He shakes his head. “Probably not today since the alpha is still recovering. We’ll be in the field with everyone else.”
“Training?” I ask hopefully, leaning forward on the log.
He nods, then his eyes shift to something beyond my shoulder, his eyes suddenly wrinkling with amusement. I follow his gaze and see Fox striding toward us across the clearing, his jaw set tight, eyes locked on us with an intensity that makes my stomach flip.
“See? Territorial,” Luka mutters conspiratorially.
I grin. “He can hear you.”
“Oh, I know.” He winks, and once again reminds me uncontrollably of Jett.
I laugh, even though I know Luka is wrong. Fox is only pretending to be my mate, so he can’t use the protective instinct excuse. He’s not being territorial, he’s just being his usual grumpy self.
Fox reaches us, jaw tight, nostrils flaring. He doesn’t say anything, but I can practically feel his irritation radiating off him in waves. For the first time, I’m actually glad he can’t speak aloud to me about everything—at least not here, not now, with everyone watching.
I turn to Fox, trying to keep my voice light. “I was just asking about training.”
“What about it?” he grinds out, still frowning.
“I want to go too. I think I might die if I have to wait around in the tent again all day.”
His jaw remains tight, but after a moment he gives a brief nod. “Sure,” he says, the word clipped. “You can come.”
Luka’s eyebrows shoot up. “You can fight?” The surprise in his voice makes my spine straighten.
Before I can answer, Fox cuts in. “‘Course she can,” he snaps, his eyes flashing as they move from Luka back to me.
“Are you any good?” Luka asks me.
“I like to think so.”
“Is she really?” he asks Fox.
Fox just nods, a barely perceptible movement, but coming from him, I take it as extreme praise. I glow with pleasure at the compliment, and my mood instantly lightens another few shades.
After breakfast, I follow Fox out of the camp, Luka trailing along beside us. When we climb a low hill and look down at the field on the other side, the sight stops me short.
There are soldiers everywhere, far more than I even realized were in the camp. At least seventy-five wolves are spread out across the field, some sparring in pairs, others cleaning their weapons, and still more clustered into small, tight-knit groups.
“There’s a lot of you,” I say, using Luka’s presence as an excuse to speak aloud.
Fox’s eyes scan the field. “This is about half the camp. Everyone else is out on hunts.”
“Do those usually take up a lot of time?”
“Yeah,” Luka says, nodding vigorously. “We usually go out in groups of six, or sometimes twelve, and can be gone for weeks or months at a time.”
“Interesting.”
I raise my eyebrows as I scan the field, taking in the organized chaos. Despite knowing that they’re shifters, I don’t actually see a single animal anywhere on the field.
“Why don’t you fight as wolves?” I ask, voicing a question that has been nagging at me since we first arrived. It seems like they might have some advantages that way. Of course they couldn’t use swords, but I’d think their teeth would be a good enough substitute.
“Sometimes we do.” Fox points to a group on the far side of the field.
I squint in the direction he’s pointing and my brow furrows in confusion. There’s maybe ten or twelve soldiers in that group and they’re all firmly standing on two legs, so it takes me a moment to realize what Fox is talking about. The soldiers don’t look exactly humanoid. Many seem to have partially shifted, so they’re larger with the elongated heads and claws of wolves, but the bodies of men.
My eyes widen in alarm, and Luka laughs “You’ve never shown her a partial shift before?”
