Wolf Spirit Awaken, The Summoner Series

Chapter 2

POV Tessa

The feel of the crisp breeze hitting my face and the snapping of small twigs as I jog through the dense pine forest to the training grounds is invigorating. Out here is total freedom; I can clear my head and separate from reality. I suck in a deep breath and relax more when the pine scent enters my lungs. I let out a slow sigh. I love nature. I approach the open field that we use for training. I look around for my best friends Ella and Jonah, who are also training like me to be pack warriors.

“Tessa, over here” yells Jonah.

My eyes snap in the direction of Jonah's voice and I see that Ella is also with him, starting to do stretches. I jog over to them, “Hey nuggets!”, I can’t help but call them by this silly nickname. Jonah won a food competition a few years ago, eating, you guessed it, chicken nuggets, and the endearment just stuck. Jonah gives me a death glare for a second and then just shrugs, “Did you have a good run?” he says.

“Yeah, it was a beautiful morning and I couldn’t sleep.”

“Again? You do look a little tired.” Ella pipes in. “Wow, thanks, friend!”, I say as I roll my eyes at her shenanigans. I began to stretch my arms above my head while crouching into a side lunge. “You know she just worries about you Tess”? I switched arms and looked at Jonah, “I know.”

Our pack’s Delta, Marcus whistles to get everyone's attention. “Listen up, the next two and a half hours you are going to run three miles, spar with a partner, and then run the forest obstacle challenge.” “In 3…2…1…Go”, everyone takes off like their asses have been lit on fire.

Delta Marcus chuckles as Jonah trips over his own shoe behind us. “Dang Nugget, you're so clumsy” I chirp. Jonah grumbles, “I was distracted, I am NOT clumsy,” he says.

I can’t help but roll with laughter. Ella and I both catch Jonah’s line of sight, he is giving googly eyes to a trainee named Jennifer. She is wearing short spandex shorts and a hot pink sports bra that is barely containing her girls. Ella and I both snorted but decided not to comment any further. “This won’t be the end of teasing Jonah about his little crush,” I thought to myself.

We emerged from the forest back into the clearing 20 minutes later with sweat dripping down our backs. While trying to catch my breath, I grab Ella to be my sparring partner, since we have similar body builds and fighting styles. We are both 5’8” and athletic. We have about the same level of fighting skills and technique, but I am stronger. This is surprising since Ella has Gamma blood and, well, I don’t know anything about my biological parents.

I don’t spend too much time pondering it since I began training two years before she did. I have always had a chip on my shoulder since my upbringing. It’s not like I didn’t grow up in a loving home with my adoptive parents, but I feel like I had to prove my worth, since my adoptive parents are omegas. Omegas are the lowest rank in the pack. Both my parents have admirable jobs, but rank means everything in our world.

As we walk over to an open area for us to spar, she asks, “So are you going to tell me why you look so tired this morning?” I heave a deep sigh. I debate with myself if I should tell her about my dream or just play it off. She raises her eyebrows and gives me a questioning look. Fine, she is my best friend after all.

“I had another nightmare about my past, it was so vivid. I woke up drenched in sweat and couldn’t go back to sleep.” I shook my head, to rid the memories of flowing back into my mind.

“Oh, I am sorry Tess, I can’t even imagine having those types of nightmares. Are you stressed about your birthday coming up in a week? Is that why you think you might be having them?” Ella looked at me thoughtfully, she seemed genuinely concerned.

She knows about my childhood and the occasional nightmares I get. I don’t have many memories prior to the orphanage, but the few that I do are not pleasant. “I don’t know, maybe. You know I am not big on birthdays, but aside from my parents hosting a small get-together, we aren’t doing much.” I paused for a minute and stepped closer to her. I drop my voice lower so that the others around don’t hear me.

“But I can’t help but feel antsy about something. I can’t put my finger on it.” We both get in a fighting stance and start circling each other. I lunge at her first and jab her in the right shoulder with my punch. “There you go, just work out all your frustrations on my poor body.” Ella jokes. “Yeah, kicking the crap out of you is a good stress reliever.” I giggle. We continue to circle each other waiting to see who is going to make the next move.

