Chapter 25

SOMA:

It’s a totally different environment that I find myself in. And it’s just days after I put a call through to Hailey, Alpha Tyrone’s mate, about coming into the Dark Moon pack for sightseeing with my sister. At the moment, it is what I am doing while walking about with Hailey as my guide. Our guide, I must say, because I am not doing this alone. Cassie is here with us.

I have lost count of the number of paths we have gone through on this almost sunny day of the weekend. This weather was more like a mix because we are caught up in the middle of summer and winter.

The only reason why I haven’t found this boring in any way is because of Hailey’s constant talks and explanations about the things around the pack that was hardly any of my interest. Still, I have to contribute one or two things to make it seem I was following up with the ongoings despite my mind being elsewhere most of the time.

My sight has been trailing around for the reason I am here in the first place. I have been trying to seek out Luis, and even when we coincidentally pass by where he should be stationed, as so I believe, he was nowhere to be found.

“So, what do you think at the moment about the Dark Moon pack? Has it met up to your expectations?” Hailey’s voice gets to my hearing but I do not bother to look at her because I could tell the questions were not directed at me.

“Seems great to me,” Cassie, who has hardly said anything since we started the whole thing responds to Hailey’s question. “But to be honest, it beats my imagination. I always thought the pack would be... uh, what should I say? Dark?”

Cassie’s statement has me looking from both her and Hailey. Frankly speaking, I was expecting something similar to an eye roll from Hailey but she does instead is to giggle a little. She does have a weird personality.

“I think I might get where this is coming from. It’s because of the name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Cassie tells her.

“Well, as you can see, the Dark Moon pack has nothing in relation to its name. But that does not mean it got its name randomly. Like every other pack, one event or another led to the naming of their pack. Ours came from the eclipse that befell our territory about a century ago. And it has been stuck with us ever since,”

“I see,”

I won’t deny the fact that I’m bothered about Cassie’s lack of enthusiasm. She was hardly depicting any vibe that she wants to be here. So far it has been smooth but I don’t know if it would be that smooth for long.

My saving grace all along has been Hailey’s easygoing attitude. She mostly doesn’t realize that the person she is acting as a guide for lacks interest in what she is doing. But I definitely wouldn’t blame Cassie for her acts because it had been my idea that she followed me here to cover up for my reason to be here. Cassie, being the loyal sister, wouldn’t say no.

“Would you like us to go to other side of the main packhouse? It’s the part where the warriors mostly train,” Hailey brings that to our attention, and it made me realize that we were indeed not too far from the training ground. “Ah ah, I remember it was where I was told Soma went against a few of our best warriors and didn’t lose any,”

Mentioning that starts to bring back memories of last week’s bouts with the Dark Moon warriors. How, for the first time, I felt super exhausted in just the third bout. “Well, I didn’t win everything either,” I have to say, a little bit of frustration laced in my tone from thinking about it.

“I heard that too, but it was only the third bout that you didn’t win. Yes, it ended a stalemate but I would say it happened due to exhaustion. You might have been super exhausted from going through two previous phases,”

Only I know what actually resulted in that. And it was not exhaustion from the previous fights before the last one. Well, I wouldn’t want to start explaining myself so I’ll rather let it slide.

What I do instead is to affirm in a way, “Could have been the reason,”

And from there, we start to turn to the opposite side of the building, even passing through the path where I think I saw Hailey chasing down her kid. Even a high-ranking wolfling can have issues taking care of a kid, so humans should stop complaining about their own predicaments.

“Can you teach me how to fight?”

I widen my eyes at the sudden request. “Who? Me?” I ask in the most surprised voice I could ever produce, already because the question threw me off guard. For real, I would never expect to hear such in probably a million years.

“Yes,” Hailey nods, and then gives me a brief stare before averting her gaze back to the road ahead. “I want you to train me in the way of combat because I’m tired of feeling I cannot defend myself enough if I ever find myself in a situation that warrants me fighting,”

Now I feel super nervous that she has to request such from me. I don’t even know when I take my hand up to my hair to run through it. This was one hell of a biggie and my senses weren’t giving me the perfect reaction toward it.

Cassie, standing right beside me, exchanges a look with me. It would have helped to know what she is thinking but she remains indifferent. But I think I know what to do to get her to help me out.

‘What should I do?’ I ask Cassie via the mind-link. And at the same time, she looks away from me.

‘Who knows? Take up the offer?’

And there she goes... not offering any help in a closely uptight situation. Guess I just have to see through this myself.

“That could be a bit difficult for me. I’ve never taught anyone combat before,” I just have to admit to Hailey with hopes she would let it go that way. But I was wrong.

“You can always start with me. It’s not too late to get your first student. And trust me, I’m a very good learner so you wouldn’t be bothered about whether or not I would get the tactics you would use for me,”

Okay, that’s obviously one way to tell me I have no way out of this. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea if I did teach her the ways of combat. And I can see a green light in this situation as well which I would not want to mention right now.

“Being a good learner does not necessarily affirm how well you will do in the basis of combat,” I say, and that was when the training ground gets to my sight. “Tell me, what skill do you have in combat at all? We could pick up something from there,”

“Uhm, I think I can do a few in the basis. But it’s not enough because I know I will be beaten quickly in a fight. Horrible, I must say,”

“So, if I come at you like this...” and just like that, I was right in front of her with the back of my palm directed at her chest. The stun in her eyes is enough to know she was not expecting me to do what I just did. “...how would you react?”

She snaps out of the surprise she has fallen into and then raises her hand. “I’ll probably do this,” she says as she hits my palm with her forearm. More like a block.

“I think you’ve forgotten about this,” with that, I hit her forearm hard with the back of my palm, making her hit herself in the chest in the process as she starts to move back. But then I stop her from tripping by stepping on her foot.

“Woah,” she almost exclaims, “that was unexpected.”

I take my foot off hers and then go back to my previous position which was beside Cassie. ‘She’s really not good,’ I tell Cassie, and what she does instead of responding is to nod.

“It wasn’t unexpected, Hailey. It just shows how little you know about combat. To be honest, if I’m to train you, then you’ve got a long way to go before you can say you know something about combat.”

“So does that mean you are going to train me?”

I hear the expectancy in her voice and it has me realizing that I have no choice but to agree. “Well, I could say yes. But how will we go about it?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I can always be at the Blood Crescent pack whenever you want me to be. Like on days you feel you could spare the time to teach me. I promise not to be a bug.”

I smile at her because I could see how enthusiastic she was about her request. Definitely, she wants this and it would be wrong of me not to grant her request.

“It’s fine then. We’ll be meeting at my pack. And probably here once in a while as well.”

“Thank you so much,” she says, but my attention isn’t on her anymore. No, it’s on the warrior that has gotten my head all messed up over the past two weeks now.