Ivan fired the bow and arrow, landing it directly in the middle of the old oak tree. The arrow landed right into the theoretical heart of the paper target that he and Cal had been tasked with placing the night before.

  He heard Cal groan dramatically from behind him. “You don't need to prove you're the best in the pack.” He said, widely. “We believe you, babe.”

  Ivan smiled, shaking his head in feigned annoyance. “Still need to practise.” And even if what Cal said was true, he still wasn't perfect yet.

  He handed the bow to Cal, who quickly declined, then to Rohan, who gladly accepted.

  “Are you okay?” Ivan glanced over at Cal, who had been lying down on a bench for the past few minutes in uncharacteristic silence. In fact, his entire mood had been a lot more mellow for the entirety of their training session.

  “I'm fine.” He clasped Ivan's head between his hands and smiled widely, squinting up at him. “Super fine. I know you get all freaked out for no reason.”

  “I don't.” Ivan said matter-of-factly, gently removing Cal's hands from the side of his face and placing them back at his side.

  Ivan put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah. Just tired. Slept late last night.” He replied, which might have been sufficient enough to explain the red tinge around his eyes if Cal hadn't been acting so unusually jovial for the entire school day.

  Ivan scanned his face for a more seconds, then turned back

  There were bodies outlined in the white paper. It was beyond him why they didn't use more realistic dummies, but he knew that bringing it up would just lead to him being dismissed. It was like they were attempting to train them for the very real possibility of a war without an ounce of exposure to the reality of one. They would go in prepared but blind in the worst possible way.

  “Do you ever think you'll have the guts to do this to a real person one day?” Ivan asked into the air, aiming his third shot at a target on a tree further in the distance than the previous one.

  “To a witch? Absolutely." Rohan answered matter-of-factly. “Plus we've been training a while. I think so. Also it's just like playing Skyrim.”

  “You suck at Skyrim.” Cal commented, making Ivan laugh.

  “Also this is nothing like Skyrim.” Ivan added.

  “I know.” He answered honestly. “But we have to stay positive. No point in letting it get to us when we haven’t even reached the beginning of the worst of it.”

  “I guess so. But I mean, that last part was pretty sombre.” Cal replied with a teasing smile.

  We haven't even reached the beginning of the worst of it.

  “What about the other packs? People you go to school with.” Ivan paused, then let go of the arrow shaft, listening to the whip of the arrow slicing through air. “People you know.”

  Rohan shrugged. “I'll do what my role requires. I'll do what I have to.”

  Rohan then turned, turning to Cal, who had suddenly faded into silence. “What do you think?”

  “I don't think we have much of a choice.” Cal finally answered, except this time he wasn't smiling.

  — — —

  When Ivan finally entered his front door, he hung his jacket at the door and dragged himself up the stairs and to his bedroom, letting himself collapse on his bed.

  After their archery training, they had gone to the main training area, where they had been told to spar in their wolf forms.

  They healed faster in wolf form and were more powerful. That, paired with the urgency to increase the pack's defence, had meant that their trainers had let previously unsanctioned moves go. Suffice to say it had been a very bloody training session.

  He lay on the bed for a few more minutes, enjoying the quiet until he was forced to get back up again when his mom sent him a message through their mind link.

  When he navigated back downstairs, he found his father already occupying a seat on the large couch in their living room. Never mind. The movie could wait.

  He walked further into the room, stopping until he was in front of his father but not obstructing his view of the TV.

  “Hello. Mom wants to know what you want for dinner.” He said in Russian.

  His dad looked up at him, then turned back to the TV. “Whatever you're having is fine.” He replied, also in Russian.

  Ivan started to turn around, but then he paused. A question he had been meaning to ask entered his mind, and he slowly turned back around. “Uh, also. Did they say anything about the body in the woods?”

  “If you needed to know, I would tell you.” His father's baritone voice let out sharply. “Were you at training today?”

  “Yeah. Won my sparring match.”

  “Archery?”

  “Not perfect yet.” He said, hating the way it felt to admit it. “I prefer the daggers.”

  His father said nothing, glancing away from the TV. “Keep practising. And don't be late for tomorrow's one. They're announcing a few adjustments in the pack.”

  “Okay…. But I might be late. I have to talk to Elder Augustine.”

  “You need to be there early for every training session, Ivan.” His father fixed his fiery gaze at him. “Every. Single. One.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I know.” Ivan said, glancing away from his heated stare. There was never any point in arguing.

  “Do you?” He asked, with venom in his voice. “Because if it seems like you can't handle your responsibilities, people are going to start thinking you shouldn't be appointed as Beta.”

  “That won't happen.” Ivan forced out through gritted teeth.

  “I know it won't.” His father replied, with his eyes still turned to the TV.

  Ivan turned away from the people on screen and focused his attention back on his father. He cleared his throat. “I'm ordering a burger. By the way.”

  “That's fine.” He replied, and then he gestured to the coffee table, where an almost-empty cup of coffee was standing.

  "Take that to the kitchen."

  “Sure.” Ivan replied, and he grabbed the mug.

  “Thanks.”

  — — —

  “What did Mom and Dad say?” Milena grabbed Ivan's arm, inspecting the large gash on the side of his arm he had obtained during his last sparring match.

