The Silver Guardian Bk. 01 Ch. 18

A huge thank you to my editor Tex Beethoven for another amazing job and collaboration, thank you Tex you rock!!

Book 1

Chapter 18

Dante walked into the library, ready for his second session with the Elders and Archivist. He had gotten up with Lily and showered and went to breakfast, before they once again split up to head for their respective lessons: Training in Madame Alpha responsibilities for Lily, and history lessons for Dante.

Dante greeted, "Good morning everyone, I'm excited for another lesson today!"

The Elders and Archivist greeted him in return before Elder Bruce began the lesson.

"Today we are going to cover Pack O'Connor history, and during any time we have left over, we'll start into worldwide lycan structure and history. So let's jump in, since we have limited time each day."

Dante nodded and looked thoughtful as he prepared himself to absorb another info dump.

Elder Maeve began, "The original O'Connor Pack was formed roughly 1,000 years ago in Ireland during the times of the Viking raids. They began small with only a few families, but eventually came into a position of significance in Dublin, which was one of just a few major towns in Ireland at that time. Their close cooperation with each other, like a large family all looking out for each other, but also with a strong Alpha leadership, helped them to begin establishing their influence, and Dublin is still their seat of power in Ireland to this day. The Pack has been around so long and has always been able to maintain such a united front, that it has absorbed many smaller and sometimes even larger packs over the centuries, and now is the largest Pack in Ireland and one of the more influential Packs in Europe.

"When the New World was found, and settlement and exploration began roughly 400 years ago, the O'Connor Pack watched, but remained in Ireland, biding its time: the possibilities in the New World appeared interesting but not compelling. But when the War of 1812 ended, establishing that the fledgling United States was a viable nation, and even though it shared a continent-wide border with Canada, which in other parts of the world could be a major liability, there was a high probability that this border would forever be a non-contentious one, the Pack's Alpha Pair in consultation with the Pack Elders decided to send some of their members to begin a cadet Pack over here.

"The younger brother of the Alpha of the O'Connor Pack at the time, Seamus O'Connor, was selected to become the first Alpha of the cadet branch, and he and his family brought 25 families of wolves, to form a new Pack over here. They ended up being some of the very first settlers ever to push this far west, and eventually settled here in what would eventually become Montana. The winters were harsh here, but for people able to grow fur coats at will, that wasn't much of a challenge. They, or at this point I should probably say we, were extremely isolated for a long time and grew slowly. But in time, expansion and exploration brought more settlers, human ones this time, and the O'Connor Pack was instrumental in setting up and assisting these new communities to survive and to begin to thrive.

"Whitefish was founded in 1904 when the railroad came through, and Alpha Odin's Great Grandfather Sebastian O'Connor helped to organize and set up everything to get Whitefish off the ground. Ever since the Pack first settled here we have been working the land and mining it for what we need, as well as for income. We have operations in copper, gold, silver, iron, coal and many other minerals and resources. When cattle came to Montana we also invested heavily in that, and now have one of the single largest ranches in the United States. We also have a fairly large presence in construction, which is very helpful for the Pack, since we undertake many construction projects each year for the Pack, the compound and many of our homes and businesses, such as your upcoming ones, Dante."

Dante went on to learn that the two O'Connor Packs were still quite close, and visited each other somewhat regularly. (In part, financial support sent from the American O'Connor Pack had enabled their parent Pack to survive the disastrous Potato Famine that began in Ireland in the mid 1840's.)

A good chunk of time was used in going over Pack history, but they had some time left, so they moved into the lycan structure around the world.

No exact count existed, but it was believed there were somewhere around 600 packs across the globe, and maybe 500,000 lycans worldwide. (Those figures were thought to be on the small side, since there had never been an official census, so it really was just a rough estimate.) Thanks to the North American Alpha Council, it was known that there were exactly 200 packs throughout North America (and Hawaii), and estimates called for roughly another 300 throughout Europe and Eurasia, plus only 100 or so scattered throughout the rest of the world, including the Far East, Middle East, Africa, Australia, and South America. The heaviest concentration was Europe, Russia, and the United States due to geography, history, and resources, especially forest land.

There was no central body governing or even attempting to lead the lycan race, but most areas had set up much looser versions of Alpha Councils such as the one in North America. The truth was that a lot of the lycan race outside of North America was fractured, due to how isolated and closed off most Packs were, and their small numbers in relation to the rest of mankind.

Nick rounded off with, "That just about wraps up our session for today. Tomorrow we will cover the history of our race and how we got started. I'll be leading that discussion, and we will see you tomorrow."

