284 Motivation to Train
After their visit to the dungeons that night, the king allowed them all to return to their chambers where Lina nearly retired to sleep.
Nearly...
Had a nosy delta not reminded her of the notes she was supposed to make research on, maybe, just maybe, she could have slept without thinking about it.
The blue-eyed girl cursed for having suggested it. Fortunately, with the help of her wolf’s jumbled memories, the girl caught up fast almost as though she’d been in the class and attentive the entire time.
Waking her up the next morning, sun rays from the rising sun warmly greeted her along with the peaceful chatter of birds in the morning. Her ears almost felt relieved to hear the pleasant sounds of the wood creatures.
Without meaning to, a smile spread across her face as she sat up to look outside the window pane. It was a sight worthy of celebration and one that felt almost plucked out of a fairy tale, ‘I never thought I’d miss the sun this much...’
“Lina, hurry up and get down here. Alpha Jackson had decided we are going to have a morning drill to loosen up our tense muscles,” Crysta’s voice yelled into the girl’s head, tearing her away from the angelic moment of peaceful bliss that had graced her morning.
“What is he doing making such an order on a fine day such as this?” the girl asked, resisting the urge to yell back at her friend.
“Well, normally, drills take place even if it rains, but after the death of the king of Lycaon, they were put on hold. The sun today just makes it feel like the right day to start back up again. We’ve not had one of them in a while,” the delta explained.
.....
“You sound like someone who knows the man’s favourite colour. Honestly, how do you always know so much?” Lina asked, crawling out of bed and into her closet for a change of clothes.
“I make it a point to research before giving you my morning report,” the girl replied with pride oozing in her voice.
“You’re starting to sound like a beta alpha,” Lina whined, getting ready for the morning drill. Her mind rushed back to the girl she had ‘rescued’ from the forest the day before.
“Honour, did the girl wake up?” she called out through the mind link.
“Good morning to you too, Lina. What’s wrong with werewolves and getting up early,” Honour complained from the other side.
“Hey, get up, Honour. Move your lazy bottom already,” Lina urged the girl, realising her best friend had only woken up because of her.
“Fine fine, you don’t have to be pushy about it,” Lina could have sworn she heard the girl yawning. It took her a few moments to get a reply from the girl, “Well, she’s still asleep. I’m just glad mother could help her. She looked much worse than she actually was.”
'
“Thank the goddess... umm, never mind that. Could you ask your parents to keep her in the house if she wakes up and to contact us as soon as she does?” Lina asked her, grimacing at the mine bomb she’d stepped on.
Still groggy with sleep, Honour barely noticed, “You’re awfully interested in this girl. Was it because she said something to do with rogues?”
Lina tried to find a reason why she was interested in the girl, but couldn’t find one. However, the thought of letting the girl go or be taken care of by someone else made her heart beat even faster in her chest, almost as though the girl was a nexus of danger that she couldn’t let out of her sight, “There is something about her. I can’t quite put my finger on it though,” Lina replied honestly.
“I don’t think you’ve ever been this vague before. You’re crystal clear about wanting to wear questionable clothes, but not clear about wanting me to babysit a stray puppy,” Honour sighed.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea you were so against it.”
“I slept on the sofa, Lina. I slept on the sofa,” this seemed to end their discussion on Honour’s attitude about keeping the girl around.
Comfort came before anything else... which was rather contradictory when Lina considered her helping nature at the end of the day. Perhaps Honour’s helpful side only extended to everything else that didn’t involve her beauty sleep.
...............
The backyard was full of far more werewolves than Lina could remember ever running with before. She knew it wasn’t going to be as hectic as it had always been, but that didn’t change the fact that there were far more werewolves present than she was used to seeing.
“Hey, Lina, I’m glad you could make it,” Crysta jogged up to her with Bree and Ginger following behind. Once again, Lina caught a glimpse of disgust on their faces. However, the speed at which it was covered up was so fast that she almost felt like she’d imagined it.
“Yeah, I was thinking of skipping today as well, but I had nothing to kill the time,” Lina replied, looking through the crowd for reasons of the large turnout.
“Oh, so you’ve noticed?”
“Noticed what exact...” the girl’s question hung in the air when she began to see a few familiar faces. Soon enough she was seeing far more familiar faces than she had at first glance. Most of them were students from her class. They’d all joined in that day, “What’s going on?”
“Well, you know how most of the students find it hectic to work for the position of pack warrior even when Alpha Jackson tries to advise them to do it for other reasons like self-defence?” Crysta’s question was rhetorical.
“I think you missed a comma somewhere in that sentence,” Lina chuckled, “So they all showed up for today’s drill. But why?”
“It should be obvious really. They are all freaked out from what happened at the reserve,” the girl responded in a proud tone, “Most of the students were totally stumped out when they figured out how useless they were during that fight.”
“Oh, that makes more sense,” Lina replied in a low tone. Thinking back as well, she hadn’t been much help during that battle as well.
She remembered helping Honour get to the field of lotuses, then helping her out when she was giving first aid to the injured, but that was it.
Honour had told her everything that happened while the two of them were safely enclosed in the field of flowers, “I wasn’t much help either.”
“On the contrary, if you hadn’t put Liam in his right place that night, we probably would have lost one of our own. He was far more cooperative and didn’t bark at any orders he was given which would have been the opposite if he had defeated you,” Crysta was ready with a counter.
“I’ll leave it to you to always see the bright side of things,” Lina smiled, feeling somewhat less useless. It wasn’t long before alpha Jackson had them running through the woods enjoying the dawn of a new day.