"It's getting annoying that the Beta is following me everywhere," I complain to Bo as we are sitting in the couch, picking out what movie to watch at night.

Bo coughs, "Cole?"

"Yeah," I answer.

"Is that what he told you? He's not the Beta. I am."

I frown, "Really? Because I thought he was. I mean he looks like the Alpha's second in command."

Bo shoots me the side eye, "Gurl, I am the Beta. As to what Cole is, that is something he'll have to tell you himself. Although, be warned, it is really really complicated."

"I never see you do really any Beta duties," I grin at him, making fun of him. "I mean here you are, watching a movie with me."

Bo rolls his eyes. "Lance doesn't make me do that many things. He lets me do whatever. Maybe some paperwork his lazy self doesn't want to do here and there. Mainly, I pick up slack of the werewolves under me."

I nod, "Interesting, but really boring. Seriously, you guys have no lives."

"That's real nice, Luna," Bo barks out laughing, I smile at him but inside I'm cringing at that title.

After we don't decide on a movie because Bo is too tired to try to even stay awake even though it's only like 9 at night, as he gets up, I quickly ask, "Uh, Bo do you know where the Alpha is now?" Bo gives me a strange look.

"We have a basement," Bo says, "you just go downstairs. He's usually there around this time. In his own personal training room because we're all lazy and never the one inside, at least."

"Cool," I say, going to where he directed me.

I swallowed as I walked in Lance's training room. He was punching a punching bag, with no shirt on and shorts. Ohmygawsh. He had a freaking eight pack. His muscular body was so very attractive and it didn't help that his body was glistening with sweat too.

Okay, wait, whew, focus.

Besides, sweat was only attractive from a distance.

Suddenly, he stops punching and he tenses up, almost as if he felt I was there.

"Hey Lance," I say. It had been two days I got back here. Even though we live in the same house, I haven't seen a glimpse of him at all. I knew he was avoiding me. I mean, I kind of was too, but I hoped the gift I gave was a sort of an olive branch.

Or what if the gift was so sucky that he thought I hated him because who would gift a bookmark?

He holds the punching bag, expertly not looking at me and asks, "Is something wrong?"

Yeah, you're completely avoiding me, I think I might die because of two other Alphas, and I don't know what I want in my life.

I stare at him for a couple of seconds. It took every fiber of my being to not just oogle at his shirtless, tanned, self.

He furrowed his eyebrows, as if waiting for an answer, and I nodded my head, clearing my throat.

I needed to get a grip.

"Right. Well. Uh-" why did I want to see him? Did I come here just to see him? I think I did. I was looking at his beautiful blue eyes that literally seemed to glow when I tried to make out the words I wanted to say. "I just-" I took a deep breath. "I just wanted to see you. How you were doing." He is fiiinnneeee.

Lance looked a little surprised for a few seconds before he put on an expressionless face.

"Yep." My resolve failed after a few moments of silence. "I'll just be going now. Sorry to interrupt." I whirled back to the exit. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have seen him, I should have kept avoiding him too. I was only going to put him in great danger with me being around. He didn't need that, he didn't need me. I was the one that ran away from him, I was the one that betrayed any trust I would have with him. As I was exiting the door, I hated that I even felt weak to see him-

"Meredith," Lance calls, his deep voice making me go warm from my toes to my lower stomach. I stopped right as I was about to grab the doorknob, squeezing my eyes shut for a few seconds. "I'm glad I saw you too. You can interrupt me anytime." My heart beat quickened. I opened the door to quickly leave.

XX

I'm kind of a morning person, but not really.

I was sleeping in my warm bed, thinking I had hours to go before dealing with the world. Until I hear someone barge into my room.

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!" some annoying Beta wolf chirps at bright 7 am in the morning.

I groan, "Go away." I peek to see if he's still there. He is.

"No can do, sleeping beauty, we all have to train," Bo says.

