Claimed

Chapter 11: Misunderstanding

Ben's POV:

Running all night never helped me get so tired I'd sleep better the next night. It was just something I did because if I wasn't going to sleep, I might as well work.

Training with Red was a different story.

After only two nights of meeting up with her in the gym to train, the next night, I actually slept almost until the sun came up. She was making me sorer than I'd been in a while, and I felt it when I laid down to sleep. The good news was, it wasn't just me. She admitted she got a much better workout with me rather than just the punching bag. We still trained together, but we weren't starting at one in the morning anymore, it was closer to three or four now.

She still kicked my ass. I may have been looking into different moves because I was mildly competitive and the fact I hadn't pinned her down once...

I was going to. She couldn't be invincible, I just needed to learn more techniques. As long as I got her down once, I'd be happy. I did the same thing with Dean and I was pretty sure he made absolute certain after that it wouldn't happen again. Kane was a lost cause. No one was going to beat Kane, but everyone else... Even if they were better I had this annoying need to at least get one good round in. It sometimes required extra work and looking into new moves, so that's what I researched on my phone while Hunter and I waited. We took Red, Darius and their ranked wolves into town to get clothes, but they also asked for haircuts so that's where we were.

Things improved ever since Red and I had that talk outside the infirmary. She was more willing to talk at dinner that night, and although it took a couple days, Darius grew friendlier as well. We were getting used to each other enough that some of Red's pack was mingling with ours without being prompted. Hunter was educating Noah and Levi on video games, and Darius and Tess were getting along much better while she updated him on what was happening since our world was revealed to humans. Ezra was the easiest to begin with and the easiest overall. He got along fine with everyone the second Red started being more open.

"Touch my hair."

I glanced up from my phone, seeing Red plopped down next to Darius. "Goddess, why are you so weird?" Darius sighed.

"Touch my hair," Red insisted. "It's so soft, you won't believe it."

"You're lucky you got looks because you're fucking weir-holy shit," Darius said as he ran his hand through her hair, then did it again. "I want a pillow made out of your hair."

"You really just called me weird and then said that." Red rolled her eyes and Darius continued petting her hair. "Okay, I didn't mean get weird. I'm not a dog," she said, smacking his hand away, getting up and moving next to me instead. "That's creepy, Dari."

Darius shrugged and returned to whatever he was doing on his phone. We got them phones the day before and given they hadn't one in a long time, they weren't ready for how advanced the technology was. I spent two hours with Red just showing her how to use her phone instead of training this morning.

"Ben," Red said, tuning in her seat to face me. "Touch my hair."

"You gonna make everybody in this whole place touch it?" Darius asked. "Talk about creepy."

"Dari, with no respect whatsoever, fuck off," Red said, flipping him off without taking her eyes off me. "Come on, seriously. My hair has not been this nice for... Years. Literally years."

I put my phone away and tentatively touched the hair at her shoulder. Shit. It was unnaturally soft. She had nice hair before but now... Yeah, now you could tell it had been taken care of for a couple days. "It's nice."

"Right?" Her eyes lit up like they hadn't before and I couldn't help but smile. She was relaxing, realizing we weren't a threat and becoming less guarded. It was nice to see. "I think I lost ten pounds just cutting off those inches," she said, running her fingers through the ends of her hair. "Do I look thinner?"