Terrant threw his jacket across his room and furiously sat on his bed, pulling off his leather shoes and sending them across the room with a loud thump. 'How could you be so abrasive! Especially in a different packs land. You almost forced us to shift in that library.'
'They wanted a blood pact. How could we not be offended?' His wolf growled back. Terrant knew his wolf was proud but they had agreed, beforehand, that he would handle the human side of these negotiations, and now they probably lost all possible chance of the Winters Pack support.
Terrant put his head in his hands trying to block out a headache that was threatening to become a migraine. Werewolves don't normally get sick or have human ailments; this headache, however, was from attempting to suppress his wolf in the library. He considered himself lucky that they made it out of there with only a few broken chairs and a table.
He reopened the connection, 'He deserved it!' His wolf sneered at him, 'Doesn't he know what is going on! If that Alpha had known what was happening then he would have met us immediately.' Terrant ignored the slurry of angry remarks that his wolf was barking at him, allowing him to vent as he started taking off his clothes, opening his closet he quickly grabbed a pair of dark grey sweats and a black t-shirt. His wolf kept prattling on as he put on his clothes, sneakers and grabbed his workout bag. He left his suite slamming the door behind him, and started downstairs to the pack houses gym. The anxiety in his chest building as his wolf continued to snarl in his head, he stopped at the bottom of the staircase gripping the railing as his headache pounded.
He closed his eyes and snarled back at his wolf, who immediately quieted, 'Because you reacted instead of talking things through with me, you might have cost us this war. The Winters pack is essential to win this war, and now without them the casualty's will be-' He paused trying to get a hold of his rampaging emotions, 'You may think that you acted in righteous anger, but in reality it was your pride, and no way does that change the situation we are in. So thank you for insulting the one person who stands between us and extermination!' Terrant closed his connection with his wolf and opened his eyes. It was evening in the pack house, most everyone was outside doing evening training. Terrant considered joining them but then shrugged it off. He didn't need to possibly injured anyone because he was in a bad mood.
He continued down the right hallway to the indoor gym. The gym was large, almost the size of a football field. In the middle were weight machines and a sparing ring, and raised above the training equipment was a running track. Most wolves liked to use the training facility outside, because it allowed for more training in wolf form. However, the gym was made for those rainy days, and training the younger wolves in conditioning.
All the training equipment was specially made for wolves in their human form. Depending on the wolf they can possess 3 to 10 times the strength of a human. They also live longer, the wolf's aging will slow down in their mid to late 20's and eventually stop, at least until a wolf has found their mate. Once a wolf finds their mate the aging process starts again, although it is considerably slower compared to humans.
Terrant walked in nodding at the gym overseer at the desk and walking up the stairs to the suspended track. He started walking around the track to warm up, eventually he began jogging, noting that only a few people were working out in the gym, mostly females.
The females in his pack were allowed to do conditioning sessions, but could not join the pack military. He shook his head at the thought; as he continued to increase his speed. The other hush-hush reason the pack council agreed to the gym being built is so it would stop the women complaining that they couldn't join the military. Terrant has gone to the council 3 times with the proposal to allow women to be trained in the military, every time he gets a little bit closer, but still no getting past the old traditions. Thinking about it now just fuels his anger as he stops his warm up jog and starts doing wind sprints.
After 45 minutes of wind sprints he was completely soaked in sweat, and his legs were burning. His wolf had remained quiet the whole time allowing him to vent his frustration with physical exertion. Terrant still had too much energy to burn and decided to go down and do some weight training.
He walked down the stairs taking off his soaked shirt in the process. When he suddenly heard gasps and high voices tittering. He looked up to see a larger group of females crowding around the front desk, all staring at him as he walked down the stairs. He had to stop himself from covering up, especially with some of the looks they were giving him. He walked toward the desk and the crowd started to pull away to make room for him. One pretty little wolf with caramel colored hair and big brown eyes, refused to move as Terrant continued to walk toward the desk. Terrant smirked as he sauntered up to her, she pressed her back against the desk as Terrant came closer, into her personal space. He stared at her until she finally broke eye contact and glanced down a small smirk on her pretty face as she said with a sultry voice, "Alpha."
