I walk outside to the training grounds. Ekaterina is getting ready to start training. I wonder how she helps the werewolves train. My plan is to just stand by the sidelines and watch, but a werewolf notices me.
"Good morning, Luna Queen" he greets, and every werewolf around does the same.
"Good morning. I didn't know you were joining us," Ekaterina says as she walks up to me.
"Actually, I'm not. I came to watch."
"Join us instead. I know Theo said you shouldn't train because you're not going to war. It still won't hurt to learn how to fight against a witch. You never know when you might encounter one," Ekaterina says. I think hard about her words. I haven't decided yet if I will follow Theo 's wishes and not fight. It won't hurt to train while I'm deciding.
"Sure, why not."
"Great, let me walk you through some things before we begin training. Witches don't have speed and claws like werewolves and vampires, but we're still a challenging match in a fight because of magic," Ekaterina says and releases a ball of fire in one hand and water in the other. "We can cast spells with one of the four elements of the world, which makes us a formidable match in a fight against a werewolf or vampire."
"How?"
"I can stop the flow of blood in your body with my water spell, and so can any witch gifted with water magic. I can make you feel like your body is on fire from within using my fire magic."
"Wow, if witches can do that, do we have a chance against them?" I ask.
"Yes, you do."
"How?"
"First, if you see a witch, never shift. In wolf form, it's easier for them to cast these spells on you. Also, all the spells I just mentioned are forbidden spells. A witch would have to take control over your mind to be able to control within your body."
"Is it easy to take over the mind of a werewolf?"
"No, it's not because every werewolf has more than one mind. You have your wolves as well as your own consciousness. If a witch were to take over your mind, she'd have to fight the wolf too. That's why it's easier to take control if a werewolf is in wolf form. Your wolf is free, so it's only the human mind that's left to take over. So, never shift in front of a witch who practices dark magic."
"Noted." I nodded.
"Good. The witches who are helping the vampire king all practice dark magic. They will try to push you to the limit, so you are forced to shift into your wolf. I know werewolves are stronger in wolf form, but don't shift, no matter how beat up you are in human form. The moment you shift, your life is gone."
I nodded, wondering how I was going to survive vampires in human form if I couldn't rely on my wolf to come out and fight.
"Alright, since I've explained everything, I think we can begin training. We're going to fight in human form and remember-"
"Never shift," we all repeated.
"Yes, let's begin."
I take a step back from Ekaterina. Once we're a reasonable distance apart, a bell goes off and she attacks me. She throws a ball of fire my way, but I duck before it reaches me. I run toward her to grab her neck, but before I get too close, she freezes my legs to the ground.
"That's cheating," I shout as I try to break the ice around my leg. It's cheating is because if she were a regular witch, she would only have one element to use and fight against me. I use my free leg to hit the block of ice as hard as possible to get my leg free.
"It's not my fault I'm gifted with two types of magic," she says, smirking.
I crunch down as I see another fireball come my way. I make sure to stay low, so it'll hit my frozen leg if the fire hits me. The flame Ekaterina is using isn't hot because it's training. If it was a real fight with another witch, I'd have been on fire the moment it touched my skin.
"Thank you," I say, as the ice on my leg begins to melt. My plan worked.
"I should have seen that!"
"Too bad, you didn't," I say, smirking. I run toward her on the other side. She throws balls of fire at me. With my werewolf speed, I can dodge all of them. I'm about to grab her neck when a massive wave of water suddenly appears above my head and pours down on me.
"Ekaterina," I scream as water continues to pour on me.
"Oh, my, I can't," Ekaterina says, laughing.
"I'm going to kill you!" I say only when the onslaught of water stops. "Where did you get so much water from?" I ask.
"There's a river behind me," she says, and I look. Ekaterina likely used more than one hundred gallons of the water in the lake across on me.
"I think that's enough, the both of you," Theo says as Ekaterina and I are about to continue fighting.
"What did we do?" we both ask at the same time.
"You aren't fighting. You're just testing your skills with one another."
"No, we're fighting," I say.
"Really? In a real fight, would you ask your witch where she got the water she's using to drown you?"
"Well, no."
"So, I thought. Ekaterina in a real fight, would a werewolf allow you to almost drown them and not rip your throat out as your hands are above the air?"
"No."
"So, I thought again."
"Sorry," I say, feeling embarrassed that Ekaterina and I were playing more than training.
"Sorry too," Ekaterina says.
"Come, let's get you dried up," Theo says, grabbing my hand. "Ekaterina, you may continue training the others," he says before pulling me with him inside the castle.
As we walk inside, I can tell he's disappointed in me because of how Ekaterina and I were training. We didn't plan to make the fight seem more fun than serious. It just happened like that.