Alpha

No one talks for a while. I slowly sink back onto the bed and have to wait until I stop shaking from the disgusting feeling that being touched by him and the mental battle I waged against that Voice.

And then, I'm grateful. And then, I cry, wrapping my arms tightly and securely around my legs as I rock back and forth.

Ryder doesn't even say anything to comfort me. He doesn't have to. The Bond relays all feelings of anger that he wants to voice and all the comforts that spoken words could supply me with. It's Nox that breaks the silence.

"Are you alright?" he asks me gently.

"No," I reply, voice thick and almost incoherent through my tears. "I feel violated and dirty."

"It was brave what you did," he mutters just as quietly. "You did what you had to to save your Pack, no matter what it meant for yourself. It's like when my mother hid my sister and I and led the hunters on a false path in order to save us and let my uncle take us somewhere else, despite the low chance of survival she held."

I turn and stare at him, just now realizing how much we may have in common. "What happened?"

"I don't know if it was the same guys, but they were coming. They followed us when we were going home. It was just Nyx, our mother, and I. She realized we were being followed before we did. She led us down some crazy paths and took us home when she thought we'd lost them—at least temporarily. When we got home, my uncle, her brother, seemed to know what to do. She just had to say ‘eínai edó̱’—‘they’re here’ in Greek—and he took us and hid us in a closet, clamping his hands over our mouths. And then they busted into our house.

"We watched the attack through the slates in the closet door. Mama told them that we were gone, that she'd sent us away. They tried to get her, but she ran. She ran right out of the house and they chased her. I knew then that I'd never see her again, but I was proud to be her son. She broke the Bond between herself and my sister and I, so I have no idea if she survived or not, but I doubt it. My uncle led us out of the house after a few minutes. He grabbed our passports and his credit card and took us to the closest airport. They followed us—they must have had a way to track his card or something—and killed our uncle, wounded the American cab driver that we had hired, and took Nyx and I."

"That's awful," I say with a sigh. "My father did something like that for Lovett—my brother—and I," I tell him. "Back when I still lived in France, Damien's father crashed into my car, and killed my mother, a human. While my father did his best to fend the guy off, he told Lovett to take me and run. So we did, and my father distracted the man long enough for us to get far enough away."

"That's awful. How old were you?"

I huff. "I was only four."

"How could someone be so heartless as to do something like that?" Nox shakes his head with incredulity.

I sigh, suddenly extremely exhausted. "Beats me. All I know is that whoever it was came back six years later to kill my uncle a well."

Nox stops talking, and I accept the silence happily. I sag back on the little bed, and I am back asleep in seconds.
* * * * *
True to her word, as soon as I'm back asleep, the Voice sends me crystal clear memories of my parents, but all of them are sad. And this time, I'm not watching through my eyes of that time. I'm watching from outside.

I don’t know why she put me outside of my head or why it’s all so clear. While flashbacks usually are, everything before me is hazy in my memory until I actually begin to witness it.

The first memory is when I was three. I'm in the kitchen, and papa and Lovett are out of the house. The phone rings and mama swings me around puts me on the floor. She answers the phone playfully in her whimsical voice, and I get a little thrill at hearing that sweet voice once more. I drink her features in, from her heart-shaped face to her pale grey eyes the color of a storm cloud to her wavy brown hair.

"Hello," my mother answers in French. The other person talks. It's my aunt Noemi, her sister. "Noemi, sweetie, what's wrong? Is something wrong with the baby?" Little me looks up at my mother, confused at the concern, not realizing what's happening. My aunt talks for a little bit, and my mother's hand clamps over her mouth as tears streak down her cheeks and she sinks to the floor. "What happened? How can he be gone?" She struggles to keep her voice steady.

"Whose gone, Mama?" Little me asks innocently. The present me wants to give my mother a hug, knowing what happened.

She sniffles after my aunt explains what happened. "Grandpa left us," she explains gently as I teeter over to her, sitting down by her side. "He left but he's watching you, sweetheart, and he's not going to let anything happen to you. Ever."

I watch as the past me looks up at her with big, naïve eyes. "What happened to him, mama?"

She wipes her tears away. "God said that it was his time, and Grandpa gave up his heart to God." My mother was always religious and tried to protect us by giving us the half-truth. What really happened was that my grandfather's heart gave out due to his high blood pressure which led to greater, more severe heart disease which caused failure. I heard all of it later that night when my mother explained it to my father. But as a little kid, I accepted my mother's explanation no questions asked. I watch as the smaller me pushes herself up and gives my mother a hug.