His smirk turned to a mischievous grin as he leaned forward his arm reaching around her. All the females began to whisper and make silly tittering noises as he dipped his head close to her ear, "You are on the towels." He said pulling at the towel at the top of the pile that she was pinning as she leaned back. Her eyes opened in surprise as he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her away to release the towel. He leaned back in and whispered, "Thank you." Taking the towel he walked into the weight training area, wiping the sweat from his face and chest. The females continued to titter and giggle as he began to add weight to a few machines. He looked back and saw the same female still leaning on the towels, looking after him like she was hit over the head with a frying pan. He felt his wolf roll his eyes at his antics, 'don't complain to me when you find females loitering outside of your room.'
Terrant smirked and began his weight training. He was pumping really hard when he heard a deep voice behind him. "That was mean, Terrant. You almost gave that poor girl a conniption."
Terrant put his weight down and turned, using the towel around his neck to wipe the sweat off his face. Alpha Joseph was lounging out on a machine behind him. His impeccably kept clothes were of the latest fashion. Dark black slacks that fit him to a 't', followed by a long sleeve dark blue dress shirt with a black silk vest. His shirts top buttons were undone to show his tan skin, and his shoes were black leather boots. He was lounging across one of the bicep machines, his long legs propped up on a handlebar and his back leaning against the other. It probably was horribly uncomfortable but he made it look like he was laying on a feather mattress.
He smirked at Terrant showing the dimples that indented both sides of his cheeks. The tittering at the front desk increased, which forced a full blown lady killer smile as Joseph finally pushed himself up and turned to face Terrant. The giggling grew louder and sounded closer. Terrant turned his head to glance behind him; a few brave souls were approaching the edge of the weight training area, trying their hardest to look sexy and irresistible.
Joseph was winking at the group of females; Terrant looked over at Joseph with a raised eyebrow, "Stop doing that." Joseph's dark blue eyes sparked with humor as he pulled a unruly hair back into it's place. If you think of the tall, dark, and handsome cliché in every romance novel that was Joseph, except he did it better....way better. His sense of style, his deep velvety voice, and his contrasting eyes all created this confident charm that brought all females and some males to their knees. Joseph was one of Terrants closest friends since he became Alpha 6 years ago. His pack land went along Terrant's western border reaching all the way to the coast.
Joseph pulled the cuffs on his sleeves and whispered so only Terrant could hear. "If you're going to be bad, then I'm going to be bad."
Terrant rolled his eyes and sat down at another machine and began pumping. "What are you doing here?" Terrant asked in between reps.
Joseph was lazily watching the group of females as they bunched together whispering and sending flirtatious smiles at him. "I came to look for you. We were suppose to meet 30 minutes ago."
"I notified Ian that I was going to be late."
"I know." Joseph said standing up, "Which is why I came to find you." Terrant continued with his work out ignoring Joseph, "I figured you were having fun without me, but instead-" He looked up and down at Terrant with a disgusted look on his face, "you're trying to sweat your guts out."
Terrant stopped and looked up at Joseph, he was tall and slenderly built, but don't let that fool you. He was just as lethal as any Alpha, perhaps more so; he was a master in many different martial arts. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Joseph quickly schooled his face back into cool indifference.
"Because you sweat and work like a mule." He leaned his shoulder on the machine next to Terrants, folding his long arms over his chest as he looked on with a bored expression.
"And you sweat like a unicorn," Terrant grunted, starting his reps again.
"No, of course not, but I do make it a point to sweat with class." Terrant almost dropped the weight as he snorted with laughter.
"But I guess the females in your pack like the Neanderthal grunting and pumping iron. Perhaps later we could go club dinner and grunt erotically at the females?" Terrant grunted in response. "I don't speak caveman, but I guess that means yes."
Terrant stopped, he wasn't going to get a proper work out with Joseph around. Joseph smirked as he said, "You must be trying to work off some steam after talking to very disagreeable old fogies for the past couple of days. They can be really exhausting."
