I finally got the boy out of the town. He was riding on my back, holding onto the saddlebags. With the hurried pace I kept, he couldn't ask any questions. He tried to ask while we packed. I never answered him and pushed him to keep moving instead. But once I got into the open fields outside of town, he started up again.

  “Lucia!” he shouted in my ears.

  I flattened them and slowed down. “What?”

  “What is your problem?”

  “You're too young to date.” I reined in my voice as much as possible. “Besides, she is too old for you. Maybe in five or six years we can talk about it.”

  “When did you start acting like you're my mother?” He leaned backwards. “Not that I know how my mother would've acted, but I can guess. You're being overprotective again.”

  “We've been over this; I am overprotective. Since I know you've not had a mother figure in your life, I'm the closest thing you'll get. You would've starved if I hadn't shown up, remember?”

  “That doesn't give you the right to bid me around,” he mumbled. Then his time changed to someone more mischievous. “Didn't you say you had someone who you were in love with in your last life? How old were you again?”

  I stopped. “That was different. My body was physically more mature, and I had instincts that pushed me.” My ears started warming up. “It's just different, okay?”

  “No, it's not.” Keagan jumped off. He stood in front of me. “Unless you have a good reason, Poppy is a good friend. She's been much more genuinely friendly to me than most everyone else.”

  I racked my brain for any reason. “I don't like Tickles; he's too much of a show-off.”

  “Or is it because he's shown you up?” Keagan asked knowingly.

  I huffed and turned my nose up. “In six months, I'll catch up to him. He's supposed to be stronger than me.”

  The boy waved his hand. “Either way, that's still not a good reason. What about Poppy do you not like?”

  I gritted my teeth for a second. “She's bossy.”

  Keagan tapped his foot. “I already said that.”

  A small growl crept out of me. Let's give you a piece of your own medicine. “Fine. But why do you want to date her? What's your reason?”

  The boy held up his hand and started counting. “She's cute. She's smart. She's friendly. She's honest. And she's moral.” He held up all four of his fingers. “I've got plenty of reasons.”

  He's got me there. My head and tail dropped. There's got to be a way I can make him wait. “When's your birthday?”

  “In six months.”

  “When you turn fifteen, I'll stop. That way you are the same age as I was when I met Victor.”

  “Really?” He blinked several times. “That's it?”

  I turned my head. “Yeah. I can't be a hypocrite. It's just right now, we've got other things that demand your attention, like keeping the fact that I'm a fenris hidden, even from her. Especially from her.”

  “Right.”

  “Then there's Luther,” I added. “While I hope he's done with me, we should expect he'll try something again. He might be beyond saving. Part of me is impressed that he hasn't told everyone that I am a fenris.”

  “How can you tell?” the boy asked. “Is it because of your demon ancestry?”

  I flicked an ear. “While that would fall under wrath, it's not because I'd do that. I was in that position he is in, and I saw someone else live it. Eventually she moved on from it, but it took until her dying breath, when she sacrificed herself.”

  The boy's voice shook. “And you?”

  “The pain never went away, even though I got my revenge.”

  We stood silently for a minute or two. Keagan kept fiddling with the strap on his bag. I picked at the ground with my claws.

  I broke the silence. “Let's just get going. I didn't know how we got on that topic, but let's just get home.”

  The boy didn't say a word as he got back on. I didn't take off running. I let the boy think about whatever he was thinking about.

  Please don't try to fix Luther too, kid. He's not worth it.

  I kept to the open fields as a little shortcut. With all the trainers in the city, I doubted there would be any wild monsters even close to it. Eventually, I picked up the pace. Keagan had time to think, and he wasn't talking again. I knew how long the trip would take, so I pushed myself to get it done in two days rather than three.

  The first day I covered so much ground. The small improvements to my speed were showing their worth. My toughness too.

  I settled down, panting heavily as my body got too cold for Keagan to sit on me anymore. There was a little alcove in a large rock that would force predators to come from one direction. It was the safest I could find on such short notice.

