New Life

Reya’s POV 

FIVE YEARS LATER

"Get your ass up, Ray!"

Lycan Xander yelled across the sparring ring. I got myself up from the floor, not minding the ringing in my head and the soreness all over my body.

"Focus!" he yelled out. "She won't give you any slack!" I pulled myself up to standing, focusing my hot glare on the blonde woman in front of me who had been pretty much drying off the past hour on my body.

The angry blonde, Lydia, snorted at me. "Listen to the Lycan King, Ray. I'm not climbing onto you today."

I rolled my eyes, ejecting the blood that was welling up in my mouth. "It's not like you ever did." I rolled my shoulders, holding my position evenly. "It's not like I'm letting up on you either."

She bent her head, her eyes glinting with mirth. She then punched me out of the blue and I dodged it, another one hit my stomach and it knocked me off the ground again.

"Shit!" I cried out. "How do I never see that coming?" I jumped up to my feet before Lycan Xander gave me his usual pep talk.

"'Cos you're slow," Lydia snapped back, laughing. "And you can't keep providing me with the chance and not warn me I'll seize on it." She shrugged.

"It's not my fault you're as fast as a lightening," I snapped back. "Maybe ease up on the pavement a little." I said as I braced myself for another swing but Lycan Xander clapped his hands quickly to call an end to our sparring.

"Enough for today, Ladies!" he declared, authority dripping from his voice.

Somehow, he still sounded precisely the same as he did five years ago when I stumbled into his pack and he ordered his men to kill me without batting an eyelash, though I was in labor and on the brink of bleeding out.

"I would have wiped away the dust using her body during this round, Lycan," I griped, smiling awkwardly at the man who might have killed me and my children, but instead spared my life.

His hair was packed into a ponytail and it bounces as he walked to meet us.

 "I know you were, maybe next time then." He smiled. "Just take easy on Lydia, she's one of the best woman in my army but I still like you better."

I didn't know if he was making jest of me or complimenting me or not but I smiled either way.

Lydia giggled. "You heard it yourself, I'm the best." She boasted. I pretended not to know about how her eyes remained fixed on Lycan Xander's giant frame. "I have somewhere to be." She declared breaking herself out to go in the other direction.

"Catch you later!" she called.

I glanced back at Lycan Xander and my thoughts went back to that horrible night five years ago when I might have been killed. I recalled begging them to spare my life before I passed out. I believed that I was going to die that day.

But by some miracle, I didn't.

When I regained consciousness, I noticed the enigmatic Lycan King had saved me.

"My baby…" were the words that escaped my lips as my hand hovered above my baby bump. I had frowned, becoming aware immediately that something was wrong when I felt light and like my baby bump had deflated.

"Where is my baby?" I screamed.

Lycan Xander was also in the room that day with me and in his stern voice, he had plainly uttered, "Your babies are okay. Relax you spent a lot of energy."

He had been nice, but distant too. It was like Lycan Tristan who was aloof with me alone. Lycan Xander was the first man – besides my father – to have been nice to me.

Babies?" I had remarked, my head spinning in confusion. "Yes. You delivered two of them. 

Fortunately, your wolf helped you push them out, saving your life and that of your babies by mistake." I was confused because to my knowledge, I didn't have a wolf. "Why are you saying that?" I had cried out. "What wolf?

Perhaps, he believed that I was still confused and not myself since he simply swept aside my question, persuasively nudging me to sleep once more so that my body could heal all the more.

When I woke up again later hours, he was still sitting by my side. This time, instead of making more confounding revelations, he had led me to my beautiful babies, where I'd cried for hours after first laying eyes on them.

They were so tiny and so perfect.

What is your name and how did you end up trespassing on my territory?" he had demanded after I had wiped away the last of my tears.

Frozen with fear and full of rage at the man who almost killed me, I had decided to lie, well, it wasn't a complete lie. "Ray," I said confidently I didn't have. "My name is Ray and the town I hail from is dead to me."

Reya died on that day and in her place, Ray was born. It has been five years now, and I've grown up under the care of Lycan Xander and all the friends I've made here, but I couldn't relinquish the night five years ago.

It was going to be lodged into the back of my head permanently.

I knew that I had changed so much. Like a phoenix which, by the way, I had tattooed on my back – I had risen from the ashes and shaped Ray into the woman Reya could never hope to be.

I was a mother now and the best shooters in the Lycan King's army –

"Come along," Lycan Xander began, shaking me out of my daydreaming. "I have something to show”

He was interrupted by the exclamatory pronouncement of his name behind us.

I smiled at the little voice. "Only one man had the courage to call me by name and the young woman was striding right into his arms, completely ignoring me in spite of me being her mother."

"How was training today?" she muttered, hiding her face in his neck. "I've been waiting for you."

“I know, I’m sorry,” Lycan Xander chuckled. “I couldn’t stop watching your mother as she beat those ladies. She’s the hero.”

Her blue eyes finally fell on me and she pouted. “Did you, mom? Or did they give her a good beating today?”

I rolled my eyes. "Hear Lycan Xander, Pearl" I said with a small smile. "I'm the hero." I gazed around the practice grounds, my eyes narrowing as I looked around for her other half.

"If you're looking for Luis, he's nose deep in a boring book at the library." She rolled her eyes.

Lycan Xander laughed, shaking his head at her. He dropped her back to the ground, placing a kiss on her forehead before gathering everyone in the training ground around. 

“In a week, we’ll be hosting the first lap of games…” he announced.

While everybody was clapping, my heart was racing against my chest. This game was one that could put me out there with a past that I was not prepared to handle yet.