~Chapter 14~

"Do you think we could make chocolate chip sour patch cookies?" I ask no one in peculiar.

July and Jordan slowly turn my way and Maki bust into a fit of laughter. I don't understand what's so funny I really want some sour patch kid chocolate chip cookies just because I'm not pregnant doesn't mean I can't have cravings. I smack Maki on the head he's going to wake up the baby then he'll be the one missing training.

Speaking of training this pack shows no mercy. For the past three days we have been fighting in wolf form for hours no break allowed. You fight into your down and can't get up. As you go they teach you new moves and techniques and things like that. But now it's our turn to teach them things and that means we get to pull out the weapons and my hands just been aching to throw a knife at Maki.

"I don't think that's a good idea sweets," Maki says shaking his head.

"Why not if you can bake chocolate you can bake sour gummy candies too," I say with a pout. I turn towards Jordan so he can see my puppy dog face.

"I guess we can try," Jordan says smiling towards and I smile back.

"No," July and Maki shouts, "You're going to burn down the pack house."

I cringe at not only how loud they scream but Emmerlyn's cries filling the room. Her loud cries make me want to cover my ears, sometimes I wonder if my daughter's low key a banshee. While Jordan and I run to Emmerlyn July and Maki run the opposite way with their ears covered.

I pick her up and start rocking her back and fourth. Jordan reaches over and puts the binky in her mouth and starts to hum a song I instantly recognize as this weird lullaby my mom use to sing to me when I was younger and I start singing the lyrics.

"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby. When you wake you'll have cake and all the pretty little horses.

Black and bay, dapple and grey, coach and six little horses, hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby, when you wake you'll have cake and all the pretty little horses.

Way down yonder, down in the meadow, there's a poor little wee lamby. The bees and butterflies picking at its eyes, the poor wee thing cried for her mammy.

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep my little baby. When you wake you'll have cake and all the pretty little horses."

Once the song was finished she stared up at us her big brown eyes sparkling, a toothless smile on her face. I giggle and Jordan's sporting a smile of his own. Lord only knows how happy I was when her eyes didn't change color like my aunt said mine did. I have enemy's that I don't even know about people that don't even know that I'm their enemy. And I'm happy that my daughter won't have to go through that.

Jordan dressed her in a pink onesie that says I love my daddy and and some white booties. She's going to stay with the Luna and Alpha today while we're all at training. I grab the baby bag and we leave the room walking towards Jordan's parents room. I now know to knock before you walk in because yesterday we walked in on a unfortunate time for my poor virgin eyes.

"Come in sweetheart," Luna shouts through the door.

The Alpha's and Luna's room is gorgeous. It's light brown and sliver with a king size bed smack in the middle and a 55 inch flat screen tv nailed to the wall just across from the bed. A big window over looked the pack land and beautiful sliver sheer curtains drape the sides. The back wall of the room is filled with hundreds of framed pictures with and of the pack. Different quotes about family surround the dresser that's up against the wall on the right side of the bed. The room was honestly so pretty and tumblr worthy as July would say.

We don't have much time and I quickly run in and hug both of them then leave. Running into my room I grab some Nike shorts and a tank top before throwing it on and grabbing my weapons. Once I'm downstairs everyone's ready to go and we race to the training grounds in wolf form. Jordan comes in first me and Maki tie for second while Clark and July tie for third.

Gamma Roberts and the rest of the pack waited in the middle of the field. Once we reached them everyone in our little group but July and myself joined the rest of their pack.

"Jamie and I have decided that since you guys worked us to the dirt we'll be working on wolf and human forms plus weapons, so we can all show each other how much we've learned. Now shape shifters are going to go to the far back with Jamie and will be working with knifes while the rest come with me. Unfortunately Gamma Roberts wouldn't let us use real sliver weapons but everyone will get a chance to work with both gun and knife. So I'll see you tomorrow shape shifters." July informs everyone before walking towards the front of the training grounds. 

Almost everyone's in July's group. I have about twenty five people while July has the other thirty something. I know Jordan, Maki, Robert, and  Jacob in my group while July has the rest of our friends.

"Alright everyone listen up I need twelve groups of two, when you've found you partner spread out from everyone else."

I watch as the all break into pairs and can't help but smile when Maki's the only one left without a partner and walks up to me with a pout on his face.

