Chapter 24

Blaines POV

“You looked awfully happy with yourself walking into the clearing earlier” Anna commented with a smirk, looking at me as if she knew exactly why I had walked into my lesson with a huge grin on my face.

A slight blush appeared on my cheeks as they warmed up at the memory of the most amazing kiss I’d ever experienced. I honestly hadn’t seen it coming, but when Xavier took that final step towards me, making him my sole focus, I couldn’t help but lean into it. My lips started buzzing again at the memory and I brought my fingers up to touch my lips, confirming that they were still there and hadn’t melted off from the shere heat that was coming off my skin.

“I know that look!” Anna squealed as she happily jumped up and down causing the warriors around us to look over, confused as to what their Alpha and Beta female were so excited about.

“Shh would you? I don’t need the whole pack knowing about my business” I hissed as I grabbed her hand to stop her continuously happy dancing.

“I’m sorry I am just way too excited, I have been praying to the Moon Goddess for weeks now for you two to get together and now it’s finally happened. You know people were starting to question whether Xavier would ever man up and acknowledge you as his mate. I mean I know he’s introduced you as his and for all intents and purposes you are already a member of this pack and the Beta female but you know as well as I do that we can never make it one hundred percent official until he marks you and in return you him.”

I rolled my eyes and ran my hand over my hair. No matter how many times I re-tied it or how much hairspray I used the curls and frizz would always find a way to break free and run wild, springing up in ten different directions. “You know it was just as much me as it was him, I could have easily made the first move” I shrugged as I smiled down at the grinning girl in front of me, her smile to infectious not to share.

She rolled her eyes at me and playfully shoved my shoulder with a grunt “we all know it was going to have to be Xavier who made the first move, after all he was the one with the problem, not you”.

We walked up to a sparring mat and waited for our turn, Jax had asked me to train Anna specifically today, making sure she was well prepared for whatever would be thrown at us. “True” I replied with a nod “but I wasn’t exactly all for it in the beginning either” I reminded her, after all I had run off as soon as I realised who Xavier was to me.

“Yeah yeah whatever” Anna sighed as she rolled her eyes again, having no response.

“Girls you’re up!” A warrior yelled and when I looked up I saw that the mat we had been queueing for was now vacant.

I signalled that we had heard him and gestured for Anna to lead on as we both took the two steps up and into the boxing style ring. There were loads of them spread out across the field, at least twenty of them, and they were a great training platform to teach. It gave the fighters enough room to move without having to worry about people accidentally stumbling into their ring. The floor was made with a slight spring to them so that it wouldn’t bruise as much when you were thrown to the floor and the height advantage meant spectators could watch and learn without getting in the way.

I turned and faced Anna, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet on the opposite end of the ring. We had both taken our shoes off and without the extra inch her shoes sole gave her she looked tiny. I would have second guessed fighting her if I hadn’t already seen what she was capable of, she may be small but she definitely knew her way around a ring.

“Now remember what I told you earlier, rogues fight dirty and they will exploit any and every weakness they find so the trick is to always keep them moving. The more time they have to observe you the more chance they have of finding your weak spots” I explained as I bent my knees slightly into a fighting pose. “It could be something as simple as which foot you lead with, for example for me my weak spot would be my left knee, I injured it a few years back and it never quite healed right. You can tell it’s my weak leg because I have placed it ever so slightly behind me, making sure your eye is drawn to my dominant leg, my right one”.

Anna nodded as she took in my word, her eye zeroing in on first my dominant right leg and then shifting to my left, seeing if she can see the slight differences I was talking about. “Rogues are also weak and tire easily due to their poor diet and lack of nutrition, if you keep them moving and make sure you never give them a minute to stop and catch their breath and observe you, you have a significant advantage on them”.

Anna nodded again as she continued to bounce on the balls of her feet, making sure her muscles stayed warm and loose from the warm up we just did.

“So are you ready to have a round or two?” I asked, shaking my hands out before balling them up into fists again. We were wearing fingerless gloves so that our knuckles were padded over slightly, both for our protection as well as our opponents. The objective wasn’t to harm each other, just to learn and improve on our weaknesses.

As an answer Anna just gave one swift nod, signalling she was ready. I took a deep breath to steady myself and with one last look towards Anna to double check and make sure she was ready I ran towards her and the fight began.

