Ava’s POV
Ralph walks me to the packhouse entry and rushes back off to rejoin the training.
I hesitate at the door, wondering if I should go ahead and get my things from my house to save a trip for Cameron later.
I decide against it, making my way inside to go find Lily instead.
I walk the familiar path to the Alpha hall and Caleb’s bedroom door, knocking instead of just entering like I used to.
No answer.
I wonder where Lily has went off to?
I knock again just to be sure, when the door to my left opens and Lily sticks her head out.
“Oh, Ava! Hey!” Her pretty face looks confused and her eyebrows lower into a frown. “Were you looking for Caleb?”
“No, I was looking for you.” I walk over and push the door open to walk past her and into the room, looking around.
“What are you doing in here?”
Oddly enough, I’ve never been in this room. I think it had been used as a nursery at some point, as the walls were a faded yellow, but a large, new looking bed that was unmade was against the far wall and it looked like Lily’s wardrobe had exploded around the room.
“Lily, are you staying here?”
I look at her in shock.
Lily flips her hair over her shoulder and doesn’t make eye contact.
“Well, Caleb wants me in the packhouse after what happened last night, especially with you not even being at the house anymore.” She gives me an accusing look. “Since you are staying in King Cameron’s room. We thought it would be more fun to stay in separate rooms until after the ceremony.” She makes her way to an old wrought iron vanity and sits down, checking her make up in the reflection of the large ornate mirror.
I had assumed she would be staying with Caleb, it only makes sense. Were they not on good terms? Was this Caleb or Lily’s idea?
I think about my awkward conversation with Lily last night. She said they don’t really talk, but she had said they still ‘fool around’, so why wouldn’t they stay in the same room?
“So…you both decided that it would be better to stay in separate rooms?” I ask the question slowly, slightly hesitant.
“Ugh, Avaa!” Lily slumps her shoulders and throws her head back in a frustrated sigh. “What does it matter to you? Yes, we both decided.”
I walk around the room curiously, taking in the furniture and the mess Lily has created in such a short time frame. I glance to Lily and she sees my reflection in the mirror and turns to look at me, her eyes critical.
“Is that what you wore to training today?” Her voice is disbelieving. “King Cameron saw you in that? Ava, you have a king as a mate now, you should really try a little harder.”
I’m going to ignore that. She’s obviously in a bad mood.
I sit on the edge on the bed.
“Why didn’t you go to training? I thought it was mandatory?”
Lily looks horrified.
“Obviously, that doesn’t apply to me. Caleb would never want me to have to fight, it’s too dangerous.” She gives a shudder and turns back to the mirror to apply lipstick.
I pull my legs under me as I watch Lily in the mirror.
The memory of Chris-the-asshole taking me out in basically a second comes to mind, his teeth at my throat ready to tear it open.
My hand goes to rub my throat and I’m suddenly feeling panic as I look at Lily.
“Lily!”
Lily jumps, dropping her lipstick.
“Wha-“
“Lily,” My voice is earnest as I’m uncrossing my legs and jumping off the bed towards her. “You have got to learn to fight! What if the Red Night pack gets through our patrol? You would be a target as the future Luna, and you wouldn’t have any clue how to defend yourself!”
Lily looks at me with wide, nervous eyes.
“It-It’s fine Ava. I’ll have Caleb…”
I turn Lily towards me and grasp her shoulders, leaning in close, my eyes locked on hers as I shake my head.
“No! Enough. You need to start training, now! Get dressed and go the training facility. I’ll go with you.”
Lily’s eyes go even wider. “I can’t go there! Do you know how many people are there right now? They can’t see me fight, Ava, you know I’m horrible at it! They’d all make fun of me.”
I stand back up straight. She’s right. She basically has the fighting skills of most 6-year old’s in our pack.
“Fine, get dressed anyway. I’ll train you.”
Lily looks skeptical.
“You’ll train me?”
I nod. “Obviously, we’ll need Caleb to come help with training as well, but for now I can show you the basic-“
Lily shakes her head furiously.
“No. No way! Not Caleb.” She puts her perfectly manicured finger to her lips for a second to think. “Ralph can help.” She nods. “Ralph will help with the training.”
“Fine. Ralph can help. Now, get ready.”
Lily stands up and wonders around the run, looking for something to change into that isn’t a dress.
Ralph is a great fighter, if it wouldn’t be such a treacherous thing to say, I’d say he might even be better than Caleb. Mostly because while Ralph trained several hours a day with his Beta father, Caleb was messing around with me.
I’m sure Ralph won’t mind helping us either.
