The she-wolf pulled away at the feeling, a look of confusion gracing her features.
What the hell was that?
For one, her action had been highly inappropriate for a lady of the ton. The werewolf society didn’t particularly care about harmless physical touches like that, but humans assessed everything critically.
There was also the fact that she was supposed to hate this man with a passion— and she did, or at least she tried to convince herself that she still did. But when she had hugged him, offering him her silent sympathy, mostly for the young boy he had been, and what he had had to go through at such a young age, what she had felt had confused her greatly.
It felt like nothing she had ever felt before, and she could have sworn on her life that it had happened only because she had touched him… hugged him.
Did he feel it too?
If he did, he made no indication of it, apparently too overwhelmed with grief.
Even though Kendra sympathised with the general— understood him even, she felt like she needed to get him to understand that he killing innocent wolves to avenge his mother’s death was still not going to bring her back, and so she said, “Look, my lord… I know you’re hurting—”
“I didn’t tell you this because I want your pity, Artemis,” He cut her off with a snarl, “And I most definitely do not need your advice on how to live my life,” He turned on his heel and headed outside, but then paused in his tracks. “My men will train at dusk, I’ll tell them to prepare for you in case you want to join them.”
He didn’t even wait for her response,
And then he was gone.
Kendra sighed deeply.
Now that she knew the origin story of this villain, she couldn’t help but wonder what she would have done had she been in his shoes, but analyzing herself and how impatient, impulsive and avenging she could be sometimes, she was pretty sure she’d have taken the same path, done the same thing he had, if not worse.
See, that was the thing about life… about giving advice. Not having lived an experience always made it easy to give out your opinions, no matter how unsolicited it was. You never got to understand the reason… the pain behind the actions, and pointing fingers was always easy.
And Kendra knew that it wasn’t her who was going to get the General to give up this righteous cleanse he was on, but she was okay with that.
That wasn’t the reason why she was here anyway.
It wasn’t part of her mission, which was to seek help from the mysterious Silver witch for Killian. She was going to stick to her quest, and then if she had a chance, she’d still kill him before she left,
But if she couldn’t, that was fine too.
On the bright side, she was finally going to get the chance to spar again, after going days without, and the young she wolf just felt like jumping to the roof with joy at the revelation.
Of course she was going to have to take things slow, lest she displayed how much of an excellent swordsman she was and freaked the whole troupe out.
Yes, she could easily do that.
With that thought in mind, Kendra stood up to reach for the book she had been reading earlier, having accidentally dropped it in one of the other chairs, but a sharp, searing pain in her head stopped her right in her tracks, a painful whimper escaping her lips at how intense it was as she grabbed the side of her head in pain.
What the fuck was that?
The female-beta tried to take short breaths to try to regulate the flow of the pain. It seemed to be working— but only for a while, and then the searing pain was back with a vengeance.
Kendra crumpled to the ground in a heap of pain as her two hands clutched the sides of her head painfully. Even with all the pain, she still tried to crawl out of the tent. Perhaps, someone would see her and help her out, but just as she was about to cross the threshold, the pounding headache just disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
It was almost as if she had imagined it… had her questioning herself and her reality even. That headache had been real, there was no way she had imagined it.
The dark skinned woman slowly struggled to her feet, a little wobbly and wary, fearing the return of the frightening headache.
She grabbed her book and staggered back to her seat, pondering over whether it was a good idea to go and spar with the soldiers with her new, sudden development, but then she thought better of it.
She was fine, so what was all the stress for?
She wasn’t going to miss the chance she had finally been given to do something she loved since she started this quest, and so even as she settled in her chair and resumed her reading, she had already decided;
Come dusk, she was going to spar with the boys.
*****
Dusk came very quickly to Kendra’s excitement.
Thankfully, she hadn’t felt anything weird again.
Slipping on her boots, she was going to reach for her silver dagger when she thought better of it and dropped it.
Killian had given her that dagger as a gift.
Guilt of the highest kind consumed the she-wolf. In the last two days, she hadn’t even thought about him much, but now that she was doing so, worry was starting to slip in.
Was he okay?
How was he holding up with her disappearance?
Was he doing everything he could to find her?
Or did he just think of her disappearance as good riddance?
Tears welled up in her eyes. She missed him.
Fuck, she missed him so much.
But all that she was doing was for their own good— no, scratch that, it was for his salvation. And that of the pack… if that was even still possible.
Putting the dagger away for safekeeping, she walked out of her tent and towards the training grounds.
She heard them even before she saw them— men in groups of about twenty, some practicing their sword fight, some wrestling, some training with guns, and the last set using arrows and spears.
Alaric’s legion of soldiers were all-rounded, it seemed.
Kendra was quick to notice however, that the soldiers trained in their long sleeved, wool-like tunics.
Speaking of those, did they ever take them off?
The she wolf could not help but wonder. Alaric thankfully did not wear those horrendous things. He preferred a dark tunic with matching breeches, the ensemble striking a very sharp contrast with his brilliant white hair. She itched to ask him if that was his natural hair colour— because even though she didn’t know much about it, she had heard tales of she wolves back in Silver Crest who had changed their hair colours with bleach— but she wasn’t sure they had gotten that comfortable yet.
She spotted him just as she closed that line of thought. Clad in only a pair of breeches, his sinewy arms and chest on full display revealing chest hair the same color as that on his head.
So he was a natural whitehead after all.
For some reason, Kendra found herself strongly mesmerised by the General’s body. Was it because she had missed a man’s touch against her skin?
She didn’t know, but she did her best to shake away the weird feeling.
“Ah, Artemis! I see you made it,” he called out when he finally noticed her, his eyes doing an appreciative sweep of her entire body.
Was he checking her out?
“So, where do you want me, my lord?” The dark skinned beauty asked the blonde haired general absentmindedly.
Her seemingly innocent questions invoked thoughts so wild— thoughts so erotic— in the General that he just knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate with her around him.
Fuck, he wanted her bent over in his bed, ass sticking up in the air, with his cock swiftly thrusting in and out of her warm heat.
His men couldn’t seem to hide their appreciation for her as well, but she was totally oblivious, her face adorably scrunched in concentration as she took in her surroundings.
There was no way he was going to keep her here under the lustful gazes of his men.
And so he said, “My men will not be able to concentrate with you here, and so you will spar with Pollion… in the sparring tent.”
Oh.
Kendra had honestly not even thought about that, her first experience with them now a distant memory in her head, but then she realised that Alaric was right. She couldn’t spar here.
With a silent nod, she trailed after the huge, one eyed giant. After all, this beat sitting in her tent practicing embroidery anyway.
Two solid hours later and Kendra trudged into her tent wearily, reaching for the sack skin of water hanging against one of the pillars in the large tent and drinking to her heart’s fill.
Today had been a productive day.
Her blood was pumped, her heart light with adrenaline. Pollion had managed to get a few cuts in, but nothing too serious, and she had given as good as she got. It had been so obvious that both of them were going easy on each other, but they had both continued with the deception.
Lighting up a torch in the tent, Kendra proceeded to give her wounds a closer inspection, because with her wolf on a hiatus, her healing process was going to take much longer.
But when Kendra lifted up the arms of her tunic, her eyes widened in disbelief, her heartbeat quickening at what she saw. There were blood stains from the gashes alright, but there was not a wound in sight.
With cautious carefulness, Kendra reached out into her consciousness, trying to feel her wolf. The sharp pain returned for a hot minute and then passed once again.
And then she heard it.
Loud and clear,
EAT, RUN.
Her wolf was back!