About half an hour and three rounds later we were both panting on our respective sides of the ring. Anna was not an easy opponent that was for sure and she wasn’t not one to be underestimated, which was made very clear to me after the first five minutes of our first round where she had me flat on my back. The girl was fast and even though she had only been training for just over a year she was a quick study and a force to be reckoned with. Everything I had taught her and everything I had shown her had been absorbed into her like she was a sponge.

We had started to gain a slight audience after about fifteen minutes in when we were both going at each other with neither of us gaining the upper hand. After she had taken me down the first time I seriously upped my game and quickly pinned her on her back, making it one all. After that we both gave it everything we had, neither one of us wanted to give in and lose to the other.

That’s where we were now, we were still in the middle of round three, both of us too exhausted to carry on but also too stubborn to quit and give our opponent the point they needed to win.

“Alright girls break it up break it up, you’ve made your point that you can hold your own in a fight so why don’t you give the ring up to someone who still needed a turn and you both take a well deserved break?” Jax asked as he stepped into the ring and made his way over to his mate. If I was being honest I was secretly glad he had stepped in, I wasn’t sure how much more I could of taken. I was still a little weak and my body was screaming at me to sit down and get some desperately needed water.

I smiled over at Anna as she brushed some matted hair from off her forehead, stuck on there with sweat. We both gave a small wave and a smile to each other before I stepped out of the ring and down the stairs, toward the water dispenser where I first took a huge gulp of refreshing water before pouring the rest over my face and neck in the hopes that it would cool me down.

“You were seriously hot up there” Xavier whispered from behind me and I couldn’t help but snort as I felt my fly aways tickle the inside of my ear. Well that was ladylike.

“Oh yeah?” I smirked as I turned around so that I was standing face to face with him, well face to neck. He had also been working out which was made clear from the sweat that was lining his hairline and trickling down the sides of his face. I watched as it continued its decent down his sculpted jawline and down his jugular before disappearing into the collar of his shirt.

“You know if you continue to look at me like that we’re going to have to find somewhere more private” Xavier smirked as he wrapped his hands around my waist, pulling me close enough so that I could feel his breath on my face.

I flushed but otherwise didn’t move, to entranced with the way the sun shone off his skin and the gold that swirled in his eyes. I watched as another droplet of sweat rolled down his neck before landing at the base of his throat, right where my mark would eventually sit. I licked my lips at the thought of him finally wearing my mark and finally being completely mine but before either of us could do anything about the obvious sexual tension between us we were interrupted when multiple pack members whistled and hollered at us.

I snapped out of it just as Anna and Jax appeared next to us, both of them with huge smirks across their faces, “get a room would you?” Jax laughed as he wrapped Anna in his arms from behind.

I was just about to mutter an apology, a little embarrassed at having been caught in such a compromising position but before I could Xavier laughed next to me. “Oh please, you have no right to say that to me after the amount of times I have found you two in positions ten times worse than this” he exclaimed.

I looked over at Anna with raised eyebrows but all I got was a shrug in return, “what can I say, my mans a hottie”.

I laughed as I looked over at her, “never would I have thought I’d hear words like that coming out of your mouth”.

She just shrugged in response before looking up at her mate, her blue eyes swirling and mixing with the colour of her wolfs. But something was different about them, they weren’t swirling with the usual gold like usual, there was something different about them, almost transparent. I frowned, confused about what I was seeing, but before I could get a better look at them I froze as I heard a white noise ringing in my ears.

I looked around to see if anyone else was hearing it but when I took in the faces of every pack member in the training grounds it was clear that something was going on. They were all frozen in their place, each with their own expression of fear plastered on their faces and I instantly knew that they were all talking through the pack link. Even though I was doing the duties and taking on the responsibilities of the Beta I still hadn’t been sworn into the pack and without being sworn in I couldn’t hear what was being said.

All at once the pack members unfroze and it was like a blanket of calm had spread across the grounds. I looked up at Xavier, hoping he could give me some insight into what was going on but it was all made clear to me when Jax uttered two words that made my blood pump hot and cold all at the same time.

“They’re coming”.

Dun dun duuuuun...

Yes I know it’s a cliffhanger but who doesn’t love a good bit of suspense? ;)

The other day I posted a poll on my instagram asking about whether you lot would prefer longer updated less frequently or shorter updates more frequently. It was a close vote with only three votes in it but the majority was for longer chapters less frequently so that’s what I’ll do :) They’ll be about this long but I’ll only update twice a week not three times :)