Chapter 8 Wyatt
WYATT
Somebody was going to die today.
Would it be Ari, the smarmy fucking tiger from the Crimson Quad, who prowled around my mate in the breakfast line, studying her like she was a sexy puzzle he couldn’t quite solve?
Would it be Cash, who tried to force my wildcat to once again eat on the Guardian side of the chow hall and then barked insults at her when she’d simply walked away with her brother and his friends because she’d already finished her breakfast?
Maybe it would be Kellan Crimson, who spent all of breakfast alternating between smirking like an asshole at us and watching Avery with the eager interest and a thinly disguised hard-on I knew all too well.
It might even be Trent, the floofy fucking snow leopard and Cash’s second, who would lead our morning run through the woods. He’d just directed us to strap on our weapons for the run, and he hadn’t managed to do it without also making a comment about my mate’s ass.
No. It was probably going to be Hank, the Crimson Quad’s resident bear, who had just placed his giant hand on Avery’s shoulder and wedged himself between her and Trent.
My beast pushed to the surface, and my vision tunneled.
“Later,” Heath barked. He tightened the leather strap of the harness that held his saber. “We have to get through this run. And she didn’t let him touch her for more than a second.”
I cracked my neck and willed my bear to relax. “He knows what he’s doing,” I grumbled. “He thinks because his bear has a hundred pounds on mine, he’s superior. He’s provoking me.”
“And he’ll reap the consequences,” Aiden replied. He was stretching, his sword on his back. “But Heath’s right. Starting the first day of camp with a brawl isn’t going to convince Avery to talk to us.”
He was full of shit. We could all feel his jaguar and how close he was to getting into it with that fucking tiger. Ari couldn’t know what Avery was, but his animal was clearly sensing something that interested him, and that was on top of the fact that Avery the human was a total fucking smokeshow.
Elijah appeared from the depths of the forest and made his leisurely way over to us.
Instead of our black Guardian-issued T-shirt, he wore a faded blue tank top with armholes that dipped below his ribs.
At least he managed to put on the little black track shorts we’d been issued and some running shoes.
He was also munching on the remains of a bagel.
“Nice of you to join us, Harrow,” Trent snapped. “Timeliness isn’t optional in the Guardians, even for super-special mythic shifters.”
Elijah just grinned at him, his fangy canines on display. “My apologies. I had to sweet talk the cafeteria ladies into hunting down some dairy-free cream cheese for me.”
Trent tried to hit Elijah with a disdainful look, but he blanched and turned away when Elijah’s pupils narrowed, his beast telling Trent to go fuck himself.
“Get moving, all of you!” Trent bellowed.
There were at least fifty of us standing around the trailhead, a mix of the black shirts of our class and the gold of the class above us.
The Support Squadron must’ve been running a different trail this morning.
“I want seven-minute miles at a minimum, or your quad will be running extra this week!”
Heath didn’t have to tell us what the plan was. We slipped into the crowd as a unit and forced our way toward Avery. She fell in near a quad we knew to be happily bonded, which meant they were safe from death by bear.
For now.
We began our run a few lengths behind them.
If I had my way, my wildcat would always be in my line of sight.
Not just on this morning’s run, but all damn day.
According to the schedule we’d been sent, we had weapons drills after the run, then it would be lunch, a classroom session, and more combat training.
We’d get a few hours of recreation time before dinner, and then we’d decide which one of us would loiter pathetically outside her cabin tonight while she slept.
Speaking of that.
“I can’t believe you went inside her cabin last night, man,” I said to Elijah, who loped along next to me.
“There was no stopping it,” he replied easily. “At least she didn’t try to kill me.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I guess.”
And I wanted my turn. I didn’t care if Avery did try to kill me.
In fact, I welcomed it.
The thought had my bear licking his chops in excitement and my dick stirring in my pants.
The four-mile run was long and arduous. My ax weighed nothing on my back, but the terrain was uneven and littered with rocks and roots.
The tree cover shielded us from the rising sun, but the slight chill in the mountain air was no match for a bunch of overheated shifter bodies.
My shirt clung to my chest, and my hair was plastered to my forehead.
We passed slower quads, including the Crimson assholes, who couldn’t leave Hank behind. He was a typical bear, built like an offensive lineman, and he lumbered along like one too.