We hear a grunt and see Jonah's fist pumping the air next to a pack member named Seth who is bent over clutching his stomach. Jonah is facing us with his back to Seth. He gives us a wink, Seth takes the opportunity to kick Jonah's feet out from under him. Jonah lands on the grass with a thud, “don’t be so cocky, kid," Seth barks. Seth is a year older than us, so he has more training under his belt. Jonah rolls to his side and stands up, hanging his head in embarrassment. Ella laughs and I just roll my eyes. I don’t know when Jonah is going to learn. You never turn away from your opponent, even during training.

Delta Marcus blows the whistle and yells “Pups, obstacle course now!”, we sprint toward the obstacle course. This isn’t an activity to slack off on, it requires all your senses and full attention, especially since most of us in this training have not shifted into our wolves yet, so we don’t have any inhuman abilities. As we entered the obstacle course area, I started to feel the ground shaking. I looked behind me but didn’t see anything in the distance. Seconds later, I hear the sound of paws pounding into the thick forest floor.

“s**t!” I mutter. I turned around quickly and started to run. I yelled to Ella and Jonah, who were ahead of me, “Run! s**t, s**t, s**t……”

I have caught up with Jonah and Ella and we are running as fast as we can as we make it further into the obstacle course. We immediately ran around the climbing wall. As.. if.. we.. are going to climb that with the pack patrol on our asses. Delta Marcus must be in some type of mood today to recruit our pack warriors and use them in our training session. Ella and I have now passed Jonah and a few other trainees.

“Jonah, if you don’t pick up your pace, we won’t hesitate to leave your sorry ass behind”! I yelled back at him.

The wolves are gaining on us quickly. We are leaping over the silver-spiked logs that are scattered along the forest floor. We started to split up so it was easier to move forward in the course’s rugged terrain. I am almost one of the many hanging ropes that are tied high in the trees which allow us to swing and climb trees quickly. I heard a low growl behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large gray and white wolf.

I think the wolf is warrior Dexter. He began to lunge forward with his sharp teeth aiming for my feet. My eyes go wide as saucers. I don’t think he will bite me, since we don’t have healing abilities yet; but damn, his mean mug looks deadly. I jumped toward the rope and gripped it tightly in my hands. My momentum forward swings me close to a pine tree on my right side. Just as I am pushing off the tree, Dexter tries to bite my foot but ends up hitting the tree instead.

His wolf lands back on the ground but seems slightly stunned by the impact. I hear his wolf whining as I am already swinging toward the next adjacent tree. I begin to slide down the rope but wedge the rope in between my feet so I am stationary. I scramble higher up the rope to put as much distance between me and the wolves. I am now swinging at 10 to 12 feet in the air. I threw my body forward to get more momentum to move myself toward the tree in front of me.

I made contact with the pine and used all my leg strength to push off toward the next hanging rope a few feet ahead on the right side. I need to keep switching ropes in order to make progress and get the hell out of here without being attacked by the wolves. Maneuvering through the treetops seems like the best idea so far. I am so focused on the next rope, that I don’t see Jonah swinging in from the left side toward the same rope.

Next thing I know, we clash together with a loud smack. My hold on the rope loosens from my disorientation. I started to slip down the rope further but let go all together as my hands screamed from pain from the intense rope burn from sliding. I crash into the forest floor with a thud and hear Jonah groaning shortly afterward. I am on my back staring up into the treetops, but everything is a little blurry. I think I might have a concussion. I barely make out what Jonah is trying to say, my brain feels like it just came out of the spin cycle from the washer.

“Tessa, Tessa,....hey, are you okay?” Jonah says.

I turn my head in the direction of Jonah and wince, my neck really hurts, there is a sharp pain. I took my hand to the back of my neck, “ouch.” I held my hand in front of my face and saw blood. “Great”, I thought to myself. I was successfully escaping Dexter, a strong pack warrior, to be taken out by my “i***t” friend of all people.

“What?” Jonah says. Ohhh, I guess I said that out loud. “You're an idiot.” I mumbled. “Shouldn’t you also be looking in the direction you're swinging? What, you want me to beat on my chest and holler like Tarzan as I swing so you know I am coming.” I chuckled. You can always count on Jonah to make you laugh, even when you're in a lot of pain.

“Ohhhh..Tessa you're bleeding!” Jonah is now bent down next to me. “Yes, captain obvious.” I groaned.

“s**t, we need to get you to the pack clinic and have your dad take a look at you.”

“Great,” I think. My dad is going to freak out. I took a second to look over Jonas, since he is closer now and he isn’t as blurry as before. Nothing. How the heck did he get out of this unscathed?