'I can't believe that they are making me take the class with the babies,' Brody huffed out, walking slowly through the forest. Nate kept slow with his mates pace, even though their class, Kayden included, was a little ahead of them.

Nate looked like he was about to speak, but Brody cut him off. 'Oh and I have to sit and watch everyone else learn. Why even is that? To taunt me?

'I think that it was so that you could learn from us too. Even by watching, I'm sure you could gain some insight in the upper levels.'

Brody rolled his eyes. 'I was allowed in every other class, even actual combat classes!'

'Those are simpler, we can all control ourselves better. Wolf combat can get dangerous.'

Brody responded with rolling his eyes again, 'You think I would have been so bad at it that I would have gotten hurt?'

Nate nudged his mate with his shoulder. 'No, I don't, but I know that you don't want to, but it's probably for the best. Throwing you into the seniors class would probably not be as good as starting from the real beginning,' Nate offered gently.

Brody turned to Nate in annoyance, 'You were the one who told me that I was going to do great!'

Nate seemed to just become calmer with every word, 'And you would have, but this way you can start with people on your own level and I'm sure that you'll enjoy it.'

Brody kept his head down, walking a little slower, if that was even possible. 'Everyone already looks down on me, and now they have even more reason to. I'll be training with fifteen year olds.' Brody hated the idea of training with the youngest wolves here. He had to be strong and powerful if he wanted to run his pack to the best of his abilities, and it frustrated him that he would only be trained in wolf combat at the level of a fifteen year old when he graduated. 'I can't protect my pack like my brother would have if I can only fight like a child. I am not a child.'

Nate stopped walking, causing Brody to turn his gaze to his mate. Nate quickly grabbed Brody by the arm and dragged him behind one of the larger trees. Brody was surprised and his eyes widened at his mate. Before Brody could ask why they were suddenly hiding, Nate pressed his lips to Brody's without warning.

The kiss was short and sweet, Brody falling into the press of Nate's soft lips. Nate pulled back, both of his hands resting against his mate's cheeks.

'Brody, your Alpha side is showing.'

Brody smirked and bit at his lip, 'Yeah, sorry.'

Nate just shrugged, 'I know that you don't want to be treated like a child, and you don't want to depend on anybody, I know that, but this is really what is best. I'll even teach you myself in our free time too, that way you can get even better,' Nate offered. 'So, don't even think for one moment that you will disappoint your pack.'

Brody was suddenly thankful that he had been blessed with such an emotionally stable mate. 'You would do that?' Brody asked, touched that Nate would do that for him.

'I think I can give up a few hours of my precious time to tackle my mate in the woods,' Nate winked.

Brody laughed, 'But, there's restrictions, we can't just transform in the woods.'

Nate didn't seem fazed in the slightest, 'I'll make it happen, don't worry about it,' he told his mate, not breaking their eye contact.

Brody could feel his body calming, somewhat from the knowledge that he would be able to get up to speed with the whole wolf combat thing, but mostly from just the close proximity to his mate. 'We should go, anyway, at least I get to watch my mate all hot and sweaty.'

Nate laughed, pressing a quick kiss to Brody's forehead. The intimate move caused Brody's lips to raise into a smile, and his cheeks reddened just a little at the edges.

They separated as they left the privacy of behind the giant trunk of the tree and they picked up their pace to meet up with the group ahead of them.

They walked up closer to a pair of guys who were speaking, Brody and Nate's current silence allowing them to hear the conversation. Brody didn't recognise them, one was smaller and thinner but not as small as himself, and the other one was just a bit smaller than Nate, with shoulder length dark brown hair that was tied in a ponytail behind his back.

'I heard that Jace failed that history exam that we had the other day,' the smaller one told ponytail guy.

'That guy was never smart, it doesn't really matter anyway, like why do we even have to take test, if we fail we still get to become pack leaders,' ponytail told short guy.

The shorter guy shrugged, 'Well, we all know how much the council loves their Alpha Camp, if you pass your packs in the councils good books but if your dumb and fail out then the council isn't going to listen to a word you say in the future.'

'You're right, but Jace's pack is super rich, the council love rich people more than smart people.'

'Well, before you interrupted me, I was going to say that even though he failed, apparently he got his father to call Mr. Woods and bam, next thing you know, Jace is at the top of the class.'

