She Belongs To The Devil

Nigel woke up in his soft bed in the morning and then quickly changed into his training uniform. Rhea had asked him to be at the training ground at 5 sharp but he happened to wake up a little late to be at the training ground in time.

He ran as fast as he could, but when he reached there, Rhea was already waiting for him with a stern look on her face. "You are late!" she shouted at the Prince as soon as he was in the vicinity.

Nigel stopped before his teacher, who looked as young and beautiful as ever, and apologized to her, "I'm sorry, teacher. I woke up a little late."

Rhea surprised Nigel by speaking in her loud and angry voice again. "You are not allowed to be late for my class. I value time greatly." She was speaking so sweetly yesterday, but there was no sweetness whatsoever right now. Nigel even suspected for a while that the lady in front of him might be Rhea's twin sister.

Rhea growled at Nigel, "Do one thousand sit-ups, now!"

Nigel immediately agreed to his teacher and began to do sit-ups. He didn't want her to shout at him again.

Nigel completed that exercise after about 15 minutes. Though he had a sturdier body now, doing a thousand sit-ups made his thigh muscles cramp. He stood up and then loosened his legs to relieve him of the pain.

Rhea was quietly standing in front of Nigel while watching him do the sit-ups. After he completed it, she said in a rather calm voice, "That was the punishment for coming in late. If you are late again tomorrow, then it will increase by another thousand. Now, we will begin the training."

Nigel's jaw dropped when Rhea told her that whatever he did till now was just some punishment and his actual training had not even started.

Rhea suppressed her urge to crack up at that face that Nigel was making. But she had decided to put up a strict act from today onward. Nigel had turned very late in his life, as compared to the other werewolves and Rhea didn't want him to be behind his younger pack members. So she had decided to be harsh on him and push him forward.

"Don't worry, we will first do the mental training before starting the physical. Cross your legs and sit down." Rhea also made herself comfortable on the dusty ground and Nigel copied her.

Then she asked him, "Do you remember how you felt when you turned for the first time?"

"No, I don't remember anything except the excruciating pain in my heart. And after that, I woke up somewhere else. I remember nothing in between." Nigel was a little disheartened. He envied Theodore for seeing him in his wolf form and remembering things about him that he didn't remember himself.

"I should have asked him how I looked. I mean... what color of fur I had? I guess I will have to wait till another full moon to find out." He thought to himself.

Nigel noticed Rhea glaring at him and quickly straightened his back.

"You just remember a tip of the feeling then." Rhea nodded and then said, "Before turning, you will feel a tingle in your heart. And then slowly, your animal senses will take over when you are new to this. After that, you will begin to feel excruciating pain all over your body."

Nigel noted how Rhea was referring to the pain in the chest as just a tingle. And he quietly kept on listening to the wisdom.

"Your human bones will begin to break and reform into animal bones. And if you are lucky you will completely turn into a werewolf in about 15 minutes when you are new. But if you are among the unlucky lot, it might even take half of your night to transform completely."

Nigel clearly recalled that he had reached the banquet when the dinner was still going on. So he knew that it didn't take him half of the night to complete the transformation.

Rhea unconsciously reverted back to her calm voice when she said the next things, "But after enduring that pain you will feel the most beautiful feeling that a werewolf can ever feel. When you turn into a wolf, you will feel a great sense of freedom. There is no other feeling that can compare to the one when you run freely around the woods."

She cleared her throat and then caught up her strict voice again, "Our minds have the werewolf side hidden somewhere in our subconscious. And if we can connect with that hidden part in our brain, then we can transform ourselves into wolves even when there is no full moon."

Nigel didn't ask the question in the middle because he already knew that from Wulfric. Else he would have been shocked to hear that he could even turn without a full moon.

"The new ones mostly require some trigger to connect with the hidden side. The most effective trigger is our anger." Rhea emphasized the word 'anger' by actually saying that word a bit angrily. "In some rare cases, the trigger can also be our pain. When we become well acquainted with the process then we won't need trigger anymore. We can turn as easily as breathing."

Nigel was soaking in all that information like a sponge. He was determined to learn everything about the werewolves during a month of stay here in Aberdeen.

"Now, I want you to enter the meditative stage and focus on what is inside your mind. Try to find your animal. And after you find that, we will move on to the next step of trying to bring it out. Of course, this will not happen within an hour, it might take weeks just to find that hidden part of your brain."

"Weeks?" Nigel could not help but exclaim.

"Yes, so don't be disheartened if you don't see anything inside your mind." Rhea was sitting with her legs crossed. She relaxed both of her hands on her knees and then touched the tips of her index fingers with her thumbs. "Copy this posture and then close your eyes."

Nigel copied her and closed his eyes as she had asked.

"Now, try to see inside your mind. Don't focus on anything else other than your deep thoughts. Just see within. If you have difficulty in focusing at first then take deep breaths in and out and focus on your breathing. You will automatically delve deeper into your mind after some time. You may begin!"

As directed by his teacher, Nigel started to focus on his breathing in the search of his wolf side.