Terrant grinned as he stood up stretching his arms and back, "I don't know how you do it? I thought I was going to send that last Alpha through the window."
Joseph nodded his head, "Meditation and punching bags. An excellent combination so that you don't end up insulting someone." Terrant's grin fell as he remembered what happened just hours earlier. Joseph picked up on his change of mood immediately, "What's up?"
"Nothing," Terrant glanced over his shoulder at the crowd of females, "Nothing that can be said here."
Joseph nodded, "Well we made great progress while you were away. I finally got the Alpha's to agree to a time, date, and place for the war council. It will be two days from now, at my pack house, everyone is to arrive at 10AM to start hashing it out."
"Having it here would make more sense." Terrant said trying to not sound irritated. They had been in meetings for the past few days trying to convince certain packs to join the war council. Terrant didn't think that the worst part would be trying to get them all to agree on a place to have the war council. It has been a nightmare, and it would have been far worse if Joseph hadn't helped them.
"That is what I told them, but apparently some of the older Alpha's feel that you are too... young and unpredictable to warrant having it at your pack house."
Terrant rolled his eyes, "Who said that?"
Joseph grinned coolly at him, "Who do you think?"
Hunt. The one Alpha who seemed to hate him. Terrant tried to be on good terms with most Alpha's in his general vicinity. However, Samuel Hunt literally hated him; Terrant was surprised that he agreed to come to the war council at all. Terrant grabbed his shirt and towel, "Alright well I will meet you upstairs after I am done showering." Loud giggling ensued when he said 'showering', which proved Terrant's suspicion that the females could hear them.
Joseph stood up with an evil glint in his eye. "Maybe we should shower together? It would be a different kind of hot....also save on water." Loud tittering came from the group of girls along with some jealous looks.
Terrant glanced over at the group and whispered so only Joseph could hear, "Don't do that. The last thing I need is to be brought in front of the council because they think I'm gay and I won't supply them with an heir."
"Your council is full of old fashioned fogies." Joseph brushed off.
Terrant shrugged, "They would let females in the military before they let an Alpha be gay... openly."
Joseph's eyes narrowed, "I thought they were going to give on the female issue this last council meeting."
Terrant began to walk out of the weight training area, motioning for Joseph to follow him. "They are allowing them to train with the military during morning and evening conditioning, but they are still banned from enlisting."
Joseph rolled his eyes as they left the gym and the tittering females behind, "I told you to thin out the council. There are too many old wolves there."
"I don't think it is the council that is the problem. I think the problem is my father being a part of the council." They started walking up the stairs to the Alpha's quarters and offices. "He keeps talking about tradition, even those who disagree with him are forced to fall in line."
"Terrant you have been having the worst time pulling power away from your father since you took over. It might have seemed like a good idea when he was voted to the council but I think it is high time that you put your pack in a state of emergency control. We need warriors and even if it means pushing the females in your pack through training so be it. They can at least get enough under their belt to defend themselves. It would help them stay safe."
Terrant remained quiet while Joseph talked, he had been considering placing his pack in emergency protocol since his father refused to help with the war council. He was still in deep thought when he realized he wasn't paying attention to Joseph who was saying, "-even my pack has been allowing women to enlist for 5 years now. I actually had to force my hand after I thinned the amount of members on my council. Honestly it was like anyone over 150 years old was allowed on the council no young wolves at all."
They were at his office door and Terrant was about to open it when Joseph said, "Hey, go shower first. We don't want to talk and plan for hours with you smelling like a wet dog." Terrant was so deep in thought that he had passed his quarters a few doors back. He immediately turned around and started walking back to his room dipping back into deep thought.
Joseph tilted his head and watched as Terrant first walked past his room...again. Then he snickered as he watched Terrant, still deep in thought, finally make it to his room but run into his door. Terrant shook his head and looked at the door with a confused expression before he finally opened the door and walked through.
*Thanks for reading! Please vote and comment! I love constructive criticism, however if it becomes mean I will take you down.*
-LostArrow-