Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted (Ava and Lucas)

Chapter 181

Chapter 181 Ava: Twenty Laps Around the Track

Muddy-Blue Eyes turns back in my direction, and while I can't sense any sort of real respect or care, he at least reclaims a professional air when he addresses me.

Before he can ask anything important, I have an odd, niggling little bug in my ear from what he'd said a few moments ago. "Five miles around the track is twenty laps?" I ask, with a faint frown.

"I—what?" His confusion is clear in his wrinkled brow and hesitation. "Yes. Twenty laps."

"Not twelve?"

"No. It's twenty. Four laps to a mile."

My memory is very clear of my torture during training, and I know that can't be right. "Jericho told us to run five miles, and it was always twelve laps."

"Beta-Mentor Ashbourne?" Muddy-Blue Eyes looks astonished, his brows rising. "Only twelve laps? Are you sure?"

"Positive. He had us count them." The memory of my jello-legs after each lap have me shuddering. "It was torture."

"Torture? She's been blessed by the Moon Goddess for his favor, and she calls it torture," Muddy-Blue Eyes' partner mutters, looking out the window and bringing his hand to his lips in a gesture of faith I've seen often in Westwood, but almost never in Blackwood.

It's always the older wolves who do it.

"Perhaps Beta-Mentor Ashbourne is soft on newbies?" I suggest, and Muddy Blue Eyes shakes his head in a firm negative. Then I pause, rolling that name over in my head. "Wait. Ashbourne… isn't that Kellan's family name?"

"Beta-Mentor Jericho is Beta Kellan's father," Muddy Blue Eyes confirms. "When he stepped down as beta to focus on training young wolves, Beta Kellan took his place."

Ah.

The odd feeling between them now makes sense. It doesn't seem like a favorable father-son connection, somehow.

"I see." In a few minutes, I've learned more about the man who spent ages training me and Lisa for hours every day than I did when he was training us.

Another eye-opening experience.

cut our laps nearly in half, instead of forcing us to run the full five miles—while Lisa and I bemoaned every mile, thinking we were really running five miles—I rub my thighs, fighting

cantankerous old man's ranking in my heart rises

miles might have actually

very kind," I say after a while, realizing both men seem to

It seems their

and I didn't feel obligated to try

These two…

seen them before. I know they've

even know their

the window and peering outside.

silence, I can only agree. Kind is not really a word that fits his

in his gruff words and demands for

of them say a word,

Something's happening. Maybe they'll explain it when

have been fiddling with them for a while, and my skyrocketing

Ouch!

dig into my thigh. Sorry. But my stomach

done talking, I lean forward.

"No one's injured, if that's what you're

Well, that's good.

that doesn't answer

either end of the room. Muddy Blue Eyes stays near the window,

when someone approaches. It must be the new guards, because he shares

movement is tense. Jerky.

Whatever happened—it's significant.

unable to ignore the palpable shift

guard by the door finally speaks up, his words clipped and devoid of emotion. "The bodies were

lurches in my chest. "How is that even

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