Chapter 5: Chapter Four

-Nine Weeks Later-

-Amaya’s POV-

“Jax, are you sure your parents are okay with this?” I asked him again.

“Yes Little Duck. They know what you are and don’t care. I’ve told them you have plenty of control as long as you don’t plan on killing anyone in the pack, we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, that’s not currently at the top of my to-do list,” I responded with a smile.

“Good thing because we’re almost there. We just entered the innermost ring of the territory. This is where most of the houses start and some shops will start in a few miles.”

“Shops? You guys have shops in the middle of your territory? How does that work?”

“They’re supplied by other packs and supers. We have trade networks with a lot of different clans and packs because we’re the ruling family. Our pack is the oldest and largest too so the part we’re about to drive through is more like a town than a housing development. We have schools too and warrior training. Other packs send their top warriors to us to further their training, and most future alphas and betas come to us for school.”

“Daniel hand picks members of our team or teams from different clans and packs, and then trains them. He doesn’t usually train outside our facility,” I stared out the window watching the houses change shape and color.

“So he’s not a SEAL trainer then?” He asked with a smile in his voice.

I smiled, “No, that training was just from me.”

“How did he swing that?”

“We work inside the government occasionally, so he has ties there. They’ve actually been asking him for a while to train a batch or two. He’ll go back one or two more times so it’s not so suspicious and maybe take another member of our team along so that he can ‘recruit’ them too. That’s what we’re going with by the way as the ‘where I went’ in case I run into anyone from training.”

I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye, but was still staring out the window when the houses and buildings came to an end, “Here we are.”

He turned the car into a long, wide driveway covered in trees. Finally it let out into the view of a massive house. “Holy shit, Jax. I mean I knew your family was the royal family, but holy shit.”

He laughed, “Well we host pack meetings and my parents weren’t content with just me, why I don’t know because I’m awesome,” I hit him on the arm but laughed at his comment, “So yeah we need a big house. Don’t worry though the rooms are all sound proof, so you won’t hear anything from the mated pairs’ rooms.”

I felt a sense of sadness wash over me when he mentioned the mated pairs, but tried to recover fast, “Am I expected to bow and shit when I get in here?”

“Absolutely. My parents are sticklers for that kind of stuff,” Jax said without hesitation as we got out of the car.

“I call bullshit,” Niamh said in my head.

I just smiled, trusting in Niamh as we stepped inside the massive house. His parents met us at the door. His mother was a beautiful black woman who was much shorter compared to her mate who was barely shorter than Jax with suntanned skin. “Your Majesties,” I said, only slightly inclining my head.

Jax let out a whine behind me, “Come on! Niamh gave me away didn’t she? Damn dragon.”

Niamh chuckled in my head along with everyone around me, “He tried the ‘we’re sticklers for the rules’ bit with you didn’t he?”

“He did, but my dragon wasn’t buying it,” I replied with a smirk.

“You have to watch him, he’ll keep you on your toes.” Jax’s mom said with a warm smile, “Please call me Jo and my mate Charlie.”

Charlie spoke up as we moved into the living room, “Jax tells us you’re a princess. Do you go by your title? We don’t want to misstep.”

“Goddess no. I’m a warrior way ahead of being a princess. My father, Daniel, doesn’t even go by his title, really. Sure he leads the teams, but he doesn’t do the king thing. He’s more of a business man than anything. Please just call me Amaya,” I shifted nervously at my small outburst.

“Thank the gods for that. Some of the other royals can be so stuffy,” Jo said with a smile. “It’s good to have a Wardwell back in this house. We’re having a feast in a few days.”

“You know my family?” I asked; confused as to why Daniel wouldn’t have told me before coming here.

“We were good friends of your grandparents and parents. When your clan was attacked we searched for you and your family, but when we couldn’t find you, we thought you all had perished too. We tried to help those who had survived, but everyone was gone; they had just disappeared.” Charlie gestured to me, “Now that you’re here, it makes sense. I imagine your dad got everyone he could to safety.”

I nodded my head, “He did, but there weren’t very many of us.”

Jo patted my hand, “Well we’re glad to have you here. If you need anything just let us know. Jax’s siblings should be back soon so let’s get you settled in so you have time to brace yourself.”

I looked over at Jax with a raised eyebrow, “Oh yeah, Little Duck, extra bracing may be in order.”

“What the hell is extra bracing?”

He just shrugged and motioned for me to follow. He snagged my bag from the foyer as we walked through and headed up the grand staircase. “Mom got the room across from mine ready for you.”

“Do you guys have staff at all? With this gigantic house I thought you guys would have at least one or two maids,” I looked around at the decor on the walls as we walked down the hallway.

