and I wanted you to know that. They also said to call you because you're worried and even with everything that happened I wanted you to know I'm okay."

"Two minutes left."

Patrick spoke fast, "Mya, read the letters. Read the letters," he stressed again. "I've tried to explain everything to you. Everything. There was a reason why I did what I did. But you have to read them. Please, Mya. You have to believe me. It was f****d up and I'm sorry. But I did what I did for you and the Pack. Read them, okay?"

"I will," I said. 

"One minute left."

"s**t! I should've taken you and run. I get that now. We could've made a life and it sucks but I did what I did because I didn't see otherwise. But, Mya, listen to me, Edmond is keeping his word. You have to pass," he said quickly. "Or he'll come after you. Us. Because I'll come to get you. Do whatever you have to do. Whatever you want. I'll support you no matter," his voice was cut off mid-sentence.

"Phone call terminated. Please give the receiver to the next recruit."

Slowly, I handed the phone to the person behind me. I walked to the bunks in a daze.

"Well?" Trent asked as I came toward them.

I shook my head as if to clear it, "He told me to read the letters. That he explained everything," I looked up at Marcus. "You were right. He said he did what he did for me and the Pack. I have no idea what that means."

I paused and admitted, "Edmond still wants me dead."

"Why?" Trent asked.

I shrugged, "I don't think even Patrick knows."

"He wants you dead?" Marcus laughed. "Then there's only one thing to do."

"What?" I asked him.

I saw a glint in his eye when he said, "Step one. Become a Night Hunters. No," he shook his head. "Not just Night Hunters. The best Night Hunters in existence. History. That had ever, is now, or ever will be," he looked to Trent who nodded his agreement. "Step two, give Edmond the chance to come after you."

"Come after me as in try to kill me?" I sputtered.

"Yeah. Because that leads us to step three," Marcus gave me a smile that chilled me to the bone. I looked to Trent to see him also giving me a smile that made my veins turn to ice.

"What's step three?" I asked quietly.

"Step three is we kill that motherfucker," Marcus announced.

Trent jumped up and down and clapped his hands like a child opening presents, "I love it when you talk homicide!"

"You want to kill an Alpha? The Alpha of the Woodlands Pack?" I asked quietly. "The biggest and fiercest Pack in the world?"

"Absolutely," Marcus's words were final. "If he goes after you it's a direct violation of the Wolf Council's Laws. And if he goes after you," his face went hard. "We get to kill him."

Trent held up a hand and said like a kid, "I call first dibs!"

I considered this as I glanced at my teammates. From the entrance of the bunkhouse, Tenebris yelled at us to get in line.

"Well," I gave them both a smile I'm sure mirrored their own. "Time to get to step one."