I made sure he saw me flip him off as we jogged by.
My wildcat was fast and nimble, and she had no trouble keeping up with the front of the pack. Her blonde head bobbed up ahead of us, her ponytail swinging, hypnotizing me into doing anything she fucking wanted.
“Does that girl own any shorts that don’t cling to every inch of her ass?” Aiden griped behind me.
“Quit your bitching,” I shot back. “That ass is the reason I get out of bed in the morning.”
“That ass is going to get a bunch of our fellow trainees murdered if they don’t stop staring at it,” Heath muttered.
This was what we got for deciding not to kick down the doors of this camp on the first night and announce that Avery Baxter was our Fated. No shifter in their right mind would make a play for another’s Moon-given mate, and only one with a death wish would come for our Fated.
But Heath, in all his quad leader wisdom, had decided that staking our claim in such a public way would backfire spectacularly. It would also have revealed to everyone, without a doubt, that Avery could shift, because Fated bonds could only form between beast souls.
At the time, I’d agreed with Heath. My wildcat’s secrets were safe with us, and she’d made it crystal clear that she didn’t want to be claimed. She had to come willingly.
She had to claim me.
But now that we were here, it was getting harder and harder to stick with the plan.
My bear grunted his annoyance. Noted, asshole.
We finally emerged from the woods, and our run ended back at the front of the campgrounds near the chow hall.
Water and Gatorade stations had been set up on the picnic tables there.
We rehydrated while we watched the rest of the Guardian trainees drag their asses to the finish line.
The Support Squadron trainees trickled in from the other direction, looking as tired and sweaty as we were.
Cash arrived and was in a dick mood, as usual. “All right, shut up, everyone. Support Squadron, head to the obstacle course. Guardians are with me for weapons drills. My group meets at the field house in ten minutes. Do not be late.”
I downed the rest of my paper cup of Gatorade and tossed it in the trash. With an annoyed sigh, I lifted the hem of my T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from my face.
When I lowered it, I was just in time to catch my wildcat’s gorgeous blue eyes darting away from my abs.
I grinned at her.
She huffed, her nostrils flaring, her jaw rigid enough to break concrete. She turned away, her attention firmly on her brother and his cat friends.
My bear fluffed his fur and preened anyway.
I’ll take it, baby girl.
The field house was located on the south side of the lake. A simple vinyl-sided building about the size of an outdoor basketball court, it was nestled under some trees and adjacent to a wide clearing, the grass there trampled nearly to dust.
Inside were piles of practice weapons and other drill equipment.
Several quads began hauling huge practice dummies shaped like monsters from the building.
Three different training frames had been erected in the front yard, with stacks of tires and other hardy items hanging from chains attached to the beams. Staked in the nearby dirt were rows of pells—wooden striking posts for use by those who wielded blades daintier than mine.
Cash barked some nonsense at all of us about warming up, so I found the heaviest unoccupied pile of tires and began swinging my ax at it. Heath and Aiden claimed one of the larger and more complex pells, unsheathed their swords, and began unloading their frustrations onto it.
Elijah climbed onto a smaller pile of tires that hung next to mine and sank into it like he was floating in a swimming pool.
He sipped the remnants of his Gatorade, his yellow eyes glued to the furthest station away from us, where Avery attacked her own pell with perfect, whip-fast strikes of her blades.
“I wonder if Kellan Crimson does indeed have a death wish,” Elijah mused lightly, as if he was wondering what the chow hall would be serving for lunch. “He and the bear are dragging that practice dummy far too close to my dove.”
I swung the flat of my ax into the tires with every ounce of my strength, and the hit reverberated up my arms and into my brain. I shook my head irritably. “You think you could kill the griffin?”
His grin was serene. “There is little the basilisk won’t do to someone who’s dumb enough to get between him and his mate.”
“Good.” I swung the ax again, this time imagining the tires were Holden Blackwell’s head.
He was the real reason we were in this mess, after all.
After we’d been at it for fifteen minutes, Cash bellowed, “All right, that’s enough! Pair up and spar. No beasts. Real blades, real stakes. If you get injured, shift to heal, or you can have the dubious honor of being the first camper to the infirmary this summer.”