Page 42 of Those That Are Lost

“How did you manage to clear so much snow?” I ask in wonder at the clearing. It's not huge but an area roughly twenty by forty metres is nothing but grass. It's not even muddy.

“We’ve got a couple of Fae in the village, both of them are pretty powerful earth elementals. They’ve worked hard the last couple of days to clear this. As we are not forecasted any more snow for a week, it gives us a good opportunity for some training,” Rune answers as he takes one of the pads from Henry.

“I didn’t know that, about there being Fae in the village,” Henry says.

“We do keep them quiet. They’re mated to a couple of wolves who sought protection from us in the war. They tend to keep to themselves when we have visitors,” Rune elaborates.

“But we’ve been here for a couple of weeks now.” I don’t like that our presence has caused some of the residents to feel like they can’t go about their everyday lives.

“No stress, Rory, they go through periods like this anyway, especially as one of them has a toddler. They know we wouldn’t let anyone that would harm them into the village. They’re simply wary of strangers. Fae being mated to wolves is not exactly legal.”

That reassures me somewhat but I still don’t like feeling that I’ve caused another stress. Maybe I’ll find a way to send them something to thank them for their work and show we mean them no harm.

Our conversation is interrupted by the chorus of wolves howling and yipping as they fly into the clearing.

“Alright then.” Rune claps his hands enthusiastically, a huge smile breaking over his face. “Let's have some fun!”

It turnsout the wolves are super entertaining to train with. Even though Rune has us running drills for what feels likedays, then some sequence practices before we get to the sparring stage, I’ve not laughed so much in a long time.

Once we are very thoroughly warmed up and have practiced some harder manoeuvres, Rune breaks us into two groups and splits the training area in half so we can take it in turns to do some combat sparring.

He puts all three of us vampires with some of the more experienced wolves before leaving us to it so he can go coach the younger and less experienced ones on the other side of the pitch.

“Alright, who wants to challenge me first?” Eetu calls, stepping into the middle of our makeshift ring and clapping his hands together.

“I will.” Altair, one of Joey’s mates, bounds into the ring as the rest of us spread out around the edge.

The two males circle each other before Eetu strikes first. Their movements after that are quick and precise, although made to pin their opponent rather than harm. At first it seems Altair might be winning but as Eetu is forced to the ground, he shifts. A beautiful steel grey wolf leaps out of Altair’s grasp and bounds away.

Altair growls before shifting himself and the pair continue their fight, shifting in and out of wolf form to take the advantage. It's breathtaking to watch.

After a few minutes more, Altair does get Eetu to the ground long enough to declare victory.

Helping his father-in-law up, he shouts over to the group of us watching. “Who’s next?”

Guess we are playing the winner in this bout of practice.

“I’m game,” Henry calls out from beside me. He takes a step forward but then pauses, still quite a distance from where Altair has moved back into the middle of the ring.

Eetu joins us in his wolf form and sits down on his haunches, panting but not looking hurt in theslightest.

Henry waits a couple of seconds, strolling round the edge of the area before he strikes with the full speed of a vampire.

Altair barely has a second to move but he leaps, shifting mid-air, to avoid Henry’s lunge and barks a laugh as Henry eats dirt. He bounces round the ring as Henry rolls to get up.

“He really should’ve seen that coming,” Ty chortles beside me.

I flick my eyes to him in question.

“Wolves are slower than us but not by much, and they’re slippery fuckers in their wolf form. They’re basically like cats, can twist themselves into pretzels, and move like fluid when they want to.”

“Oi,” Ash exclaims from the other side of Ty. “We are not cats.”

“I saidlikecats,” Ty deadpans.

“Still. Less of the insults please.” I chuckle as the wolf pouts at Ty.

“Sorry, I forgot how sensitive you are.” Ty retorts, but there’s only playfulness in his tone.