The Alpha Mercenary

The Betrayal

Adair

1988

“Please don’t kill him!” My mother pleaded with tear stained eyes to Asher, our pack leader for my life. There Asher stood larger than life ready to deliver his punishment. It was an image that would forever haunt me. Blood was trickling down my mothers lip dripping onto her shirt. Her blue eyes were filled with fear for her only sons life. It felt like a terror, an out of body experience to me as a young child. I could not summon even an ounce of courage to try and protect my mother from Asher.

He stared at me intensely mulling over the idea of showing mercy or being merciless. One of which came very easy to him. He did not have a good reputation for second chances. He was a rigid Alpha with cold eyes. I already knew what he would do. A warm stream ran down my leg against my will and I tried to cross my legs to conceal my fear. I was seven and plenty old enough to control my bladder. That is unless my parents or my life was being threatened I guess. No one noticed of course because in the scheme of things it really didn’t matter.

“Did you seriously think for one minute you could get away with helping our daughter escape to Teron’s pack? I don’t care who her mate is; Natalia belongs with us and would have been perfectly fine and now she is dead to us because of you. You have the audacity to ask if your son can live? Why should I let your insignificant son live? What purpose is his life?” Teron growled fiercely with anger.

With those words my parents' lives were ended with one whirling blow of his Alpha sword. I saw their blood rush out like oozing lava on the floor. Tiny bright star glittered in front of my eyes, no, I would not pass out! Not waiting another second, I ran as fast as I could through the woods, my mind was racing. I ran faster my bare feet pounding on the ground, with every step trying to preserve my life. I didn’t hear anyone following me but I kept the pace anyway. I dashed through the dark forest over rocks and under branches. I knew the forest in the daytime but at night everything looked foreign. I had always been unusually fast and light on my feet. Nothing good could come of stopping so I didn’t dare stop no matter how much my lungs burned or my legs throbbed. I thought I heard someone but it must have been a deer.

I knew even at seven years old the power one’s mate had over them. A werewolf could not contain their need to be with their mate. My parents were noble and kind for helping Teron’s daughter but it had cost them their lives and me my parents. Against all odds, Natalia had met Teron’s son Agar in the forest while hunting one day. Both of them had wandered outside of their territory by accident. Some would say it was fate. When Natalia had came to my parents for help escaping and safe passage to Agar, they were not sure what to do. My Dad was the pack Beta so Natalia took a great risk asking. My parents were known for their love for each other. Natalia must have chosen them for that reason. It worked.I remembered my parents discussing incessantly and discretely for over a week, going back and forth over how to handle the situation. Ultimately they couldn’t imagine living life without their mate so they knew what they must do. Why would they do that to me though? I didn’t want them to leave me alone.

As I ran further into the woods, I did not hear anyone following me but what would it have mattered anyway? The more important thing that I knew was a lone werewolf was a dead werewolf. With this certain thought I stopped running, dropped to my knees and sobbed until I fell asleep dreaming of sitting in my moms lap playing with her long blonde hair as she sang to me. At least I got one more precious night with my mom even if it was only in my dreams.

I could feel someone shaking me awake. Pulling me from my mothers lap. I did not want to go.“ Wake up Adair come with me. Let’s go!” I awoke to a familiar boy's voice and I arose rubbing my blood shot eyes. He looked as bad as I felt. It was Abe, an older boy from our pack. “ What are you doing here?” I was surprised. He just started pulling me through the woods further away from our home, well our former home. He was not running but he was definitely walking with purpose. He was hurting my arm but I wasn’t strong enough to pull against him and I wasn’t in sync with his steps enough to keep up.

After about 20 minutes of this fast trudge through the woods he stopped near a stream. We had arrived at a shelter he had made of heavy branches, twigs, leaves, moss, and existing trees. It was impressive considering he had never built anything like this before. He must have worked on it by moonlight last night. He had hollowed out part of the tree with a hatchet he had and it made the space roomy enough for the both of us. He had chosen a location next to a water source which was also very smart. We would need much more to survive but this was the start. I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

Looking at the shelter Abe explained,“My parents helped Teron’s daughter too, they provided the distraction while your parents led her to him.” His eyes blinked several times quickly as he turned around. He didn’t need to say anymore. I knew that we were both now orphaned. We lost our parents but gained a brother. We became brothers that day.

2021

Werewolves have been forced to live deep in the hidden forest. There are not many of us left alive. There are only 5 tribes left that I know of. Our kind was dying out due to humans killing us out of fear or mating us out of love. Either way it was not working for our species so we found a way to only use the human world when we needed it. It was safer that way. If werewolves lived in a part of the forest and humans started showing up too often a witch could cast a conceal spell over all the territory and it would repel the humans. Witches and werewolves worked together frequently. The trick was finding a good one you could trust.

Abe and I became our own pack per say. Since he was older he was everything to me. At times he was my brother, other times my father, and my friend. It is amazing how we learned to survive on our own over the years without a pack or Alpha. We lived well under the radar by hiding and providing for ourselves.

Some do not realize how little you need to just survive. Finding food was easy enough, we were both great hunters. He was skilled with the bow and arrow, and I with the hatchet. Anytime we needed medicine or extra food, one of us would provide a distraction while the other stole from the human world. This was very seldom though. The human world made me nervous. We were a great team.

When we grew to be men, we became the greatest of Were’s. If we would have been in a pack, it’s hard to tell who, but one of us would be the Alpha and the other Beta. How do I know this? The packs and magical world would hire us for jobs that no one else was capable of doing.. Abe stood tall and muscular at 6’2 with dark brown hair and tan skin. He had lean muscle. I grew to be larger than him at 6’5. We were the strongest and most ruthless werewolves around. We had to be in order to survive. It didn’t take long for the magical world to start requesting our help. With no attachments or belongings it was easy to take any job no matter how big or small. Every job was a success and our skills improved with every job. That is how we have gotten this far today. We are revered werewolf mercenaries in the forest. Werewolves had long forgotten about the two boys who ran away years ago. But now everyone in the forest knew of the grown men who were ready to take on the magical world. Maybe now we were ready to take on the human world too. I hope so because that is where this next job was taking us. It was a risk but Abe and I talked about extensively. He is pumped, I’m cautious. This was the job to end all jobs for us.