The Hunters Mark

1

{ Ilana ~ ah-lar-nah }

-✧-

I T was early Monday morning and as usual, Cora was shook awake telling her to get up or they'd be late for warm ups. Cora groaned and rolled over onto her side, snuggling under the covers.
"Move." Ilana said demandingly. Cora sighed and pushed her covers off, only to pull them back tightly over her body.
" It's cold!" Cora grumbled, dragging the 'o'.
"I don't care, get up!" Ilana said Cora pretended to not hear Ilana and began to close her eyes again. Much to her surprise, she began to roll off the bed with force as somebody pushed her. Cora groaned and rubbed her shoulder. She raised her middle finger above the bed and pointed it at Ilana. Ilana giggled and playfully kicked her. "Five minutes." She said, getting up to leave but not before hearing Cora mutter under her breath
"Yes ma'am.", not bothering to hide her annoyance this early in the morning. Ilana simply laughed and repeated herself before leaving the room to talk to Damien most likely. Ilana and Damien were definitely seeing each other. Although Cora had no proof, she had experienced them flirting many a time in her day so she was positive there was something happening. Cora finally began to move out of her duvet and run quickly over to her cabinet to put on something warm. She chose her warm leggings, a simple top and her thickest hoodie. She grabbed some dirty trainers and a hair tie and made her way out the room to join Ilana.
The girls then made their way outside to the fields to complete their daily run - Cora's favourite.

-✧-

M O S T recruits hated running every morning at such early hours but Cora found a thrill in running that she couldn't find anywhere else. She felt free, and her mind could drift to anything as it was the only part of the day where she could be alone with her own thoughts.
Ilana groaned as they made their way over to the starting line. "Alright guys! I want you to be fast, we're only running two miles today so i expect you to be fast; under seven minutes. For those in the Gold group, I'm expecting under five. Alright good luck guys, and remember if you achieve you get rewarded, keep that in mind if you decide to slack off, alright, go!" Sonja shouted, blowing her whistle to signal them to run. Cora, Elijah and Emilia were the only three in the gold group so with the faster target, all three were further ahead. To begin with, Ilana had attempted to keep up with Cora but quickly lost stamina and fell behind to Damien. Cora was focused. Emilia was in front of her, her thick ponytail thrashing side to side as she lunged forward. Emilia was fast Cora admitted, but she could be faster. Somewhere Cora found adrenaline to push herself faster and she let her wolf abilities kick in. As a result of the injection fifteen years ago, Cora could run faster and was stronger, like all the other recruits. Her eyes flashed bright green and small black veins pertruded out of her neck, arms and legs before flickering away, and Cora began to gain on Emilia.
To Emilia's surprise, Cora sped past her with determination as they pasted the one mile mark. Usually Emilia didn't care where she came in runs but when it came to Cora she couldn't help but be competitive. Emilia noticed Cora's cocky smirk spread across her face and her glowing green eyes - Cora was using her wolf abilities! Emilia scowled but unlike Cora she decided to run in her fully human form to improve her stamina. She simply swished her ponytail and ignored Cora completely, focusing on reaching the end in the time limit.
"3:47!" Sonja shouted as Cora sprinted past the finish line. Cora let out a breath of relief, she had a new record. Sonja beckoned Cora over to her and Cora followed, positive she knew what Sonja was about to say.
"Remember that these races are to improve your stamina Cora, not to use your wolf abilities to beat others.This is a race against yourself remember, not Emilia." Sonja lectured.
Cora nodded and jogged back over to the finish to wait for Ilana. She sighed, knowing all too well she got too competitive and let her wolf slip. The injection all recruits had received when they first joined was an extremely small amount of the wolf cells injected to create the weremen. As their injection was such a small dosage, none of the recruits went rabid or were able to shift fully into wolves. Instead, each recruit was stronger and faster, as well as having a better sense of sight, hearing and smell. After years of training, the recruits could chose when their wolf came through and when that happened their eyes would flash either red, blue or green. Cora, naturally having darker eyes, adored it when her eyes flashed green. Letting her wolf through gave her a sense of power and a rush of thrill she couldn't get anywhere else. She loved it.
Ilana came through at 5:58 along with Damien at 6:01 and Cora went to join them. Having a stronger sense of smell did have its downfalls however. As she approached Ilana and Damien she almost had to take a step back as a pungent smell flooded her nostrils and stopped any train of thought she had. Damien. Cora tried to disguise her disgust as she made her way over to them both, careful not to wrinkle her nose as she got closer to Damien. Ilana began to ramble on about how she 'fake' tripped up on the final leg of the run and Damien had stopped to help her, allowing her to run off without him. Cora giggled as Damien began to protest and complain, and Ilana threw insults at him, trying to keep a serious face. For Ilana, who had probably never been serious in her life, keeping a straight face was incredibly difficult and she broke quickly into a fit of laughter and actually had to sit down.
"All right, gather in!" Elijah, our team leader called. Sonja was our sector leader but Elijah was our team leader; he was actually a recruit himself and he organised and led the hunts. The hum of chatter quickly died down as everyone made their way over to Elijah.
"Good work everyone! We all managed to achieve a target of under seven minutes which is great! We all deserve a pat on the back!"
Cora scoffed. She knew Elijah was just lying to himself. He saw the times. Half of the team got under the time limit by using their wolf speed or by sprinting and the average time was 6:39. Other sectors had already gone on hunts but at this rate the team is nowhere near prepared physically for when we have to go out, the team would be destroyed. He needed to be stricter and set goals that people had to achieve instead of flimsy targets. Cora liked Elijah and all, but he was an awful leader. Cora couldn't wait for the Arena. In just 3 weeks the annual arena tournament began which was a battle to show who was the strongest and therefore team leader. Despite winning last years event, because of Cora's 'rude remark' towards another sector leader, position of team leader was given to second place; Elijah.
The whole team looked chuffed, so Cora supposed Elijah did a good job at keeping everyone happy.
"Right, we're having a 15 minute break before everyone has to be in the gym for morning conditioning. The group let out a loud groan. "I don't want to hear it! If anyone's late, they're doing extra laps. 15 minutes!"
"I think we all need to have a shower first." I said loudly, trying not to look at Damien and there was a curt nod from Elijah. That was one of the good things about Elijah, he respected Cora.
"Right, change of plan. We are having short showers before, so I'll give you 25 minutes because you all stink! Especially you Damien, please give yourself a good clean." Cora and Ilana giggled as Damien nodded and looked at the ground, blushing.
"Now, seriously if anyone is late after that I'll have you running after hours for the rest of this week with Tess." Cora gulped. Tess was quite literally the devil. She was in charge of fitness here and seemed to enjoy watching us suffer.
"Right, that's all, you can go!" Elijah shouted, and the team scurried off back to their dorms to grab their towels and raced towards the shower stalls.