“Faster Layla!”
I puff out my cheeks, desperate to get more air within my lungs.
Lori’s cries only make me angry, as a slew of curses flows from my mouth.
“That a girl!”
I glare at the ground as Lori shouts, “Final sprint! You can run faster than that!”
I groan and pump my arms harder, willing myself to believe Lori’s impossible words.
Upon passing him I collapse but am quickly pulled back up as Lori scolds me, “No no. You know you’ll get cramps if you lay down.”
“I already have cramps,” I gasp.
Lori smiles and slowly walks me around.
After my nose had been reset and healed, Lori suggested my training to resume.
I found out then, what a few weeks of rest could do to my body.
It felt like I was back to square one.
Lori laughs and shakes his head, “You are not a warrior Layla.”
The comment rubs me the wrong way.
I pull back from Lori and cross my arms, glaring into the ground.
“Do I need to be a warrior?”
Lori stares at me in confusion.
“Why do I have to train? Is it because…” I hardly want to say the words out loud after everything we’ve been through but the nagging thought lies in me as I blurt out, “Is it because Francis doesn’t like the way I am?”
Lori’s eyes narrow, “How can you say that after everything you two have been through?”
I sigh and hang my head, ashamed.
Serenity’s voice though reaches my ears, “I think that’s a reasonable question.”
She stands on the porch, two bottles of water in her hands and a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Why do you and Francis make her train so much? You didn’t make me train this much when I first arrived at Alba Rosa?”
Lori sighs and takes a water from Serenity, opening the cap and passing it along to me before reaching for his own.
“You knew how to defend yourself. And you knew how to shift. Layla is defenseless.”
Serenity shakes her head and smiles, “Bad things will come whether you want them to or not. You can’t stop a tornado- you can only embrace it.”
I sputter my water up, “Why would you embrace a tornado?”
Serenity glares at me, “It’s just an expression.”
“A strange one,” I whisper under my breath.
“Well you could learn how to defend yourself against a tornado,” Lori argues.
“Really Lori? Defend yourself against a tornado?”
I helplessly hold up my hands, “Uh…Lori, Serenity, It’s not that big a deal, we don’t-,”
“Yes defend. You can take cover, look for shelter. Or if you know one is coming ahead of time you can evacuate.”
“Lori, hot stuff, that’s a nice thought, but nature is cruel in what it wants.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that a-,”
I stand there with my eyes closed. Taking in the sun and sighing as I continue to listen to the couple’s bickering.
I don’t even know anymore what exactly has caused it. To be honest I’m not really sure what Lori and Serenity are even arguing about.
“Brick houses are safer than wooden.”
“Wouldn’t it be dangerous though if the bricks hit you?”
“No, because the house would be held together.”
“Lori, it’s brick, not titanium.”
I sigh in relief when I see Francis’s truck approach.
He idles by but gets out when he realizes something is wrong.
Sighing he walks up to stand by me as he takes them in.
“They do this from time to time.”
I continue to watch Lori and Serenity, their argument now reaching a new level to what they would do if a tornado were to attack the pack.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this,” I admit.
Francis smiles, “it just shows that they are comfortable around you.”
I smile at his words.
“What even caused it in the first place though?”
I think back and suddenly remember. I look away from Francis, my cheeks turning red.
“Nothing.”
A low growl surfaces in his chest, “The last time you told me ‘nothing’ it ended up being something. Spit it out, Layla.”
I sigh and look up into his dark blue eyes.
“I just questioned to Lori why I even had to train. My first day here- training was the first thing you made me do.”
Francis blinks back in surprise as he takes me in.
“You don’t have to train.”
“What?”
He shrugs and looks down at me, his stance relaxed, “I see now that you’re right. You don’t have to train. There are different ways of leading a pack. I saw that when you painted in front of those pack members. Or when you painted in Dr. Schulman’s office. Many wolves in the pack admire it. But I know now that being an Alpha can be led by force. But that doesn’t have to apply to the Luna also.”
I stare at Francis, stunned as I take in his words.
“So…I…Don’t have to train?”
“Well,” he glances around the lake, taking it in, “I would still like you to of course. After everything that’s happened, I think it would appease me, even just a little if I knew you had a chance at defending yourself.”
I stand there, silently appraising and thinking, ignoring the growing noise of Lori and Serenity’s heated conversation about whether it was possible to make a machine that could suck in a tornado.
I had never realized Francis had changed his thoughts.
“I can keep training,” I look up and meet his smile, “But I can train with the beginners.”
Francis nods. “Are you prepared to meet new people?”
I look away at that, “If it’s for you….I think I can manage.”
He smiles at my words.
“You’ll make a good Luna, Layla.”
I blush at his words, my cheeks heating up from the compliment.
He glances at Lori and Serenity, eyeing the two before sighing and walking away.
“Let’s go home.”
I smile and glance away, hiding my happiness from him.
He notices though as he opens the door for me.
I feel my chest constrict when I catch his smile focused on me.
Like the sunrise.
I always thought Francis had the most beautiful smile.
I press my hand against my chest, taking in the pounding rhythm and overdrive beat it’s going into from the exposure of Francis’s smile.
I glance at his hands.
It’s been so long since we actually touched.
I can’t actually remember when our last kiss was.
Weeks.
Maybe months ago.
I sigh and lean back in my seat.
I didn’t know if I was ready.
But then again, would I ever be ready?
I close my eyes and picture that day.
Those green eyes and red hair.
Maybe not.
Maybe it would never leave me.
Maybe it would forever haunt my mind, and in some ways- he would own me forever, just from the fact that he had been my first. He had taken that from me and claimed that for himself. But Francis.
My mind goes now to dark hair and similar dark blue eyes.
Francis had been my first love.
Francis had been my first shelter.
Francis had been the first place I called home
Francis was the first thought upon my mind as I woke up to the morning and the last thought in my head as I drifted off to sleep.
Those green eyes might have a piece of me. And they might never leave my mind.
But Francis.
Francis was my everything.
And all I had to do was conjure up the image of him- and that radiating smile- to cast the darkness away.