"Looks like I have to work with you," he mumbles while I laugh evilly.

"Okay everyone now that you're in your pairs I'm going to pass out the weapons. I won't you to find a place to put them once everyone has theirs safely kept on the body I'm going to call out something to do in a random order to see how good you are. If I say shift you shift into your wolf forms if I say human you shift into your human form if I say weapons then you pull out those weapons and you get slicing, okay?" I say passing out the weapons.

"Okay," everyone shouts back and I smile.

"Go!"

Everyone starts fighting in their human form and they're not that bad a few mistakes here and there but other than that I didn't see that many problems. As I fought with Maki I notice his moves are easy to predict and take note. He also fights with his thumb tucked and I laugh which only makes him mad and try to punch me out of anger and he's lucky I ducked because we would have really been fighting. After that I stop him.

"You never fight someone out of anger it only blinds you and causes you to be sloppy and when you're fighting your head always needs to be 110% in the fight no where else, then you don't punch with your thumb tucked you'll break something and only hurt yourself."

He nods before getting back into the fight this time his head in the game. We do this for five more minutes and I land more licks on Maki then he gets me.

"Shift!"

I'm shifted before the words completely leave my mouth. I leap towards Maki but before I'm on him he shifts too causing me to land on his back. Before I can get myself in position to attack he's scratching and biting at me and I growl letting him know that when we shift back he's going to have hell to pay. I dodge some of his attacks and land a few scratches here and there but he does the most damage in this form. I shift back to human form and step to the side dodging his attacks.

"Human!"

I don't pay attention to the fact that no one around me has clothes on I'm only paying attention to the fact that Maki just punched me in the face. I react quickly bringing my knee up hitting his man parts and then bringing his face down to my knee. Once he's released he goes to punch me again but I smirk then yell, "Weapons!"

My knife comes out quickly I mean this is what I've been waiting to do since I've meet him. He fumbles with the knife not knowing what to do with it. His movements are sloppy and his aim off, and don't do much before completely stopping and turning towards the others and they're not any better.

"Alright everyone stop! You guys are pretty good when it comes to wolf and human form but to be honest when you fight with weapons you suck donkey behind. So I'm going to show you a few different ways you can hit your target almost every time. Now remember this isn't Pirates of the Caribbean  and we are not sword fighting so you still have to move your body and use your fist."

I start with showing them how to focus on your target and where the most damage can be done with a knife. Next I show them the difference between a cut to kill and cut to injure so we don't accidentally have any murders. Then we get back into fighting with the knifes and I see the improvement even through its not much I still am kind of proud.

"Human!"

I didn't go easy on Maki even through I know I should have, sue me. While I walk around and check on everyone he goes to get clothes and let's his cuts heal. Everyone's doing good so far and I only have to give a few notes here or there but that's before I walked over to Jordan and Clark.

They dance around each other for a while before Clark Strikes, Jordan smirks before dodging and then they continue on their dance of fist. I start to get bored watching them and tap my foot impatiently.

"Do something," I hiss.

They start to throw punches but it's still like a game to them each one trying to show which other is better or superior.

"Listen boys in a fight it doesn't mater if your an Alpha or Gamma because if that person your fighting knows what they're doing and your relying just on strength and power you are going to lose. Fighting isn't just strength it's strategy too and to strategize you need your brains, so stop showing off and do something."

Once Maki was back I started fighting with him again. I taught them a few more things before checking the time and having them get dress. Once the where all ready we met back up with July's group in the center.

"All right everyone so you survived the first half of training today and now we are going to the second round but before we do that everybody drop and give us twenty!"

Everyone drops to the ground but a few people that July quickly handles. One girl decides that it's ok and that she doesn't have to do the push ups and stands up glaring at us.

"Hey girl what's your name?" I ask.

"Emily," she says with a roll of her eyes.

"Well Emily I said drop and give me twenty so that means drop."

"Who are you to tell me what to do? Your not anyone special and if you don't have to do it then I don't."

"Well everyone," I shout out, "Since Emily here thinks she's better than everyone else you can all give me another twenty!"

"But that's not fair!" Someone yells out form the pack.

I look at July and smile before we say the words we've both heard so many times in our life, "You live together, you fight together, you survive together, and if someone does something wrong, you get punished together."

