I am Alpha

Chapter Four.

A couple years ago, there was a huge battle ensuing at the Northwest territories at the Callay River. The battle will be known in history books as the Battle of the Burning Valley, due to near 500 houses burning down within 3 neighboring villages. The fire burned for days, spreading village to village, originating from the Torchings of Embrich, a battle strategy made by the infamous "Alpha King Brenigan." A title he bequeathed himself.

Thousands of dead and wounded, soldiers and citizens alike. The Battle went on for 5 weeks and 3 days, and we lost the battle, the North West territory, taken over and managed to holdfast as the New Moon pack claimed the land, though most of it was burnt down at that point.

There was a huge overflow of wounded soldiers. So at the shared border of the Blood Moon pack and the Lupine Pack there was an emergency Refugee camp for the wounded and refugees that lost their homes.

The Alpha was out manning the battlements and taking action to secure his borders. And the Luna was in a different pack, helping organize supplies to be transported to the different allying territories. And Tyberius was probably eating on the toilet somewhere.

So when I heard the guards saying that we had a refugee camp on our lands, I went "to bed early" that night, and snuck out to the camp. It wasn't hard to find, as I knew the lands well, and there were people hauling supplies to it when I caught up and helped pack.

When I got there it was pandemonium. It was painfully disorganized chaos. Tents were up, and there were some cots set up, but I couldn't tell apart the staff from the refugees, everyone that could walk was either pacing aimlessly or looking for a loved one frantically.

Hundred of people, the roar of the crowd was almost as bad as the sound of war itself. Injured people yelling for help, babies screaming, children sobbing. People yelling back and forth and pointing, trying to communicate. Absolute bedlam.

I follow my group into the crowd a bit more before I stopped the guy ahead of me.

"Where are we going?"

"supply hutch in the middle of the tent." he yells, but is muffled by the crowd.

I shake my head. "No we need to get supplies out of this main space, it's too crowded. And we need a location that people can find them."

He nods. The situation took two hours to reorganize. We hauled all of the supplies that were placed hurriedly in piles, and moved them to the outer edges of the camp. From there we were able to set up resource tables, food, water, blankets, med supplies near where the nurses were working on patients.

People were still panicked, but a calm started to roll over the camp gradually. I started walking through the crowd to find folks that needed help.

I stumbled upon a young girl, maybe 9 or 10. I quite literally trip over her feet. She was holding a baby, that looked quite small, no older than a few weeks old, and the baby was screaming, while the girl looked blankly off into the distance. Her face was grimy and dried streaks of salt lines down her pale cheeks.

I tried to get her to talk to me, or let me hold the baby, but she just clutched the babe tighter to her chest.

"Will you come with me?" I asked her, and when she wouldn't answer I told her "Okay I'll be right back, okay"

And I turned back to go get supplies, but she stopped me tugging on my sleeve with a hand painted in mud and soot.

"It was him." She said, eyes still glazed over with shock, but fear now registering in them. Not a little girls terror, but an ancient kind of fear took hold of this little girls face.

"Who?" I asked.

"It was him. Who killed my mom and dad... The one they call the Alpha King. The one that wants all this fighting..." Her eyes brimmed with tears, her face pale, still frozen in it's stupor.

"I watched him kill them. Even though I wasn't supposed to... I was supposed to stay hidden in the barn but I didn't listen. I watched him. He bit my papa's throat and blood came out and he fell to the ground. His canines were out but he was in human form and naked. He left my mama screaming and crying. Then he poured a big jug of liquid on the porch and lit it on fire. I don't know if my mama died because she lost her mate, or because of the fire ." She broke down after that and held the baby even closer to her chest.

A Killer. A War monger. An Alpha King hell bent on domination and power. And Alpha Theris' wants to ally with him? Our own pack was at war with him for nearly 5 years at one point in my life.

Why him?

Especially after these 19 years of the Alpha hell-bent on keeping me safe...

Later that night at the refugee camp; after I had left the girl, Ivy and her little brother, Dennis distraught but taken care of by children's assistance, I moved on to helping the nurses with treating the wounded soldiers. I saw men nearly bit in half, a lot of burn victims screaming in agony, and there was a delay on more opiates which had the Nurses in a frenzy and only treating the worst cases.

By the time it arrived it was nearly dawn. I was joking with one soldier, while dressing his gaping shoulder wound. Helping soothe his pain in any way I could.

A low menacing growl had silenced most the camp almost immediately.

"FAIRE." Alpha Theris half-barked, half-growled my name. I looked up at him standing at the entrance of the tent, holding 8 duffle bags of supplies, sweat and grime coating his usually freckled with melamine, now blood.

My head bowed in apology and I grimaced at the soldier at getting caught. Before I turned around to face him truly, I finished dressing the wound so no one else would have to. And then I turned and walked toward him as the tent commotion started to pick back up, though is aura is powerful enough to cripple them all, he directed it straight at me. l reach him and bowed my head and bared my neck in submission.

His Alpha aura was coming off of him in Ebbs. I could feel it in my bones it was so powerful. I chance a glance up. His face showed nothing but resolute rage.

I bowed my head again, a little lower this time. An apology. Before I know it he's yanking me by the scruff of my tunic, walking fast back toward the Palace, his long strides difficult to keep up with whilst being choked by your own shirt.

"Alpha stop!" I yelled, I'm starting to get angry now.

Surprisingly he did, and just looked at me strangely.

"I just wanted to help. And I did!" I yelled, glaring and rubbing my neck.

"You are under my protection." His face, his voice, his everything went from scolding fire to freezing cold. "You are my charge. You will do as I bid, when I bid it, until the day I die. Do you understand me?" His aura roiling, vibrating the air around us.

I was furious and could swear I was vibrating from my own rage.

"Why? Why am I so special from any other orphan out there?" I point back to where the encampment was.

His eyebrows twitched, but nothing else in his expression changed.

"You are my charge to protect." He said stiffly. Something like dishonesty lingered somewhere under the surface.

...

If Alpha was so hell-bent on keeping me safe, what is his intentions in mating me to our enemy? I thought he might truly care for me somehow, deep down. That the Father-figure I once knew and miss is still in there somewhere.

I thought wrong.

My head was reeling but my face was blank. Or at least as expressionless as I could manage it to be. I could see Jack was trying to read me.

He reached out a comforting arm that I side-stepped from. A hurt look flashed across his face for only a moment, then sympathy replaced it.

I don't want a comforting arm or sympathy. I appreciate the information he gave me but I need to process the information. I felt hot. Suffocatingly hot.

I didn't want to see Jack's pity, so I looked at Xander, whose face looked a little harder than usual.

He made eye contact with me. His eyes are black, and whether it was a trick of the light or not, I got a feeling of strength from Xavier's hard stare. I turned in my spot.

"Okay." I said as I continued walking, this time by myself, leaving Jack to trail behind me with Xavier.

I will have something to discuss with the Alpha.

.