Ponytail laughed, 'So what? You think that his father bribed Mr. Woods?'

Short guy shrugged, 'That's what I heard.'

Brody slowed his steps to put some distance between them and the other two guys, 'Do you think that really happened?' he asked Nate.

Nate shrugged, 'Nah, It's just gossip.'

Yet again, Nate was believing the best in those boys. Brody got a feeling in his stomach that told him that he wouldn't put it past Jace to have done just that. How many other things had those two gotten away with because of their rich packs?

They caught up just as the group reached a clearing. It was an oval shape which was cut out amongst the thick forestry that now surrounded them like a fence. The instructor stood in the exact centre of the clearing, his emotionless eyes watching the students carefully.

The group fell silent under his scrutinizing gaze.

'Wolf combat is a privilege, not a right,' the instructor told them in his husky voice. 'There are rules, and if you cannot follow them, then you will leave my class. Is that understood?'

There was a collective mumble of yes sir from the small crowd.

'Good,' the instructor nodded. 'The first rule is that you will work in pairs only. You will fight with your designated partner, and you will practice moves. During that time, you must be in full control of yourselves, which leads to rule number two; there is to be no blood shed. Biting and scratching are forbidden. You all know the moves from previous years, and they are all aimed at taking your opponent down and keeping them there. This class is not to teach you how to kill, it's teaching you how to protect yourselves and your packs. Approved moves only, that is rule three. Rule four is that if I say 'transform' you do. No if's or but's. If you are still in wolf form after I have said that word then you better be willing to jeopardise your spot at this camp. Understood?'

There was another collective mumble of yes sir from the small crowd. The instructor proceeded to tell everyone to get into pairs.

Brody leaned closer to Nate, whispering 'this sounds dangerous.'

Nate shrugged, 'It can be, but we all know what we are doing, and no one here is going to defy the instructor and do real damage to someone. We are all on the same team anyway. We just want to improve our skills.'

Brody nodded at Nate's words, yet an uneasy feeling sat in his gut about this. He was about to watch wolves fighting, and not just any wolves, he was going to watch his mate being attacked.

Nate's hand grasped Brody's upper arm, squeezing gently. Brody met his mate's gaze.

'There's no need to worry, this is a combat class, this isn't real fighting.'

Brody nodded, 'I know.'

Nate looked like he was going to say more, but Kayden was at their side then.

He smiled at Nate, 'Ready for me to kick your ass?'

Nate laughed, 'Say that again when you are face down on the ground.'

The two walked away from Brody without so much as a goodbye, and moved towards the side of the oval. He was glad that Kayden was paired up with his mate. He didn't know much about Kayden, but from what Nate had said, he knew that Kayden wouldn't hurt Nate. That put Brody at ease.

Brody noticed that the pairs around him had started getting ready to fight, shirts were being flung to the edges and the top button of pants were being slowly undone.

The instructor strode over to Brody, leading him towards the edge of the field. 'Come on, you can sit along the edge.'

Brody looked up at the instructor as they walked, 'Will I ever get to their level?' he asked.

Her looked down at Brody, shrugging, 'Well, not in the next three weeks, but you have your entire life to learn these skills. You can hire people outside of this camp who can teach you in the future, but for now, just watch and see what you can learn. Then when you go to first year class you will have a step above the rest of them, and they may even let you fight with the sixteen year olds at the end of the camp if you are good enough.'

'I need to be good at everything now. I have a pack back home who needs me to be strong, who needs a leader who they know can protect them.'

'Brody, you can't be the best at everything the first time you try it. You'll get there, but for now, just focus on what you can do. The rest will fall into place.'

Brody wondered why he was being so nice to him, the instructor whose name he didn't even remember was telling him some of the best advice he had heard in his entire life.

They stopped when they reached the edge of the tree line. 'Thank-you sir.'

The instructor nodded, leaving Brody at the tree line as he walked back into the centre of the oval. Brody sat down on the grass, his legs folded under him.

The instructor cleared his throat, and every single person was now looking in his direction. Brody could almost feel the anticipation in the air. These were Alphas who hadn't transformed in weeks, their bodies were begging for it, their skin was itching to be transformed. Brody watched as the eyes of each person changed, a thick gold band now surrounding their pupils.