Emily still refuses to drop and stands there with her hands on her hips. The girl is pushing all my buttons and honestly won't like when I take things into my hands but even when I send July over to handle that light weight she won't listen and I have to deal with it. I walk pass her only a little to then turn around and kick her in the back of her knee. She lands face first in the dirt and I crouch down so I can whisper in her ear.

"Listen here bitch, you're going to do forty push ups like everyone else because your no better than anyone here. I'm not going to ask you again and when I get up you better be in a plank getting ready to start your push ups or we're going to have a problem. Understood?"

She nods her head but doesn't speak and I ask again, "Understood?"

"Yes Miss.Jamie."

"Good Emily I'm glad we're on the same page."

When I get back over to July she has a smirk on her face. Sheer Shadow might have trained hard and all day but they don't go through have the shit me and July endured. My father and the other Gamma are hard on everyone especially female warriors and it wasn't no different for me if anything he pushed me harder just because he could. We are trained from a young age that we stick together if one person messes up we all pay because all it takes is for one person to mistake something on the battle field and we lose, that's how we learned to look out for each other. There wasn't room for mess ups or mishaps because those that did went home with major injuries. We did dangerous things at practice. One mistake could cost a life when it came down to it and the group that I practiced with learned that the hard way. So yes we may seem harsh or mean but it's the only way we know. 

"Took you long enough now give me ten laps around the field. Go! Go! Go!"

While they ran me and July set up the targets. I had thirteen different archery boards up and she had fifteen different posters with the upper half of the human body outlined. Once everyone stopped running we had each station set up with two of the needed weapons.

"When aiming to hit a target your your main focus is on the area you want to hit but you have be aware of your surroundings because many things can happen in the time you set then launch that weapon into action. When picking the area you want to hit you have to think of every possibility. If that person moves even an inch that can cause you to miss your target and possibly lose your life. You need to ask yourself if that person moves will I still hit them, if there's a chance I miss will have have enough time to try again, will I have enough time to make this shot, is my target to predictable, is this a good idea? You only have maybe three seconds to go through that check list before you either take aim and fire or come up with a new plan. But for today we're practicing on non-moving targets so just focus and no matter how hard it is don't get angry if you miss you're only beginners."

Before we let everyone go we take turns trying the weapons ourselves. I pick up three knifes and throw- each on lands in the bullseye. July picks up the knifes to and takes aim then throws- two of her knifes hit bullseye but the third one sits right on the rim and I can see she's disappointed in herself if we where at are pack they would probably make her stand in front the target while others aim for above her head.

Next I pick up the gun and the cold metal sends chills up my arm. The gun was my first choice of weaponry at my old pack. I practiced with it for a while because if you didn't like your weapon you're are only allowed change it after six months. I never liked the loud sounds it made once you shot it and I hated the way my body would jerk after I fired it. I liked my kills to be more quieter and sneaky you'd hear a bullet coming for you but you wouldn't know about a knife until it was to late. 

I place the ear muffs over my ears before I aim and fire my first bullet goes straight through where the brain would be and my next right through the heart but when I aim for the same whole in the head I miss and create a bigger whole do to the fact of how close the bullet was. I fight every instinct in my body when I want to hand the gun to July and stand in front the target. My fathers words echo in my 'There's no room for mistakes, mistakes get you killed.' I quickly hand July the gun and when my hands empty and clench my fist and bite my lip, 'This is not Luperca pack, this is not Luperca pack.'

July takes aim and fires her first two shots milliseconds after each other and when it comes time for the last shot her bullet goes straight through the whole.

"Alright everyone now it's your turn," July announces then takes her group off to her side.

Once everyone's at their stations I give them the okay to go and start walking around. For the first hour or so barley anyone made it on to the archery board. Coming into the second hour about half the people made it on to the outer most layer of the board. By the last hour of the practice more than half of them made it to the third outer most layer or the first black layer which is good for newbies and from where I'm standing I can tell July's group did good to.

"Alright everyone that's it for today. July's group please put the safety back on the guns then one person bring up the guns while the other the poster and for my group one person brings up the knifes the other the archery boards please remember blades towards the ground." 

Once everything's all locked and away we catch up with the boys and start heading towards the pack house. Walking into the house I stop and sniff the air. A big smile takes over my face and I run to the kitchen. On the counter top there's chocolate chip cookies with sour patch kids sticking out and I have to hold in my scream, my dream has come true.

