Finding My Alpha

A Sister's Thoughtfulness

Annie and I spent the better part of an hour lost in the memories of our parents and siblings. We cried, laughed and then sat in a comfortable silence. A knock on our door brought us back. The girl on the other side let us know our dresses would arrive within the hour. I made one more attempt to give Annie her memories back, but she declined. I understood her fear of forgetting those we held dear, so I didn’t mind being her memory bank. As an Alpha female I had many abilities that I didn’t put on display, abilities that didn’t need Annie’s additional power. One being my ability to tap into telepathic communications and the other my ability to take away memories. 

I feared what would happen if others found out about these powers and what requests would be made. Even though I had Alpha blood I didn’t hold an Alpha rank, yet. If anyone of a higher rank made the request to wipe out someone’s memory I would be inclined to do so, without first consulting with Alpha Kingsley. Even though I could give the memories back, the implications of such an ability left me ill at ease. I syphoned out Annie’s memories of our family, leaving only the one memory of our mother singing us our lullaby. 

“Do you remember what your dress looked like?” Annie asked as she sat me in a chair in  front of our vanity.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” I replied, cringing at the thought of the sheer blush nightmare momma Misha had picked out.

“Now now, give momma Misha a break. The dress wasn’t that bad and besides it looked amazing on all those curves of yours. So amazing, that momma Misha allowed me to have it altered to better fit our tastes.”

“What do you mean to better fit ‘our’ tastes? Please tell me you didn’t have the seamstress add more ruffles to my bonding dress, I may actually have to kill you.”

“What if it’s something better than ruffles?”

“There is nothing worse than more ruffles and I can’t even imagine what you would consider to be better than ruffles, considering your affection for those goddess awful things,” I could feel my temper rising.

Annie knew how important today was, so her making last minute changes to my dress without telling me was sending me over the edge. I slowly tried to reign my anger in and thought of the wonderful encounter Casey and I had in the meadow. I ignored the second knock at the door and continued to try to calm myself. The voice on the other side of the door belonged to Haylee O'connor, one of the few she-wolves whom I called a friend. 

Before I could get a good listen on what she was saying, a cacophony of static filled my ears. I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the vanity chair and waited for my sister to finish her secret business. I picked at my oval tipped opaque nails and clicked my tongue. My attempts to calm my nerves were failing as my sister did her best to hide her conversation with Haylee. I turned around when I heard the door close. Annie stood there with the goofiest smile on her face while holding a garment bag almost twice her size.

“What. Is. That?” I couldn’t help the bite at each word.

“Now before you freak out, hear me out,” she offered, that stupid smile still on her face.

“I’m listening.”

“So, I know when we started planning this ceremony last year you agreed to do things according to the Evermoon pack’s traditions….”

“Yes, and?”

“Well, I thought it over and I said to myself to hell with Evermoon traditions, we’re Ahroun werewolves and we should at least honor our own tradition of having the bound-to-be perform the goddess warrior dance. So I went to Alpha Kingsley and told him that the only way you would go through with the ceremony was if he allowed us to honor Ahroun tradition.”

“What did he say?”

Annie smiled sheepishly as she pushed the large white garment bag into my lap. I instantly caught a whiff of Casey’s scent. My eyes widened as I unzipped the bag and his scent engulfed me. The sheer chiffon blush bonding dress was void of all ruffles. Originally, the dress had several rows of ruffles along the trim of the sleeves, hem and collar.  In their place was soft puffy grey-ish brown fur. Casey’s wolf fur. I stroked the soft hairs before removing the dress from the bag. Annie gingerly gathered the dress from my arms and draped it over her dress form mannequin. 

The light weight dress fell in soft waves around the mannequin's base and Annie took her time fluffing it out fully. The circular sleeves extended almost to the floor and the extra long train fanned out wide. As was the same for all packs the soon to be bonded pair wore close to nothing the night of their bonding ceremony as they were both expected to shift immediately after and take their first run as mates for life. I fought back tears as I admired the gift my sister had bestowed upon me. I noticed that something was missing. In the shop the entire front of the dress opened up like a robe and an extra wide satin ribbon was used to close it up. 

“I also asked the seamstress to make this for you,” Annie said from behind me.