Warrior Games

The sun beats through my window blinding me as I wake up. Panic sets in as I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom to shower. I have never slept in so late. I always wake up before the sun to start training. My father is the head warrior of the Snowstorm Pack. I always admired him and his ways of fighting. When I turned seven, I was at the training complex everyday training with him.

When I was ten, Alpha Blake and Luna Winter added weapons training. Swords, blades, nunchucks, etc. They wanted everyone in the pack to expand on their training. My father wouldn’t let me train with weapons until five years ago at the age of fifteen. My personal favorites are the blades and swords. They are small enough to hide in places on my person, so if push comes to shove and there‘s a surprise attack, I have easy access to my blades.

I don’t have a mate yet. When I didn’t find my mate at eighteen like everyone else, Alpha Blake asked me if I wanted to travel to different packs to find him. I politely declined. It’s not that I don‘t want a mate, I’m just always focused on training. Shayna, my wolf, does want her mate, but also supports my training. She believes we will find our mate when the time is right.

I was only five when my father had to leave our pack with our leadership and other warriors to help the Black Howl pack with their feral rogue problem. I don’t remember much, but what I do remember is when he came back, he trained harder.

There hasn’t been a feral rogue problem reported since, but feral rogues are unpredictable and they can show up at anytime.

When I get out of the shower and quickly change, I scratch the top of the head of my giant wolf plushie Luna Winter won for me when I was five before I run downstairs to grab a bottle of water and head to the training complex. No one was home. My mother, Nancy, does odd jobs around the pack to keep herself busy. Her favorite is helping Luna Winter and Lady Beta Maddie plan events and I always know where my dad, Max, is.

I ran to the complex and burst through the door. Everyone stopped to look at me thinking something was wrong. “Sorry dad”, I said, before going to the locker room to put my stuff away.

The first thing I always do when I get to the complex is go upstairs to the indoor track and run twenty laps to get my heart rate up. It’s no surprise to see Luna Winter getting her morning run in. I race to catch up to her wanting to sneak up on her, but it’s hard to sneak up on a wolf. As I got closer to her, I saw her head slightly lift sniffing the air.

Luna Winter’s pace slowed and I caught up to her. “Hey Luna, I see you’re getting your morning run in.” I smirk.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite little wolf.” Luna Winter jokes. Though I highly doubt I’m her favorite, she isn’t joking by “Little Wolf”. I do happen to be the smallest in our pack at five foot five while everyone else is five seven and up. I may be small, but I am fast.

“How many laps have you done so far, Luna?” I ask. We usually try to get a race in, but with me sleeping in, I doubt Luna Winter has time for a race.

“I ran about six laps so far. Poor Ashtyn had a slight fever this morning, so I was a little late getting here.” Ashtyn is my little buddy. He’s fourteen and our next Alpha after Alpha Blake. His little sister, Auytianna, is six and the sweetest little pup.

“Oh no, I hope he’s gonna be alright.” Shayna whined in my head when she heard about Ashtyn not feeling well. She loves him as much as I do.

“Maddie is with him now. She gave him a little bit of medicine and is keeping an eye on him so I can get some laps in.” Luna Winter and I slow to a jog, before walking over to her gym bag to get a bottle of water. “Sh*t, I didn’t realize I had already been here for an hour. I need to get home.” She said as she picked her bag.

“Please give Ashtyn a hug for me and tell him to get well soon.”

“Of course. Tomorrow we will race and maybe I will finally beat you.” Luna Winter gave me a hug and wink before leaving.

Maybe tomorrow I will actually let her beat me in a race. I know she will frown upon it, but in my defense, she has loved me as her own since I was a pup and I do want to see her win a race.

I put my earbuds in and continued on with my laps. Twenty laps later and I barely break a sweat. When I finished my laps, I head down to the dining area and grab a couple granola bars before going to the locker room to change into my warrior leathers.

Brown leather pants with sheathes up and down each leg for my blades and my brown leather top with sheathes on each side of my ribs and two on my back for my swords. I’m surprised no one is in the weapons training room when I enter. Since the Alpha and Luna added weapons training, a lot of wolves have been coming here.

Barriers with moving mechanical targets are spread around the room while some moving targets are on the walls and ceiling. ”Figured I’d find you in here,” my dad says while I’m placing my blades and swords in their sheathes.

“Where else would I be?” I smirk putting the final blade in its sheathe by my ribs.

”Well, I thought you would be getting ready for the cookout at the pack house. Remember they are doing their annual Fourth of July cookout?”

I didn’t even know it was the Fourth of July. I’ve been so wrapped up in my training lately that I don’t even know what day it is anymore.

“That explains why no one is in here then. One round and I’ll get showered and get ready for the cookout. Time me?” I toss the stopwatch to my dad and get into stance. He catches the stopwatch with one hand with a smile on his face.

“Ready? And Go!”

I push off the ground with force and full speed. The first target pops up from the ground and I flick one of my blades at it, hitting the target in the head. Keeping up the momentum, I toss two other blades at the same time at different targets, each hitting the targets with ease.

I have enough speed that I run up on the wall towards another target releasing the fourth blade. Kicking off the wall and flying through the air, I release two more blades at targets about to come up from the ground. Landing on my knees, and sliding in a circle, I whip my last blade to the opposite wall where a target popped out.

Getting up to run, all I have left are my swords, I run for the final moving target. I unsheathe both swords and bring them across my chest before destroying the target and pieces of plywood fly through the air.

“Time?”

“50 seconds. Ten seconds faster than last week.” My dad smiled.

“Good, I’m getting faster. Now I just need to get my time down to thirty seconds.” I grab a towel and dab my forehead with it.

“Paige, you are the fastest wolf I know. Why do you feel the need to push yourself?”

“Because I’m trying to break your record of forty-five seconds.” We both laugh and pick up my blades before I head to the showers. I’m craving the hot water on my body after my weapons training.

My dad waited for me to get ready so I wouldn’t have to walk alone to the pack house since it’s an hour walk from the complex and he brought his car to training. In the car, dad was talking about new training methods he’d like to try. I didn’t really pay attention because my mind began to wander about my mate.

It really would be nice to find him. I’ve never been one to shun a person or wolf by their rank, so I don’t care what rank my mate will have. As I wonder about my mate, I constantly think: does he think about me? Is he handsome? Can he fight? Would he let me continue to train?

”Paige?”

“Paige?” My dad shakes me from my thoughts.

“Sorry.” I give him a weak smile.

”No worries. Come on, we’re here.”

“Bashie! Bashie! Wake up!” My ten year old sister, Raegan, yells as she comes in my room bouncing on my bed to wake me up. I laugh at her antics and reach up to tickle her causing her to squeal.

“Couldn’t have waited ten more minutes, could you?” I laugh, still tickling her.

“No! Today’s the day you said you would start training me.“ Raegan says, laughing. She’s right, I did say I would start training her today. My mother, Queen Danielle, is against Raegan training, but my father, King Isaiah, wants Raegan to train and become strong.

We do, of course have warriors to train Raegan, but my mother insists I train her, even though she‘s against it.

“Give me twenty minutes to shower and get dressed. We will have breakfast and then I’ll take you to the training grounds.“ I say, picking her up and setting her on the floor as I crawled out of bed.

“Okay!” Raegan ran out of my room like the speed of light. I shake my head still laughing as I get out of my bed an