Chapter One
"Are you sure about this?" Kai's face was a mask of indifference, which wasn't normal. Instead of his brown eyes twinkling and wearing a smile on his face, it was as if I was nothing to him.
I'd hurt him in ways I wished more than anything that I could take back, but he wasn't my true mate. No matter how hard I had tried to forget about Liam, it never worked. Though, to be fair, Kai knew exactly what he'd been getting into. "Yes, they hurt my brother this past weekend, and Simon attacked me. I was barely able to defend myself." The four heirs to The Blood Council were a force to be reckoned with. When I first met them at a party, I had challenged them, and it was something that the four of them couldn't let go of at first. Simon was the main one still holding the biggest grudge against me, for not only the challenge but also for Liam completing our fated mate bond.
"Well, maybe if you didn't solidify your bond with Liam, you wouldn't have had that problem." His eyes flashed with hurt. "Things could've been different if you hadn’t left the party with him."
"What did you expect me to do?" For the very first time, he was annoying me. I understood he was hurt, but he was being unreasonable. Liam's wolf had been in control, if I hadn’t stepped in the way I had, things would've gotten much worse. Besides, there had been a group of humans in the house, watching everything go down. "Let him beat you, my brother, and Nate into a bloody mess? You know he still would've demanded that I go with him."
"That's the thing. You're stronger than you realize." Kai's voice got louder, and he paused, glancing around the gym.
"Maybe I didn't realize it because my trainer was holding me back." I'd been asking him when the physical training part kicked into gear. Even Coach Riley said something a few weeks ago, but Kai swore up and down that I wasn't ready, which also meant Gertrude got held back with me. "How could I have challenged Liam when I don't know how to stand strong against him?"
"He wouldn't have hurt you." His eyes widened as he realized what he’d just said.
He admitted that Liam cared, which was opposite of the point he was trying to drive home now. "Kai, I didn't mean to hurt you. You're one of my closest friends." I wanted to say if Liam wasn't in the picture, things would have been different. Somehow, I stopped myself. That wasn't fair to him or Liam. At the end of the day, Liam is who and what I wanted, and he now felt the same way about me.
"Stop." His eyes flashed with warning or hurt. At the moment, I wasn't entirely sure. "We aren't doing this here,” he said in a low voice as he pointed around the gym.
I glanced around the rows of free weights and various machines used for all kinds of exercising. To the left was a room filled only with mats where the coach was training Tripp and Barry.
"Doing what?" Gertrude came out of the girls’ locker room and walked past a few people who were using the machines, lifting weights.
Kai had been assigned as our trainer over the past month and a half for our Tuesday and Thursday Shifter Endurance class, but he wasn't pushing us hard at all. After Simon had attacked me and my brother this past weekend, I realized that I needed to focus on fighting as well. If there was one thing I'd learned since coming here, it was that the heirs were out for themselves and they'd take out anyone they felt was a threat or got in their way.
"She's wanting to skip weights and learn combat." Kai ran a hand through his messily styled hair and sighed.
"Oh, I'm down!" She clapped her hands as she bounced on her feet, making her blonde hair bob. "Those other two," she said as she pointed at the room with all of the mats and the other guys doing their training, "have been doing that since day one. It's about damn time we get in on some action."
Wow, I didn’t think I'd ever seen her smile before. "See." Kai and I had to act normal now that Gertrude was here. "She wants the same thing."
"Fine, but let's go outside to do it since they already claimed," Kai emphasized the word, "that room." He pointed to the room that really only had space for one set of fighters.
Yeah, that was a low blow. He might be trying to be subtle. Though he obviously had to be alluding to the fact that Liam and I solidified our bond this past weekend prior to Max being taken hostage. I had to be the bigger person and rise above his snide remark.
The three of us headed outside and neared the woods that surrounded most of the school. Kai frowned as he stopped at a grassy area that was about fifty feet from the gym and a hundred yards from the academics building. He then turned to face us. "I guess first, we'll need to practice blocking."
"Really? Blocking?" Gertrude rolled her eyes. "We need to focus on offense, not defense."
"Look, do you want to learn or not?" Kai's voice had a little bit of a growl in it.
He most definitely wasn't acting normal.
"The reason you aren't getting trained properly is because of coddling." A deep, sexy voice sounded from behind me.
My heart began to race, and I turned around to see my handsome mate heading my way. His blue eyes were almost as dark as his short dark brown hair, and his muscular build seemed more tense than usual. He wore the customary Wolf Moon uniform with a blood-red polo shirt and khaki pants.
The intimidating eastern heir to The Blood Council flanked him as they swaggered in our direction.
"Holy shit." Gertrude looked at me and then back to Liam. "I knew you smelled different, but I didn't realize it was due to him."
Before I could respond, Liam pulled me into his arms and kissed my lips. You're always around him.
Behave. I pulled back, trying to keep our displays of affection limited so they wouldn’t hurt Kai further. He's a good friend.
He wants to be more than that. His jealousy filtered through the bond.
It never would've been like that if you’d manned up in the very beginning, so stop. I stepped out of his arms and glanced at Evan. "What are you doing here?"
"Liam has asked me to step in and train you." Evan's skin was pale, which was rare among shifters, and his gray eyes were so light they could easily be mistaken as white. Between that and him being built like a freaking Ford truck, he was scary as hell. He took off his school jacket, revealing a Wolf Moon Academy standard silver tank top paired with blood-red shorts. The muscles in his arms were almost as big as his head.
"She's mine to train." Kai's jaw clenched.
"Not anymore." Liam wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer. "She'll be trained by one of our own."
"Our own?" Kai arched an eyebrow and chuckled without humor. "So, now she's good enough to be an elite? You do realize my father works for you, so I'm technically ranked higher than her."
Shit, they were having a pissing match. What are you doing? I have a class. You can't come in here and just pull me out of it.
Actually, I can. He nodded to Evan. "He's training her from here on out, which means blondie here is all yours." He pointed at Gertrude. "It'll be good for you to focus all of your attention on her anyway."