DAMIEN
“Thank you for taking the time to come here, Alpha Michael,” I said as Liam, Michael, and I headed out to the training grounds. “I appreciate your help with this.” When Felix and I contacted him, Michael agreed to come before it was time to attack Warwick to see if he could teach me anything useful before the fight. Liam agreed that this was a viable strategy, especially if a weapon fighting expert like Alpha Michael was on board. While we were on the phone, Quinn was excitedly in the background, begging Michael to go.
“No worries,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss the notion that this had been any trouble. “I’m happy to help. This is my life, and I love getting to teach new students. Plus, Quinn wanted to visit again anyway. She’s taken quite a liking to B***d Eclipse and your Luna.”
“Azalea tends to have that effect on people,” Liam laughed.
“Alright, so show much what you’ve got,” Michael told me, intently waiting to see what I’d come up with.
“Ok, so these aren’t exactly professionally forged, because I had the idea too late with us going to battle soon. Still, I think they’ll work for this fight, and I can refine them later,” I told him as I pulled my bag onto one of the tables near the training field.
I laid the two cloth covered weapons out and gently unwrapped my hard work. Michael smiled as he saw them, and he looked at me as he reached towards one of them, “May I?”
“Of course,” I answered, wanting him to tell me what he thought. In his hand, he held one of the two axes I’d managed to have built for me.
“What’s it made of?” he asked, turning it over in his hands and taking practice swings with it.
“I got large carbon steel rods, and I had a machine shop alter the shape to be oval like an axe handle after talking to Felix a little about using one. Then, I had them use more carbon steel to create a blade for me and weld it onto the handle. The last piece is the part that really mattered though. It’s hard to break a vampires skin, and I thought that repeated use would dull them quickly. We’ve used stakes and other things to stab them, but that’s just a one time thing. I talked to our vampire expert and asked him if he thought using vampire fangs would work. He said that vampires have taken the fangs of their enemies to create weapons out of before throughout history, so it should work.”
Michael brought the edge of the blade closer to his face to inspect it. He gently touched the blade, and a thin line of b***d welled before spilling over the blade and sending a lone drop down the flat of it, “I guess I should have asked you if there’s still venom in this, but I assume not?”
“No,” I assured him. “We went back to the site of the battle where we got Luna and Missy back, and we got an enormous amount of fangs there. We dried them, washed out any remaining venom, and then they were shaped and put together to create one smooth end cap that was attached with an adhesive to create that edge. Theo said it should stay sharp until well after I’m too old to use these anymore.”
Michael picked up the second axe and swung them together through a sequence of strikes. When he seemed satisfied, his hand moved in a blur that was too fast for my eyes to follow, and he sent one of my axes flying towards a tree where it blew through the trunk and sank into a tree behind the first. The handle was shaking so hard that we could hear the vibrations from where we were.
“These are incredible given your lack of experience with forging weapons or using them. Would you allow me to make one small modification?” he asked.
“Absolutely!” I answered, hungry for anything that could better my plan.
“You don’t even want to know what it is?” he questioned, raising one eyebrow. His face had an amused expression on it.
“I have no reason not to trust you if Liam and Felix do,” I told him, shaking my head no.
“Noted,” he replied simply.
Alpha Michael walked over to retrieve the axe he’d thrown and placed it next to its twin. Once they were reunited, Michael retrieved the curiously large bag that he’d brought out to the training area with him. He placed it on the table and unzipped it, rummaging through the contents as he looked for something.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, fishing out a simple-looking wooden box. The top of it was engraved with a moon and stars.
He opened it to reveal two white rolls of fabric. I couldn’t tell what they were, but they shimmered as if they were made of moonlight. I breathlessly watched as he carefully wrapped every inch of both axe handles, also covering where the weld for the blade met the handle. He continued wrapping from the top back down to the bottom of the axe. He tucked the end into the beginning of the wrap and then laid the axes in front of him. He went back to the box, pulled out a small vial, uncorked it, and poured half of its contents onto each wrap. It sent a bright moving rainbow shimmer outwards from where the liquid touched, imbuing it with a soft inner glow that died down into the moonlit appearance it started with. Going back to his bag, he pulled out a dagger with a similar wrap on the hilt, except it held a sparkling blue hue. Holding his hand out over the axes, he started chanting slowly under his breath and then brought the blade over his hand. It parted his skin easily. B***d welled to the surface, and he closed his hand to turn it over and allow it to drip onto the glimmering wrapped handles. To my surprise, they seemed to absorb his b***d. Finally, the fabric settled into an ethereal silver that glimmered with a faint glow.
“What the hell did you just do?” I asked, not understanding a bit of what I’d just watched. I had never seen anything like it.
He held up a finger to pause me and picked up one of the axes. He repeated his throw from earlier, and this time it blew through multiple trees before finally stopping in one almost a hundred yards away. It wasn’t moving at all, no vibrations visible or audible from where we stood.
“I improved your weapons with a ceremony specific to my pack. You saw the vibration earlier; I know you were trying to make it as unbreakable as possible with human tools, but there are limits without magic. While we do fight with our wolves, my heritage is rooted in this type of fighting, and we have learned ways to improve our weapons against our enemies. These are a blessing from the Moon Goddess, and your axe is now virtually indestructible. You won’t feel any vibration in the handle from striking with it, the balance is perfect, and it also protects the weld between the hilt and the handle from breaking. The strength of the protection is directly proportional to the wolf performing it, so yours is as strong as my pack can provide since I as the Alpha performed the blessing.”
