The Lunas Second Chance Mate
Chapter 9

Alyson's

POV

After his declaration that he liked me, we had avoided any talk of it. Donna had reentered the room, and so we were interrupted. Still, Ryan was around all the time, the unspoken words between us always caught up on other topics, like training. Ryan began training me every day, and I loved it. I loved to run and sweat and challenge my body like I hadn't before.

We arrived at the training arena. He said, "Let's begin with ten laps, in human form today."

I nodded, running around the clearing eagerly, although I was breathing hard by the third lap, and could hardly catch my breath by the fifth. Air burned my throat and lungs.

"Can I shift now? Ariana would do better," I huffed as I passed him.

"No. Both you and your wolf will fight best if both forms are strong. So, hurry up!"

I was already done with another lap when he finished his explanation.

"Com'on! Keep going! Almost there!" he encouraged

On the last lap, Ryan called, "Faster, run as fast as you can, like someone is chasing you!"

If I had been tired at lap five, I was spent by lap nine. After I shot him a look like he was crazy, I ground my teeth and I pushed my legs to run harder. I finished the lap with pains in my sides, gasping for breath.

"Why so fast at the end?" I gasped with heavy breaths.

"Sometimes you'll have to push yourself, and be fast after you're already tired. You're still not fast enough. We need to do this every day." He said.

I was gulping down water from my jug. I was also shaping my head, "Every day? In human form?" I wouldn't mind so much as Ariana loved to run, but I did not with my two legs and hoppy gait.

"Yes. It's the only way to get better form. You run really strange. Haven't you ever run in your human form, ever?"

For the last six year, I had only walked every day with a heavy chain around my neck. One of the guards at the center held the chain as I circled around. The others escorted me to set the pace. I walked every day for exactly sixty minutes, no more no less. Only what the doctor said I needed to be healthy for the quality of my blood.

After the exercising, they brought me back to my 50 square foot cell, chained me up even in sleep. Dosed Ariana with wolfs bane so that I couldn't shift or fight them. She never had gotten a chance to run till I nearly entered heaven. She loved running now.

I was so lost in thought; I hadn't realized he'd asked me a question and was watching me. I looked back at him, jumped, and replied, "Well, I ran and played when I was a little kid, but nothing like training. Not for years."

"You need more strength too. He eyed me from my feet up to my face, and pinched my upper arm. "You have no muscle at all. It's like you never lifted anything even once in your life."

I pulled my arm away from him defensively. I was hardly allowed to move, much less have items to carry around. But I couldn't tell him the truth of my life.

"Let's start with push-ups." "What are those?" I said.

"Like this," He fell face first to the ground, catching himself with his arms to his side to show me. He had huge muscles on his arms, they moved and bulged as he pushed his tensely straight back up and down. As I watched him, I began to feel something about him that I'd never felt before.

He looked so good. I couldn't help the thought. I didn't want to think it, nor understand it really. But I had a terrible urge to touch him, to feel his body, wondering what it would be like to have our bodies pressed up to each other, kind of like a hug, but different. I blushed as I wondered about mating. I was imprisoned since twelve, so while I knew kind of what it was, I didn't really know how it was done, or if these feeling I had had something to do with it. But I was not going to have any mate, or have anything like that in this life. No one to betray me.

I swallowed the water I was swishing in my mouth. He bounced back up, gesturing towards the ground, he said. "You try."

I fell to my knees on the ground, and awkwardly spread my body forward, trying to emulate his actions. He crouched next to me, his large hands touching my waist. "You want to straighten your back. Yes, more like that. Don't slouch. Keep your spine straight and

even."

I was flushing, growing hotter from his touch than even the exercise. I grew numb to the pain in my arms because I was so distracted by his close proximity.

Sweat dropped from my face. Even this clear liquid reminded me of seeing my blood drip from the wound on my neck into the golden bowl below. I had to remain focused on my purpose- sweet revenge. I had to be strong enough.

We trained like that for thirty days. Eventually, we were training twelve hours every day. Soon the ten laps became an easy twenty. I could do over a hundred push-ups straight. I could lift large rocks and throw them from over my head. All in the same day. Ryan said. "You've gained an amazing amount of strength. More than I thought was possible in this amount of time."

"You should know by now, I'm pretty amazing," I joked, sharing a smile with him. I'd just thrown a rock the size of my head two body lengths away, looking pleased with myself.

Ryan cleared his throat, "I think you're ready for real fight training now that you have some speed and fundamental strength."

I was excited. While Ryan was normally encouraging, hearing him tell me how I'd improved always made me exceedingly proud.

I realized I was smiling at him like a fool.

He beamed back just as large till I had to look away. I had never seen him smile like that at anyone or about anything before. "So, what do we do next?" I asked.

He stepped closer to me. I caught my breath every time he needed to touch me, I had a hard time focusing, but it also made me very determined to prove myself.

"We will need to practice some hand-to-hand combat. There are ways even as a smaller human form to use your body with leverage and take down much larger opponents."

He was a lot larger than me. Even then, I looked up, and the top of my head barely made it to the slope of his wide shoulders. It felt as if I could fall into them, and they would wrap around me. I was trying not to trust him but as we spent every waking moment together now, that was getting harder.

He grabbed my wrist, "Do you trust me?" He asked as if knowing my hesitations.

I glared down at his grip, unsure what he was doing. The words were caught in the back of my throat. "Yes, enough for this," I said, surprising myself, recognizing the difference between trusting a situation and the person in entirety.

He showed me how I could use my arms to lock his elbows and use his joints against him. I got better and better at the standing motions. Our bodies were always close enough to feel his heat. I could smell the musty odor of exercise, and I liked it.

Another month passed like this, every day, we drilled the motions that could save my life. I learned how to break out of holds. We used wooden knives to practice the motions needed with real knives.

The first time, I actually broke free of him, he stumbled back away from me. His eyes lightened up with pride. "You're learning so fast. You're gaining strength so fast, it's incredible really. I never imagined."

"You should have believed in me." I said with a dramatic flick of the strand of black hair that had fallen from my bun.

"I believe," he said. "Your a she-wolf that can do anything that you set your mind to."

I tilted my head, "I told you, I'm a survivor."

"We both are. We're alike." He said.

I wondered what he meant by that, but then he surprised me by grabbing me as he often did without telling me to test my reflexes. I swiftly moved out of the way, dodging him, pulling his elbow against its joint, and using my leg to trip him. He fell to the ground, and I leapt on top of him.

I whipped out the fake knife from my stash, very thrilled to throw my mentor. It was only the second time that I'd succeeded and I intended for it to happen more often.

But he rolled me over, his great size really hard for me to handle. He pressed me under his body, even as I put my fake wooden knife to his throat.

He laughed, his whole body rumbling. Even though he was on top of me, if it had been a real fight, I could have killed him anyway. "Nicely done." He said.

We were looking directly into each other's eyes. My legs were still spread beneath him. I felt a pulsing that was getting stronger. I wanted him to do something, but I wasn't sure what.