  The boy sat against the stone, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. “May… maybe next time don’t wait until you start coating yourself in ice.”

  “There was nothing safe,” I wheezed. “Sorry. Before we do this again, you should learn how to start a campfire.”

  “That's a good idea.”

  I turned my head in the direction of the sunset. The horizon of trees darkened everything sooner than it should've. More surprisingly, there haven't been a lot of people on the road.

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  The rank-up tournament really brings in a lot of people for a short time. Well, the boy said we've got two weeks until our first E-rank tournament. I've got to work on my Arcane stat and get that over two hundred before then.

  My attention turned to the shimmer all along my fur coat. There's got to be a special attack that I can get that lets me control this. Instead of getting too hot, my body starts freezing itself. While it makes me feel much better, Keagan can't touch me.

  Keagan's shivering was starting to ease up, and his head started to lull forward.

  “Get some sleep, kid,” I said.

  He yawned. “But, what about you? You need sleep too. You can't stay up all night keeping watch.”

  I created an ice block in the area in front of us. It only covered a portion of our recessed shelter. I hobbled up to my feet and started making more.

  After nine blocks blocked us in, I turned and smiled at the boy. “Better?”

  He nodded and laid his head down, using his bag as a pillow. I padded in a circle and laid myself down for some sleep. It wasn't warm enough to melt the ice quickly. So it should last until the morning. It was still early spring after all.

  Wrath Demon Ancestry increases Power stat gains. Wrath Demon ancestry impedes Toughness stat gains. Training summary: Power +2, Speed +3, Toughness +2.

  — — —

  Name: Lucia Silverbreeze

  Species: Fenris (Dire Wolf/???) [Ice Subtype]

  Level 3 [0%]

  Power: 301

  Agility: 194

  Speed: 219

  Arcane: 154

  Toughness: 108

  Resilience: 110

  — — —

  By morning, the blocks were a sad, sagging fence. But we were moving again, the horizon just starting to catch light. Dew clung to the grass, soaking my paws as the boy rode on my back, his chin propped on my head like he was using me as a pillow.

  “Hey kid.” I tilted my head back a bit.

  “Huh? Yeah?” His voice was drowsy.

  “If I’m going to start gaining levels, what is a good plan of action with Special Attacks?”

  He hummed for a moment. “Well… what kind of special attacks do you want to learn?”

  The chill breeze picked up for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he said, more awake now, “you’ve got Ice Shard and Ice Block. One offensive and one defensive. But you can’t just keep using the same ones forever. Did you just want to keep upgrading them? Or was there something specific you were looking for?”

  “I already know what I want.” My tail swished lazily behind me. “Ice Armor. Defense first. I’m not going to let some stray hit leave me in a state I’m unable to fight in.”

  The boy perked up. “Oh, yeah! Ice Armor’s a big one. But it doesn’t come directly—you’ve got to evolve Ice Block through two other skills first.” He started ticking off fingers like he always did when lecturing. “First is Frost Shield. It's a weak shield but more flexible. And you can move it with you while using it. Then there’s Frozen Hide. Your body kind of already does it when you work too hard. But instead of just a fine layer that breaks with every movement, it uses a portion of your Arcane stat to increase your Toughness. Ice Armor comes after that. Then you use your full Arcane stat as your Toughness and Resilience.”

  “I like the sound of that.” I lowered my ears, thinking of my entire body covered in dense ice. “It’ll keep me flexible, right?”

  Keagan rubbed my neck. “You’re the one who decides what it looks like and how much it covers. Like regular armor, anything it doesn’t cover is a weak spot. The more you cover, the more it restricts your movement.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course. I’ll, uh, try to keep that in mind.”

  “And you should pick some offensive options too,” he said with all too much enthusiasm. “Defense is great, but no one wins a fight by turtling.”

  I huffed. “Yeah. Tickles made that abundantly clear. I take it you have an idea?”