“I don’t know what to say….” I told him, completely baffled by his generosity.
“You don’t have to say anything. I can’t imagine what you’re going through with your wolf, and your pack has shown us nothing but kindness. I wanted to return the favor.”
I picked up the axes still on the table and marveled at how much more comfortable in my hand it felt, how much easier it swung. Michael turned them into entirely different weapons.
“Whether you want it or not, Michael, thank you,” Liam insisted, grabbing Michael’s hand to shake it and pulling him in for a one-armed hug. “On behalf of the pack and myself as Alpha, thank you. You and your Luna can consider yourselves part of our family.”
Michael nodded, “And you’ll always be welcome in ours.”
“Just a question,” I said, breaking the silence. I pointed to the dagger lying on the table now. “Why are they different colors?”
“Oh,” he said, looking at me like the answer was obvious. “It’s because I have Quinn bless mine. I take her into every fight with me.”
–
After Alpha Michael blessed my axes, we went to work training to use them. He pulled out rubber axes that were similar in size to my own.
“These are training weapons,” he explained. “Obviously, we heal faster than humans, but there’s no need for you to go hacking up the wolves in your pack while training. These will give you a good tool to use to become familiar with the techniques I’m going to show you. You can train them on a partner without hurting anyone.”
From there, he put me through the wringer. I thought I was beginning to be back in shape, but I doubted I would have handled this training at my strongest. There were so many different ways to use a couple of sticks; we trained on normal grip, short grip, parrying, striking, throwing, and so much more. I felt like I was drinking from a firehose with the amount of information given in just a day; I couldn’t remember a time in my Beta training I ever felt so overwhelmed. As our training session was coming to a close, I knew that what I’d taken away would be invaluable. Liam looked happy. He’d done most of the training along with me, offering to be my partner through it all. He didn’t have to be here, so I appreciated my best friend’s support probably more than I did the Alpha’s.
“Like I tell everyone when learning martial arts with or without weapons, these are perishable skills. You don’t know what you don’t know, and we’ve only scratched the surface. Know that you aren’t an expert and that if you don’t continue learning and training in a dedicated manner, you will not retain what you’ve learned today,” Michael told me seriously as we sat down for the first time. I wasn’t a stranger to this fact. Warriors trained daily to stay in top fighting condition to protect our pack.
“Understood,” I told him. “I will continue to practice what you have taught me. Of course, you and Quinn are always welcome in B***d Eclipse, but I imagine I may be able to visit in the future to further my training as well.”
“I am sure we can arrange something,” he told me, clapping his hand on my shoulder.
Luna Quinn packed Michael a lunch, and apparently, she’d meant it for all three of us. The size of his bag made much more sense as he began pulling out wrapped food and containers. We ate while making small talk about our kids and wives, although it was hard to talk when the food was so incredible. Quinn made us chicken sub-sandwiches with thick cuts of maple bacon, a homemade ranch sauce, cuts of real cheese, shredded rotisserie chicken, and leafy green vegetables. She’d also included some seasoned cracker chips with an onion dip and a special tea that Alpha Michael poured us from a gallon-sized double-walled cooler. For dessert, she’d packed delicious chocolate peanut butter brownies that rivaled some of the things Azalea made.
“Where’d she even get this?” Liam asked as he ate. Quinn and Michael had arrived after breakfast, and we immediately separated for training.
“Oh, she made it yesterday before we left since she’d knew we’d be doing this all day,” Michael told us through a mouth full of sandwich.
I didn’t really like tea, but I thought I’d try it anyway to avoid being rude. As it passed my lips, I felt something bloom from within my stomach and spread throughout the rest of my body. The soreness and fatigue I felt from training all day dissipated. I felt like I’d just woken up this morning, refreshed for the day.
“What is this?” I exclaimed, looking at my cup like it was full of magic. Liam had yet to drink his.
“Oh, s**t, sorry,” he apologized. “I forgot you don’t know. I should have told you first. Quinn makes a tea that refreshes your body after training. It won’t physically heal you like I hear Luna Azalea can do, but it will wipe the slate clean in the context of fatigue. It’s handy for our warriors and other things,” he finished with a cheeky smile. “It is not something we readily offer up among other packs.”
“Don’t worry about it. We are not entitled to your traditions,” Liam replied. He took a sip of his drink, and a look of surprise fell over his face as it began to work. “Wow,” he whispered. Michael let out a boisterous laugh, throwing back his own drink.
I looked down at my watch, “The kids should all be out of school by now. Your mom was getting Delilah and Lucas with the boys, right?”Belongs to © n0velDrama.Org.
“Yea,” Liam replied. “She told me to come get them when we were done later.”
Liam sat up straighter suddenly, and I could tell from his eyes that something was wrong. Someone was linking him with a problem. Immediately, my body came to attention, readying for action.
“We need all the warriors now!” he said quickly, jumping to his feet. “There are vampires in the pack territory. Two just broke through my mother’s fence.”