Filed To Story: Secret with Betas Daughter: Skylar Story Series
“So they were all touchy feely with you, but you did nothing back. Girl, you missed all the signs.”
She’s laughing now.
“Huh? You make no sense. There were no signs. These are my brother’s friends, they are all like extensions of that. They are just over-protective.”
I roll my eyes.
“You keep telling yourself that.”
She laughs again. “You may have missed your chance to have all your firsts with a future Gamma, Delta and Alphas. I bet they have plenty of experience for you.”
She winks.
“Back to Audrina though. She’s jealous that you came in and took her place as the favorite. Although, I think being the favorite was all in her head. From what I hear, most people didn’t like to work with her because of her superiority complex. She tears people down and makes them, instead of giving constructive criticism to work on and get better like you do.
“I still think you’re crazy. There’s nothing to be jealous of. I’m just me, I just want to fight, nothing spectacular.
“We’ll agree to disagree, I’m not arguing with you about this. It’s almost time, do you think we should grab anything? We’re going overnight, but didn’t get a whole lot of information.
“I guess I might bring a sweatshirt to have a layer if they make us shift on the fly. I wish someone would teach me the whole shift and keep your clothes’ thing.”
I say as we take our things back to the kitchen.
We both run upstairs to grab an extra layer and then sit and wait in the foyer. Neither of us talk or discuss anything. I know we are both nervous and excited all at the same time, but once of the best things about Mina is she doesn’t need to fill the silence with noise or talking, we are both just here, together, and that’s all that is needed for comfort at this point.
At eight on the dot the door opens with Warrior Nickolas’ wide imposing frame filling the doorway, but not stepping in. His light hair and blue eyes normally leave him looking, not inviting, but not scary. But just like at the meeting his gaze is hard and judgemental. He was forced to collect us and he is openly not happy about it. He does not want us or me on this mission and my heart falls a little more. Those old feelings of not being wanted, not being good enough from my dad creeping back in. I have to mentally shake it off. I can’t go back to being that girl again, she was abused and neglected and everything that I have worked for is to make sure no one feels like that ever, including myself.
Do I confront him? Say anything? Or just live with this, pretend like it isn’t the elephant in the room and hope for the best? At least Mina is with me, we’ll just truck through this recon mission and I will keep my eye on the goal, to gain experience and knowledge about mission protocols. Nothing else matters, not him and his feelings, Audrina, Kaley, the guys, no one. I am here, living out my dream. That has to stay my focus.
He turns from the door without a word and walks off. We hurry behind him not wanting to be left behind. There’s a black SUV parked out front with dark tinted windows. We both move to the back and climb in. No one is in the passenger seat, but neither of us want to be alone with Nickolas in whatever neverending mood he seems to be stuck in.
He looks in the rearview mirror from the driver’s side, huffs a sound out of his nose and then shifts his eyes back to the front before he starts to drive away. The windows are so dark that it’s hard to see out in the last rays of light from the day. We are traveling away from the compound and the castle and everything I have been to since being in this pack. The butterflies in my stomach are back and my senses are on fire waiting to be used. I have to fight the smile that really wants to spread on my face. A real mission where I get to use real skills.
I sink back into the seat and just watch the forest fly by in blurred shadows and silhouettes thinking about all the training I have ever gone through, all the skill building games I did with the kids to hone isolated senses.
One game I miss is hide and seek. My wolf and I loved that game so we could refine our sense of smell. The kids would mill about in a section of forest near the training grounds, leaving their scents behind and one would hide when the rest came back to me and I had to figure out who was missing and then find them. We always had a great time. It taught them to start to use the forest around them to mask their scent and as they got better I had to improve my tracking skills to find them.
We hit a bump in the road that brings me out of that happy memory.
“Hang on. The rest of the ride is going to be rough. We usually run out here.”
Nickolas’ gruff voice carries back as we slow down slightly to accommodate the dips and bumps in the trail.
“Why not make us run then? I don’t understand why we are being driven in if that isn’t the norm.
I don’t mean to sound like a teenager, but frankly I am and my anger at my situation, the way some of the trainers and some of the warriors view me and my position here, while better than when I started still isn’t the best and it’s pissing me off. But I can’t blame them either. When I’m supposed to be doing the same things as everyone else, told what to expect, but not a minute later someone is trying to intervene and make something more comfortable and change the directive we were all given, but the change is only for me. It’s bullsh*t and I’m over it.
“I don’t understand the motive here. Do you and the mission team think we’re too weak to do this and want to prove that by making us take a car? You clearly don’t want us here. Audrina and her idiot cronies think that I’m sleeping with all of you to keep my place here, thanks to the perceived special treatment. Even though all of you have a brand that should make that physically impossible. I just wish someone would explain what the hell is going on already and give me real expectations.”
I rub my face and take a deep breath to try and calm down. “If I’m not ready, or if you think I should go home, then send me home.
“Do you want to leave?”
His voice sounds too hopeful.
I scowl at him in the rearview. “Of course not.”
Now both me and my wolf are irritated, which is not a good combination. “That truly is a stupid question and shows you know nothing about me at all. This is the one thing I have worked for. The only thing I have ever wanted for myself. The one thing that I chose, with no outside influence. The one thing I am good at. I need to be here, but that doesn’t mean I have to be here now if my age or inexperience or whatever the hell is going on is a problem.
I’m here to get better, not ruin everyone’s chances by being a distraction.”
I finish by rolling my eyes and look out the window at nothing now that the darkness has fully taken over in the 45 minute drive.
Mina is tense next to me. She knows a little of what has gone on with me, but I try to keep what happened in my past, back home, tucked away in a tight little corner of my mind. I am here now, away from all of that sh*t and I really want it to stay that way, but I can’t seem to get people to see past my physical presence. My age and my size will always be a problem, no matter what I do. I get that now. I just have to continue to be more. I have to work more, study more, prepare more, show up more. It’s the only thing I can control.
I hope when I get my brand some of the emotions surrounding these thoughts are tamped down, cause I am so tired of the emotional roller coaster.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.