Fangless: The Alpha's Vampire Mate-Chapter 146: Training with a Side of Cravings

Riona showed up at Florian’s room, plopped herself down, and waited. And waited. And waited. She kept hoping her brother would eventually stop being dramatic and open the door, but surprise, surprise—he didn’t.

Meanwhile, Florian had barricaded himself inside, grappling with the increasingly loud chaos in his own head.

He had overestimated his ability to be a functional vampire with a dark demonic entity inside his brain.

Honestly, he was beginning to regret ever cracking that door open in the first place.

Riona knocked on the door, at first gently. Then, because she assumed maybe he wasn’t blessed with werewolves’ outstanding hearing, she started calling louder. And louder.

Yet, predictably, nothing.

He couldn’t hear Riona calling for him because, apparently, the voice in his head had cranked up the volume to chaotic war noise levels. No outside voices allowed.

Pressing her ear against the door, Riona listened. Her heart sank as she heard the muffled sounds of heavy objects being hurled, the thud of things breaking.

She couldn’t be sure, but she guessed Florian was in there, throwing a personal pity party, complete with blunt objects for extra flair. The thought filled her with dread.

On the day of the training, Riona still hadn’t given up. She was going to keep trying until the sun did a full nosedive behind the horizon.

But by the time the sky turned that picturesque shade of orange, and the sun lazily rolled away like it had better things to do, Florian showed zero signs of softening.

Thorin watched her with pity, and it was painful. This was Riona—the stubborn, headstrong vampire who could toss a fat chef out of a window without breaking a nail, and who nearly started a brawl with vampire nobles just for kicks—now reduced to a wilted, sad flower.

A very dangerous, prickly flower, but still.

And, of course, she was still gorgeous. Thorin hated himself for even thinking it, especially at this moment, but he couldn’t help it. She looked stunning, even with that gloom hanging over her. Ugh, focus!

"How’s he doing?" Thorin asked, attempting to banish his shallow brain to the background.

Riona shook her head, her voice dry. "I don’t know, Thorin. Not great, I’m guessing? I can’t exactly tell since his room is... you know, sealed like a tomb."

She held back the urge to go full sarcasm. Thorin was only trying to be considerate, and he was worried about Florian too.

As much as she wanted to explode, she couldn’t take it out on Thorin—not when he was the only one who seemed to care.

"Should we call him again?" Thorin asked, treading lightly.

He didn’t actually think it was a brilliant idea, but he also didn’t want to sound like he was ditching the kid and leaving him out of this supposedly crucial training session.

"Nah. Just leave him. Give him more time," Riona replied, and Thorin let out a subtle sigh of relief.

They made their way to the training area, a barren plot of land nearby, perfect for smashing things without consequence.

As they walked, Riona seemed unusually quiet, lost in thought. It was a rare sight, considering she was usually the type to leap first, think never.

But Thorin had noticed that when it came to Florian, Riona seemed to morph into a different person altogether, like she had layers or something.

Thorin assumed she was mapping out some grand plan to rescue Florian from his emotional spiral, maybe devising a 12-step brother-saving strategy.

Nope. In reality, Riona was thinking about one thing: food. Sadness, disappointment—yeah, they made her hungry.

Her internal debate was far from profound: should she swing by her room to grab a bag of blood to stop her stomach from sounding like an angry werewolf, or just suck it up and head to training so she wouldn’t be late?

Both options seemed equally irritating.

Meanwhile, her frustration was building to a boiling point. She wasn’t exactly here to perfect some technique to help werewolves or whatever Thorin had planned.

Her goal was simple: smash things until she felt better. Everything else could take a number.

As soon as Riona joined the werewolves, the pups latched onto her like she was their favorite toy. At this point, she was so used to being their personal jungle gym that she didn’t even bother resisting anymore.

Their giggles filled the air. Let them hang off her like overenthusiastic ornaments—it wasn’t worth the effort.

And then Thorin the social butterfly took the center. "This is the first time we’ve had a training session with a vampire! Are you guys pumped?" He sounded like a camp counselor who’d had way too much caffeine.

Riona’s fan club occupied the front row, gazing at her like she was some kind of celebrity.

Her haters, on the other hand, stayed huddled in the back, pretending they didn’t care but still glancing her way because, let’s face it, they totally did.

No one had asked her to volunteer, but Riona decided to step up anyway.

"How about I show you how we do things in Eira?" she said, strolling to the center of the arena, completely unbothered that half the important werewolves, like Vesper, hadn’t even shown up yet.

"Why don’t you crawl back to the mountains where you belong, freak? This arena’s for werewolves—not the undead!" Morgan sneered, trying to get a rise out of her.

But Riona didn’t even flinch. Nothing bruises an ego like being ignored, so she just pretended Morgan didn’t exist.

Cracking her knuckles, Riona stretched out, preparing herself for action. The crowd looked on, confused.

"Oh, you guys don’t do warm-ups?" she asked with a smirk. "Well, I am in my forties, so, you know, gotta keep the bones from creaking."

"What’s that noise?"

"Teach me how to do that!"

"Can I do it too?" the pups squealed, their eyes wide with excitement.

Feeling the need to flex—literally and figuratively—Riona flashed a grin. "Alright, kids. Pay attention. You’re about to witness the greatest power of all time."

"Whoaaa!!" the pups gasped in unison, jaws practically hitting the ground.

They stood frozen, eyes glued to Riona, buzzing with silent anticipation for whatever greatness was about to unfold.

Riona took a deep breath and focused on her power—the warm energy she’d once hated but was starting to accept. She stretched out her hands and opened her eyes. And a huge, red energy arrow appeared.

It glowed brightly and crackled with energy as it hovered above her like a spear of doom. The crowd went quiet as Riona aimed the arrow and sent it crashing into the ground with enough force to make the earth shake and leave a smoking hole behind.

"Oops, looks like I’ll need to fix that later," she said with a dry smile, brushing off the dust from her clothes.