Color and pictures swarm forward, surrounding me until I come to stand in a cemetery. The younger Lovett and I stand by our father as our mother kneels by her sister and brother's sides in front of their father's grave marker, their knees getting filthy with the fresh dirt that was piled on top of my grandfather's grave. My aunt practically cradles her huge stomach stomach, as if touching the unborn life inside of her will make her feel better. I try to take a step forward to comfort my mother but Lovett stops me by holding out his arm. I watch as the younger me looks up at him, confused, but he just shakes his head and looks back at our grandfather's grave. I watch the scene and sigh sadly.

More images swirl around, and I'm left dizzy and gasping for air this time. When the whirlwind pauses again, I'm in a hospital room. The younger me is sitting in the corner cowering with Lovett against my father's side. This is a month before my car accident but the day after my aunt's. My baby cousin is dead, and my aunt is comatose.

I remember this day with crystal clarity despite not having even thought of Aunt Noemi since my mother died. The memories come rushing back to me. I remember that she'd been on her way home from the hospital, and Noel had just been born, a healthy size and weight with everything functioning perfectly. They'd only been five minutes from home when she had chanced a look at her newborn son for two seconds in the rearview mirror when she missed the stop sign, and her car was struck by a van.

The baby was killed on impact. Aunt Noemi went under and hadn't woken up.

She never woke up.

My mother still hadn't gotten over my grandfather and was always very protective of her younger sister, especially after they found out that she was pregnant. My mother acted like the father my cousin would never have through my aunt's entire pregnancy.

My uncle arrives and wraps his arm around my mother in a comforting and protective gesture. His other arm drapes over their sister's lifeless body. I can't take it anymore! I've watched too much death, grief, and sadness in my life, in this dream, and I can't handle any more. I feel pressure closing in on all sides and leaving me struggling for breath.

"Get me out of here!" I beg. The room and my family and my younger self dissolve into nothingness. I'm surrounded by an impenetrable grey fog that doesn't let me see anything below my waist. It seems endless, and I can barely feel the floor beneath me, as if I'm only standing on the fog.

"What was the point of that?" I demand, my voice shaky and unsteady. My hands tremble by my sides.

'Well, I was bored, and you needed to understand.' The Voice seems to be talking to me through the fog, coming at me from all sides, rather than from inside of my head.

"Understand what?" I ask bitterly.

'You've never been grateful for your gift, a gift many would murder for. You have more power than a regular human. You have the power of a wolf! But you'd rather be a useless, pathetic human. Or worse. I just wanted to show you that perhaps being a werewolf may not be as bad as it seems, especially in light of what will take place only hours from now.'

"What are you talking about?" My voice is still unsteady, but I'm now even more annoyed, and it's very clear.

'Ponder what I've said. But for now, it's time to go.'

"Wait, wha—

The dream dissolves completely, and my eyes flutter open to reveal my prison cell.
* * * * *
I awaken as a soft pink light trickles through the little window, listening as Nox and Ryder say my name repeatedly and increasingly desperately in an attempt to wake me up. I waste no time that I can still talk, forgetting temporarily about the dreams and how they made me feel.

"Nox, alert your sister. Tell her to wait for my signal and copy me exactly three seconds later," I command.

"Got it," he says.

I sigh and focus my energy into transferring a message to my Pack. 'Wait for my signal, I tell them. And then, do what I do.'

I feel surges of anxiety and fear and excitement through the Bond, all of which intensifies as soon as the sun sinks over the mountains, and the Full Moon takes over the sky in it's rightful place as the guardian of Earth and all of it's night creatures. Suddenly, my body begins to shift form. I've never done this in such a confined space, but it feels good to be in a body so natural to me.

My friends and brother are all awaiting my plan in anticipation, and I think about how I got here and what we’re about to do.
* * * * *
The two hours takes longer than I would prefer.

I'm not only confined in my wolf form but I'm also anxious and keep relieving those dreams. All I see is my mother's grief stricken face or my grandfather's headstone or my aunt laying in the hospital bed with tubes sticking out of her while that stupid machine keeps beeping over and over again. All I can think is why that stupid Voice would show it that to me. My nerves are already on edge without seeing my mother again, especially when she was at her lowest points right before her death.

And then I realize something. All of those scenarios were of my mother's family getting sick or hurt or dying. It was never my father because werewolves don't get sick, and we heal when we get into car accidents, and we only die of old age or murder by steel. She showed me those dreams to show what it would mean to be a human like my mother. I'd be in constant danger of being sick or injured like my grandfather or aunt.

