Arabella Dimitri

I woke up this morning wanting to train, so train I did. I got up early, before Nicholas was awake, and I got changed, grabbing a bite to eat from our private kitchen, before heading to the training grounds.

Logan, the royal beta, was already there, setting up equipment and things for the people to train. I arrived just as the Gammas, Owen and Skye, arrived.

"Luna, how lovely of you to join us," Logan smiled at me, whilst adjusting his armour.

"Just call me Arabella, or shorten that, nothing formal," I said.

"What size are you?" asked Skye. When I looked questioningly at her, she clarified that it was for the armour, so I gave her my size, and she picked out some items for me.

"You can just use these for the day, I'll measure you for ones to fit whenever works for you," she explained, as she strapped the pieces onto my chest, around my hips and inbetween my legs, thighs, shins and forearms. She also gave me a blue suit to wear, that looked kind of like a wetsuit, but had scales all over it.

"I'm free whenever... how does this work when we shift?" I asked the obvious question.

"Chase and I, came up with the idea, and created these pieces, they use state of the art technology to expand when you shift into a wolf, so it protects you in your wolf form too, and when you shift back, it shifts back with you. The jumpsuits expand too," explained Skye.

"I'll give a demonstration," Owen said, before shifting into his wolf. Just like Skye said, the armour and the jumpsuit expanded. When he shifted back into his human form, the armour and the suit shrunk too.

"That's amazing," I was awestruck.

"You showing off again?" Obi asked, who was one of the Deltas, as he walked over to our group.

"Morning losers," Chase said, "oh, hi Arabella, you showing us your moves today?"

"Yep," I answered.

"Are you now?" I heard Nicholas ask, as he walked behind me, slipping his arms around my waist from the back. I grabbed his arm, flipped him over my back, so that he was on the floor, picked up one of the knives from the table next to me, and held it to Nicholas' neck.

"I am, that was the preview," I smiled sinisterly at him, then got up, and dusted myself off.

"That was priceless," laughed Chase, clutching his stomach.

"Shut up," growled Nicholas, punching Chase in the stomach.

Pretty quickly the whole training field filled up. Half of the night warriors were there, so the other half could guard, half of the rest of the normal warriors of the pack were there too, and finally half of the rest of the pack that were not warriors, but were of fighting age, as Nicholas believed that everyone who was able, should be taught how to fight.

Chase and Obi split up the group that were not warriors, taking half each. Owen and Skye led the normal warriors, which was where they decided I would be stationed, much to my annoyance. Logan and Keaton, who was head of the night warriors, took the night warriors, and Nicholas trained with them.

Training was hard, and it was intense. I had to get used to the armour, which was weird, and didn't fit properly. The weapons they used were clunky, and too big for me, and all in all it was a bit of a nightmare. At the end of the training session, it was 1 vs 1 fights between different people. Our training session had overrun for some reason, so not only did we have an audience of our training group, but all of the other training groups too. After three different sets of people fighting, I was told that I was up next. The referee was Skye for this match.

"Right, I want a clean fight. First to bare their neck and submit loses. Arabella, no powers please. Begin in human form, when I shout 'shift' you shift. Choose your weapons," Skye held out a tray of different daggers and throwing stars and things. I was fighting some blonde warrior, who had been giving me the evil eyes all session, and I was ready to kick her ass. She picked up a couple of knives. I chose some knife at random, not really caring what it was because I wasn't going to use it.

We stood on either side of the circle. We both nodded at Skye, and she shouted 'BEGIN'. At soon as those words left her mouth, my opponent launched at me. I dodged her easily, and then she went again, relentlessly launching at me, slicing her knives at me, trying to stab me over and over again. I dodged most of them, with a couple catching me by a hairline. Luckily, this armour and this jumpsuit were stopping my skin from getting cut, so far. I decided to let her continue her attack on me, as I watched her movements. In the heat of the moment I missed one of her jabs, and she sliced all the way down my side, cutting one of the straps of the armour. I knew instantly the blade was soaked in wolfsbane, you could smell it as it burnt my flesh.

"Wolfsbane? Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her, as she grinned evilly at me, my blood splattered over her face.

"She's bloody cheating," shouted Nicholas, frustrated.

"Allow it," I said to Skye, who nodded, and the match continued.

I began my attack on my opponent. I was losing blood fast though, and my jabs were weak but I still got in a few lethal ones here and there. I just needed Skye to tell us to shift, and this match was mine. Until then, I used my power of fire to cauterise the wounds, basically burning my flesh so that it would stop bleeding. My pain tolerance is so high from constantly having to do that whilst being rouge, that I barely flinched. I heard a couple of shocked gasps though.

"SHIFT," Skye shouted. I called out to my wolf, who was more than happy to help, and we shifted. I heard the ripping of my jumpsuit, and the straps of the armour as it flicked off. My opponent's armour stayed on, but that would be no bother. I quickly healed the cut in my side, which would be non-existent now, and launched at my opponent.

My attack on her was relentless, more than her initial attack on me. To give her some props, she fought hard against me, dodging a lot of my swipes, but pretty soon I was on top of her, my teeth suck deep into her neck, threatening to snap shut at any moment and kill her in seconds. Still, she didn't submit. I added more pressure, and a little more, until she finally submitted to me.

I released her neck, and got up off her. Then, I shifted back into my human form. I was instantly tackled by my mate, as I was, of course, practically naked, and I had a t shirt thrown over my head. "Never shift like that again," he warned me. "Let me see your wound," he pulled up the t shirt slightly, looking at my side. There was nothing there though, barely even a scar. "How?" he asked.

"My wolf has good healing, but if I'm in human form, I have to channel the wolf's powers to heal me, and I couldn't concentrate on that in the middle of the fight. In wolf form though, I didn't need to concentrate," I explained.

"That's extraordinary," he looked at me in wonder.

"Can you get up now?" I pushed up against his chest.

"Oh, sorry," he got up, and then pulled me up after him. "Penelope," he turned to my opponent, who was pressing a hand to her bleeding neck (not everyone is as good at healing at me). "You broke the sacred rules set out on this training field for a fair fight. You are demoted from being a warrior, and you will appear before the council on Monday for your trail."

"I'm sorry, my King," she bowed her head in shame.

"Skye, can we get a proper fitting of armour for Arabella too, please?" Nicholas asked. She nodded her head, and sorted out a proper time to do it.

Whilst those two were busy, Keaton, the head of the Night Warriors, came over to me. "Keaton, lovely to meet you," he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

"Arabella," I shook his hand back.

"You showed real promise on the field then. More skilled than many of my own warriors. Although, your technique is like that of a... well, like a rouge. Against more skilled fighters, some of that rouge-ish sloppiness could cost you. I'd like to train you, privately. I think I could shape you to be, perhaps even better than me."

"Well, I feel like I've just been dealt a backhanded compliment of sorts. But, yes, I'd appreciate the training, thank you."

"My pleasure," he bowed at me.

Nicholas, who didn't believe that I was completely okay, marched me down to the hospital, where he plonked me in front of the head doctor, and made him double check to see if I was all okay. Obviously, I was, but Nicholas had to be sure. He said he wanted to make sure there were no internal problems. I said to him, if there were internal problems, they would have been healed at the same time as the external problems. He just growled at me. Alpha wolves and their damned growling. After a lot of convincing that I was okay to Nicholas by the doctor and myself, we eventually were able to make it back to the castle.

The rest of that evening he didn't let me leave his sight, and if I didn't find it so damned annoying, it would have been maybe kinda cute, that he cared.