Magic & Mystery

Chapter 8

Training Begins Now!

The next morning was just plain sucky! I was awoken by somebody beating my suite door like they were trying to break it down. I jumped up as Minnie was barking and growling like crazy ready to attack. She is such a protective good girl and I love her to pieces. I smiled at her after cursing out whoever was banging on the door loudly while telling them to hang the hell on a minute. I got up, rubbed the sand mans residual sand out of my eyes and walked to the door. I flung it open annoyed and still half asleep with a murderous glare on my face before seeing one of the elders standing in my doorway. It was the Vampire elder and he had a smile on his face...too bright of a smile on his face for my liking at this ungodly hour of...what time? I asked "What time is it?"

The elder continued to smile and said "It's 7AM and you must begin training to master your vampire abilities and begin training to lead your new clan. Stephan has decided, and your other mate agreed, to turn over leadership to you as soon as you are properly trained in what you need to know in order to run things effectively." My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I said "WHAT?! I never agreed to that! I thought THEY were supposed to take care of me now rather than adding more crap for me to do. I don't understand this at all, it makes no sense whatsoever." The elder smiled reassuringly but sympathetically and said "In all honesty leading the clan does not take a lot of time or work, you can delegate tasks to your subordinates and spend an hour or 2 a day doing what you can't delegate. He decided to turn over leadership to you because taking over as Luna of the pack will consume a great deal of his time since he will be responsible for keeping the children safe, happy and educated properly along with helping to act as a marriage councilor of sorts."

I rolled my eyes as the elder laughed and said "Ok, so I apologize for my rudeness, may I ask your name?" He smiled back and said "Andre is my name, nice to meet you, chosen one. I'll wait for you downstairs while you get ready, try to eat something light in order to prevent you from becoming ill during training starting tomorrow." I agreed and he walked away as I closed the door. I did all of my morning routine and dressed in black basketball shorts and a tight black v-neck. I really love v-necks, they show off a teasing amount of my chest hair...hehehe. I grabbed some cereal and ate and then brushed my teeth and went downstairs closely followed by Minnie. The elder was waiting by the front door along with my mates. I rolled my eyes and said "You guys do know that your presence at my training sessions is not required right?" They just smiled and said "Good morning to you as well Mr. Sunshine but we just wanted to say good morning and let you know that we believe in you." It truly touched my heart that they BELIEVED in me. The only ones who ever truly believed in me before were my mom and gramma. They walked up and each kissed me on a cheek and then went to walk away but I grabbed them by the arms holding them in place and gave each of them a kiss on the cheek as well before walking out the front door past them.

I promoted Steven to be head of the clan warriors and delegated to him and Julian since he was now MY second in command. Andre showed me briefly how to complete any tasks that I delegated to Julian and Steven which were simple but time consuming and then we spent hours and hours going over paperwork and the financial reports and approving actions taken for the clans various business interests that supplied the funds to maintain everyone's lifestyle. I took notes and kept a notebook, a cheat sheet of sorts, as a reference for the future since this was the only day we were actually going to be spending with this boring part of training, thank God. Stephan joined us an hour or two before the end to train me on some specifics I would need to know.

By the end of the day Andre could see I was tired and bored to tears which seemed to amuse him. He guided me to a dining hall that was filled with, what seemed like, the entire clan and a few additional vampires that I recognized as the other vampire elders along with some other vampires I had never seen before. Andre led me to the head of the table and introduced the newcomers as the leaders of other clans who were interested in merging their clans into my own newly acquired clan. I made a stipulation that they had to assist with as much of the business workload as possible to allow me to concentrate on my training to which they agreed. Before we got too deeply into the conversation Andre handed me a glass and asked me to try it. I looked down and it was very obviously blood but the smell didn't repulse me the way I thought it would. I was reluctant but finally took a sip and was surprised that it tasted like a chocolate milkshake to me for some reason. I chugged it down and enjoyed glass after glass which delighted my clan.