The Hunting

Tobias woke up the next morning and Kia was already gone, the space next to him felt cold and empty and he immediately missed his mate.

He groaned as he got up and walked over to his en-suite bathroom. His mind was a mess as he stood there under the scolding hot water, unable to do much else.

Did she not want to be around me anymore? Was she regretting staying in my bed last night?

A soft knock on the bathroom door made him snap from his dark thoughts.

"Hey, I made you some breakfast, when you're done come join me in the kitchen." Kia said through the closed door.

Tobias let out a long sigh, mentally reprimanding himself for being so childish. He finished his shower in record time and got dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans.

Once in the kitchen the over-whelming smell of bacon , mixed with Kia's orange blossom scent made his mouth water.

"Smells good in here."he said with a playful smirk as his eyes traveled over his mate, drinking in her appearance. Kia was standing there in some training shorts and a bright pink crop top, her hair messily thrown into a bun, her signature mismatched socks calling attention to her feet as she danced through the kitchen to the beat of the music she had on.

"Are you hungry?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Very.."he answered as he moved closer to her, gently folding his arms around her waist, moving slowly just in case she didn't want him so close.

Kia leaned her head back against his chest and laughed.

"Good thing I made lots of food then." she said as she moved to place the food on the table.

They both sat down to eat in silence, Tobias eating in record speed.

"Slow down, Tobias. "Kia said as she threw a piece of bread at him, chuckling.

He gave her a sheepish smile and started eating at a slower pace.

After they both cleaned up the kitchen Kia turned to him with a smile, "I'm going to go training. My father said he'd be waiting for you on the training grounds." she said and he gave her a small nod. He walked over to her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before he left to go find Clayton.

Kia walked out to the open field next to the training grounds, dead-set on doing suicide drills. She got started with some stretches, laughing at the looks the warriors gave her father when he said they'd be doing one-on-one training today, each of them getting a turn with him. She shook her head and began jogging up and down the length of the field just to stretch her muscles a bit. After her warm-ups she began placing the obstacles she would need for her drills, all over the field. There was large wooden structures she had to scale up and down, balancing beams, ropes to climb, monkey-bars, wooden bars of different angles and heights that she either had to jump over or slide under - some she had to use as stepping stones to get to others, and finally there were cones set up for sprinting drills and an open space for the cardio drills.

"Warriors, kindly turn your attention toward my daughter."came her father's booming voice as she stepped up to the starting line of her obstacle course. She gave him a slight glance, he was smiling her way. "She's about to demonstrate the suicide drills we'll be doing tomorrow."he continued with a slight smirk. His statement was met with groans and cries of argument, but they quickly stopped once he gave them a glare. Kia took a deep breath and centered her focus, she knew her father was going to expect her best right now.

She sprinted off towards the wooden structures, jumping up onto them and climbing upwards, she swung her legs over the top and crashed down to the ground on the other side, already running towards the next one. Three more like that and she was on to the balancing beams, her balance was flawless so she could sprint along the thin lengths of the beams , jumping effortlessly over the gaps between them -set up to throw your balance off. Next was the ropes, she climbed up one, jumped over onto the one next to it, climbed down and repeated the action over the remaining four ropes. When she was done there her hands were raw and bleeding but she didn't stop, she knew her father would be timing her and if she was just a second off from her previous time she'd hear it. Moving over to the Monkey-bars she scooped up some sand to rub over her bleeding hands,to prevent her from slipping from the metal bars. She swung over the endless sets of bars until she finally reached the end, jogging over to the next obstacle. She jumped over the first wooden bar and hit the ground sliding under the next one,the next two she had to climb up towards the third one that was too high to reach on your own,she jumped down again and slid down underneath the last one,scrambling to her feet.

Making her way over to the cones she started sprinting between them. It worked like this, there were three cones set up about ten meters apart. Your ran to the first one , then back to the starting line, then to the second cone and back to the start, then to the third cone and back to the start. You repeated this three times, to make up a total distance of 360 meters, and you had to sprint the whole way. Thereafter she made her way to the open space and began doing bur-pees, one-hundred in total , before she was finally done.

Kia jogged over to her father and stood next to him, straining to keep her breathing even so he wouldn't scold her for allowing her fitness to slip. He gave her a proud smile, "A whole eight seconds faster than last time."he said before turning to the warriors. "I expect the same endurance from all of you tomorrow, let's see if you can beat Kia's record."he said with a smirk. "Dismissed."

The warriors started clearing out, and Tobias walked over to Kia once her father had left.

"Are you okay?"he asked, studying her face.

She looked up at him, her face going pale as she shook her head, making a run for the woods. Tobias followed shortly after, stopping dead in his tracks as he sees Kia throwing up into some bushes, having pushed her body past its limits.

"This isn't healthy?"Tobias said.

"Are you asking me, or telling me?"Kia questioned which earned her a glare.

"This isn't funny, Kia." Tobias snapped, walking over to her with a concerned expression on his face.

"I'm fine, Tobias. This would hardly be the first time my father pushed me too far."she said, shrugging his look of surprise aside. "He doesn't have sons, he's competitive."she explained.

Tobias gave a snort, not liking this situation one bit ,but also knowing it wasn't his place to intervene .

"Come on, lets go get you something to eat and some water."he said as he took Kia's hand before noticing the blood, he gave her a hard stare and shook his head." We'll clean these up too." he said through gritted teeth, dragging her off to her house.

I'll have to have a talk with her father sometime. He thought as he walked.

"Don't even!"Kia snapped as she eyed him.

"What?"he asked.

"I know that look, don't even think about talking to my father!"she said, glaring at him.

"I wasn't ..."he started, shaking his head. "I won't"he said, giving her a soft smile.

"Promise?"she asked, Tobias swallowed and gave her an innocent look.

"I promise."he lied, mentally kicking himself for doing that.

Timber stuck out his tongue at Kia, feeling smug that she didn't know that they were deceiving her.

"Stop that!"Tobias snapped at him, guilt eating him up inside.

"Fine.."Timber huffed back.