Crimson Mist ✔️

35: It's about to happen.

"Again," Tristan's dark voice tells me.

I huff, and get up from the ground. My muscles are aching, they're sore, and they're begging me for a rest, but I can't.

"Come on, man, she's obviously beat," Jeremy complains, furrowing his eyebrows at my Alpha.

"She can't take breaks out there. Do you want your mate to lose to a Rogue because she thinks she can stop to catch her breath?" Tristan growls, glaring daggers at Jeremy. He huffs when my mate doesn't respond. "Didn't think so."

Training with Tristan is way different than with Jeremy. They both push me, and they both make every muscle in my body ache for hours before we're done, but Tristan is way harder on me. Where Jeremy would tackle me and stare into my eyes with his lopsided smile for a minute or two to let us both catch our breaths, Tristan practically whips me up to my feet again, to keep me going. And Tristan stands beside me to watch how I do things, and lets someone else attack me. The few sessions we had before Jeremy came, it was Jack or Michael, but now it's Jeremy.

"Are you going easy on her?" Tristan asks darkly, stepping closer to us again when Jeremy hesitates.

We've been out on the parking lot for hours, going through the basics of fighting, while still human. They both agreed that I knew how to defend myself as a wolf, I just needed some help with my human abilities.

"No, I'm not," Jeremy protests, glaring at my brother. "She's tired. I don't want to hurt her."

"If she's hurt she'll stay here in stead of going with us," Tristan says, and shifts his eyes to me, as if in warning.

I know they both want me to stay behind with Gail and Jean, but neither of them are staying, so then I won't either. Jean is hellbent on staying by Petra's side, and Gail is a strong Luna, she doesn't bow her head for anyone, not even her mate.

"Are you trying to hurt me, so I'll stay behind?" I ask, gritting my teeth at them both.

They seem to be disagreeing today, but it could be an act. They've got along good for the last couple of days, ever since their fight, so if they've plotted against me to make me stay behind I'll give them hell. I don't care that they're my mate and my Alpha. They can't make decisions for me.

"No!"

They both shout at me in unison.

I raise my eyebrow at them both, as I'm not completely convinced. They don't act like they want me to join the fight at all, but I guess that's what older brothers and mates do. I don't particularly like the idea of the two of them in danger either, but I know they can handle themselves. Just like they both know I can handle myself.

I don't answer them. Instead, I lunge forward with my teeth gritted, punching Jeremy's stomach. He's taken by surprise and leans forward to get back the air I knocked out of him, before I bend down, shoot my leg out and tackle him so he falls flat on his back on the thin layer of snow that the plow truck couldn't get. I straddle him, and put my hand towards his throat, as if I was cutting it with a knife.

"Dead," I say triumphantly.

He narrows his eyes at me, looks at me with a murderous glare, while I listen to my brother's huff next to us. Then Jeremy flips me over, and lays on top of me on the snow. My legs are instinctively wrapped around his waist as he pulls my hands up above my head with one hand, and places another in my side, with an imaginary knife of his own going straight through my ribs, and into my heart. I think.

"Dead," he mimics, flashing me his signature crooked smile.

As I stare into his green orbs I realize I'm panting, even though he did all the work of flipping us over. My back is cold as ice, but my body is so warm and tingly, and filled with sparks going everywhere.