Chapter 1

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There was a time when people with headphones use to do this job. Listen to calls, compare it to known voice prints. Such places were called listening posts. Now computers took over and did the same Job a lot faster, efficient and accurate.

So when a very unremarkable looking machine did a voice analysis on a call, a small statement

"This is Charles. There is a change in schedule" and a click of the phone being disconnected.

It within seconds tried to compare it against thousands of voice prints in its database. What prompted the machine to pay attention was the word "Charles" there had been a request from CIA to put the word on the watch list.

That word was spoken thousands of times across the phone network every day and the machine did this every single time. That was the advantage of having a computer replace humans. Something that would have taken months to cover now only took minutes or a few hours.

But unlike all the other times, something else happened. There was a match. The machine cross referenced the call against what it had in its database and decided it was 97% accurate match. Which was classified as beyond reasonable doubt. It immediately looked for the person who put a flag in place and saw the reference as a 'Michael Bartley' from CIA and he had the necessary authorization.

The system generated a report of the call with its analysis and also the location of the cell tower that picked up the call and a time stamp and promptly e-mailed it to him.

All this happened in less that fifteen minutes and without any human interference what so ever and the machine went back to its job of listing to thousands of calls.

***

Evelyn hated Jeff.

She narrowed her eyes at him as he took his stance lazily across the open ground, indicating that she was no threat, of no consequence.

Her wolf chafed and with a growl she lunged in a long jump. He did not move and as she thought he jaws would bite in to his torso, if a flash he bent rolled over with his paws kicked her, dislodging her from her aim and she crashed in to the ground and cartwheeled as her landing was shot to hell when he pushed her with his paws.

By the time she got up and refocused. He again moved away putting at least ten feet distance between them and he returned back to his body language of indifference.

She had been trying to attack him for the last thirty minutes with no success. He was masterfully dodging her ever move. She could not even put a scratch on him. Worst yet, he did not even have to put a scratch on her. Indicating that she was not even worthy of a fight.

This has been her story for the past two months. Since she had her wolf. Jeff was sweet as ever to her, but on the training ground he was a beta he was known to be. Tough as hell and untouchable, in the last two months she could not even put a scratch on him.

She recalled the day she found her wolf. She gave an involuntary shudder, recalling the pain. She welcomed the blackness that overtook her to be her death, because there was no way someone could have survived so much pain. But she woke up a few hours later and was scared out of her wits when she found out she suddenly had four legs and a tail and while she was processing this information a pack member stumbled on to her, too close to her comfort. Her animal took over and she attacked. Perceiving him to be a threat.

But luckily, newly turned wolves were like pups and had no chance against a well-trained pack wolf. The pack member was momentarily shocked by a new wolf he never saw before as she managed to sink her claws in to his human form. He even did not even have to morph in to his wolf, in a minute her subjugated her in his human form. At first he thought her to be some rogue wolf, but he took a deep whiff and realized who she was.

He had slowly spoken to her and asked her firmly to sit on her rump and backed away from her. She complied still confused but recognizing the superior strength of the other wolf.

The pack member had quickly called Nick and Jeff over. Jeff arrived with some of her clothes and put them behind a tree, Nick then ordered her to morph back in to human form. She went behind the tree changed back in to human form and then came out behind the tree in the clothes Jeff got for her.

Nick looked at her with a look that an alpha gives his pack wolf, a look of pure dominance but something happened. As his fierce unwavering gaze was on her face his eyes traveled over to her neck, which was now clearly displaying the bite of her mate. His look wavered, something uncertain entered his eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes he was not looking at her but Jeff.

"Train her, starting today" Nick commanded Jeff. Using his alpha voice that left no room for argument.

"Yes. Alpha" Jeff immediately responded.

Nick turned around ready to leave but stopped. "Train her like you train a warrior" Nick said in his alpha voice without turning back.

"But.." Jeff hesitated. You don't go against your alpha's command. But trainer her like a warrior? Pack warrior training was brutal, ruthless and only wolves identified as warriors were trained in this way. To put a newly turned wolf who clearly was not a warrior was a punishment of extreme measure.

Nick now tuned around facing both Jeff and Evelyn and looked at Jeff "Trust me, where she is going. She will be needing it. One day she will thank me for this" His eyes softened as his gaze flickered at her, she could see something akin to worry from his eyes, but before she could decipher his gaze it returned to Jeff "Start slowly, but she will be trained as a warrior. That I command you beta."

Jeff felt his alphas command over him "Ok. Alpha" he conceded, extremely unhappy. Jeff knew why his alpha gave this task to him because Jeff would not stand anyone doing it to her.

Since that day, Jeff was training her relentlessly, pushing her aggressively. She had been training with him two hours every single morning before school and three hours every evening after school. For the first month she could barely function, she would be so exhausted that she passed out. She quit her job at the hotel and they was no way she could endure it after her training sessions. School itself had been unbearable.

Her body was so sore from training that even lying on a mattress was a pain but slowly it became better. She no longer passed out of sheer exhaustion. Her stamina in the past couple of months increased exponentially.

