The first thing that Maddy noticed with relief when she came to was that she was breathing normally. She opened her eyes and instinctively, her hand went to her throat. There was a slight sting of pain when she touched her throat but other than that she was fine.

It was then that Maddy's eyes fell on the matefinder who was sprawled on the ground. Maddy needed one look to figure out that her wolf must have come out and must have dealt with the matefinder. It still felt weird for Maddy to think about the fact that there was a wolf inside her but she was slowly getting used to it.

Maddy immediately took up a defensive stance and backed up a few steps. She watched as the matefinder got up from the ground and calmly dusted her dress with her hands.

When she saw Maddy, she put her hand on her hip and stared at Maddy expectantly. "Well? Have you figured it out?"

"Stay away from me," Maddy said.

"You don't need to go all fighting mode on me. I was just trying to help you," the matefinder said calmly.

"If that, is you trying to help, I really don't want to know what you do when you are not helping."

"I was helping you learn to call upon your wolf, obviously. Why else would I strangle you?"

That made Maddy frown. "My wolf comes out when I'm about to die. You told me that. I don't need any help with that."

The matefinder huffed with impatience. "Yes, it comes out when you are in danger but you can also learn to call it forward to some extent with practice which is why strangled you and your wolf did come out."

"This was training," Maddy said disbelievingly.

"Yes," the matefinder said as she nodded with relief clear on her face. "Finally, you got it. Now did you concentrate like I asked you to?"

"Of course not," Maddy replied disbelievingly. "You were choking me. Concentrating was the last thing on my mind. All this information about training and everything should have been told to me before you tried killing me. Instead, you told me that I was supposed to die in the alternative past and started choking me."

The matefinder sighed. "Come on, Maddy. You are smart. You should have figured it out by now. If I told you that it was just training, you would know that I won't kill you and then your wolf wouldn't come out."

"You have a weird way of teaching," Maddy said as she kept an eye on the matefinder. She understood what the matefinder was saying and to some extent, the matefinder was right but that didn't make it any less okay to randomly strangle Maddy and give her the shock of her life. If Maddy wanted to get frightened, she would have just watched a horror movie.

"Try calling on your wolf," the matefinder said as she crossed her arms across her chest.

"And how do I do that?"

The matefinder shrugged. "I don't know. Just try talking to yourself or something. Think about the feeling you experienced when I was choking you. You've got to remember something."

Maddy closed her eyes and tried thinking of how she was feeling when the matefinder was choking her. She had been scared out of her mind. She honestly thought that she was going to die and had panicked. Maddy tried to replicate the feeling but obviously, she couldn't do it. It was impossible to just make yourself panicked.

Seeing that it wasn't working, Maddy tried switching techniques and tried talking to herself. 'Hey human part of me. If it possible to let the wolf part of me out? Thanks.' Maddy waited for two seconds for something to happen but it looked like her human part was a control freak. Maddy tried talking to herself for a few more minutes but soon, she realized that her human side was either stubborn as hell or deaf.

Sighing, she opened her eyes. "It is impossible."

"Not with that attitude," the matefinder said firmly as she paused to think for a second. "You'll need to practice this every day. Let's see. You practice with Nadine one every day, right?"

Without waiting for Maddy to answer, the matefinder continued, "After your training with Nadine, you can spend half an hour trying to get your wolf out."

"What should I do for that half an hour?"

"What you did now," the matefinder said simply.

"So, I'll spend half an hour a day talking to myself and basically wasting my time and driving myself insane."

"Pretty much, yeah," the matefinder said with a grin. "Now, come on. I expect the others have already gathered all the information about the pack members."

Maddy and the matefinder found the others waiting for them in the same place where they had left.

"Where were you both? We have been waiting for hours and hours and hours," Alexa said. While Leia, Xander and Jeremy were standing, Alexa had evidently gotten too tired and was sitting on the ground.

"We were just chilling in the forests. The matefinder tried to kill me and then told me that it was for my good. You know, the usual," Maddy said throwing a mock-glare at the matefinder.

"What?" the others said together with identical disbelieving looks on their faces.

"It is nothing. We sorted it out," Maddy said.

"I am not even going to ask," Xander said as he shook his head and handed over a bundle of papers to the matefinder. "This has all the information about the different pack members except Leia and Maddy. We still haven't updated it yet."

The matefinder raised an eyebrow. "You joined the pack?" she asked Maddy.

"I'll be joining the pack in two days," Maddy said, grinning as she remembered that she would officially be part of a werewolf pack in two days.

"Okay," the matefinder said as she patted the bundle. "I'll take this bundle and go through it. I'll let you all know about the pack members who were supposed to die in an hour or so." 

A/N: My exams are finally over so I'll be able to update twice a week once again- Sundays and Wednesdays.