"Train?" I ask, my heart speeding. The thing was, I wasn't a full fledged werewolf. Sure, I could mind link, I may have some heightened like smell, but I couldn't shift. My sister jokes that I'm defective, but I think that seriously might be the case.

"Train," Bo confirms. "Everyone is already in the training grounds. Your presence is needed. Everyone in the pack that is fit and able trains."

There is no way I can keep up with a bunch of wolves. "I don't think I'm feeling too good," I lie.

"Shut up and get up."

"I think I might be dying," I try.

"Cool, now let's go." Bo throws something on my body, and I sit up, seeing sweat pants and a t-shirt. "Courtesy of Meg. Now, hurry. Godzilla will have a coronary if we're late. I don't like to do this anymore than you, trust me."

Like a zombie, I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and change. I look in the mirror to see someone dead looking straight at me and shrug.

If they can't handle me at my zombie look, they don't deserve me at my best.

"Finally," Bo says, ushering me out the door. "Honestly though, if you told Lance you didn't want to go, he would have let you. He'd do anything you ask of him."

"Why would you say that?" I ask, we get outside in the backyard, and in the distance I hear a lot of chatter. The training grounds looked massive.

"Trust me, ask him for anything and he will. Mainly, a pool."

I grin, "A pool would be nice." We arrive to where all these wolves were talking, probably waiting for us. I look around, and it's legit. There's a huge track field, outside with dummies to fight against, there even looks to be an archery section.

"So what do we do?" I ask, looking around the training grounds.

"Alpha Lance is ordering everyone to do a fitness test to see where we place," Meg says.

"I don't need to be running," Bo groans. "I hate anything exercise related. Even the word exercise sucks."

"Shut up, you need to," Meg says.

"Are you implying to me that I'm fat?" Bo fake gasps.

"Yeah," Meg says, having a small smirk.

Bo turns to me, "Next time, we'll get your lame excuse that you're dying. Hopefully they will think we're both dying and we'll get out of this."

The four of us are standing in line, and I see Lance was a simple white shirt on and black sweatpants, his arms crossed as he's listening on what Cole is telling him. Grace is also there, and laughing.

Ugh, seriously? I don't know Cole or Lance that well, but I can tell they're not funny at all.

"Why is Grace up there with them?" I whisper to Bo.

Bo snorts, "Godzilla? She thinks she's the best fighter."

Grace looks around and smirks when she sees me, not standing with Lance and Cole.

"Okay!" Grace claps her hands and I can see the male wolves drool over her. She was wearing a neon pink Nike sports bra and shorts that really brought her assets. If I had her body, I'd probably do the same.

I watch Lance's eye movements in case he has wondering eyes, but thankfully his eyes are trained on Cole, still talking to him.

I needed to stop, it wasn't like Lance was mine mine. He was my mate, so yeah he was mine in a way. We haven't established anything. Relationships take time. I'm not in love with him or anything close to that. Call me modern. I'm also just gauging out what Lance and Grace's relationship is. Grace makes it to be like they're something.

"I want to start off by a running test," Grace says.

"I don't run," Bo grumbles.

"Amen," I whisper.

Bo and Meg snicker, and Grace shoots us a look. "Is there a problem, Meredith?" Grace asks.

For the hundredth time, I forget my fake name until everyone is staring at me and my face heats up. "Yeah there is," Bo nudges me. I look at him wide eyed. "Say it."

"Do we....have to run?" I can barely contain my laughter, so I have to pinch myself. This was so ridiculously funny. Grace was taking this too seriously. This wasn't some sort of werewolf boot camp.

"Um, yeah, you, like, have to run," Grace answers me full of attitude and hostility.

"But Beta Bo says we don't," Meg chimes in, and sneaks me a smirk.

"Never said that," Bo wants to save his own butt.

"Okay then," Grace claps again. Who can be this chipper this early in the morning? "Since you guys are such great volunteers, how about you three demonstrate to us how to run?" Grace gestures to the track field. "You three can race each other and we can see how much your stamina is. Whoever wins will get out of training for the rest of the day."

