Chapter One: Aiden

1729 Words
. . . . . . (late June) My name is Aiden, and I live a charmed life. I'm the first one to admit it. I've always been the baby, the spoiled child, the unexpected gift the Moon Goddess chose to give my parents after they passed control of the pack to my older brother and his mate. Hell, my nephew, Derek, is two years older than I am. My brother wasted no time starting a family after he found his mate. Derek and I were raised like we were brothers. I was six when it was finally explained to us that I was Alpha David's brother, not his son. It sure explained why Gramma Becca spoiled me more than Derek. I didn't understand why everyone was making a big deal about it until Grampa Jake explained that since I was actually his son, I outranked Derek in the pack, and that if anything happened to Alpha David, my brother, I would be expected to challenge Derek for the Alpha position in the pack. I spent months in a fog of guilt while Derek refused to talk to me. I didn't want to take the pack from my brother. Well, nephew, but as far as I was concerned, he was my older brother, and it was not a stretch to say I hero worshipped him. I was six and a half, Derek was almost nine and a god to me. I managed to wallow and fret myself into getting sick in those months. Really sick, enough that the pack doctor put the fear of the Goddess back into our parents for not noticing my condition sooner. Not many wolves will willingly challenge an Alpha. Taking on two at the same time, alongside both of their Lunas, would be suicide. Unless you were Gigi. Gigi had been pack's doctor for as long as anyone could remember. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, Gigi was a teeny little granny, perfectly plump cheeks to match her super petite little round body, a jar of cookies on her desk for anyone that stops by the infirmary, and her thin, cloudy white hair permed into an impeccable granny afro. It's that final tenth of a percent that reminds you that looks can be deceiving and that she was still a werewolf. The day she kicked down the door to the Alpha's office was legendary. You didn't have to be a werewolf to be able to hear the furious tirade she launched into. Pack members on the training grounds half a mile away stopped to listen to the miniature she-wolf flay the four strongest wolves in the pack, half impressed with her colorful vocabulary, and all of them glad they were not on the receiving end of her rage. No one is really sure what Gigi's lineage actually is. She probably should have joined the Elders ages ago, but insists that she 'has better things to do'. I actually think I was the only pack member that didn't get to experience Typhoon Gigi. I was in the infirmary where she'd left me after finding me in the woods, unconscious and burning with a dangerous fever. I hadn't eaten in days and had been hiding in a small cave where the pack couldn't see me cry. Alphas aren't supposed to be weak crybabies, so I hid myself in shame and managed to catch pneumonia. I didn't even know werewolves could get pneumonia, our healing is generally enough to keep us healthy, but I managed. I'm told I spent two days in the infirmary, delirious with fever and coughing hard enough to fracture a rib. I gotta say, nothing is more confusing to a six-year-old than crying oneself to sleep in a cave and waking up in a pristine infirmary with your ribs taped up, feeling like you went through a taffy puller. The worst part was the silence. I was sure I was dead. They told me later they were just afraid to draw Gigi's attention until I woke up. I became aware of a cool cloth resting across my eyes and it was moving my arm to pull it off that brought my cracked rib to my attention. My whimper triggered a maelstrom of noise and activity around me, and my curiosity got the better of me, even as weak as I felt. My eyes felt sticky, so I tried to pay attention to their voices, but my head ached, and I gave up pretty quickly. I felt a warm hand cover mine and I struggled to get my eyes to focus. "I'm sorry, Aiden." Derek's whisper caused a wave of emotion and fresh tears welled up in my eyes. "I-i'm s-soo s-s-sorry, D-der-r-rek!" My wail made everyone in the room freeze. The alarm on the heart monitor began a running complaint with a sudden spike in my heart rate. "I-i-i-i d-d-do-on't w-w-wa-" The room was crowded by the time I could tame my sobs enough to be coherent. "I-i don't w-want to be A-alpha!" My heartbroken cry was met with dumbfounded silence. After all, what werewolf of Alpha breeding WOULDN'T want to lead a pack? I clung to Derek's hand, not