Slaves of the Night

Chapter 7: Anyone But You

  I couldn't sleep well that night, and I wish I could say it was because the excitement of learning to fight. No, I woke at three in the morning in a cold sweat and my heartbeat going frantic. My breath hitched with a half sob that had me wishing Tristan was there to cling to. But I was alone in an cold bed with the blankets scattered everywhere.

  There was no reason for Ian to haunt my dreams, I was safe from him--he was off hiding somewhere far away. But when everyone else was so on edge about him that I knew he was a man of his word when he had said he wouldn't stop until I was his. In the nightmare's he had his hands clasped gently around my neck from behind my back, fingers searing a rough imprint of them deep into my skin. His lips had been millimeters away from my ear whispering warm breaths of something I couldn't comprehend. All I knew was that he was out there, and he hadn't forgotten about me.

  So I lay there in the bed, turned onto my side and trying to concentrate on the night sky, the moon slowly waning and dimming the light drifting in through the curtains. Tristan was one hard-headed fool if he thought going on a wild goose chase was a better way to protect the pack rather than actually protecting us here against an attack. Now was a perfect time if any vengeful pack wanted to take its aggression out on us; half the fighters were gone! A small part of me that was determined to be unafraid actually wanted Ian to come back so I could end this all myself. Instead everyone else insisted on doing my dirty work because I was too innocent. I'm sure innocent people had strong instincts to sink their teeth into other people's throats and proceed in tearing them out.

  With a growl I turned back around roughly beating my pillow a bit to make myself more comfortable but nothing was working. Eventually after enough tossing and turning to give a washing machine a run for its money I decided the attempts on going back to sleep were useless. Swinging my feet over the edge I sat up and straightened my tank top because it had nearly wound itself all the way around my torso. My bare feet padded across the floor as I quietly left into the hallway, the house seemed totally induced in deep slumber.

  Television sounded like a useless waste of time; I had nearly memorized the TV schedule after a week of only being in front of the stupid contraption. Like that would give me any answers to the questions that were berating my thoughts. Was I just a mutant that had murderous tendencies because I was created wrong? What if it wasn't the wolf in me, but me in particular?

  As I passed the living room, I looked further down to where the office was. No light escaped the closed door so I could only imagine that Rayne was asleep like everyone else. Just as long as he wasn't slumped over his desk I could probably spend the remainder of the night in there. My hand closed around the cool metal of the handle and twisted, the door swinging lightly inward without a single creak. It was dark, but the illumination from the window helped me confirm that it was empty. Silently I released a held breath, thankful that he was up in bed, because if he was still down here I wouldn't get another chance to sneak into the office.

  Books lined all the walls in cases that were nearly ceiling high, making the medium sized room more of a cozy smaller room. I had no idea how they were organized, so I just gazed at all the titles searching for something in nature of werewolves. Surprisingly there were a lot of books that I knew were based on lore instead of truth in the Everdeen collection. I just snatched random books and settled into the chair in front of the desk, flicking the lamp on while splaying the books out, cracking open the first.

  And thus began my nights of no sleep.

  "What do you mean you aren't going to train me?" I asked the next morning, a yawn caught in my throat, making my anger seem softened. Rayne held up a finger for me to be quiet as he was on the phone. I knew he was talking to Tristan again, and if I strained my ears hard enough I could hear the faint timber of his voice through the phone pressed tightly to Rayne's ear. Neither of them sounded particularly happy with whatever they were talking about but I wasn't getting an inkling on the topic.

  I ground my teeth together stayed quiet in hopes that I might be able to hear something on Tristan's whereabouts. After a week and a half of him being gone it could be reasonable that he'd covered a lot of ground and the connection between the two of us was thinning out.

  But before I could find anything out Rayne hung up and finally turned back towards me. "What were you saying?" he asked, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

  Now I stood from my chair, leaning my hands on his desk that he stood behind, "I asked, what do you mean you aren't going to to train me? You said you would yesterday"

  "Correction. I said you could be trained, not that I would train you."

  "So then who is going to train me, I meant it when I said I wanted to learn how to fight. I can't stand being a helpless victim any longer--" I started to argue, but he held a hand up in front of me to stop me.

  "I know. I know. That's why I asked the best fighter we have to come back from the hunt to come and train you." He relented, sitting down and reclining in his desk chair with a sigh. "I just got off the phone with Tristan and he said that the person I sent for yesterday should be here in a about an hour,"

  For a brief moment I got excited that Tristan would be coming back because from what I'd heard he was a great fighter when it came down to it, even though I'd barely seen it put into action. But there had to be someone better according to Rayne's tone of voice. "Who is it?" I said slowly.

  He cracked a grin, "I'm afraid you won't like my answer, so I'll leave that for you to find out when he gets here."

  My eyes narrowed but Rayne had been tense lately and fighting wouldn't get me far with him. So that left me to address my impatient side and attempt to keep myself occupied for a whole hour or so. As business-like as he could be Rayne studied a pile of papers collected on his desk, a pen poised to make notes on the margins. So I wandered around the office like I hadn't been there only five hours previous taking notes of my own and searching for answers. I slid a book off of the shelf like I hadn't already been halfway through scouring through its pages and glanced at it as if it was brand new to me. He didn't even give a glance in my direction as I plopped down in the chair facing the window and propped my legs up in the sill, casually opening to a not-so-random page.