Dante thanked the Archivist and Elder Bruce and Elder Maeve and then headed to the suite to get changed before reporting to the Training Hall. He met Lily once again in the suite as they both got ready. Dante was in his typical tight black muscle shirt with tan cargo pants and boots, while Lily was again in a red sports bra and black tank top, but this time with red yoga pants and running shoes. They walked hand in hand to the Training Center and into the Training Hall.

What was by now their normal group of Pack Betas and Enforcers were there, along with Ben and Sara. Ben had already handed out their schedule for the morning and early afternoon, and Dante and Lily walked in just as the group was breaking up. Sara hung back with Ben while he addressed Dante and Lily.

He turned to Dante, "Morning Dante, Lily, I'm going to line out what you'll be doing today, as well as what the next few months will look like, before we get started."

Dante and Lily looked at each other and then back to Ben before nodding agreement.

"We'll start every day with a run and then we'll work out. I know you both want to be together as much as possible so you can be well practiced as a team, and I'll accommodate that as much as possible, but at least for now I'm afraid it can only be occasionally: your training needs are different enough that most of the time we'll need to work with you separately.

"Dante, today you will come with me while we run as our wolves over a 20-mile course I've chosen. Lily, you will run as you are with Sara for 10 miles. Dante urgently needs time and experience as his wolf since he's almost totally inexperienced in that form. Even so, I think we'll find that his formidable speed as his human will transfer well to his wolf, and the long distance endurance we want to help him develop as his wolf should also transfer back to his human.

"You need to focus on speed as well as building your endurance, which is why we're splitting you up like this. Due to the differences in your respective speeds, and since our wolves run faster than our humans, we should all wind up here at around the same time for our group workout.

"After our workout Lily, you will be training with your dual daggers with Sara and a few other wolves, both in one on one techniques and against groups. You, as well as the rest of us, will be trained by Dante in firearms starting in the afternoons, either late this week or early next week.

"I've already spoken to Alpha Odin and Madame Alpha Victoria, who have okayed this, even though it will cut into some of your time spent on learning your Alpha Heir duties and responsibilities. However, Pack security is important, and there will always be time for your lessons for years to come before either of you will end up taking over the Pack, so it's a lower priority."

Ben paused before he focused on Dante, "We're going to alternate days for your training. Today we'll start working on your weapons training, and tomorrow we'll focus on fighting as your wolf. We'll alternate days for each training type for the foreseeable future."

Ben paused to let all that sink in before asking if there were any questions, and whether they were ready to start. Neither Dante nor Lily had any questions and were ready to jump right in. They went their separate ways and started their respective runs.

Dante was tearing along, feeling the wind through his fur and his claws tearing up the earth beneath him, as his powerful legs propelled him faster and faster through the forest and up and down the mountain slopes.

As they ran, Ben was coaching him through the bond. He explained how to sync his senses with his wolf and how to move and read the terrain, and how to fully use his enhanced senses.

Ben explained that there was a balance between allowing his wolf more and more freedom on the one hand, but how giving over too much control could reduce his thoughts and actions to such a primal state that it would compromise the intelligence needed for planning his tactics and coordinating his actions with the rest of the Pack. There were times to give control over to your wolf and times to reign it back in. You didn't want to get tunnel vision by giving too much control to your wolf, but at times there was reason for doing precisely that. Wolves were more in tune with their surroundings and with their nature and knew intuitively, e.g. without spending valuable time on thought, when to become aggressive and when to attack and hunt and stalk and all those things.

Dante would have to gain experience and learn the proper balance for given situations himself. Especially during training where negative consequences could be controlled, it would be valuable to experiment a lot, especially at first, even though some experiments would inevitably result in mistakes and often embarrassing ones. Spending as much time as he could as his wolf would help speed that up that process because time would be the ultimate teacher.

One further thought Ben shared even while encouraging Dante to set it aside for now, was that as a Pack leader in battle, as Dante would inevitably become, he would need to retain more human intelligence to be used in planning tactics than his wolf soldiers would require while leaping for their enemies' throats. But for now: experiment. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Learn.

And at the moment: more speed, more speed!

As Ben had predicted, they all wound up back at the Training Center at about the same time and next got into their workout inside the gym. Dante pushed Lily to try to keep up with him a bit more, to give her motivation to improve her baseline as quickly as possible. Dante spent some time on the heavy bag, as well as busting out his muscle groups in a quick rolling circuit training routine.