caring if it hurt my rib in the process. "I s-swear I will n-never challenge you as Alpha!" I scrubbed my hand across my eyes, trying to stop the tears. "Aiden..." Alpha David's voice was soft. "Aiden, you can't make a decision like that, you're still too young." "NO!" My panicked shout brought a raised eyebrow out of Gigi, and she helped me sit up when I began to struggle. I threw my skinny little arms around Derek's neck. "Derek is gonna be River Talon Alpha, I just want to be his brother!" My rib complained sharply when Derek's arms came up and crushed me into a hug, but I didn't care. I passed out before anyone could even reply, my outburst using up what little energy I had. Weeks later, when I fully recovered, Alpha Jake asked me why I didn't want to be the pack's Alpha. He took his time and stayed calm while my six-year-old brain tried to figure out how to explain that I was happy before. When I was Derek's brother, not his uncle, when Alpha David was my dad and not my brother. That I was happy being the 'spare', the back-up plan. I was in first grade for crying out loud. I liked going to the alpha classes with Derek, but I had thought it was just so I could help him when he took over, and that I wanted it that way. I didn't want to be the leader. Someone would bring it up every few months. I got better at explaining myself, and eventually the subject was dropped for good. We got older, Derek joined the football team and won the quarterback position his freshman year. Girls fawned over him, his thick, wavy chocolate hair, broad shoulders, eyes so light blue they were almost white. Every inch of him was stamped with pure alpha strength and a calm, level head that earned him the respect of his future pack with ease. Where Derek grew up to be the ultimate Roman god, I grew up slender and PRETTY. I resented it for years, I was prettier than some of the she-wolves in our pack. How was anyone going to take me seriously as a warrior when my hair could be described as a 'platinum waterfall of silk'? My eyes were the same green as new leaves on a spring tree, my skin looked like it was actually made from warm sunlight. When Derek turned sixteen and his wolf awakened, a breathtaking beast with thick, dark chocolate fur, the pack partied for a week. When he found Marie at school the day after her birthday, the pack went nuts for their future Luna. I did everything I could to support Derek. I even joined the football team during my freshman year so Derek could give me the quarterback position and he could focus on his last two years of school. I managed to hit a growth spurt right before my sixteenth birthday, dramatic enough that everyone joked that the Moon Goddess brought me my shoulders the same time she brought me my wolf. She also brought me another half a foot in height and about seventy-five pounds of muscle. Derek started laying bets with his best friend, and future Beta, Mike, about which she-wolf in the pack was going to be my 'Viking plunder', much to the disapproval of their mates. It worried me a little when I didn't find my mate right away the way Derek did, but my wolf Rhys never seemed overly put out about it. He was a pretty chill wolf, considering we were alpha blood, he seemed just as content to allow Derek to be Alpha as I was. I dated a couple of human cheerleaders for a while, never particularly seriously. Rhys liked to point out that they were not our mates, and thus I should keep it casual so as not to hurt the girls if I did find my mate. Couldn't really argue with that logic, so I always dated with extremely strict rules about emotional attachment and just played the field. The she-wolves in the pack quickly picked up on my habit and seemed to make it a personal goal to find my mate for me by the end of my senior year. I'm pretty sure I met every she-wolf they could convince to visit our territory within a hundred miles before I graduated, still mate-less, to their vast disappointment. Any time I questioned it, my wolf just replied that the Goddess would bring us our mate when she felt it was right, usually followed by him yawning boredly. Then Alpha Jake got sick, and everyone forgot about my lack of mate for a few weeks while he recovered, or so I thought. I should have known better when Luna Marie cornered me with eyes full of mischief after going out to watch a movie with a group of the pack's she-wolves. I couldn't remember which movie, something to do with magic. I wasn't invited, so I didn't pay much attention. "You should be a stripper." Oh, THAT magic movie. . . . . . .
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