The Moon Goddess' Chosen

416 [Bonus chapter]Virtues... or Rumours

Three hours later, the sun was setting fast over the horizon and Crysta was starting to hit her limit. Despite all the training they’d been through, none of them had ever run for a whole day with short rests in between.

The first virtue of the Trials was starting to rear its ugly head

...Endurance...

Keeping the plan that Crysta had drawn up was starting to become a test of endurance for the three wolves. This was one of the many rumoured virtues that surrounded the Trials. There were so many rumours surrounding these ancient games. Endurance, Perseverance, Strength, Leadership and many others were all engineered to make these Trials look harrowing and noble.

Some simply said the Trials were just another way to test if the Royals weren’t always slacking and could actually back all the training they say they went through while others claimed they were watched over by the Moon Goddess and she was the one that would issue the tests that the Royals and their teams would endure on this harrowing trip.

There was no real way of proving any of these questions since there was no way to watch over the Royals as they went on this journey. What was known by all, however... was the Royals were never the same after the Trials. It was very rare for a Royal to go through the Trials and make it through the same way they’d begun.

And when this happened... the only explanation would be that the Royal had already been through a change harrowing enough to prepare them for this trip. In all the rumours, nothing suggested whether Lina, Wyatt or Crysta had what it took to get through this unscathed.

All Crysta could do... was prepare her best to protect the princess at all costs.

‘A clearing... that’s what I need now. Somewhere we can make camp for the night.’ The grey wolf was just about to stop to announce the end of this run to search for the perfect place to camp when one of the wolves following behind her dropped with a loud thud.

.....

Crysta turned, panting heavily, only to witness an even more winded alpha lying on the ground, breathing hard. Wyatt had tripped on a large tree root. Having exhausted his reserves of energy, he’d miscalculated and had not been able to muster enough strength to accurately leap over the frustrating protrusions.

Lina stopped beside him and nudged the black wolf with her nuzzle. The black wolf’s side continued rising and falling with a frighteningly erratic rhythm. When Wyatt barely responded, Lina turned to the delta, “We should make camp here. I don’t think he’ll be able to continue much further.”

The black wolf beneath Lina groaned in protest. Wyatt forced himself to roll onto his shaky feet in an attempt to stand. The black wolf slowly rose against his severe exhaustion on shaky legs, “I can keep running. You don’t have to...” his words were cut short when he collapsed from the pressure, his legs going completely numb this time, “Ouch... Perhaps I can’t.”

“No, it’s fine. I was about to stop us anyway. I’m pretty spent too,” Crysta mentioned, “Shift back into your human form and rest for a while. We’ll need to collect firewood and set up camp.”

Wyatt complied, shrinking back into his human form. Embarrassment descended upon him, but he blocked out the mind link to keep the others from telling what was going on within his mind.

“How is a delta just as fit as I am?” he mumbled to himself.

“Probably because you don’t train and she works her butt off to stay in the best shape her body can manage,” Lina replied, “I’m still wondering how you beat Derrick. He trains much more than you do.”

“He has weaknesses I can exploit. He’s naive. It was not hard to defeat him once I knew that much,” Wyatt shrugged.

“That’s low, even for you,” Crysta spat.

“Is it though? In the real world, someone like that would lose their life to the cunning of his enemies. No matter how much you train, if you can’t evade a simple sucker punch, it’s all for nothing,” Wyatt reasoned.

“No, Derrick wouldn’t have gone down because of a mere sucker punch. How did you really win?”

“You’re right. He does not go down easy. It took way more than surprise attacks and crafty tricks. He’s been practising and polishing his fighting technique.

When it comes down to it, he wasn’t strong enough to defeat me just yet. I reckon that he will be able to do so in a few months if he keeps this up,” the alpha shrugged.

Crysta sighed and stared at the sad excuse of an alpha lying on the ground. She wanted to argue that Derrick was much stronger than Wyatt, but she had no way of proving it either.

Her training was cruel and she could put the current alphas that were her age down without breaking a sweat, so judging their slight differences in skill was no easy task. In the end, she just had to take Wyatt’s word for it. He was the most crafty out of the three alphas after all.

Lina’s thoughts were moving in an entirely different direction. Wyatt made her skin crawl and that was enough for her to crave Derrick’s company more than his.

Suddenly feeling like she wanted to put some distance between herself and the alpha, “I’m going to do the hunting. It will be much... easier that way,” and with that, she was gone.

Crysta stood up, wrapping her robe around her tight before retrieving a bag from the weakened alpha. Rummaging through the rucksack, she found a spare set of clothes that she quickly donned.

“The two of you still hate me, don’t you?” Wyatt’s lowered voice filled the evening air.

Crysta froze at the bag’s zipper. Had she heard the alpha right? Was Wyatt actually feeling bad about the cold shoulder Lina was giving him? ‘No... that can’t be it. This is Wyatt.’ The delta shook the suspicions from her mind, reminding herself of the sneaky devil they had brought along on this trip and all his shifty ways.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say to you. You made her life hell and have never made an effort to make it up to her. There isn’t much to think about,” Crysta sighed, “We better look for a clearing where we can set up the tents.”

Wyatt opened his eyes and sat up as quickly as his recovering body could manage.

“Did you say... tents?”