Is she serious?

"Get a move on," Grace says, totally serious. Why was she so....extra?

I shrug and walk towards the field, feeling self-conscious. Bo is snickering behind me.

"Bo is so annoying," Meg says.

"Can we just walk to piss her off?" I ask.

"That would be excellent," Bo agrees. We all get in line, not even knowing what we should do.

"Okay," Grace calls. "Ready. Set. Go!"

All three of us start laughing as we start racing.

"Bo you farted!" Meg says. I cough as the horrible smell comes, and I start laughing uncontrollably, as does Meg. I'm behind Meg, and Bo is in front of us.

I bend down, with both hands on my knees, "I can't breathe!"

"I shouldn't have eaten those beans for breakfast!" Bo says, running. He's way ahead of Meg and I. I try to run but fail miserably.

I glance at where Grace is, and she is looking like steam is blowing out of her ears. Oh no. But it's not like she can punish us.

"That was so pathetic," Grace says, coming towards me.

"Hey blame Bo, he's the one that farted and almost knocked us unconscious," Meg interjects. I was liking her more and more.

"What kind of sad, loser, weak Luna do you have to be to not be able to finish the track?" Grace is full of venom, and my insecurities start to come out. It feels like she slapped me in the face.

I should say something. Anything. I don't. I don't know what to say. I'm also sure that Lance and Cole may have heard it, but I just clench my mouth.

With all my dignity, I push pass Grace, and as I'm almost running towards anywhere but there, I can feel fresh hot tears threatening to come out.

I hated the fact that I cry when I'm mad.

UGH. She dissed me, and was probably right. That was the worst part of it all.

I didn't know where I was walking, didn't know if anyone cared enough because I've been made a fool out of. I find a swing by a tree, nearby the garden and sit there, almost shaking in anger.

My heart is speeding up and I take deep breaths to calm myself.

I'm not fit to be a freaking Luna. Honestly, I think anyone and everyone can be a Luna if they tried hard enough, but I'm not the one to be full of responsibility. It gives me anxiety to be someone that wolves look up to and try to emulate. I can't make mistakes like I am doing right now.

"Meredith," a deep voice says from behind me, and he was the last person I wanted to see.

"What?" I bite out angrily. It wasn't his fault about anything, but I was mad as it was.

"Are you alright?" Lance asks, assessing over me, walking in front of me. "Grace can be punished for what she said to-"

"That's so stupid," I say. "I don't like her at all, but I wouldn't want to punish her because I'm weak. That she was right."

Lance's voice softens, "You're not weak."

"Yeah I am," I mumble. "Too weak to be-" I stop. I was about to say your Luna. Lance is the strongest Alpha, has the strongest known pack out there. His Luna can't be some idiot like me. I couldn't do it.

"Hey, look at me."

I can't look at his piercing gaze.

"Please," he almost whispers. I swallow and look up at his smoldering eyes. The emotions within me is in a mess with the amount of intensity he's looking at me. "Don't you ever sell yourself short because you are meant to be my Luna." My Luna. "And you are strong, stronger than me."

"No I'm not," I laugh weakly. I see Lance have a ghost of a smile.

"You don't know the power you have over me," Lance murmurs, brushing a stray tear with his thumb and I shiver involuntarily with how hot he sounded and the contact of skin was burning my skin.

"Would the power make you buy me a pool?" I ask him, biting my lip, thinking of what Bo said earlier about Lance doing whatever I asked of him. At least he came for me, to see if I was doing okay. That counted for something, right?

"You want a pool?" Lance asks.

"Would you get it for me?" I ask.

"Let me guess- Bo." I lean back and laugh at how obvious it was.

Lance just looks at me like I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him. It makes me feel so good, so powerful. It makes me feel wanted and safe.

"What?" I ask him, shaking my head a little, feeling self-conscious under his gaze.

"Hearing you laugh...do not stop," Lance looks away, I can see him swallow a little. "Never stop having that smile on your face."