One more thing that she was yet to master was her beast. You needed to control her least she controls you. At the beginning Evelyn used to morph in to a wolf without any control, especially when her emotions were heightened. So the first one week since her morphing in to a wolf she could not attend her school as well as small things made her loose temper and next thing she knew she transformed in to her brown wolf. She had gone through her entire wardrobe this way, tearing them in to tatters every time she morphed in to her wolf.

Color of the wolf was generally determined on the color of your hair. If you were a brunette they the coat varied from jet black to brown. If you were a blond then your wolf would be shades of blond as well.

The first thing Jeff taught her was to control her transformation. She became better at it that she eventually could return to school in a week but she could not master it. Like today, Jeff had goaded her and she had transformed in to her wolf, destroying her new jeans that she really liked and going all wolf and attacking Jeff or trying to attack him unsuccessfully.

She was jolted out of her thought when a sudden weight landed on her and before even she could react her throat was in his jaws. Game over.

He released her and gave a frustrated bark but thankfully that had meant her three hour long torture had come to an end.

Evelyn stuttered the familiar path to her house and with her head pushed open her front door. As she entered the house in to the living room. Her mom exclaimed frustrated "Evy! Paws off the carpet. One mark of dirt, you will clean it again!" She warned.

Evelyn jumped back as her paws were on fire and slowly avoided the carpet and slinked upstairs in to her room.

When she came down after a refreshing bath and in fresh pair of clothes she saw Jeff sitting in the kitchen busily gobbling up something her mom made.

She came over and pulled out a chair and sat at the table as her mom put some chicken broth in front of her which immediately she joined Jeff in gobbling it up. Training gave you and voracious appetite.

"Evy! You need to stop tearing apart your clothes." Her mother admonished gently. Right now Evelyn's wardrobe was el cheapo as you never knew when you would ruin your clothes.

"She is getting better" Jeff reassured her mother looking at Evelyn.

Evelyn paused her eating and looked at Jeff doubtfully "I could not even sink my nail in to you in the last two months, I am not sure about getting better" She mumbled.

He scoffed "Girl! It takes time even my best warrior time to sink his claws in to me, you are doing fine"

She nodded at his confidence in her, the confidence that she did not feel.

She quickly emptied the broth in front of her and quickly got up "I am going to take off for a while, will be back soon" She said heading out.

***

Evelyn was heading out to the river, the very spot she met her mate two months ago. It had become her favorite spot, it was pretty isolated and it gave her some time for her to sit and contemplate, some time to be by herself.

As she was crossing the pack houses, she saw the pack folks milling about, getting ready for the evening. Slowly but steadily, the pack was limping back to normalcy. Most of them still ate in the pack house. But if some families wanted to have a quite dinner with their loved ones in the comfort of their home, no one would mind.

Just the other day they had a get together to mourn the dead of their pack, the people they lost in the war with the rogues. The alpha had declared that they would make this a new tradition to remember the ones lost every year, in the fight for survival they did not even have time to mourn for their pack members.

She saw one of her pack members, Lucia coming her way. In fact Evelyn had planned to reach out to her, she was one of the few folks in her pack who had a mate and wanted to talk to her about the mate business. There was much she did not know and she did not like that one bit.

She started to smile but it froze on her face as she saw Lucia's expression, contempt clearly on her face and as Lucia came closer, she deliberately bumped her shoulder and elbow in to Evelyn.

"Ow! What the hell, Lucia?" Evelyn rubbed her stomach where Lucia's elbow impacted.

But Lucia kept walking away without even looking back or acknowledging Evelyn's protest.

Evelyn stared at the retreating back of the girl confused. Lucia was always a sweet girl, this behavior was quite out of the ordinary.

Evelyn just shook her head and resumed her trek to her destination, wincing in pain as the area of impact throbbed. What was up with that girl? Evelyn wondered.

***

It was almost time for her to go back home, she had been sitting her for the past hour. She did occasionally think about him... her mate. Max

What was he doing? Did he think about her?

But again, she was glad for the time he gave her, he had shown understanding she did not expect...especially after the way he claimed her. He did seem genuinely sorry.

Butterfly's fluttered in her stomach. She was mated to a man she knew nothing about!

Her wolf missed her mate the most, whimpered every time the thought about him came in to her mind, not understanding why her mate was away from her, angry at Evelyn for driving him away. Clearly the human side and the wolf side had to sort some things out.

Anyways there was one more month left of her time. Honesty, between school and training she did not have time to even think. But in times like this her thought drifted.

She gave a deep sigh and was about to get up when she heard someone from behind her

"Is this seat taken?" He asked indicating the empty space next to her on the wooden log bench.

"Alpha Nick!" She exclaimed and quickly got up.

"Well?" He asked pointing at the log.

"Sure...Sorry...what I mean is, it's not taken, it's free" She rambled "I will just go now...I was going anyways"

"If you have to go, please do. But I could sure use some company. But I don't want to detain you from anything." He said, plopping down on the empty bench.

Evelyn sat down hesitantly next to her alpha and both of them looked at the calm flowing river in silence.