Suzan helped me flip on my other side. Elaine started healing immediately. Her touch was warm and a little stingy as she moved her slender hands across my wounds. I honestly was expecting her to be extraordinary, but her abilities were pretty average. They healed at a slow pace. In face of an extreme emergency, she could hold the wounds, not completely heal them. But that is still better than nothing.

Suzan sat down, facing me, "you really might break my record one day to be the fastest in the pack"

Both of us were breathing heavily from all the running earlier. I just nudged her with my nose, as I had nothing to say back to her statement. It was true I had almost broken her record today, "We crossed the finish line together, does that mean both our team goes in the next round?"

Suzan chuckled, as if my words were ridiculous. "Channing would never increase the burden on himself like that. Also, you won"

"What?" I asked, confused. "Didn't we cross at the same time?"

"Yes, we did." Suzan paused for a while, looking over me towards the open ground. I had my back faced at the finish line so I couldn't figure out what she was looking at. Her eyes shifted back to mine. "I lost my task completion slip before crossing the finish line, and after us, Diana from your team crossed. So any which way your team won"

"Oh. but it was one hell of a run," I said, distracting the topic.

"Let's do it again sometime," said Suzan. I nodded graciously to it. I would do it any time. Nothing could add up to the feeling I was experiencing right now. It is a tiny thing, a little friendly competition, but I had never experienced the winds like this before.

After some time, I was done healing and now sat with the other members who had not taken part in the race. The entire team, White, had returned and team Blue was almost here. Team Black had faced a defeat for their own foolishness and had gone home as soon as they returned from completing merely one or two tasks.

The eight hours Channing had provided for Stage one of the competition, were up and the sun was above our heads now.

The afternoon heat was catching up, so we had got ourselves a shade under a tree. Channing sounded the horn in his hand and we gathered near him to crowd around. Some of us were still in our werewolf form, as no one wanted to miss out on announcements just because we went to change.

"Okay, everyone, the results are here! And we know which team won Stage one," Channing worded in a prominent voice and a cheer erupted in the pack.

But everything was chaotic. Half of them shouted team White, while the other half chanted team Blue. Some even shouted mine and Suzan's name. I exchanged a look with Suzan and she was almost enjoying the attention she was getting. Suzan was one extroverted animal, and this was like coaxing her childish personality.

It made me chuckle, as I was not feeling the same way as she did. I never had a problem with the crowd or being the centre of attention as I grew up in the castle, but I really wasn't a fan of it all.

Channing raised his hand up and instantly there was silence. The impact of Alpha should be exactly this much, not too enforcing but not at all sloppy.

"There seems to be confusion here. Our dear Suzan crossed the line without her task completion strip. So now you know who won." Channing enjoyed the commentary and the way he got his way with the crowd, his excited personality was shining bright, "the team who won is...Team White!"

The crowd erupted in a cheer. We lost few arguments towards his judgement in the cheers. Congratulations followed as it filled my name in the air.

My eyes scanned around the crowd. Few members pierced me with their gaze. I guess people still hated me. It would get hard to convince them how I could do a good job at being a Beta. I guess I would just have to work a little harder through the next two stages. My goal was gaining their trust, not becoming the Beta.

My eyes landed on Diana, who refused to look at me and had her wolf's head held high. The venom in her subtle talks till now was seeping out in her eyes. She was kind at the beginning, apologising for misunderstanding me and all, but she was against me now. She had certainly underestimated me to cause this spite in her aura. Her eyes shifted to catch my glimpse and obviously she walked away, trying to hide the envy that my chanting name had brought her.

"You weren't useless after all," I heard the bone-chilling, sensual voice. It took some convincing for my heart before turning around to see Hailey's wolf with her eyes fixated on me.

My body instinctively gulped as she walked closer and stopped beside me. Her eyes looking ahead but her thoughts talking to me, "I can't wait for the duels to start, I hope you give your best or you might find yourself on the hospital bed for next month," Hailey turned to me and everything in the surrounding numbed out, only her voice in my head, "Nearly everyone from the pack has disappointed me with their fighting, I hope you stand up to my expectations. All the best"

Hailey left my side, and my lungs let go of the breath it had withheld unconsciously. My eyes looked around, no one had heard what she telecommunicated, even Suzan who was standing right beside me. The pressure Hailey had created in me was unusually immense, and a shiver ran down my legs, which took everything inside me to control. Hailey was threatening me subtly, but there was a certain bloodlust of hers which caused this reaction in my heart.