“You’re cranky,” I coughed, too wrecked to care about sassing him. “Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night? What kept you up?”
At this point, I was past waiting for this bastard to confront me about my prank. I needed him to yell, for me to yell back, and then we’d move on. The prank had not had my intended effect, and I wondered why I’d ever thought I could get one over on him.
This shifter was the master of concealing his emotions and torturing me through prolonged silences.
“I slept perfectly fine,” he said simply. “My room is my sanctuary, and no one would dare mess with my place of refuge. Now, let’s stretch.”
Internally I screamed, but externally I dragged my broken ass closer to him and followed his movement as we stretched our limbs.
“How are you so bendy with all those muscles?” I grumbled. “It’s not normal. You know that, right?”
Slade shook his head. “You have the flexibility of an octogenarian. That’s not normal for a shifter.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “What in the world is an octogenarian?”
Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.
Slade smiled, and I swear my heart stopped. It wasn’t anything ground-shattering, just a slight tilt of his lips, but for this shifter it was practically a beam. “A human between the ages of eighty and eighty-nine.”
Oh, excellent. I wasn’t even as flexible as an elderly shifter. Nope. I was an elderly human, close to death.
“Possibly true, but rude to point it out,” I muttered, before raising my voice. “I will admit, my wolf and I have a bit of catching up to do.”
Slade didn’t disagree, andwas it too lateto change my opinion about enjoying his honesty? “With my help,” he said, “you will catch up. Now that you’ve warmed up, we can head into the first obstacle course.”
“Okay…wait, did you sayobstacle course?”
Slade ignored me, already halfway across the field, and once again I followed like a little lost duckling. On the way I debated my odds of murdering him in his sleep, and came to the unfortunate conclusion that there were exactly zero chance that I’d even get close enough to touch him, let alone kill him. Bet heslept with one eye open and a weapon in hand. Wait, he was the weapon in hand.Fucker.
As I grumbled under my breath, Slade led me to a large set of roller doors, which opened via a red button on the wall. This part of the training area was almost as large as their outdoor facility, and from where I stood I saw a range of obstacles with ropes, tires, ladders, and so much freakingpain.
It was a kid’s paradise, and my worst nightmare. “Let me tell you, trainer,” I said, trying to keep the hysteria from my voice, “no octogenarian would be able to make it through this. You might have to take your assessment back.”
This time I got a laugh out of him, and I almost flew over the first obstacle via butterflies in my tummy and sparks in my veins. “You haven’t made it yet either,” he said with one final amused stare, “so I wouldn’t start subtracting years yet.”
Oh yeah. Good point.
He led me farther into the building, stopping before a row of white and black tires spread out across the ground. “It starts here. You’ll need to move between these obstacles without touching the ground. Jump from tire to tire and flip the ones that aren’t close enough.”
“Just flip the tire,” I said, sarcasm rearing up to aid me in my disbelief. “Easy. What if I just carry one on my back through the whole obstacle to use when needed?”
Slade didn’t even bat an eye. “You can take anything you can carry with you.”
I threw my hands in the air and conceded another point to him. “I was obviously kidding. Those things must weigh a ton.”
“One point two actually. How heavy can you lift?”
Oh goddess. He was going to make me lift weights too?Nope. No.
Without another word crossing my lips, I raced toward the tires, relieved not to fall or trip over the first few. The secondsection, where the tires were farther apart, I had to flip them to move along. Only I couldn’t budge the heavy rubber circle. Not even one inch off the ground. “Put your back into it,” Slade bellowed—the smug prick.
“I’m putting my entire fucking body into it,” I shouted back, and I heard a whispered curse on the breeze, which I maturely chose to ignore.
Deciding this was stupid, I gave up fast, hopping on the fake grass between the tires, while secretly flipping Slade the middle finger every time I jumped. There was no way for him to see the gesture, but it made me feel marginally better.
The next obstacle after the tires was a vertical wall with a rope dangling to assist in scaling it. It looked easy enough as I grabbed the rope, hoping that for once, my lighter stature would come in handy. Only it turned out pulling one’s body weight up a wall was not as easy as it looked. Who’d have guessed it…
Through sheer force of will, I made it halfway before my arms started to shake.Shit.Shit, shit.