But if I was human, steel wouldn't hurt me. My death, if early, would be an accident. These stupid scars wouldn't have happened because no one would be hunting me, and even if they were, I wouldn't have been burned. I would already be healing.

I'm so confused, and my head is pounding. I don't know what I want anymore. I missed out on a whole life because of this curse.

I distractedly sit on the floor, my tail thumping anxiously. I lift my front paw to scratch my ear and notice that on the is the same pattern that's on my human palm, and I huff as I realize that my cheek is probably messed up too.

I stand and anxiously pace my room as I think and await the proper time to come. The pretty dress I wore lays tattered on the floor, and I could care less. I growl quietly as I wait. The moon rises higher in the sky and seems to smile at me with its glow, encouraging me to be patient, telling me that things will work out. The Voice has nothing to say to me tonight, for which I'm grateful because I can't deal with her tonight.

Ryder, being my only Pack mate who knows of the plan, seems especially anxious, almost as much so as I am. He and Nox pace in their rooms beside me, and we all feel completely nerve-wracked. Finally it's time.

After roughly two hours pass, I project the first message I ever have as a wolf—in the wolf form, you may still be somewhat human, but some humane instincts and behavior wear off. Luckily, Projection isn't one of them. 'I'll give a signal. When I do, copy me no matter what happens. I love you guys.'

And then I howl. I howl as loudly as I can for as long as I can manage. And when I can't hold it any longer, I take a breath and keep going.

The house fills with howls, echoing and reverberating off of the walls and sounding everywhere all around me in the wake of the call that I made to initiate this madness. The wolves howl and howl. When they pause for breath, someone else fills the space in a perpetual, unrelenting example of the power of the Pack. If I were in my human form, I'd be laughing my ass off.

Footsteps pound in the corridor, and the anxiety in my stomach strengthens. I wish that I had Ryder in here with me, but this is my time to prove what I can do as Alpha. More footsteps approach. I pause in my incessant howling to listen to a conversation outside between two of the guards.

"I don't know, should we go in?"

"You heard the boss! The second they make noise, they're dead."

"Yeah, but—

"Everybody move in!"

'Everybody get ready!' I tell my Pack. And then they swarm on us and I'm surrounded by tall men with steel guns all aimed at my head.
* * * * *
I think that in everybody's life, there's that one moment of clarity where you make one decision, and then as the plans unfold, you realize it may have been stupid and reckless, and you regret it entirely.

While this plan may be one of the dumbest and most reckless things I have ever done, I have absolutely no regrets as I tuck my tail between my legs and back away slowly, careful not to allow even a spec of fur to touch the cell's walls. There are four men in my room—twice what I'd been counting on, but no more than I can handle. I feign helplessness, giving them wide, pleading eyes along with the stance of a wolf who is backing down from a challenge. My ears fold back flat against my head. They seem to buy it, and although they don't lower their weapons, I see their shoulders relax, just slightly. Big mistake.

I'm on them in a second. I grab the ankle of one of the guards, and hear a shot go off. Coppery blood fills my mouth as the guard goes down, plummeting into the man next to him. At the same time, the shot that he fired off hit the last man in the semi-circle in his lung! He falls to the floor gasping. Three guards incapacitated—one more to go. We circle each other. One of the guards sends off a shot, but I see him in my periphery vision and dodge it. I snarl and go onto my stomach, as low to the floor as I can. The man hovering above me aims his gun at my back, and I launch up at him. Grabbing his neck in my teeth, I claw at his chest and let him go. Two guards dead. One unconscious—the beginnings of the change knocked out the guard I bit. One more to go.

He and I circle each other in the small space. He shoots his gun, but I’m close enough to the floor to roll out of the way; however, I just barely miss a brush in with the wall. This temporary distraction allows the goon to advance, and he almost gets another shot in, but my speed allows me to pounce on him. Before he can pull the trigger, I’m latched onto his ankle. He cries out in pain and falls to the floor, but not before getting a shot off, a shot that goes straight through the window, shattering the glass.

That noise added to this guy’s blood-curdling shriek of agony is killing my ears, and I end his pain, just biting him in the throat and ending his screams, screams that are replaced by gurgles as he chokes on his blood. That soon ends, and I turn my back on the dead man, blood dripping from my fangs.

I emerge from the bedroom with that coppery taste still lingering in my mouth. All of the doors in the hall are open and fights erupt from within. I hear Ryder whimper and cry out next door and immediately run inside, not daring to hesitate. I can feel his pain through the Bond.

