A New Alpha

Chapter Twenty Four

The sky looked so perfect in the minutes right before dawn. Lynx watched it through the domed roof of the courtyard. Tuesday meant home economics, magic studies and General Agility later.. but not right now.

Right now the morning was Lynx's alone time.

He took a few minutes to stretch.. mostly to give himself time to figure out how to shift again or even use his magic. 'Relax the mind', he remembered Mrs. Bee telling the werewolves awhile ago. Breathe deep...

A few more minutes passed, and Lynx was glad no one else was around.. as if it'd be embarrassing to be seen just standing there. 'Honestly, they probably wouldn't care though', Lynx thought to himself.

Even if there were students there, and even if they did feel judgment towards him for being a Hyrbid; he shouldn't care. After all, he couldn't control the opinions of others, and as such worrying about what others might think, wasn't the best use of his time.

He supposed he could get better at this focus and mind control stuff, And maybe after that he can start learning how to control his magical ability and then his magic.

He almost laughed.

"Ok Lynx," he told himself, "Remember what it felt like."

But another 30 minutes passed before he started to feel a tingling sensation. He thought about the feeling of his paws and the warmth his fur provided. He remembered the feeling of his tail as he leaped onto a low-hanging tree limb. How it moved in tandem with his sleek body to help with balance.

In many ways, shifting was kind of like falling asleep. A quiet peacefulness washed over his mind as he let go of all thought. All the things he'd need to be doing later.. all the homework and essays he'd need to finish this week. He let go of the idea of shifter abilities and his magical abilities he needed to acquire... because right now.. it was just him, a new day, and the euphoria of racing forward, and embracing the feeling of being in his wolf form once more.

Lynx wasn't able to manage his enhanced sense of smell in human form until the next Tuesday; By which time Mason, had drilled into him about how he needed to be vigilant about controlling his mind and thoughts.

'Imperative..', thought Lynx.. that was the word Mason had used.

The students were evenly spaced in long rows doing their warm-up. That's how General Agility was for the most part. The
teacher stood at the front showing them the correct position of the exercise, and the class mirrored it.

The second part of the class was always more interesting though. Today the teacher had gotten out the gats; which were devices that were about the size of a tennis ball. Once the launch was triggered, it would shoot out spongy darts three at a time. The blunt darts were incredibly fast and flew with a slight curve depending on the angle of the gat when triggered.

The object of the lesson was to not get hit... Or rather to provide students with the opportunity to improve their spatial awareness and agility. The shifters were supposed to use their enhanced awareness and the witches were supposed to use a shield ward or an awareness spell basically anything that can direct it away from themselves. The darts were so light that it didn't hurt to get hit. A red border was spray-painted in an expansive and curvy kind of way.

It must have been the adrenaline of the game that triggered Lynx's werewolf ability. Because Lynx didn't feel relaxed or meditative at all.

He'd thought the achievement of accessing his shifter senses would leave him feeling euphoric, but the reality was that enhanced smell in a confined space full of nearly 100 sweaty students was.. overwhelming.

He ran and dodged a gat thrown towards him, but his evasion of the darts released left him uncomfortably close to the out-of-bounds line. Erin was coming towards him looking smug.

Well, that is until Landon hit him from behind. Effectively disqualifying him.

Lynx laughed and high-fived Landon before running towards the middle where there was some tree cover. As such, he didn't see the mutinous look on erin's face...