  He had needed to run back home before anyone noticed the gash hadn't started healing yet, and being in his human form had slowed down the process considerably.

  “They don't know.”

  Milena let out a disappointed sigh, but said nothing, unwilling to engage in an argument that they had been repeating each year like an annual holiday.

  If any of the head warriors found out he was injured, he would be out of training for the next session. And even though both he and his father knew that he couldn't control an injury, his father would not fail to look at him with the same disappointed eyes.

  “Just be careful.” Milena finally said with a frown.

  “Now what do you wanna watch?” She grabbed the remote from the coffee table. “Trainspotting?”

  Images of Leo and the library flashed in his mind, and he shook his head slightly. “No, I'll—I'll watch it another time.” He said, feeling his face warm up.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Okaay…” She drew out. “How about this one?” She stopped at an old Western film.

  Ivan shrugged, and she pressed on the movie, settling back onto the couch.

  “I found my mate, by the way.” Ivan suddenly said. Her head snapped to him, and she grabbed his arm in excitement, a wide smile commandeering her face. Then she let go of his arm and settled back into her previous position, morphing her fading smile into a knowing smirk.

  “Reyes.” She turned to him with a smirk.

  Ivan scoffed. “Of course you already know.”

  They both turned back to the TV in silence, and a few minutes later, Ivan spoke again.

  “So what do you think?” He didn't look away from the TV screen, trying to maintain the casual tone of the conversation and hopefully make it seem like he didn't care.

  She shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Whatever you're thinking. I know you're thinking something.”

  He was waiting for her to tell him what he already knew. That this was a bad idea. That he should look harder for a spell to make rejecting each other easier because, in actual fact, he hadn't even tried that hard the first time. That he was putting his secret at risk.

  But she simply gave him a small smile, her eyes filled with understanding. “This mate shit is difficult. Trust me, I know. I've seen pairings you wouldn't believe.”

  “Like illegal ones? I read that happens sometimes.” He said it mostly as a joke, but he was slightly curious.

  She tilted her head, looking at him with mild, playful horror. “No, dude. Not illegal ones. You know what I mean.” She gestured to him. “Like yours.”

  “I know you already know you shouldn't let him find out about the magic stuff. But you've been doing this for years. I trust you.”

  He wondered if he trusted himself.

  “Let me tell you a story.” She started, a faraway look in her gaze. “I once had a friend, a few years older than me, in a similar situation to yours.”

  “She found her mate early. A little earlier than you. At sixteen. They fell in love fairly quickly and stayed together through high school.”

  “It was the perfect love story.” Her words were coated with both an air of reminiscence and a sliver of bitterness.

  “Then right after graduating she got pregnant. They… wanted to start their own pack, so she decided to leave home so they could be together, and they were happy for a while.”

  Her voice grew softer. Sadder. “But after the baby was born, things… didn't work out with him. So eventually… she left.”

  “She had nowhere to go. She didn't know what to do, so she called her best friend. He let her and the baby stay with him for as long as they needed to.

  She smiled. “And then they fell in love, and it was one of the best things that's ever happened to her. And now she's okay. She's so… so happy.

  Milena was smiling, actually smiling.

  She shook her head. “And now… they're married and everything.”

  She sighed, and Ivan watched her place a comforting hand on his arm. “As much as we've grown up being told how wonderful mates are, it isn't always perfect. Goddess makes mistakes.” A shrug. “Maybe yours was a mistake. Maybe it wasn't.”

  “So you're saying I should, what… wait it out?”

  “I'm saying, regardless of what you think, this mate thing isn't set in stone. Trust your gut. Don't let this stop you from finding your future.”

  She gave him a brief side smile, and he turned to face her. “So what happened to him? Her first mate.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched. Ivan could swear he saw a flash of anger in her eyes before it was replaced with a deep affliction. They must have been really close friends. It took a lot to get his sister this mad.

  “I don't know.” She said, her voice a low whisper. “She never told me.”

  “You think I can trust him?”

  “Yes. Just don't be stupid about it, okay?” She pulled him closer to her, wrapping her arms around his and pinning them to his side.

  “You know I never am.” He reluctantly accepted the hug, using his limited movement to reach up and gently tap her arm with his fingers. He couldn't remember the last time he had been hugged.

  “And one more thing?” She added. “Don't forget that your eyes change—”

  “— when I experience a strong emotion. I know.”

  When she finally pulled away, she stared at his face warmly, then ruffled his hair—much to his annoyance. “You've grown up so much, Dotochka.” She said quietly. “You look just like…”

  “Dad? That's a new one.”

  She laughed, pushing at his head in feigned annoyance. When he got back up again, her eyebrows were pinched together in worry.

  “What?” He asked, and she pointed at his face.

  “Your nose.”

  He glanced down and saw 3 bright spots of blood in the middle of his white shirt. He glanced back up at his sister, and she handed him a tissue.

  “I thought you and Leo met yesterday?” She asked in confusion. “You're still having side effects?”

  “We did.” Ivan wiped at his nose. “It's probably just the weather or something.”

  She took his chin in her forefinger and thumb and used it to tilt his head left, then right, then left again. Satisfied she had finished scanning his nose, she dropped her hand in her lap.

  “Ask Elder Augustine about it. Just to make sure.”

  “I will,” He lied.