Chapter Five: Wildlands

Vuko POV

I'm yawning so hard my jaw cracks and then, just when I'm mid-yawn, I sneeze because of the dust from the training ground. Anahita thrusts a coffee at me and I've never loved a member of Waterwolf pack more.

"Where's your Beta?" she asks, sipping at her coffee while we watch the younger pack members warm up. One of the benefits us Named claim is the right to not warm up properly and stand around drinking coffee while the young ones go through their paces.

"Abir?" I say, "Beta Abir is doing whatever the hell he pleases."

She looks at me and I know she wants to say more. Anahita is about ten years older than me and a different pack. She's Waterwolf to my Firewolf. But while I had a shitty older brother who would beat me to near death and call it training, she has been the older sister I dreamed of. Silvia would always take me to her first after Jedan had been at me and Silvia would bind my wounds and tell me to be patient because one day I was going to be bigger than Jedan. That day never came though.

Anahita shakes her head. "I'll never understand why you took on your brother's Beta after he died."

That's Ana. She still talks about Jedan "dying" like it was a natural thing. Not like it was Silvia who killed him.

Don't pretend you're not happy, I tell myself. I always knew what my brother was. It wasn't the hurting. Or it wasn't only the hurting. Other siblings play-fought. This was something diferent. Darker. He was like my father. And I failed to protect Silvia from him.

The pain of remembering her never eases. It's like a knife directly into my hard, a pain so real I feel it radiate even now out through my limbs. My only consolation is that I am still mateless. The Moon Goddess has not yet called another to me, nor me to her. And I'm relieved. As long as I have no mate, there is still a chance that my mate is Silvia.

I feel my Wolf stir. It's okay, Vi, I mindlink, Go back to sleep lazy-bones. He grumbles back that he never sleeps, that I'm the lazy one ... then he's gone. Back to sleep probably.

My father became even meaner after Jedan's death. I didn't believe it was possible. The bruises and scratches on my mom said it was. And on me when I tried to defend her. Who would have thought that a simple chicken bone would kill the old Alpha.

So here I am. The second son. Never destined to be Alpha. Never had a Beta. And suddenly I'm Alpha of the Firewolves. So when Abir asked me to take him on, what could I say?

The pace on the field has changed and I see the young fighters lining up, sweating and panting. They're bright pink with exertion already. They will still have to work a lot harder to be able to control their wolves when they come.

"We're up," I say, setting down my cup. The youths are lined up on the field, sweating and panting. Ana follows my lead as I jog toward them, wishing I had warmed up as my sleepy limbs complain. Get up, lazy, I send a thought-nudge to my Wolf. He's there. But there are no wolves allowed on the training ground. There training happens in the woods and at night.

Actually I love the training. I remember how it was before my Naming, before I knew my Wolf, Vi. It was like I couldn't run fast enough or train hard enough or be long enough out on the field. I came alive in those moments when I was fully on my own, relying on my own senses, my skills, my body. I fantasized about getting stronger, taking on Jedan, even taking on my father. I would force him to his knees in front of my mother and make him beg forgiveness of his Luna. In front of all the packs.

At first, training was a way out of my fear. Then I just started to love the way the body could think before your own mind. The others want to know how I'm so fast, how I managed to dodge blows they didn't even know they were going to throw. The truth is, I don't. My body just does what it has to do and I try to keep me and my thinks-too-much mind from getting in the way.

There are a few young fighters who I think have the same potential. It's fun to work with them and watch them realise what they are capable of. I seem to have some sort of skill with knowing when to push and when to back off. I wish I could be here, on the training field all the time.

I'm walking between sparring bodies, enjoying the soft thwack of blows well-landed--without causing damage--when Didi and his gang arrive.

Abir should have stopped them getting near the training field. That's what the packs had decided at the last meeting. Didi and anyone foolish enough to follow him were barred from the training fields ever since Didi nearly put the eye out of one of his packmates. I was the only one who thought he didn't mean to do it. I've known Didi a long time and he was a different kid when Silvia was still here.

But he refused to apologise and so the packs had to take action.

Where the hell is Abir?

The sparring stops as everyone stares at Didi. The crazy thing is that he still looks like a kid. He has soft down on his face which I'm pretty sure he doesn't need to shave yet. He's tall and broad but his cheeks are still round and pink and there is still a layer of puppy fat on him. He's only a few months out of his Naming.

Yet the packs are worried about the following he has. Young ones, male and female, from our packs--Ironwolf, Firewolf, Waterwolf, Airwolf, Earthwolf--are wandering over to his meetings and coming back from them changed. Angry, dissatisfied.

He walks through the silent fighters, all confidence and swagger and his gang members follow after. It's me he wants.

"Vuko," he says, "You're getting slow."

"Morning Didi," I say, careful not to let him see any irritation in me. That's what he wants. "Nice to see you and your gang."

I win this round. His cheeks turn bright pink. "They're my pack," he says, "You'll pay for that."

"What do you want, Didi?" I ask. I want him to get off the training ground and back to wherever him and his gang have been holed up.

"We wish to train," says Didi.

"You've been banned, Didi," I say, "You know that."

He nods. "Just one fighter," he says, "I invoke First Combat rules."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. First Combat rules are invoked before a war. They're a last chance to prevent a full scale to-the-death battle.

"That's not training," I say, my brain racing, what is he trying to do here, "That's hand-to-hand battle," I lower my voice, and lean in, "Didi what are you doing?"

Didi takes a step backward and speaks more loudly. He has a point he wants to make here. "First Combat," he declares, spreading his arms wide.

"Didi," I say urgently, "I don't want to fight you."

Actually I want to smack him about the face and send him home like the kid he is, is what I want to do but he's forcing me to treat him like the Alpha of some weird pack of misfits.

"That's okay," he says grinning and still speaking too-loudly, "Because I have nominated my fighter."

And just then the biggest damn werewolf I have ever seen steps up to the training ground. I swear the ground shakes as he crosses it toward me.

What the hell?