Page 88 of Specter Bred

We were only a week away from the end of Training Phase One. Five months had passed and in that time five recruits had already dropped out, leaving us with thirty candidates.

I planned to cull at least ten more before the final assessment.

The ones who remained would be relocated to the isolated Specter training outpost four hours away, buried deep in the heart of the Midland Forest.

If the recruits thought training was intense now, they had no idea what was waiting for them.

During Phase Two the weak would weed themselves out, leaving only the best candidates for final selections.

My eyes swept over Fairfield Training Base, noting each recruit. But no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, my gaze lingered on Maeve. Half my attention assessed the others. The other half stayed on her.

Always.

I knew where she was at every moment. Who she was talking to. What she was doing.

Currently, she partnered with Teller and dragged a three-hundred-pound dummy down the course. Sweat soaked through her clothes, the fabric clinging to every hard line of her toned body. She glanced up, catching my eye for the briefest moment, but unlike usual, she didn’t scowl or roll her eyes. In fact, she didn’t so much as spare me a second look.

Something had changed.

Lately, every jab I threw her way met nothing. No fiery, sharp-tongued comeback. Maeve stayed level-headed and focused. It was almost as if she’d stopped caring enough to react to me at all. Her ignoring me bothered me more than her temper ever had.

There was also her scent which had changed too, and now it mingled with someone else’s. Hayes'. They’d always carried traces of each other from sharing a dorm, but this was different. Their scents laced together in a way that was stronger and clearly intimate. Maeve didn’t bother trying to wash it away to hide it from me, despite my threat to cut them both for fraternizing.

If anything, she seemed to wear it like a badge.

His beta scent clung to her, woven beneath the sharper edge of her alpha one. And Hayes was no better. Farm boy smelled like Maeve from head to toe. That fucking grin of his never dulled, as if nothing in the world could touch him. Even I couldn't crack whatever had him walking around looking so damn pleased with himself.

"Recruits, gather up. Now!" My voice boomed through the megaphone.

Every recruit dropped what they were doing immediately, forming a semicircle in front of me, Cutter, and Alvarez.

"Next week, we’ll be repeating Assessment One," I said, my gaze sweeping over the group. "But not all of you will be there to take part."

My eyes moved over each of them, weighing strengths, and marking weaknesses.

"Right before the assessment, we will make cuts," Cutter continued. "After that, the remaining recruits will take part in Assessment One. While we review files and decide who to cut, you will have time to meet together and plan how to proceed. "

"By now, you all know by now it’s a team challenge," I said. "Every recruit must get their flag across the finish line. How you accomplish that mission is up to you."

I let that settle before adding, "Understand this. You will either complete the mission together, or you will fail it together."

A tense silence settled over the group.

"If you fail," I continued, "not one of you moves on to Phase Two of Specter training."

Panic flickered in their eyes.

"Your fate rests in each other’s hands," I said. "In your ability to work as a unit. One-man shows have no place in my Specter Unit."

"Not in mine either," Cutter added.

"Same here," Alvarez said.

"Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" they called out in unison.

"Dismissed," I said.