Black Jaguar (Book 2 in the White Tiger Trilogy)

Chapter 5- Explaining Ani

"Black Jaguar"

2014 Copyright © All Rights Reserved.

Stryder Sweetman.

Chapter 5

Training began early in the morning, and we all happily joined in with the alarm festivities.

“Wakey-wakey pack members!” Willow called through a megaphone starting off our little show. I heard snores and moans of tiredness through the walls, and pressed down the button on the bike horn I was holding.

“You have five minutes to get dressed and out onto the training field before we come in with water guns!” Georg yelled.

“Get your butts out of bed!” Xavier laughed.

I laughed as Leroy bounded around our feet yapping and howling in excitement. Xavier let out a howl, and Leroy joined in, his little white fur puffing up around him.

We ran down the halls, a few of us on each floor, waking up all of the pack members.

Alpha… A voice moaned through the pack link, I don’t want to do training.

I decided to make a pack announcement at that moment.

Everyone is to report to the training field in 5 minutes. You have to all learn to defend yourselves. There is an impending war, and if you can’t fight, you will die. Anyone who isn’t on the field in 5 minutes has washing up duty in the kitchen for a week. I informed them.

Immediately I heard an increase of movement in the pack house as all of the pack members rushed to get ready, none of them wanting to get stuck with kitchen duty. I made my way to the training fields outside, my friends trailing behind me. The fields were originally just a section of the forest, but I had asked a few shifters with the nature element in the pack to remove the trees. I waited at the end of the field as it slowly filled up with pack members from my pack, Jason’s pack, Xavier’s pack and Georg’s pride. Shifters yawned and groaned, stretching themselves awake.

I smiled at Ani and motioned for her to stand next to me. She quickly made her way to my side and I spoke up, demanding silence from the shifters in front of me. “This is Ani, she is one of my closest friends, and there have been many rumours going around about her recently that I would like to clear up.” Ani blushed, looking down. “The first rumour is that Ani is a rogue. She’s not. I’ll explain why in a second. The second is that she betrayed our pack and is currently spying on us for the rogue enemies.”

I heard mumbles of dissatisfaction from my pack members, and I frowned as Ani let out a nearly silent whimper. “Silence!” I hushed them all, “I’m going to give you the facts. You deserve them. Ani’s mate, Nixon,” I motioned to Nix, “was called in by a pack member to look after the pack because he had been absent with Jason for a while and struggles were arising. It turns out that it wasn’t a pack member calling, it was a rogue. Nixon was kidnapped on his way to his territory.”

There were wide eyes and disbelieving outburst among the crowd, and I held up a hand before continuing, “I believe that their original plan was to capture Jason, who I had recently discovered to be my mate. Nixon was captured instead, and so the rogues altered their plan. They contacted Ani and threatened the life of her mate, forcing her to tell them the details of our plans, and to coerce me into holding a feast, in which they kidnapped me.

“On the night of the feast, Ani came clean and told me what was going on. She felt so horrible about snitching, and so heartbroken with her mate under threat that she convinced me to let her go in my place. Using a secret masking technique, I was able to hide her scent, and I Alpha commanded her to stay in my form until I allowed her to shift back. She then took my place as the rogues’ kidnapping victim. They tortured her for weeks. She sacrificed herself with the knowledge that I would find her, and I did. She is not a rogue. She is a hero.” I finished, frowning at the speechless shifters.