The Bite (Book 1)

Original Edition - Chapter 27: Decisions

It felt like winter was never going to end.

My wolf and I were tired of trudging through the snow and I was tired of shoveling snow every day. I would take chopping firewood over shoveling snow anyway.

After Christmas, I tried my best to stay away from Liam. Levi would take me to the pack gym, where he could keep working with Liam and I over the winter so 'we didn't turn into lazy fat asses.' That was my extent of seeing Liam, by my own choice.

After our 'hallway incident' over Christmas, my wolf didn't trust him. I felt bad for him, but I had to protect both of us. He had a mate out there and I am sure she is a wonderful person. I am not going to hurt some innocent person because I was selfish. That and my wolf was protective of our own mate. I could care less for whoever that lucky asshole was, but notion did help me to fight the bond.

My wolf and I worked hard over the winter when we trained with Levi. We didn't want spring to come and for us to look as fat as the bear we killed. Levi pushed us, but we pushed harder. We were growing, in more ways than just closer together. Levi said we were starting to grow into ourselves; I even started getting more hits in with Levi when we sparred.

I met some people from the pack, but Levi was still a bit over protective. He let David bring some pack warriors for me to train with, mated males and females. They were tough. It was good for my wolf though, it was good for us to have something different thrown at us.

Soon though, my wolf and I were able to hold our own. Sure, we took many good hits, but the day we put down a seasoned male David said that I should start training with him, so I did.

Training with David was different than training with Levi, but it was still good. He was tough like Levi and knew exactly which buttons to push to piss me off. He had me on my ass many times, but he also taught me a lot.

He would bring his daughter with him every time we trained, with Levi's supervision. She would sit on Levi's lap and watch us while Levi would call out things to me, point out things, or tell me to 'move my ass.'

His daughter was smart. She loved asking Levi different questions about what David and I were doing, and she also asked when she could start training. Levi just chuckled and told her once she shifted that she could come out here with him, which lit a smile on her face like the Fourth of July.

David also taught me a lot about strategy. He knew a ridiculous amount of different fighting styles and started to teach me more than just how to throw a fist and take a hit. He taught me how to move my body in a way that was fluid, how to listen to it and rely on it. He taught me that it wasn't all about strength, even though that helped, but skill would take you a lot further in a fight than many would like to think.

He eventually had Remi and I spar together along with Liam. Remi was fast. Damn fast. It was an insane amount of work to keep up with him. Liam and I started calling him 'The Flash,' because in a flash he had your ass on the ground before you knew what happened.

The other boys around our age did not want to spar with us, though. Apparently, after they saw what happened to Ben and Taylor, when they were brought back early from the bear hunt, they were all scared shitless of me. Good.

The training helped me not only to grow into myself more, but it helped take my wolf's mind off the anxious pull she had. Ever since Christmas, it was like a scratch that only got worse. I was sure being cooped up in the cabin because of the snow didn't help, but I knew even after the snow melted that it would still be there.

She longed for something.

I trained longer hours to kill her anxiety. Levi said if I could wear her out that she would probably be too tired to start scratching. It was true, but still, it was there. Like a feather lightly tickling your nose, it was there.