Aiden Freeman

Chapter twelve

"What are you talking about?" I asked  him, nervous of what he meant.

"Only one person is going to decide if you can leave. That is me." He answered, his expression suddenly turning serious.

"You know what I mean." I replied back.

"It's simple really. You and I are going to compete against each other. Not to the death though, so wipe that nervous look from your face." He answered.

The party and everything was him looking for attention. He wanted to win against me. He wasn't going to hold anything back, which meant I couldn't afford to either.

"Shall we begin?" He said motioning me to go outside.

-

I was told what the objective of the test was. Children were told to go to the forest for this test. I had to find a girl, while Rudolph had to find a boy.

I needed to find the girl and bring her to safety back in the mansion. The girl has never seen a wolf, even if she lived alongside werewolves and was a werewolf herself. She could be scared of my wolf so I had to make sure she didn't see my wolf or know I'm a werewolf. She was four years old and her name was Elizabeth. Brown hair, tan skin and pink dress. That's was all I needed to know.

"Are you both ready?" Jim asked Rudolph and I while we were prepared to run toward the woods.

We both nodded and Jim signaled us to begin with a howl.

And we were off.

We shifted and started running in our wolf forms. To my surprise, Rudolph and I ran about the same speed, but I couldn't focus on him. I had to focus on finding Elizabeth, and quickly.

There was at least 250 acres of pure forest in the pack territory, and a little girl was lost in all of that.

If I wanted Rudolph to let me go with Iris to Puerto Rico, I had to find her.

-

I searched for about five minutes and at the Far East of my starting point, I smelled something that reminded me of a human girl. I kept running and running toward this scent, hoping it was her. It was moving, quite slowly compared to me, but nonetheless moving. Then something else hit my nose. It smelled like something entirely different from the pack.

A rogue.

When I finally saw her she was crying. I needed her to be safe, and if I had to fight to do it, I would. The wolf was walking dangerously close to her and tried to bite her several times. I kept running and used my momentum to attack the wolf. I tackled it and it collided with a tree. Her crying got stronger and thundered in my ears. I decided to ignore it so she wouldn't be afraid of me from any reactions I might do because of her, and so I could focus on this wolf who meant to harm her.

He was alone, thankfully. It was significantly smaller than me as well.

"Wait for them to make the first move. Start reading your opponent. Every movement, every hesitation. Use it to your advantage." Harry's words echoed in the back of my head as I saw the wolf tumbling from the impact it had with the tree.

Once it got stable, it shook it's head, looked at me and growled, and I growled back. It wasted no time in trying to tackle me, I moved to my left and dodged it, but then I remembered Elizabeth. I had let it get a clear shot at attacking her. I quickly turned to my right and jumped just in time to prevent it from reaching her. The wolf managed to claw the left side of my rib cage.

When I landed on the ground, blocking the wolf from harming Elizabeth, I pounded its face with my right paw with a lot of force.

I moved a lot faster than that wolf, and did a lot more damage than it did as well. The wolf only did a scratch. I checked on Elizabeth and she looked deep into my eyes. She seemed to understand that I was there to protect her.