“Only when we have big groups come in, otherwise we all just pitch in and clean it ourselves. Everyone in the pack has other more important duties, cleaning our house shouldn’t be one of them.”

“I knew you knew how to clean too well for a prince, should’ve known you were the maid,” I said, shoving him a little.

He laughed and opened a door, “Yeah, yeah. You’re hilarious. This is your room,” we walked in, he set down my bag. It was a huge room with a king sized bed off to one side, dresser between two doors, and large windows that have a view of the forest that is behind the house.

“This room is ridiculous,” I said, moving to open one of the doors.

“That’s your bathroom. If we have another guest in the room on the other side, you’ll share.” The bathroom was huge too, with a walk in shower and a tub. It was much bigger than what I was used to back home. We walked back into the room, “The other door is to your closet,” his eyes glazed over slightly, an obvious sign he was mind linking. “My siblings are back. Let’s go back downstairs to meet them, then we’ll go train.”

“Yeeess. It’s been far too long since I kicked your ass,” I said with a smirk as we headed downstairs.

He barked out a laugh, “Right, you were doing the ass kicking.”

That caused me to grin widely, “Of course, dragon beats wolf every time.”

“Whatever,” he said, shoving me a bit as we walked into the living room.

I still had a small smile fixed on my face as I was greeted by four new wolves. I was hit instantly by a hug. I stood there not sure what to do with the unknown wolf. Jax sighed dramatically, “Ava at least introduce yourself before you throw yourself at her, for goddess’ sake.”

“Oh right. Sorry,” she released me and gave me a sheepish smile. “I’m Ava,” she grabbed one of her siblings and pulled him forward. “This is my twin, Noah. It’s so nice to meet you. Are you Jax’s mate? Is that why you’re here? How long will you be here? Which room are you staying in? Can she stay in my room? Why do you smell like that? What’s your dragon? How many dragons do you know? How many types of dragons are there? Have you met all of them? Are you-”

“Ava! Breathe,” Jax said. She did and almost started on her line of questioning again, “Ava. Calm down. She’ll be here for a week or two. She’s not my mate, just my friend. Cut out the inquisition. Christ you could make a high priestess swear.”

Ava pouted but before she could say anything the unknown brother and his mate stepped forward, “Luca and this is my mate, Feray.”

I shook their hands, “It’s nice to meet you all.”

“Well this was fun, but I promised Amaya an ass kicking. So we’re going to train,” Jax said.

“You do mean you promised I would be kicking your ass right? Because that’s exactly what’s going to go down.”

“HA! As if!” Jax said, pulling me outside to the training field.

“We’ll see pup, we’ll see,” I said, taking off my shirt so that I was down to my sports bra and sweatpants.

“Bring it Little Duck,” he said as he took off his shirt.

His family followed us outside and we had gathered a small crowd from the pack; looking at them, they looked like warriors. I heard Luca and Charlie exchanging bets. Luca stuck with his brother, but Charlie, being older and wiser, placed his bet on me. This made me smirk and Jax looked more offended than I had ever seen him. I could lose just because he wanted his dad to lose so badly. Jax and I met at the center of the training circle. We bumped fists and started circling one another looking for a weak spot.

Ava gasped when she saw my scar for the first time as I made my way around with my back to her. I didn’t let her distract me though as Jax made his move with a fake right hook. That fake right gave way to an attempted left upper cut, but I saw it coming and countered with several hits of my own.

“Shit Little Duck, you’ve been training since I last saw you,” he commented before taking a couple more swings, still trying to land something.

“Yeah, I told you the SEAL training was just the beginning of my training,” I smirked as a few of my hits landed, but I didn’t get smug because Niamh warned me he was holding back big time and to be prepared for it to come soon.

I forced his hand; pushing him harder but still pulling my punches. “Here he comes,” Niamh said.

Immediately he fought back harder, a punch or kick landing here or there, but nothing landing where he intended as I deflected. Soon I capitalized on a swing he took and took him down for a submission win. “Fucking hell, Little Duck,” Jax said a little winded, “You should be teaching us how to fight.”

“Told ya dragon beats wolf every time,” I said with a smirk, pulling him to his feet.

“Yeah, yeah,” we walked over to his family, “So how much did you lose, Luca?”

“Fifty bucks. You couldn’t have tried harder, little bro?” He rubbed Jax on top of his head, “I thought you signed up for the SEALs to learn a thing or two, not to learn how to get your ass kicked.”

Everyone around us chuckled, “Great job, Amaya. Thanks for winning me fifty bucks,” Charlie said with a grin on his face.

“No problem,” I said with a smile.