Pack or Prey (Wolfblooded book 1)

Chapter 9, Part 1

July 3rd 2011 5:17 p.m.

It had been a pretty good day, all things considered. Marcellus said I was coming along nicely. A "real improvement" since he started teaching me six months ago. I never really pictured myself as the type of girl to take self-defense training, but with the shit that tended to get thrown my way, it really couldn't hurt. I already knew how to fight but it was the real dirty street-brawling type stuff.

Marcellus mentioned before that he was surprised at my speed and endurance when we started training, but that I lacked discipline. Go figure. I could chalk the speed and endurance up to the same thing responsible for the lack of discipline.

Running with Frank meant I needed to know how to handle myself. It was just part of the lifestyle. I didn't go out looking for fights, but if I wanted to go out with the guys without running into the cops, then I had to know how to fight my way out of a shit-storm.

With the time and distance I'd put between us, I also came to many hard truths about how he manipulated me. He often encouraged my anger, antagonizing me or making bad situations worse until I let it take control of the wheel. You couldn't have both rage and control. It just didn't work.

McKinley's technically didn't offer self-defense classes. Marcellus was just a regular weight-jockey that liked to spar other guys on the mats. It was just a happy circumstance I came in the same day he was kickboxing with someone. I guess my interest in the fighting style was what eventually led him to offer to teach me various techniques.

In truth, he wasn't just good at kick-boxing. Trained in aikido, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, Muay Thai, and of course, karate, Marcellus was one scary mother fucker. I would never want to be on his bad side. And yet, there I was sparring him twice a week and letting him knock me around like a rag doll.

After drying off from a much needed shower and slipping into my pajama pants, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get cracking on my homework. My arms and legs were sore, as they always were after the gym, but sore muscles would not be accepted as an excuse by my English-Lit professor.

I had already put off the assigned reading for two days. Any longer and I was pushing it. It was due in three days, and I still hadn't started reading it, let alone write a critique on it.

Hours ticked on as I hit the books, pouring over the copy of Pride and Prejudice I checked out from the public library. By nine o'clock, my head was pounding. There were so many obsolete words and forgotten language nuances.

And the day-to-day lives of women back in those times were horrible. Marriage was the most important thing for a girl to look forward to in her life. Watch her sisters get married off, marry a man, typically twice her age, and then marry off her own daughters.

While I had to admit Elizabeth Bennett was a woman ahead of her time, from what I'd been able to follow, even she was of the mind that a marriage was the main event. The only thing that set her apart from the rest was her bold tongue and desires to marry someone of her own preference. I couldn't imagine thinking of nothing else in the prime of my life than which man I would serve until death.

I slammed the novel shut, letting my frustrations out on it, and raised my arms above my head in a delicious stretch. I had sat down for far too long. My back was stiff and achy from the mixture of the afternoon training and not moving for the last couple of hours.

As I bent backwards, appreciating a good stretch to my tensed up back muscles, I caught a glimpse of my calendar out of the corner of my eye. Two very large brown eyes were staring back at me with a depressingly pathetic plea to be adopted. Liz was convinced I needed a pet or something to keep me company. Apparently, this Humane Society Puppy Calendar she bought me was supposed to convince me to save one of the animals in the local shelter.