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“If that’s the case, then it’s a hypothetical you don’t have to worry about, right?”
“That’s true.” I huffed out a breath. “So, the only hurdle is whether or not I’m willing to make him upset and put him through the stress of changing into a shifter.”
“Well, your buddy who’s with you—what was his name? Travis? He’s becoming a shifter soon, right? Maybe you can figure things out by seeing how it goes for him.”
“And there’s always the possibility that I could change my mind after I get some good training under my belt,” I said with a smile.
River laughed and winked. “In that case, let’s get back to this obstacle course, yeah?”
He stood to his full, lanky height and offered me his hand. I accepted it, and he pulled me to my feet.
We worked our way through the rest of the course. I did much better now that the course was mostly a straight shot instead of vertical ascension. It started with a few leaps across some platforms, then climbing across one of the big nets on a frame of bars. Finally, a simple wooden ladder brought me to the zipline.
River had treated this exercise like an unofficial race, and I’d certainly lost, officially or not. Now that I was higher, the zipline looked much more daunting than I’d originally thought. It hadn’t looked so high from the floor, but standing at the platform and realizing it would just be a harness and a steel cord keeping me from falling...
“You gonna chicken out?” River teased.
I gulped. “No.”
“Good, ’cause this is the best part.” He turned to take a harness off the wall and put it on the floor in front of me. “Legs through the loops.”
I stepped into them, and River put on the harness with focused efficiency. His hands didn’t linger as he pulled, tugged, and tested the straps to see if they were properly secured. When he was done, he clicked me in with a set of carabiners and handed me the handrail.
“You just hang onto this and slide right down. I’ll be just a few minutes behind you.”
“Right,” I said. I hovered a bit at the edge of the platform, then closed my eyes and stepped off it.
My stomach lurched as I fell the few feet between the line and the harness, but the sickening sensation turned into exhilaration as I whooshed through the air at a fun, exciting speed. I finally opened my eyes, giggling and whooping as I soared through the air. Once I landed and fumbled to get myself out of the harness, River pulled the handlebar back up to the platform, clipped himself in, and zoomed down right after me.
“Good job, Marley,” he said when he’d landed. “You kicked ass up there. We still got about an hour before the others show up, so let’s get some water and a snack, and I’ll show you the rest of the facility.”
River gave me a tour of everything else, explaining that the tires along with some other obscenely large fixtures were for lifting. I could see Cole being able to lift them, but it would probably take my strength combined with Lana’s and Paulette’s to get them moving. The rock walls were rarely used, according to River, but we indulged in a bit of rock climbing after snacking on protein bars.
I turned out to be better at rock climbing than River, which gave me a jolt of pride. River had moved too quickly and gotten himself into some tough situations.
Finally, other humans started to trickle into the warehouse. The first was a small, bright-eyed girl who looked to be about four foot eleven. If she had been a shifter, her tail would have been wagging as she greeted River.
“Hey!” she said to me after River introduced me. “I’m Odette. So cool to meet you up close. I saw you at the feast last night.”
“So nice to meet you, too,” I said, smiling.
“Isn’t River the nicest? He told me he was gonna pair up with you, but he usually pairs up with me,” she chirped. “Don’t worry, I like to share. Makes me appreciate him more when I get to wrestle with him again.”
“Odie, are you talking someone’s ear off again?” someone said, approaching from behind her.
“Meiko!” she said brightly. “This is Marley. She’s that other alpha’s mate-slash-girlfriend-slash-partner or whatever. Isn’t she so pretty? River’s pairing up with her today.”
“Hey,” the girl said to me as she approached. She had gorgeous angular eyes and hair as glossy as polished obsidian. “I’m Meiko, one of the trainers. Glad to have you.”
“Meiko, let’s pair up!” Odette suggested eagerly.
“Last time we paired up, I made you cry,” Meiko said flatly.
“You did not!” Odette protested.
The two of them walked toward the water dispensers as they bickered.
About a dozen more people showed up after that, and the atmosphere became pleasantly social as we all sat on the turf. Mostly, I just watched people chatter, trying to pick up some threads of their conversations. There were ten humans and five shifters for the day’s session. I assumed we’d be taking turns pairing up with shifters.
