unbroken (unexpected series)

Chapter 17

“Shush you,” he grumbled lowering the lamp, “What’s going on Chelsea?”

“Training,” she answered dryly.

“It’s seven a.m. we’re all sleeping…”

“You aren’t on vacation, but you’re right, I’m sure that criminals only attack after 9 a.m. when you’ve woken up.” Uncle Grant snorted, chuckling, “Proof, in case you didn’t look like each other,” he shook his head walking away. Standing I went to Chelsea, she eyed my clothing. “You thought I’d be coming?” she tilted her head. I shook mine, “No, I’ve been waking up an hour before everyone for almost a year, stretching, doing crunches, pushups, running…” she nodded.

“Good, your wolf isn’t lazy, she’s strong and wants you to be that way too,” I beamed, what happened to ‘I want to sleep more?’ Byrdie teased. Following Chelsea, she stopped at the alarm and I entered the code, the steel coverings lifted and revealed two of the men she had brought with her and one she hadn’t. The blonde one, and another that looked like him, the other guy, was tan, an olive type complexion, with nice hazel green eyes, more green than brown with a bit of blue mixed in.

“Oak, this is Jack, Casey – blonde shaggy hair guy – and-”

“Where is your little boss?” I asked, Jack snorted; Chelsea smiled, looked from me then to Casey, who just shook his head.

“She’s his mate Oakley,” Chelsea said and my eyes widened to the size of quarters if not larger, “Wait… like you and Gabriel are mates?” I asked stunted.  Chelsea nodded, “So you have to wait until she is older… is that hard?” I asked softly.

“Nope,” Casey said smirking at me.

I gazed back incredulously, but he just shook his head, “I’m over one hundred years old Oakley, I’ve wanted to find my mate since I was your age… I found her now, so even though she’s little now, I’m okay with that. I know I found her, all those years of wondering if I had some how missed my chance, had her right in front of me and just hadn’t shifted yet to tell… all that time I spent worrying that maybe my mate had died… when I met her, found Ava… it was like all those years melted away. As did the fear that I missed my chance, now… I’m just someone she bosses around as a kid.”

“Good practice so she can boss you around when she’s older,” I nodded agreeing with him.

Jack snorted as did the other guy, “How come you weren’t this funny?” he teased Chelsea while Casey just pouted.

She eyed me, “she’s not being funny, she’s serious,” Chelsea shrugged but that only made Jack and the other guy laugh harder.

“Anyways, as I was saying, this is jack, and Casey, they are brothers, and this is Jamie; his wolf is my wolves brother,” again with the jaw dropping information, but I just nodded.

“Good, now were going to show you a demonstration of me being attacked, we aren’t going to do this with you right away, but I need you to understand what we are aiming for you to be able to do when we finally leave here. Like I told your uncle we aren’t on vacation, you’re going to have to work to get to a level where you can protect yourself. It’s not about fighting off an attacker either Oakley, sometimes you need to know within seconds if you can manage or fight and win. Because if you sense a wolf is much stronger than you, or something like that, you need to be able to get away. Find a way to escape, not because you’re a coward,” she paused, “because I want to live?” I offered up, she nodded and even though I didn’t have the bad jagged looking scar on my wrist anymore I still rubbed the spot.