My head whips back when she lands a sharp blow to my eye.
“Ow, motherfucker!” I try to cradle my cheek, but the gloves make it impossible.
“Duck.”
She goes to punch me again, but I duck in time. She still clips me on the chin, wrenching my neck.
“Dude!” I yell, but she’s bouncing around on her feet with her fists up.
“Your wolf is with you. Orion told me about your struggles with her, working together.”
I look around the room, searching for my traitorous mate, but he’s probably outside. Andrea warned him he likely shouldn’t watch, or his alpha would intervene. I regret not taking that threat more seriously now.
“I mean, we’re a lot better than we were. But yeah, we aren’t the fastest.”
“You can partial shift though, right? When you’re threatened, or in trouble?”
I don’t like where this is going.
“You can hear Beep, right?” she asks, and Beep preens a bit that Andrea knows her name.
I nod, and Andrea continues, “Well, Beep, I’m talking to you then. Don’t blame your human for being slow. You’re the one with the power. You weren’t raised together, so you’re at a disadvantage, but that’s over now. No more excuses.”
She jabs at me again, and I duck, barely in time. Andrea pauses to offer a few minutes of explanation—how to stand, how to hold up my arms—but that’s all the training I get.
Beep is rumbling under my skin, getting irritated. I throw a punch, and I internally cringe when it’s a slow arc about six inches from her face.
Andrea doesn’t even laugh. Her eyes widen. She’s offendedforme. “Wow.”
“Shut up,” I hiss. Then I throw another. But this time, I can feel Beep in the punch. It’s a little faster.
Andrea notices the difference and nods excitedly. “Again.”
So I punch again, and Andrea counters. We go on like this, back and forth, until my arms ache. With each throw, I feel more of Beep’s power. Like she’s using my body to hit. Her magic tingles beneath my skin, but we aren’t shifting. She’s still there though, along my nerves, firing with me.
“Better,” Andrea says flatly. I take the praise, and it spurs me on.
An hour later, I tap out, mostly because I need piles of food and a gallon of water. Andrea’s barely broken a sweat.
“You’re pretty amazing,” I tell her, still in awe of how she moves.
I assume she’s going to say something sarcastic and mean, but when she doesn’t, I roll my head to face her. I’m laying flat on my back, sweaty and tired. She’s staring at me like she’s trying to figure me out. When she reaches an arm out to help me up, I gladly take it.
“So, that’s it then? We’re done, right?”
“For now. When the witches aren’t an issue, we’ll try the training course in the woods again. I was bummed I missed it the last time Gray set it up for you.”
I shudder, thinking of what would have happened to me if Andrea had been one of the wolves instructed to scare the shit out of me as I ran through the woods a few weeks ago.
I shake my head, and we walk toward the exit, but the door swings open first.
“Hey!” Cynthia appears beside a younger recruit. With a freckled face and the energy of an alpha, but he can’t be much older than Joey—ten, maybe—he lunges forward, arms outstretched to wrap around me, lips in a comically wide grin. Cynthia swipes the kid’s collar and delivers a swift cuff to his ear. “Boundaries, pup.” Then her eyes meet mine, softening. “Good to see you in one piece.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. Good to be home. Are you okay? I heard Joey recovered fine?”
Her mouth opens again—something on the tip of her tongue, an array of emotions washing over her face—before she closes it and nods succinctly. “He’s fine. We’re all glad you’re home, though.”
With the kid’s collar still in her grip, she disappears among the enforcers, toward the training mat. Andrea and I step outside.
