Rejected, but not Broken
Chapter 57

Tanner’s POV

I was led into the forest by Alpha Heath, as he gave me instructions the whole way in. Just like with Gabi’s testing, Alan didn’t want Alpha Heath to know what the full plan was on the testing, just that two men would be in the forest, and two men on the training field.

Alpha Heath was calm and collected as he gave me tips while we walked further into the forest. I can tell that Heath wants me to do well, but he has never seen me fight, and other than me being Gabi’s mate, he has no real knowledge of me.

Yes, I goofed around with the guys, I like them, every single guy on the team is a good man, and I feel better about Gabi going with them to Red River, but she will never be safer than she is with me with her. I love her and she is my priority, my number one most important thing in my life, and I would gladly kill for her. I know she would do the same for me.

I shake my head and try to get back into the game because I didn’t get much sleep, but just getting breakfast with Gabi helped me so much.

Seeing her with a baby in her arms and knowing that she wants one with me, I feel invincible. I feel 12 feet tall, and I am about to make these guys work to kill me off.

I can tell she is ready now, and I will end every single person on her team to get back to her. Alpha Heath has stopped walking and was looking at me with a serious expression, and then he starts laughing.

“Son, you are going to have to get your head in the game. I already know you NEED to get back to Gabi, but trust me when I tell you she was right when she said that you need to have patience. She will still be there waiting on you when you get done, so make sure she is proud of you when you see her.

We all know she is ready to mate now, she let everyone anywhere around our table know. Gabi having that baby in her arms, it does that to women, Tanner.

Stop, right now, or your lack of focus is going to get you “killed” and quick out here. They love Gabi, and they really like you too.

But their pride took a hit when the first woman ever, and a fairly small one at that, got on the team. Hell, she made it look easy, and that is hard for some men to swallow. Alan, as the leader, was having already set her up to fail, but he forgot two things.

First, Jameson is fair, above everything else, and couldn’t accept what Alan was doing to Gabi. Second, she is mine and he forgot that I trained him. I needed to remind him, that he is only as good as his trainer until he can see the bigger picture, and realize that he needs to improve. Every Single. Day.

You cannot rest on your laurels; you have to actively try to improve yourself every single day. Alan got cocky and complacent. He also forgot that I consider Gabi to be My child, and I wasn’t going to let him hurt her, whether he wanted to train her or not.

So, I got with Jameson, and he stepped up to make it right. It wasn’t a coincidence; Gabi trained her a*s off, and the third time Alan canceled on her, I knew what he was doing. He cannot outfox me” Alpha Heath told me, and I realized that this was a life lesson, and applied to me being Alpha as well with what he was telling me for today on the field.

“Thank you, Alpha Heath, for the words of advice. I WAS going to try to hurry back to Gabi, but she will be more proud of me if I can manage to make the team on my own. I also am thankful don’t have to fight her, as I know she will be a force to be reckoned with.

I only got to see her fight for about a minute and a half before she scented me, and then ran off, but Jameson told me how good she is with her weapons. Hudson told me she is great with a bow and arrow but perfect with her gun.

I know she is good, but she told me what happened to her at Red River, and I will be damned if I let her go back to the heinous pack, with Monty, Derek, and Jack there and not be there to protect her. I will not allow it” I told Alpha Heath.

“Focus on this task then Tanner, do your best. Forget this is training and play this like you are trying to rescue Gabi from those 4 men. Please don’t hurt them, as they are about to ship out, but keep your focus. Use your wolf to help you with this.

Tala helped Gabi, and it was how she ended up surprising Alan and beating him at his own game because she was not where he anticipated that she would be. Good luck, son, I will be supervising the testing, but I cannot help you anymore. We start in five minutes, now that you are in place” Alpha Heath told me, and then left me in the forest.

Gabi had told me that she climbed a tree and got a good vantage point and that was how she took the first two out. They will expect the same from me, but I walked in here with a backpack, I have two ghillie suits with me. One with leaves on it, and the other looks like grass.

I will be in my suit in the tree. They will never see me. I plan to stay up in the tree for hours if I need to. I slip it on and then climb up the tree about thirty feet up. I close my eyes and start listening as I called out to my wolf Rafe, in mindlink.

