My Secret, My Bully, My Mates.
Chapter 0281

Chapter 0281

“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 towork with her because of her superiority complex. She tears people down and makes them, insteadof 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, nothingspectacular.”

“We’ll agree to disagree, I’m not arguing with you about this. It’s almost time, do you think we shouldgrab 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 someonewould teach me the whole ‘shift and keep your clothes’ thing.” I say as we take our things back tothe kitchen.

We both run upstairs to grab an extra layer and then sit and wait in the foyer. Neither of us talk ordiscuss anything. I know we are both nervous and excited all at the same time, but once of the bestthings 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 notscary. But just like at the meeting his gaze is hard and judgemental. He was forced to collect us andhe is openly not happy about it. He does not want us or me on this mission and my heart falls a littlemore. Those old feelings of not being wanted, not being good enough from my dad creeping backin. I have to mentally shake it off. I can’t go back to being that girl again, she was abused andneglected 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 roomand hope for the best? At least Mina is with me, we’ll just truck through this recon mission and I willkeep my eye on the goal, to gain experience and knowledge about mission protocols. Nothing elsematters, 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 leftbehind. There’s a black SUV parked out front with dark tinted windows. We both move to the backand climb in. No one is in the passenger seat, but neither of us want to be alone with Nickolas inwhatever 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 shiftshis eyes back to the front before he starts to drive away. The windows are so dark that it’s hard tosee out in the last rays of light from the day. We are traveling away from the compound and thecastle and everything I have been to since being in this pack. The butterflies in my stomach areback and my senses are on fire waiting to be used. I have to fight the smile that really wants tospread 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 thinkingabout all the training I have ever gone through, all the skill building games I did with the kids to honeisolated senses.

One game I miss is hide and seek. My wolf and I loved that game so we could refine our sense ofsmell. The kids would mill about in a section of forest near the training grounds, leaving their scentsbehind and one would hide when the rest came back to me and I had to figure out who was missingand then replace them. We always had a great time. It taught them to start to use the forest aroundthem to mask their scent and as they got better I had to improve my tracking skills to replace them.