By the end of the workout they were all breathing hard and needed a break and got some water. After a short breather they returned to the Training Hall.

Lily and Sara grabbed a few of the female Betas and started working on her dual daggers, working her through different situations and sparring while discussing techniques and mindsets for fighting against both single and group opponents.

Dante worked with Ben and began with the history of the katana, its uses, strengths and weaknesses, and the primary purpose of the weapon. Everything has essences he explained, and once you fully comprehended the essence of something, whether it be a skill, a weapon, a philosophy, whatever it might be, once you grasped the essence of something everything else followed.

They also discussed the rules and theory of using two weapons simultaneously. Ben started Dante practicing with just one training katana at first. Dante would need to become adept at using a single katana with either hand before he could effectively add a second one to the mix. A lot of time would need to be spent on form, steps, theory and mastering various basic moves such as the yoko giri (side cut), the kesi giri (an overhead slashing move), the overhead cut (self-explanatory except for the nuances) and the nukitsuke (an all-purpose and ready-for-anything starting position).

These, of course, were only the very beginning and he would need to master not only them but also a lot more before advancing to using both katana at the same time. He also focused on drawing the sword from its sheath, because there was a lot to know even about doing that with a katana (if you did it wrong you exposed yourself to unnecessary danger from your adversary, and if you didn't survive that stage of a fight, you wouldn't have any need for your other skills).

By the time Dante completed his training he would be a master with one sword, two swords, drawing and quick drawing as well. He was quite excited to be learning such an ancient, challenging and lethal discipline. Although he'd always drilled himself regularly in the skills that he already knew, he hadn't learned much of anything new since his time with the Teams. War was his ethos, and anytime he could grow and improve in that realm he was thrilled.

Before they realized it, lunchtime was here so they all broke up and headed to the dining hall at the Manor House. Lily and Dante walked hand in hand, again enjoying a few brief moments together. Even while they were eating lunch, whenever it was practical they would hold hands, or Lily would even lean against Dante, wanting to feel close to him. Lunch today was some delicious French Dip sandwiches, that were massive and filling after the physically draining morning they'd all endured.

Dante still had two hours to go, while Lily had only one hour left in training. When Lily was finished with that, she would head upstairs to work with her Father, continuing to get a handle on the many facets involved in running the family business, and seeing where she could apply the knowledge from her law degree.

Dante however, even after completing his physical training, would continue his afternoon with Ben, going over Pack and compound security and training. Alpha Odin was planning on stopping in to join them once he was done mentoring Lily and she had gone off with her Mother again. The late afternoon and early evening would be spent working on their Pack and Alpha Heir responsibilities, or in other words doing whatever Alpha Odin and Madame Alpha Victoria required of them.

Lily and Dante walked back from lunch to the Training Center and entered the Hall. Lily would spend her last hour in hand to hand combat with Sara, again with Ben assisting whenever he was free to do so. Dante was once again back with his practice katana getting his exercises in. He required little supervision from Ben at this stage; by this time he knew exactly what he needed to do to master the early level he was currently working on, he just needed lots of repetition and self-monitoring to teach his body how to do it smoothly and eventually, fast.

The first hour went by quickly, and when Lily had to leave, she stopped by to see Dante and to give him a long hug and a deep kiss. She scented him and whispered into his ear, "I need some extra special loving from you tonight! I need you to take control and make me feel possessed again: to feel like your mindless possession. I haven't felt that in too long and I'm craving it. Think you can do that, stud?" Lily looked into Dante's eyes with need and lust.

Dante's eyes blazed, hearing Lily's provocative words and he pulled her hard against his front, grinding his sudden erection into her stomach and abdomen. "You can feel my answer my Lily, keep that fire burning for me, and your Master will stoke it to a raging blaze before quenching it tonight." His possessive words had been growled to her, making her shiver in anticipation. But not submissive yet, she exited the Hall with an enticing sway to her hips that she knew would keep Dante's eyes focused on her tight ass before she turned her upper body (but not that lovely ass) to blow a promissory kiss to him over her shoulder.

Dante looked back at his instructor Ben who asked with a smirk, "Think you can focus on the right 'sword' now so we can get back to it?"

Dante glanced down and realized his arousal was plainly obvious, and there were other people around. He blushed a bit and turned his back and adjusted himself, before turning back and resuming his practice. Another hour passed quickly, and training was done for the day.

Next stop for Ben and Dante was a conference room in the Manor House to go over Pack security. Ben asked his mate Sara to come along to help out. The three of them made their way to the Manor House and stepped inside a conference room and got down to business.

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