“Are we throwing knives at each other?” Dakota asks with a wide smile.
“Target. Go.” Sanderson points to a tree, and before he can hand over his throwing knives, Dakota has embedded them in the red center of the circle.
He’s surprised; he doesn’t want to be, but he can’t help it. This alpha underestimated us.
He whirls and attacks me. I block him and attack back. He steps back three times before he kicks at me. I jump back, landing in a crouch and glaring at him.
He grins.
We attack again, exchanging heavy blows I know I’m going to feel, but no matter how he tries, he can’t defeat me, and I know that with a little bit more effort, I could have him.
He steps back, breaking out of the fight. “Time. Too slow, ten seconds.”
Cyn lets out a frustrated sound.
I growl and tug off my shirt, then walk to the start line, glancing back.
“Go.”
I fly up the wall, barely touching it, and fling myself into the ropes, taking a path that I’d already mapped out. I laser my focus on moving my body, maneuvering through it. Each section is a challenge that I shove myself through, unwilling to lose. By the time I’m crawling across the mud, I’m starting to enjoy myself.
As I burst across the line, Sanderson calls out time.
He looks up with a look of deep surprise. “You got her time exactly.” He purses his lips and frowns. “Bonnie’s going to be really mad about this.”
I shrug and pick up my shirt.
“Right. Let's talk skills. Where are you weak? What don’t you know?”
“Rafting was one we were a bit lost on,” Kota admits. I think he’s got a bit of hero worship for Mitchel Sanderson.
“Can you swim?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I can teach you to read the water and navigate it easily.”
And the afternoon passes like that. He tests our tracking, hunting skills, along with our ability to set up camps, start fires, identify wildlife and plants. We fought several times, and he pit us against each other, watching us and pointing out tips and areas we need to improve.
As night comes, he points up to the stars. “Can you navigate by the stars?”
I shake my head. “We never needed to know.”
“Well, now you do. No GPS in the wilderness.”
I look up and back at him. “Bonnie is one of the most impressive people I have ever met. The way she navigated the trip was incredible. But I can see where she learned it from.”
“Sucking up will win you no favours here.”
“It’s not sucking up, it’s…” I stop struggling for words. “Things went wrong out there, and Bonnie got hurt, and things got dangerous, now I would have handled them, but she wanted to deal with it, and I wanted her to know I respect her decisions, but her skill and passion in everything she does comes across loud and clear.”
“I’m still fuzzy on what exactly was happening out there,” Sanderson says with an edge.
I shrug. “Misfortune. Inexperience. I don’t know what to blame it on, but I can tell you that, without her, I don’t think we all would have survived it so well.”
Sanderson smiles. “I think it was fortunate that you four were there. Things could have gotten a lot messier.”
It’s curious that he doesn’t seem overly concerned about what happened, and it’s clear that Bonnie hasn’t told him about us, though I’m dying to know why.
