CHAPTER 86: WHAT DOES TRAINING ENTAIL

"Why did you make me believe that you burned my people?"

The meeting was over, and now I was left alone in the room with Rion. He had told me to stay behind so we could talk about the details of how I’d get my body into its best shape.

He was no longer sitting. He stood beside the chair at the head of the table, leaning on it a little, with a glass of dark liquid in his hand, probably liquor.

He kept bottles of liquor in the very room where he conducted important meetings with his trusted pack members.

Formality had really been thrown out the window, huh?

"I didn’t make you believe that. You jumped to the conclusion that I burned your people. I only burned a few houses, and those belonged to your council members. You thought the worst of me. That’s hardly my fault." He shrugged, as if it were no big deal.

I felt embarrassed. My face burned, but I couldn’t keep my gaze off him. Could I really trust that there were no casualties? That there were no innocent lives taken?

I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

"Guilty for your harsh words now?" he asked, staring at me as he took a sip from his crystal glass.

His ocean eyes weren’t supposed to look fiery, and yet they made me feel like I was burning alive.

"I don’t care what you think of me as long as you keep your end of the bargain, Vivien. I am not fond of explaining the way I do things to anyone, unless it benefits me."

He gulped down the rest of the liquor and set the glass down.

I felt a lump in my throat. "Why didn’t you save Rayvehill when they were attacked by Astero?"

He stared at me with a blank expression. He was hard to read, and the more I watched him, the more I felt there was something in him I couldn’t fathom... and I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

"I am not a god, dear Vivien. I am not all-knowing, nor do I have the gift of foresight. You know what that means?" He clicked his tongue, looking at me as if he were explaining basic knowledge to a clueless, curious child. "I can’t know everything that happens across the continent. I have enough work here in Undercity, you see."

"You can’t expect me to keep watch on all those people so I can bring my people to war. A man must choose his fights wisely," he added.

Well, that made sense. He couldn’t have had the chance to help Rayvehill during the war if he didn’t know they were about to be attacked. But even if he knew, would he have helped?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he wouldn’t. Why would he? Why should he? Everyone aboveground shunned him, hated him, so why would he play the hero?

I only knew bits of his past, but it was clear many saw him as a villain—leading a pack of ruthless rogues who lived to kill and threaten the peace of others. It made me wonder what story had shaped him into the man he was now.

He seemed to manage the Undercity well enough. And if it was true that he hadn’t burned the Levian pack’s people, and now he provided shelter for Rayvehill’s out of sympathy, then... could the people aboveground have misunderstood him?

Had I misunderstood him?

Even if he didn’t seem so bad, let’s still be careful, Vien, Leika warned in my mind.

"You will be trained by Ares starting tomorrow," Rion cut through my thoughts. "As I’ve said, we should start with getting you in shape. A wolf shifter must have a strong and healthy body to keep a proper hold on their wolf’s power. I assume you attended classes before, but with your wolf being suppressed for three years, it must have created an imbalance in the bond between you and your wolf."

"What does this training entail exactly?" I asked.

Back in Levian pack, I had attended classes on how to harness my wolf’s power, to shift at will and not be ruled by it. Those lessons had been a careful balance of the mind and the body. The physical practice was simple—strength training, endurance drills, sparring only at the most basic level. Enough to keep the body in tune with the wolf, but never anything that pushed us past comfort.

But the thought of being under Ares’s command made my stomach twist.

He may be playful, but I was pretty sure he was nothing like the instructors I once knew. Towering, broad-shouldered, the kind of man who looked like he could snap bone with his bare hands.

If he were the one to decide how far I should be pushed, I doubted it would resemble those easy, structured lessons of my past. I imagined bruises, exhaustion, drills that left me gasping on the ground.

"You will know once you’re on the training ground," Rion replied with a smirk, clearly reading the unease on my face.

"You’re not... planning to have me trained as a warrior, are you?" My eyes narrowed. He might not be able to harm me intentionally, but there were endless ways to make things difficult.

Amusement flickered in his eyes, warm and taunting. "Do you want to be trained like a warrior? Ares can do that."

"No—of course not. That’s not what I meant," I blurted, too quickly.

"How many days will this training take?"

"Until your body is stable enough for shifting practices, which you will do with Diaval. Don’t worry, it’s not obvious from his looks, but he’s a very patient teacher. He’ll make sure you can control your wolf’s power."

Then his gaze lingered on me, the edge of his smirk returning. "After that, I can teach you how to reach for the Celestial Wolf’s energy inside you, and how to sense it in the other keys."