Her Mates

CHAP 1: A chance encounter

Markian's POV

It had been a long day. We had practised defence for the last 4 hours and I was exhausted. Defence training usually took more mental undertaking rather than training to attack which was more of a physical workout. My brother and I always trained side by side with our soldiers. We made sure they knew that if we were not ready to carry out an order, we wouldn't make them carry it out as well. So far, it had worked well as we had become strong...A strong pack that grew even stronger as we relied on each other to protect our loved ones.

We, my brother and I had decided to take over the patrolling of the Southeast perimeter of our land for today. We knew that there was a small lake on the periphery of our land. It bordered an area which neither belonged to us nor the pack closest to us, the Moongazer pack. We had found the lake by accident behind a huge thicket which took both of us about a month to clear. We knew by experience how cool the lake would be at this time of the year.
I couldn't wait to jump in and feel its chilled waters soothe my aching muscles. I could already imagine the cold water of the lake cradling me in its freezing embrace

It wasn't easy being the Alpha to the strongest pack around. Many Alphas felt that it was an open challenge to them. Even if Starfall didn't believe in invading nearby territories, the other Alphas thought that as Starfall's alphas were comparatively younger than the rest of the alphas around, they would be easy to defeat. They had come in droves, ready to take on our pack and more importantly, ready to fight the two young alphas of Starfall.

So far five other alphas had learnt the bitter lesson that we may be younger but we are smart and well-trained. We have been in training since we were in diapers and not many alphas have had the privilege of training under a king's guard who was coincidentally our father as well. Xander, our father, had been given the opportunity by the King Of Wolves himself, to become an Alpha and have his pack as a reward after completing 25 years of faithful service to the King and his family

Father always used life experiences as his training tools while he trained us to assume the title of Alpha after him. He knew that we would have to prove our worth in battle so he trained us from the time we could walk. Mother had often complained that she never got to see her kids growing up as we were always training with Father and his Beta. She understood the need for us to train as she had seen many alphas lose their lives in battle so as much as she complained, she also made sure we didn't default our training.

We were both also pushed to excel in academics as all brawn and no brain accordingly, was a recipe for disaster. We studied The Art of War by Sun Tzu until we could recite the passages by heart and explain it in detail even while we were sleeping. While Mitchell's strong suit was tactical positioning and strategy of war, I leaned more towards the study of people and their weaknesses. It was one of the reasons why many of the neighbouring Alphas also seemed to respect our decisions and looked to us to sign treaties with them.

To be safe, our father made sure that both Mitchell and I were well-versed in hand-to-hand combat as well as sword fighting. To Mitchell's credit, he is slightly better in the use of a bow and arrow but I know that he would never admit that to anyone. It didn't though stop him from rubbing my nose in that particular fact whenever I missed the centre of the target in practice. We had spent many hours perfecting our skill and aim so that we would be ready for any eventuality

I, on the other hand, preferred the sword. The sharply pointed sabre was my weapon of choice in a fight. I fought using all my skill and prowess and this made me a danger on and off the battlefield. I fought mainly to injure or maim and very rarely to kill. We at Starfall respected all life and had vowed to only shed the blood of an opponent if we had no other choice