As I dream, it dawns on me that they will all be eighteen in six months and I could lose this. What am I thinking? I will lose this. No mate would want to share them, any of them. I hope that I am lucky enough to have Sam mated to Sierra.
At least that friendship can remain, but what about Oliver and the twins? I am so close to all three of them, we have some type of symbiotic relationship. I don’t even know if I will be able to leave them to go back to the training compound again. Just the thought of that hurts my heart.
I stir from my fitful sleep and notice my cheeks are wet. Was I crying in my sleep? This is worse than I thought.
I get up to go shower again. I can only imagine what my face looks like if I was crying. I let the scalding water make my whole body red as I try to wash away the sadness my dreams brought on. When I can’t stall anymore, I hop out and get dressed then step back into Cam’s room noticing both of them are standing in the middle of the room waiting for me, clearly having a conversation over their mindlink.
Kota grabs for me as I try to pass them and I let him pull my back to his chest as Cam steps in front of me placing his hand under my chin to raise my eyes to his. He doesn’t say anything, just searching for something in my eyes. I just take a deep breath, breathing both of their scents and letting it calm me. I shake my head. We have things to get done today and I have months before any of my worries need to be dealt with.
He looks at his brother and something passes between them, he nods looking at me again and they both let me go, following me out of the room.
The walk downstairs is somber, or we are all just tired only getting a few hours of sleep. But the drama hasn’t even begun yet. As soon as we get into the kitchen, Kaley’s high pitched screech greets us. “Good Morning, my Alphas. I hope I was able to help you sleep well?” She bats her lashes suggestively, standing from the island where she was sitting with her dad. He’s wearing a smug look of triumph. “Uh, no actually. Your nighttime activities gave us a migraine. Smalls had to help us out.” Kota says wrapping an arm around my waist as Lil spits out and Jena chokes on their first sips of coffee.
“Ah! Wha..?”
“Please try to keep your link closed when you are having s*x. It’s inappropriate and disrespectful to whomever you’re with.” Cam follows behind.
“How dare y..” Kevin starts, but Cam cuts him off with a hand up.
“Lenny, thank you for breakfast.” He leads us past the tray that Lenny has set for us with wrapped breakfast burritos piled high, we each crab a couple foil wrapped burritos then out the door to the training grounds.
We have settled into a good routine with training in just a couple days. I forgot how much I loved this. I love teaching and working with all the kids. I guess each of the lead warriors take turns doing the Sky training, because it is extremely early and kind of brutal since it is a punishment training. It is funny to watch the kids come from SKy training and then get paired with Lil, Jena or I directly after. Many of them are not repeat offenders.
We each shower and change after training. Lil and Jena head to the school with Mateo and Sam, the twins head back to the packhouse to work on the pack financials for the month and Oliver and I head down to the bonfire space, following instructions from Elena in the grimoire.
Today I am going to try to manipulate earth today. I have been able to levitate it, but not actually move it and if it comes down to a war Elena thinks that will be a good skill, I agree. “So talk me through this, Bitty. What should I expect?”
“A lot of misfires actually. I started with water and I think for the first couple hours, Elena was soaked even standing directly behind me.” We both laugh, but I am serious. I can only imagine what I will do with clods of dirt.
I sit on the ground with the book opened to the marked page and begin chanting. The reaction is almost immediate as chunks of earth begin floating around me. It feels like my mind is holding lots of strings pulling them up and suspending them in the air. Now I have to split my focus and suspend some and throw others. The first chunk I try to move explodes with a pop and shower of dirt. Oliver lets out a little laugh, so I focus on one closer to his leg, which also explodes, hitting him with some of the debris. He jumps and moves to the side and I focus on another close to him getting another explosion.
I find that having him to focus on as a target helps me. I am still only making them explode but I can isolate better. After about two hours, I can make little dime sized pieces of dirt follow him around the clearing “Midge, we need you. Not an emergency, but wrap up what you are doing. I found something.”
“Okay, give us twenty minutes.”
“We are needed at the school, Jena found something.” I pick up the grimoire and stand, brushing the small bits of dirt in my lap.
“Umm, Bitty?” I finally look at Oliver and almost fall over laughing.
My Gamma is covered head to toe in dirt. He looks like he was crawling around on the ground through a mud pit and then let it dry. I don’t know if there is more than an inch of him that is left clean. “You look good, you should totally rock the look.” I choke out between laughter.
“Oh yeah?!” He comes at me and I drop the book to defend myself.
Oliver drops low to take out my legs, I spin, but he still manages to get one and I am thrown forward so I tuck in a roll and he follows to try and gain the advantage, but I use his weight to my advantage. I flip us both around and end up sprawled out across his chest.
He could easily reverse our position, but he doesn’t, he just stays on his back and holds me. I lay my head on his chest enjoying the closeness.
He takes a deep breath. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I have to ask.” He rubs my back a few more times before he continues. “How fast are you trying to get out of here? I know you want to get back to training and you are doing all kinds of stuff with Alpha Reggie now that you know you are connected with them, but how long do we get to keep you? Last time was really hard. I know none of the others are going to say anything, but it was really bad.”
“What do you mean really bad? No one said anything.”
“No one wanted to make you feel bad about being gone so long and with how it went down, I think we just wanted to focus on having you back, but you need to know…”
