Chapter 9 Training Ground

DAVINA'S POV

Sloane was right.

By the time Zane and I reached the training ground that afternoon, there were at least thirty wolves who had suddenly found urgent reasons to be nearby.

Wolves carrying equipment they didn't need, wolves sitting on fences, wolves who had apparently decided this particular patch of grass was the ideal location to have conversations they could have had anywhere else.

I felt every single one of them watching.

“Just ignore them,” Zane said, stopping right in the middle of the open space.

“Easy for you to say, they’re not staring at you,” I shot back.

“They’re always staring at me.” He turned to face me, arms crossed, looking all serious. “Now, stance.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“That’s why I said stance. Show me how you stand when you’re ready to fight.”

I spread my feet apart and raised my hands like I’d seen in every action movie I’d ever watched.

Apparently, that was a mistake because Zane’s face twisted.

“What?” I asked, puzzled.

“Nothing.”

“You totally made a face.”

“I did not make a face.”

“Zane. You made a face.”

He uncrossed his arms and stepped closer, and I had a brief moment to appreciate just how much taller he was before he invaded my personal space. “Move your left foot back. More, stop. Now drop your hands, you’re not boxing.”

“Then what am I doing?”

“Learning how to not get knocked over.” He moved behind me, and I froze, feeling the warmth radiating off him. “The issue isn’t your hands, it’s how you’re holding yourself. You’re standing like you’re just waiting for something bad to happen.”

“In my defense, a lot of things have been happening to me lately.”

“Stand like you’re in control of what happens next.” His hand landed on my shoulder, adjusting my position by a couple of inches. “Feel the difference?”

I did feel a difference, but I wasn’t about to admit that.

“Fine,” I said instead. “What’s next?”

“Now I’m going to come at you, and you’re going to stay on your feet.”

I turned to face him, with my eyebrows raised. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re twice my size!”

“Some of Grayson’s wolves are bigger than me.” He held my gaze steady. “You won’t always get a heads-up, Davina. You need to learn how to hold your ground when something comes at you.”

The thirty wolves on the fence had gone very quiet.

I turned back around and reset my feet and tried to feel whatever he meant about holding my ground.

He moved quickly. Not at full speed… I understood that even in the second it took for his arm to come around my shoulders from behind, but fast enough that I barely had time to think, I just had to react.

I dropped my weight like he’d shown me and twisted, but it barely helped.

I managed to keep from crashing to the ground completely, but I still ended up on one knee, with his arm pressing against my chest, and my heart racing like I’d just ran a mile.

Someone on the fence let out a laugh, and I pushed myself up.

“Again,” Zane said.

So we did it again, and again. Six times in total before I finally managed to stay upright. Honestly, it felt less like I’d mastered the technique and more like I’d just gotten lucky.

By the fourth attempt, I was panting, and by the sixth, I was fuming, and frustrated in that all too familiar way of someone who knows they’re not good at something.

“Stop,” I said, exasperated.

“You’re improving,” he replied, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

“I fell five out of six times!”

“You stayed up once, and that's impressive.”

I turned to face him, hands on my hips. “This isn’t working.”

“You’ve been at it for twenty minutes.”

“And I’ve been falling for twenty minutes.” I pressed the back of my hand against my forehead and shot him a look. He wasn’t even slightly out of breath, which was infuriating in its own right. “Can we please do something that doesn’t involve me hitting the dirt repeatedly while your people watch?”

He glanced at the fence and chuckled.

“Not helping.” I said, finding him even more annoying.

“You’re letting the audience get into your head,” he said, crossing his arms. “That’s the real issue here, not what you're doing.”

“What I'm doing is definitely part of the problem.”

“What you’re doing is fine.”

“I just said it’s not!”

“And I’m telling you it is.” His voice was annoyingly patient, which somehow made it worse. “You can do this. You’re just choosing not to because it’s uncomfortable to struggle in front of others, and you’d rather quit than risk looking bad.”

His words hit me, and I stared at him for a moment knowing that he was right.

“Reset your feet.” He instructed.

I did as he said and we tried again.

The next three attempts were a bit better. I managed to stay upright twice, and on the third try, I got my elbow back into his ribs just before he fully locked me down and that earned me a genuine pause from him.

“Now that,” he said, stepping back, “do that again.”

“I have no idea how I did it.”

“Think about where your elbow was.”

“I was too busy trying not to fall to keep track of my elbow!”

“Think harder.”

I stared at him. “Do you talk to everyone like this, or is it just me?”

“Only people worth my time.” He said it so casually and moved back into position so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to respond.

I stood there for a moment, processing his words, then I reset my feet and tried to clear my mind.

On the next attempt, I nailed the elbow. He actually paused, and looked at me with an expression that I could only describe as surprise.

“There it is,” he said quietly.

The wolves lined up on the fence had gone completely silent.

I didn’t look at them, I just kept my focus on Zane.

“Again?” he asked.

I was tired, my shoulder ached, and I had an audience of wolves watching me in a wolf compound in the mountains.

“Again,” I replied.