The group of boys in the oval had suddenly become so much more. They were more than just future leaders, they were primal creatures. Brody felt eyes on him, and he looked towards Nate. It seemed that the two of them were the only two in the field that weren't looking at the instructor, waiting for him to say something that would allow them to transform.

Nate smiled at Brody, and Brody smiled back, knowing that this was about more than a bunch of Alpha's shifting, this was the first time that Nate would see his mate's wolf. Brody had imagined what Nate's wolf would look like, but he could never be sure, not until now.

Brody let his eyes flicker from Nate's eyes to his lightly tanned chest, watching as the warm glow of the sunlight hit the delicate skin. His eyes shifted then to where Nate's hands rested, just over the top of his jeans, fingertips dipping into the top of the dark material.

His gaze flickered back to his mate's face and Brody bit his lip in slight embarrassment when he saw Nate's knowing smirk.

'Now.'

At once, everyone's pants dropped to the ground, and where once stood boys, now stood wolves.

The field was filled with wolves, and yet Brody's eyes only saw Nate. Nate's wolf was a beautifully strong creature, with deep brown fur that matched the colour of his eyes. His wolfs fur looked so soft that Brody wished that he could run his hands through it, just to see if it really was as soft and silky as it looked.

The wolves started fighting slowly, each move that they made was slow and precise. Brody watched in utter fascination as Kayden and Nate fought, each movement calculated and sure. Nate seemed to move with a strength and grace that Brody didn't see in the rest of the wolves, it was like Nate was doing some dance and that every move just flowed from one unto the next like a rehearsed sequence.

Nate won the first round, Kayden pressed down against the forest floor with his paws pressed into the earth. Nate took that moment of triumph to look over at his mate. Brody could see that it was Nate from the way that his eyes looked. Although the thick golden ring still lingered around his mate's pupil, he could see Nate behind those eyes. Nate smirked at him in a way that only a wolf could before jumping off of Kayden and getting back into position. The fights continued, round after round for the next hour or so. Brody's gaze flickered between groups, where he was able to compare each partnered group to the others. Nate and Kayden played by the rules, of that he was sure. The pair next to them, however, did not. Every time that the instructor wasn't paying attention, the teeth and claws would come out. These two played rough, and Brody watched them with a keen eye, wondering why they felt the need to do it like that.

That was when he saw it, the pair that was next to Nate's they stopped fighting and crossed the distance between each other, and one of them seemed to nod at the other one.

Brody had no idea what would come next. If he had, he would have done something, he would have called out to the instructor, but he had no idea, he just watched in awe. Nate and Kayden had been just about to pounce on each other when it happened. One of them slammed into Nate, knocking him onto the ground, while the other did the same to Kayden. Brody gasped, standing up instantly. He looked over at the instructor, but he was talking to one of the guys close to the tree line, he wasn't paying attention. Fear for his mate was all that Brody knew in that moment. Then all hell broke loose. All of the other wolves seemed to notice that a fight had broken out, and high on adrenaline, they joined in on the fight. Brody knew that his mate was in the centre of the fight, helpless, probably injured.

In a matter of seconds from when the first wolf collided with Nate, Brody was running.

He ran as fast as his feet would allow him, his breath coming in fearful gasps as he breached the edge of the circle of fighting Alphas. He was the only one in human form in the midst of wolves whose heads were grazing his hips. It was utter chaos, wolves biting and pushing other wolves, some playfully, as if they thought that this was all fun and games, and then there were others with snapping jaws and sharp claws that lashed out in frustrated anger. Brody assumed that they were caught up in the excitement of the fight, that the adrenaline had gotten the best of them and they were just excited to get in on the action. He didn't care what pretense they were under, these wolves were being moronic and he wished that these stupid Alpha's would have more sense, that they would realise that they were hurting each other. Brody vaguely heard the instructor screaming for them to transform. He fought through the first line of wolves, his eyes searching for his mate. He finally saw Nate in the group of wolves, and to Brody's relief he was not injured at all. Nate was in his wolf form, standing just outside the fighting group of wolves.

Brody sighed, Nate was safe. That was when the pain hit him. The unexpected sharp pain radiated through his body as a fury body forcefully pushed his to the ground, and that was all that he knew before he was face down in the grassy earth. The green of the grass mixed with his blood the last thing that he saw before it all went black.