"I ask some of the pack moms to bake them I did say that you could have sour patch chocolate chip cookies earlier didn't I."

I turn towards Jordan and even though he's sweaty and smells like outdoors and run and give him I hug, I mean he's the best mate-best friend-somewhat baby daddy anyone could ask for am I right? He laughs and hugs me tight before I push him off smelling our combined stink made me die a little inside but it's nothing my cookies can't fix. I skip to the sink and wash my hands before grabbing a cookie and heading upstairs to bathes so I can see my baby.

Even through I wanted to go and see my daughter I couldn't help but take a long hot relaxing shower. My body ached from the days practice beforehand and not to mention my body didn't have enough time to heal before I shifted to a different form so my body's a little sore from over working. You know what would be nice I think to myself, if Jordan could give me a massage. Image after image pops in my head and I'm so tempted to just sit and think about his hands on me, rubbing on my body but I shake my head to clear my thoughts and hop out of the shower.

When I get to the Luna's room I see that Emmerlyn's fast asleep and I pick her up  and take her to her crib in my room. I cut off the lights and turn on the little lamp next to my bed and wait for Jordan to come. We've do this every night since I woke up. Sometimes he meets me here when Emmerlyn's still awake but either way we talk about each other until we're tired then he goes back to his room and goes to sleep.

I hear the door open and I can sense his shadow now entering the room. He tip toes over to my bed before laying down and getting under the covers.

"I didn't know the pink panther lived in this pack house," I say refereeing to his tip toeing.

His checks turn a rosy red and I smile he's so cute when he's blushing. As if he can red my thoughts his cheeks turns redder and he covers it with his hands.

"No need to be shy," I whisper kissing his check which only makes his whole face turn red and this time I laugh.

He still has his hands covering his cheeks with his eyes closed and I take the time to admire him. His dark brown hair looks shiny and soft. It's cut short on the back and the sides and long at the top, he always leaves this part kind of messy and it looks really good on him. He has high cheekbones and a sharp jaw, and I never even realized that he had both his ears pierced. I did notice the two slits in his eyebrows though, I think that was the second thing I noticed on his face when I first seen him the first thing was his dark brown eyes. My eyes slowly trailed from his eyebrows to his lips then up to his eyes where I was met with big dark brown eyes starring up at me and in that moment I was glad that I would be the only one able to feel the heat coming to my face.

"So tell something about yourself when you where little" I randomly blurt out looking up at the ceiling.

He takes a minute to reply probably thinking of an answer.

"When I was younger all my friends already knew what they wanted thier mates to look like. I knew I wanted her to have brown hair and be tall but still shorter than me, I wanted her to be smart and pretty, I also didn't care about what race or color she was, but one thing I couldn't decide on was the color of her eyes. So I always asked the moon goodness for a mate with eyes that where every color of the rainbow."

"Lies," I say looking at him in disbelief.

"No I swear."

"Ok whatever."

"You don't believe me," he says getting up, "I'll be right back."

He comes back with a small note book and turns it to a page with two stick figures one was a boy the other a girl. The girl had what looked like all the colors in her eyes and the word mate in sloppy hand writing was written across the top.

"I made this when I was in first grade."

I laugh at how weird and cool this probably was for him.

"Do you regret wishing for a mate with different color eyes?" I ask cringing as soon as the words leave my mouth.

"I'm going to be honest with you at first I did. I didn't like you and I hated that the moon goddess gave you rainbow eyes but then we made up and I wouldn't change what ever you call us for the world because I now have a daughter and a wonderful mate whether we're just friends or if we ever get to be something more."

When he says things like that how does he expect me not to grow feelings for him. He's sweet and funny not to mention gorgeous. He also got people to make me sour patch chocolate chip cookies speaking of I hope those fatties didn't eat them all.

We don't talk the rest of the night we just lay in a peaceful silence. After awhile I place my head on his chest and before I realize it I fall asleep to the slow steady beat of his heart.

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Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed your holidays I enjoyed mine. I want to say thanks for over 6k reads on all the votes and comments lately. 💖

So now you guys kind of know what pack life was like at Jamie's old pack. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and quick question. Would you rather use guns or knifes? I'm more of knife person.

~Tae👑