“Bum’s probably OK to say,” she said finally, then Haze blew that bloody whistle.
“Ready for a run, sweetheart?” Jasper asked me, looking me up and down. “And can I just say, you look freaking amazing in active wear.”
“I’m so glad you warned me about what Lils was gonna wear,” Damon said with a groan. “I put a couple of pairs of compression pants on to keep shit contained, but…” He shook his head, shooting me a positively pornographic look before sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. “Still not sure it’s gonna be enough.”
“You got energy to expend? Better get moving,” Ben commanded, smacking his brother on the arse before taking off. Damon yelped and then went pelting off after him.
“That’s not what we’re…” I let out a huff of breath and started jogging after him. “None of this is what I signed up for. None of it.”
“But yet here we are,” Reed said, taking up position on my other side. “And if we go running around in the forest, you’ve gotta wear that gear. Damn, Jasper.”
“I fucking know,” my other mate said with a cheeky grin. “I had to promise to get some really posh coffee to get her to wear it, but it’s so worth it.”
Somehow,we got through the session without me killing either of them, probably because it culminated in a bout between Evie and one of the alpha boys. Each kid got to choose their opponent to practise against. I’d been very hesitant about this part of the program, but all of Riley’s pack and mine assured me this was how it was done.
“She’s gotta test herself against others to see where she fits in the broader scheme of things,” Ben had insisted. “The kids will be padded up to the nth degree.”
“More than we got growing up,” Jasper said, raising an eyebrow. “Remember when the Hattons and the Masters all threw their kids in the ring with us?”
“If this is where you tell me about some fucking hick kiddy fight club your sadistic father made you participate in, you’d probably better stop right there,” I said. Surprisingly, they did. The men all shared looks, both quizzical and reflective.
“That… probably wasn’t an ideal way to raise boys,” Ben said carefully.
“No one’s gonna let that shit fly with our girl,” Damon insisted. “But Lils, Evie wants to try. She can tap out as soon as she’s feeling out of her depth.”
“Or has a concussion.” I rubbed at the headache forming between my eyebrows.
“No one’s hurting the cub,” Reed growled, wolf Reed obviously in control again, and somehow that was enough to reassure me.
“OK, let’s make sure that’s the way it works out.”
It did.
The boy who chose her was a big kid, smirking as he thought he was taking on someone smaller and weaker than him. I bristled at that, ready to give him a smack around the earhole for even thinking it, but Logan dropped down and gave Evie a last few bits of advice as he tightened her gloves and checked her safety gear. Evie then stepped out in the same way my daughter always did, with her head held high, even if she had to tip it back a little further than normal to meet the other kid’s eyes.
People started cheering for one side or the other as the kids stepped into the ring, all of Riley’s pack in there with them, ready to step in, the minute things got too rambunctious. The boy threw a wild haymaker at Evie, which I felt would have obliterated her if it connected, but the boys just laughed.
“This kid’s learned nothing,” Jasper assured me.
And sure enough, Evie was moving, moving, getting under the boy’s guard, because he had no hope of deflecting any of her hits when he’d committed his whole body to the punch. She pummelled his unprotected ribs and face with her big padded gloves, and the boy’s expression was priceless. At the first hit, his eyes went wide and then his face fell when he realised Evie had skipped away from the spot he was aiming for and was going back for more strikes against him when he was forced to recover. Then my daughter’s foot shot out and tripped the kid, sending him flying down to the mat.
“Ahh… who taught her to do that?” Haze asked his brothers.
“No one,” my daughter replied, putting her gloved hands on her hips. “I worked it out myself.”
The other kid rolled over onto his back, groaning, as he’d taken his whole weight as he hit the padded mat and that’s when I decided I hated this idea. This could’ve been Evie lying there, put on her arse by some big, boofy boy and she’d—
“Are you OK?” she asked, coming over to his side and kneeling down to check on the other kid.
I watched her check to see if he was alright as Riley’s pack assessed him for injuries. The boy just blinked up at Evie and then nodded. “Well, c’mon then.” She held out a hand and used it as best she could to help him back on his feet and he thanked her in a small voice before Haze stepped forward and held Evie’s arm up, declaring her the winner.
There were cheers and some voices of dissent about how Evie had won the bout, which the pack shut down pretty quickly. They belatedly hammered out some ground rules about what kids could and couldn’t do. Eye gouging was thankfully out. But my pack barely heard a word, sweeping into the ring and throwing Evie up on Ben’s shoulders, carrying her out the conquering hero, as I just shook my head.
I didn’t get this. I was a beta, we did our best to get along, rather than fight shit out, but right now that didn’t matter. They did. All six of them were having this moment, of pride, of connection, and Evie’s face beamed. I studied their faces, seeing the sheer fucking joy in each one and realised that this program was worth it, even with all the blasted running, because, as I stared at the lot of them, I saw a pack.
A pack Logan was a part of.
I let out a sigh at that. No sooner had I solved one problem, than another arose.