  I wanted to know the history of werewolves, how they came to be and what made them so. According to the lore I found thus far the two biggest leads I had was people who went mad from spending too much time under the full moon and turning into feral monsters, or a disease that swept through the population in the early fourteenth century. And since I remember Chelsea mentioning at one point that the latter was part of the were heritage I narrowed it down from there. Not to say that the other myths didn't have valid points in all their fantasy. I did in fact only shift under a full moon and it was because of an animal instinct. My senses were heightened and I was able to lift heavier objects and run faster. So all that was true, but I had yet to find silver frightening.

  It is a terrible process to go through a bunch of fairy tales and try to pick the truth out of them, but a night full of sleeplessness provided an empty canvas to work with.

  The book I had picked up was a bunch of tales involving werewolves and none of them seemed too pleasant. There was lots of murder and kidnapping of innocent humans (mostly women by vicious male werewolves) but there were a few that went into the act of females luring men to their deaths with seduction. Realistically it was absurd, but on a deeper level the thrill of a kill appealed to that small not so human part of me that remained when my wolf went into its month long slumber.

  Aggravated with those thoughts, I snapped the book shut, decidingly done with its contents. One could only take so much gore before wanting to get up and forget about it. Turning the chair around I realized Rayne had snuck out on me and the office was empty once more. There was the faint hum of a car engine coming closer and my heart spiked a bit. It could very well have been another hour I had spent in here reading information, so that meant that the car could be bringing my fighting teacher. With a smile, I placed the book back onto the shelf and hurried out of the office.

  There were a few pack members eating lunch in the kitchen, supplied by a very generous Mrs. Everdeen, since she was practically the pack mom. Food was constantly being shuffled through that poor kitchen and I could only imagine in would last another few years before needing yet another update. The front door opened, and I barely paused to give Tristan's mom a wave before hurrying after Rayne out the door.

  There was in fact one of the jeeps I recognized leaving with Tristan's group, coming back down the unpaved path to the pack house. A thrill passed through me; ever since last night’s nightmares I had been eager to learn how to properly clock Ian in the mouth, instead of hurting my hand more than his face. If there was one thing that I hated to happen, it was him to come after Tristan and if he caught my mate off guard I wanted to be able to protect instead of watch helplessly. When Ian had nearly killed Tristan in the raid my reaction had been on pure instinct, but I couldn't rely on instinct when I needed to have more power than an adrenaline rush. I needed control.

  The jeep came to a stop near the porch, its tires screeching in protest at the sudden jolt. Two guys got out of the backseat, I couldn't remember their names, but I knew they were some of the younger ones, probably no older than eighteen. Then around from the driver's seat came Wes, a terrible scowl placed on his face.

  My eyebrow scrunched in confusion, I could bet my well supplied collection of t-shirts, that neither of the younger ones could be considered the 'best fighter' the pack had. So that left only... "You've got to be kidding me," I snarled, Rayne had been correct when he said I wasn't going to like who they sent back for me.

  "Oh, I'm not happy about it either, sweetheart," Wes, drawled sarcastically walking up to Rayne to pass a handshake. "Tristan sends his regards, and that there is no real leads as of yet."

  "He told me as much over the phone," Rayne said with a roll of the eyes. "But whatever. Do you want to catch some sleep or eat before you start with Sam?"

  Wes gave me another glacial glance, before sighing, "No, I might as well get started as soon as possible, I've got a lot of ground to cover with a newbie."

  The Everdeen brother's had managed to pick out practically the worst person to train me, maybe in the whole pack. I swear the guy hated me with every breath he breathed, looked down on me like some disgusting insect he stepped on and made a mess on his shoe. It could very possibly just be the fact that I was a human, and perhaps he hated humans in general, but there was a vibe that was particularly directed towards me.

  "Very well, have at it, just don't cause too much damage or Tristan will have your head," Rayne said nonchalantly before waving towards me and walking back inside. I gawked in my head, what an alpha he was, giving this man free opportunity to rip me to shreds. Great.

  Wes just gave a signal with his hand and walked off expecting me to follow him, which I did with grinding teeth. Probably dragging me off to some secluded area of the woods where not even supersonified werewolf hearing could pick up my screams. I would have to make sure to put any skills I obtained to use on Tristan if I managed to live through this.

  We stopped not far off—thank goodness—and I was nearly thrown off balance when all of a sudden Wes lunged at me.

  “What the—“ I screeched, but pivoted so his grasp didn’t fully catch my arm. But unfortunately after that brief burst of speed, he managed to lock his well muscled arm around my throat, holding me tightly in a choke hold. My eyes widened briefly in fear over how close this was to my dreams of Ian the night before, and my pulse spiked, but I tried to force myself to calm down. No matter how human-hating Wes was, there wasn’t any way he was as crazy as Ian or Tristan would have never kept him around. “Let go, you jerk,” I growled, trying to pry him away with my hands but he was more solid than he appeared.

  He chuckled humorlessly, “I’m testing your abilities, Sam. Sadly I don’t have much to work on if you can’t even manage to dodge that one.”

  I twisted my head enough to sink my teeth into his forearm, causing him to release me enough to allow me loose. I couldn’t taste blood, so I knew I didn’t bite him awfully hard but I hated being contained by people I couldn’t trust. “Not the most conventional method, but it works,” I spat, trying to get rid of the taste in my mouth.

  “Perhaps,” Wes said with a sigh, “But biting people isn’t going to get you out of everything.”

  “Oh, and you have a move that will get me out of absolutely everything?” I asked sarcastically, cocking a hand at my hip.

  “Unfortunately no, and more unfortunately I’m going to have to teach you basics everybody here learned when they were around ten.” He sighed, looking up into the sky with a scowl, “This is going to be one long day,”