“We are going to beat them, Tanner. You can calm down. I am already hiding our scent. After Gabi beat them, they are coming in slower than they did with her. They learned a lesson with our little mate. Tala helped her a lot, and I will help you to win as well.

They are good, but none of them are Alphas. Now, stop worrying about Gabi, as they are approaching, and you are still worried about her at Red River pack” Rafe tells me and I open my eyes but do not move.

I can’t believe I didn’t hear them coming. They are good, but not as silent as they needed to be as now that I am focused, I can even hear their heartbeats. I wait and let them pass me, and I am thankful that Rafe can indeed hide our scent. This test would be a lot harder on me if he couldn’t.

It is not against the rules to hide your scent, it is just that a lot of wolves can’t hide their scent well. My family does a very good job of being able to hide our scents. I start wondering if my sons and daughters will be able to do it and Rafe growls inside my head. st. I linked him back, “I won’t do it again. I am 100% invested in this”.

I see them moving slowly and not near each other as they go to feel me out, as they cannot smell me. I see them doubling back and they are quieter now, I wonder if they can hear my heart beating.

I need to act, but I remember Gabi telling me to use my wits, she told me that I needed to be patient, she had been on hers and she did great. I need to do the same thing.

They are about 15 feet away from me, on my left and my right side but both are looking away from each other and me. I grab the rock I have in the bottom of my backpack and throw it about 50 feet away from me.

They both turn towards the sound of the rock hitting the tree and start moving in that direction and using hand signals with each other. The one on the left will be harder to hit, so I already know that I will have to get him first.

I line up my shot and before I take it, I glance over to the second man who is also still heading towards when I threw the rock and I take the shot. I hit the first man in the back of the head, and he went down, the man on my right jumps behind a tree and looks back in my direction, but I am very well covered in the tree.

I know that he will be coming for me soon and I relax and closed my eyes and had Rafe listen for when he was going to make his move. Rafe told me that the man was about to run, but he didn’t know which direction the man would go.

The man breaks to his left, which was my right, and I was glad, as it would have been a whole lot harder to hit him if he had gone the other way. I see him running and bent down so I wouldn’t have a full-size target and I go ahead and drop down with my backpack to the lower branches.

He is behind another tree now and he knows where! am now too. I see he has two of those things that Gabi has in her room, one in each hand and I know who it is now, Jameson. I know that I had better not let him anywhere near me, as he is deadly with them.

We are both sizing each other up, and he knows I already have a bead on him, I was just waiting on him to come out. I will need to take the shot quickly as he is less than 20 feet away and I need my shot to count. Jameson will be moving fast, when he does move We are in this stand-off for over 20 minutes.

My arms are burning from holding the gun still because I won’t have time to get my kill shot if I put the gun down. Rafe gives me a heads up that Jameson is about to move and I re-focus on Jameson again.

We wait another couple of minutes, before Jameson runs right to me, with his blades ready to go. I only have a literal 2 seconds to get this right as he is moving fast and I hit him in the forehead, center mass, and he went down, but he was within two feet of me when he finally went down, and I could have been out of the test, right then.

Jameson gets up and grins at me, and I am glad that they wear protective equipment, as I could have blinded him if I messed up. Jameson holds his thumb and index finger about an inch apart to silently tell me that we both knew it had been close, and I grinned back at him.

Jameson exits the area, and I changed into my other suit. I don’t know who is left, but I know that Hudson is a c0ck shot and a sniper, and I need to figure out where he is.

I have no idea who I took out first as he was in a suit himself and never took it off before he left. It really didn’t matter who was left, as with this testing, Hudson can’t use his rifle.

My arms still hurt, but I am almost positive that I will have to go hand to hand for the next two kills, and I think of Gabi, and I work the kinks out of my arms. Nothing is going to keep me from protecting her at Red River. I will earn this spot on the team.

I get on my stomach and keep the suit hood over my head and I leopard crawl my way towards the edge of the forest where it meets the training field. I have to go slowly, so it takes me about 45 minutes to get where I need to be.

I use Gabi’s sight she gave me to use in the testing. While I keep the hood on, I started looking for the last two men I needed to take out. I let out a little sigh of relief when I see a lump on the right end of the field move, and I find one of the last two.