He's already dispatched three guards, but he had five while I only had four. One of the guards laughs at him, holding up a gun triumphantly. Blood seeps out of a wound on Ryder's shoulder, and I lose it.

Ignoring logic, I allow the Voice in the back of my head to return and take action, and she wastes no time hesitating. I lean back and allow her to control my body. I watch as she leaps onto the back of the guard who shot Ryder, and drags my claws down either side of his spine. He falls to the ground, moaning in pain. Ryder holds up his bad leg and helps take care of one of the other guards while the Voice in my head controls my motions and drags its puppet across the floor to the last guard who'd watched me turn his partner to spaghetti with a look of horror on his face.

The Voice snarls at him and does to his throat what I did to the guard in my room. She shoves him against the wall with the weight of my body and digs my sharp teeth into his neck. He makes a gurgling sound and sags against the wall, dead. She steps back, blood spattered all over my face.

I now realize the mistake of letting the Voice have control of my head. She wants to maintain that control, and I find myself struggling to take it back and put her back in her place. I temporarily block out the rest of the world as I shove her out.

'NO! This is my head! Get out!'

'You allowed me to take control. Why should I not maintain it?' She responds, almost sounding as though she’s pouting. She also sounds even less shrill than before. She sounds more like me.

'I wanted your skills. If I need you again, I'll let you know. But for now, this is, and will stay, my brain.'

'Wait until you need another favor, bitch.' Despite the commentary, the Voice does leave after only a bit more of a struggle, and I'm able to look at Ryder. He lays curled up on the floor, cradling his injured shoulder. I whimper and lay down beside him with my head near, but not on, his shoulder. I refuse to leave Ryder’s side, but rather remain lying curled against his soft fur and warm body. I lick his wound gingerly, then move closer to his face so that I can rest my cheek against his. He weakly returns the gesture, if only to reassure me. A wound like that doesn’t usually kill—they got him at an odd angle—but being that it was steel, it feels like fire—I would know.

The Voice’s prophecy plays and replays in my head, a never ending mantra that tortures me and tears at my heart. 'One of you will die at his hand.' She can’t have meant Ryder, right? I mean, it was Damien’s men who were commanded by Damien himself to shoot and kill us, but the prophecy clearly said his hand. But does that mean that someone else in the Pack can’t die? It should. She clearly said that it would be Damien. Although, there was more than one man chasing me. How do I know that she wasn’t talking about one of them, and one of them wasn’t the one to shoot Ryder? I look at the man who shot him. He doesn’t look familiar, but I was full of terror and agony the when I last saw the men who brought me here. And they all look so similar with their black suits and buzz cuts, it’s hard to tell the difference.

All I know is that he just can’t die. Ryder cannot die. He just can’t. I snuggle closer to him and whimper, terrified of losing him. He's my best friend.

We lay there for a good 10 minutes before the noises of snarling and struggling die down. Unable to help him, I simply rise and watch Ryder struggle to stand, listening to his sickening whimpers of pain. Finally, we’re able to leave the room. Down the hall by the entrance to the next corridor, Rudi and Zeeva sit on either side of a very exhausted-looking Susanne. On the other side, by the end of the line of doors, Lovett exits the room he was held captive in. Relief floods through me, both my own and his. We race towards each other, meeting half-way and rubbing our wet noses against each others snouts.

Slowly, the others emerge from the other rooms. I do a head count and see that all of my friends have made it out okay, including Nox and his sister.

'Alright,' I say, taking back my Alpha role. 'Let’s get out of here.'

It only now occurs to me that I have no clue how to get out of here. I was in so much pain when Andre carried me up the stairs that I paid no attention. I glance around sheepishly. 'Does anyone know the way?'

'Follow me!' Rudi projects excitedly. 'I know the way.' I walk up so that I’m by her side and allow her to lead us down a few halls that lead to a doorway. We go down several flights of stairs and follow her as she opens a door with her paw down four stories, and we enter a large room. Everyone, including Rudi expresses confusion. We’ve been led into a master bedroom. A king-sized bed dressed with a green suede comforter and white lace pillows sits across from us, centered against the far wall. A door off to our left probably leads into a bathroom. A small sitting area with two love seats and an oak bookcase sit off to our right, and an oak desk with a laptop and books rests to our left in the corner perpendicular to the doors.

And then everyone except Rudi expresses anger.

Damien rests against the bed frame across the room, laughing insanely as he watches us try to register what just happened.

That’s when we realize that Rudi has led us into a trap.