My Eternal Mate ✓

Chapter Thirty Four

LYRA
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"Five minutes and thirty seconds," Jaxon beamed at the small she-wolf, making the girl whimper in her wolf form, as she slowed her pace.

"She is fast, but there is no progress," I heard Evan comment by my side.

I frowned. "Her dream is to become a fighter," I reminded him, giving him a pointed look. "Perhaps running isn't her best, but we will access her again in a couple of weeks to determine the next step."

Jaxon strutted towards us in that moment, glancing at me and shaking his head. "Honestly, I get it," he told me. "But that wolf is putting herself under a lot of stress to reach these goals. At this point, I'm not sure if it's safe anymore."

I bit my lip, completely understanding where Jaxon was coming from. Training she-wolves could be quite upsetting, especially when they were like this one— petite and inexperienced. Her dream was to become a fighter, after she had watched her big brother fight.

She had been training for two weeks straight, showing slight improvement, but not enough to make me want to risk putting her on the front line. She had a lot more training to do, of course, but normally the two-week trial was enough to prove the skills of a wolf.

"I will speak to her," I told the pair of men, nodding for them to continue with training the rest of the wolves as I made my way towards the she-wolf in query. "Alyssa."

Alyssa, bowed her head, before she shifted back to her human form, standing before me completely nude. "Luna," she said, respectively.

"Come, sit down," I told her, walking towards the tree stump, and took a seat. Sighing, I eyed her as she stood beside me, not sitting out of respect. "I can appreciate all your efforts in the past two weeks."

Her brows twitched but her eyes remained on the floor, and I could see how my words were already affecting her. She was so young, only recently having turned eighteen and received her wolf not long ago.

"Please, Luna. Everyone keeps telling me that I am not good enough," she whimpered, tears falling from her eyes. "It's the only thing I want."

My heart ached for her, especially as I sat there, watching her as she cried silently.

"I can see how much this means to you," I promised her, reaching my hand out to comfort her. "You're so young, Alyssa. I don't want to kick you off the team, but you need more training."

"I will do everything I am asked," she quickly added, lifting her head to glance at me with pleading eyes. "I promise, I will never let you down."

"Alyssa, I'm not concerned because you aren't where I expect you to be," I told her, frowning. "Your safety matters to me and I have to make sure that you know how hard training is going to be. How time consuming and physically demanding it is."

Her eyes fixed back on the ground again, and she nodded. "I know. I have seen how hard Adrian works, but I can't imagine myself doing anything else, Luna."

I let my eyes rake over her body briefly, noticing that she was stronger than what the wolf gave her credit for. She was just young, and required a lot of training. I wanted to give her the chance, because her determination convinced me so.