Cataindar

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The abbot sighed.

"Darcius, is an incredibly talented scouger, and a strong leader of his team... However, he has some views that we would do well to discourage."

"Putting it mildly." Finn muttered.

"Princess, I shall leave you with Finn. You have much to learn, and Finn you have much to teach."

The abbot shuffled through the door from which they had come and was almost knocked down by female catain charging in.

"Thorne!" Said the abbot with a jolly chortle, and recovering his balance, gave the tall lean brown catain an affectionate pat on the arm.

Thorne dipped her head to the abbot and her huge eyes fixed on Luisa.

The abbot spoke, "Princess this is Thorne our third scouger leader"

Thorne curtsied. "Princess, a pleasure to see you again."

"Oh, hello,"

Thorne was a tall catain, with turtle-coloured mottled fur, large brown eyes. Luisa thought she was pretty, in a she-could-kill-you-fifteen-different-kind-of-ways kind of way. She had a long scar that snaked its way horizontally from her forehead between her eyes to her cheek. Her hand rested easily on a heavy-looking mace which was strapped to her belt and leather sheath that ran all the way down her left leg. Her right arm was entirely encased in a brown leather gauntlet and along the forearm section it had several sharp spikes protruding along its length.

Oh my god Thorne is cool.

Thorne, seemed to telepathically register Luisa's thoughts and gave her a confident half smile.

"I am looking forward to tutoring you Princess. I'll teach you some tricks that none of the males in Cataindar know." She winked conspiratorially at Luisa.

"Ok." Luisa could feel her cheeks blush,

Thorne smiled, "Anyway. I will leave you with Finn for now, we don't want to put too much in your head the first day. Welcome to the scougers Princess. If you didn't know already... we kick tail around here."

The abbot smiled and nodded along cheered by Thorne's easy manner. He and Thorne left the room, Luisa caught sight of Thorne whispering in the abbot's ear.

Finn took a few steps towards the large ratain dummy and turned on his heels to face Luisa.

Finn was broadly built for a catain and oozed a natural authority. With his burnt orange fur flecked with blonde he could be described as tabby colouring. With his chest plate and dual short swords, he looked like a miniature, four-foot-four, furry gladiator. He fixed his keen yellow eyes onto her. She glanced the engraving on his chest plate, a segmented circular design, it looked familiar to her, at the end of the segments she saw animals, a cat, a rat, a rabbit, a dragon... Before her mind could dwell further on the subject Finn begun to speak.

"Princess..."

"OK wait." Luisa said putting up her hand, look, you can stop calling me Princess right now Sir... umm, Finn. If you are teaching me stuff, it is just going to feel weird."

A small smile crept to the corner of Finn's mouth. Without faltering he continued.

"Luisa, how much experience do you have in combat."

"Oh, umm. None. Well, there are a lot of fights at school... I've never been in one though..."

She thought back to Oliver's mouth on her neck. The first boy to ever touch her in that way, humiliating her in front of his mates. What an arsehole. She shivered.