Ugh. I do not know what is going on between Ralph and Lily, or with Lily and Caleb, but it seems a mess and I really want to stay out of it.
Although, it’s definitely not a good sign that Lily and Caleb are in different rooms. Or that Caleb just confessed that he stills loves me yesterday…
I look up to see Lily standing in front of me, a pink ruffle skirt in one hand and a bedazzled sneaker in the other.
“Ava, will this work?”
--------------------
Lily and I sneak our way out of the packhouse and back to our home, nearly forgetting where the hide-a-key is after we realize Cameron must have locked the door when we had been here earlier.
Pack villages are safe places, under usual circumstances, seeing as there are always patrols around the territory and no outsiders arrive without a fair warning.
We aren’t the only ones who don’t always lock our home, most don’t, there just isn’t a need for it.
Moving quickly, feeling a little nervous about what Cameron’s reaction would be if he found out that I had almost immediately did what he told me not to, we head to my room and start filling duffle bags with my clothes, shoes, and other things I will need over the next several days.
Lily makes several comments about how I really should let her take me shopping before I move away, lifting a plain black tank out of a drawer with two fingers and looking at it as if it personally offends her.
I ignore this as well. I’m pretty good at ignoring Lily’s comments, especially when so many of them started to become about Caleb.
“Okay, Lily, change into this, then we can go dump the bags by the packhouse and go to the gardens behind it to practice, no one will see us there.” I hand Lily my hot pink sports bra that my mom bought me years ago and I never wear and black athletic shorts.
Lily makes a face as she takes it, but obliges.
I make sure to lock the front door behind me as we make our way back to the packhouse, dumping our bags by the back door and making our way through the thin line of trees to a small opening behind the packhouse.
I work with Lily for nearly two hours. Most of the time I had to physically move her to be in the right position, adjusting her fist, her shoulders, her stance. It’s hard work.
My fist makes contact with her shoulder once and she held it for nearly five minutes, whining that it was going to bruise, and she wouldn’t be able to wear a halter top for days. No bruise even came up, she was fine. It’s like she forgets she is a werewolf and bruises don’t last more than a couple of hours even if she did get one.
Lily is sitting on the ground, her usually perfect hair falling out of her ponytail around her face, all sweaty and dirt smudged on her knees and elbows, while I stand over her trying to coax her into another round, when I hear Alpha Caleb’s panicked voice in my head.
“Where the hell are you?”
I stand up straight and am about to answer him when I look at Lily. She would die and never train again if anyone saw her like this.
“I’m with Lily, I was helping her…”
“Everyone is looking for you! Get back to the packhouse, now! Where are you, we can meet you. You know better than to be on your own!”
“I am not alone, I’m with Lily. We are close, be there in just a couple of minutes, no need to panic.”
I work hard to close the connection, shutting Caleb out.
“Lily, everyone is looking for us, we stayed too long, we need to go.”
Lily gasps and looks down at her clothes and starts pushing back her hair, she looks at me in horror. “Ava! I’m a mess! If anyone sees me…”
Her bottom lip starts to quiver.
I inwardly roll my eyes.
“It’s okay, they don’t know where we are, I think I can sneak you in.”
I grab her hand and lead her back to the packhouse, moving slowly and looking around to make sure we don’t run into anybody. We reach the back door and we hurry in.
“Lily, you take the back stairs, I’ll walk to the entry to distract everyone.”
Lily throws me a grateful look and disappears.
I make my way to the front hall, feeling pretty pleased with myself, when I reach the door and I see Caleb and Cameron standing beside it, both turning to watch me approach, and neither looking happy.
Caleb’s shoulders visibly relax, and he steps towards me, grabbing my wrist.
“You can’t do that! It’s not safe, I just said last night…”
“I wasn’t alone, I was with Lily, and she is back in her room now, so don’t worry.” I jerk my arm away and I can tell Caleb understood the emphasis on her room.
I look at Cameron.
His lips are tight, his eyes hard, and he doesn’t look happy with me at all.
I bite my lip and then open my mouth to speak.
“Oh, is this her? Can we call off the search party then? I’d like to get settled into our room.”
My mouth stays open as I watch the most beautiful woman I have ever seen glide over to us and wrap her long, thin fingers around Cameron’s arm before looking down her nose at me.
She’s probably 6 feet tall, even without her 4-inch high heels. Thin but with the perfect hourglass figure emphasized by a long but tight and low-cut black dress, long highlighted, perfectly curled golden-brown hair, and perfectly made up blue eyes. She even has the perfect tiny nose.
She removes one hand from around Cameron’s arm and extends it to me. “Hi, I’m Rachel, King Cameron’s girlfriend.”