  His grin practically pressed into my fur. “Okay, so, hear me out—Avalanche Breath. It’s a midrange attack. Really effective against faster monsters you need to slow down.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a low-level attack.” I shook my head. “You probably want me to work my way to that eventually.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. You’re fast, but there are monsters like Tickles who are naturally faster than you. Who knows, maybe Yaz trains to be faster than you.”

  A rumble circulated in my throat. “You just had to bring him up, didn’t you?”

  “He is supposed to be your rival.”

  I snorted. “His idea, not mine. So, to get Avalanche Breath, what do I have to start with?”

  The kid patted the top of my head. “That’ll be Chill Wind. Then you’ll work your way up to Winter Breeze, Frozen Gust, Arctic Breath, and finally Avalanche Breath.”

  “Sounds messy,” I muttered.

  He laughed. “That’s the point. It takes ten levels to reach something that powerful. And each level takes more wild monsters you need to kill than the last level.”

  Getting to level two took one monster, while getting to level three took two kills. “As I’ve noticed, they take one more than the previous level. So getting that many levels, if I were to start now,” I paused while I did the math in my head. “That’ll take sixty-three kills. That’s not insignificant.”

  “What are you talking about? That’s a lot!” Keagan threw his arms out but dropped them so he could steady himself and not fall off me. “Sixty-three monsters will take more than a year to reach.”

  I clicked my tongue. “If I can kill ten monsters a week, it should take a month and a half.”

  The boy leaned forward. “Where are you going to find ten monsters to kill a week?”

  I flattened my ears. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. You can help with that part.”

  “Why did I guess that’s what you were going to say?” He groaned and leaned back again. “Killing three monsters in a week is good. Five is huge. The problem is that you can go weeks without fighting any wild monsters.”

  “When you summoned me out of the disk, there were the craglins.” I turned my head to look at him. “Which was stupid of you to go wandering around at that time, by the way. Then just before we left for the rank-up tournament, there were the mud imps. You’re telling me there were no wild monsters to hunt in between?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy stuttered. “There probably was, but you can’t guarantee that you can find them.”

  I shook my head. “There’s always prey. You’ve just got to know what to look for.”

  Keagan settled into the saddlebags more as we settled into a road covered by a canopy of trees. “What if there’s a bunch of them? You can’t fight them while you’re outnumbered. It’s too dangerous.”

  Something in the air shifted. I could smell something, but it wasn’t anything I had smelled before. “I’d handle them like I’d do any pack. Pick off any that are alone, starting with the weakest or slowest. Waiting for the perfect moment to eliminate them one by one. Each kill needs to be quick and efficient.”

  “Sometimes you can be a little too brutal, you know that, right?”

  “No less brutal than the wilderness is,” I said flatly.

  Another breeze rolled through the branches. The scent was closer.

  I stopped and watched the direction of the scent. “Kid, get off and take the bags.”

  Keagan complied. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  I turned to him. “I smell something. Either it’s coming to us, or we’re walking to it. So, be quiet and don’t talk unless it is absolutely necessary. Got it?”

  The kid nodded. I motioned for him to follow me with my head. The kid's footsteps were not exactly quiet, but he was making an effort not to step on any branches or in any puddles. As I stalked forward, I started smelling blood mixed with the unidentified scent.

  Something has killed. Which means we are walking up to it.

  We passed an exceptionally thick grouping of trees to see a creature with the front part of a giant white eagle and the back half of a lion shredding a cow. Its face was buried in the animal’s intestines before it flicked its head back and worked a chunk of meat down its beak.

  “A gryphon,” Keagan whispered to me. “We don’t know how powerful it is. Let’s sneak away.”

  Before I could hiss at him for talking, the gryphon snapped its head in our direction.

  “Kid, that was unnecessary.” I growled as I stepped in front of him. “Now find the largest tree and keep it between you and the monster at all times.”

  He didn’t want me to fight it, but now his mistake is forcing me to. And wasn’t he the one who said that finding wild monsters was hard to do?

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