Fated to the Alpha

7

Brandon

Upholding the responsibilities of being an alpha was the least of my worries. I had been preparing for these all my life. Every wolf worth his salt does. The Creed of the Wolf swore by rigorous training that started when the child was barely five years old. Every member of the pack was taught the secrets of the creed. From tracking wild animals to picking up the trail of rival wolves, from fending off enemy attacks to engaging in lethal combat—everything that I knew today came from thirteen years of constant practice.

When I was made alpha, I took an oath to protect my pack, to hunt only those who deserve being hunted, and to treat innocents with respect. In the one week that I had been alpha, I had conducted several prowls with my fellow wolves along our territories. I’d scouted for rival packs. I’d warned others of signs of the DOPC. Ah, yes, the DOPC.

They were a worry, but still not the foremost worry on my mind.

I was completely flabbergasted by the way Alice had behaved in the cave. One moment we’re kissing and the next moment she’s on the floor, writhing and screaming, her nose leaking blood, her eyes streaming tears. And the way that she behaved with me afterward … what the hell was that all about?

She didn’t come to school for an entire week.

When I went by her house, her younger sister opened the door twice, telling me that Alice wasn’t home. The third time I went by her place, her mother opened the door. She was a formidable, scary woman who towered nearly as tall as me. She looked me in the eyes, cold as a crypt, and told me that I was never to come here again unless I wanted a restraining order on my ass.

I’m not sure she knew how restraining orders worked. One doesn’t get them on their ass.

Still, I had taken the hint and had stayed away from her house. I visited the diner once or twice to see if she was there. The new manager told me that Alice had handed in her resignation already.

What the hell was going on?

The only thing that made sense to me was that she had some sort of mental breakdown in that cove. That could be the only explanation for what had happened.

Ancient folklore tells of wolves whose fated mates reject them. The rejected wolves suffer from heartache so terrible that they wither and die. While those folktales might be slightly exaggerated by the elders of the pack, there was some truth to them. I did not feel like eating food anymore. Turning into a wolf, which was otherwise one of the most amazing feelings in the entire world, felt bland and disgusting. I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to drink, and I didn’t want to play football.

The only thing that I cared about was Alice. The longer I stayed away from her, the more it hurt. I guess there was some merit to those folktales after all. The pain I felt in my heart was more than just the Macbethian sort of pain. It was a physical pain that nothing else dispelled.

It was why I was planted in the tall birch in Alice’s backyard at seven in the evening right now. After five days of observation, I had learned the patterns of her mother and younger sister. I didn’t want them to think that I was lurking around. I needed a one-to-one with Alice. Her mother left for the gym at six-thirty and came home at seven-thirty. Her younger sister went with her friends from school to band practice, whatever the hell that was, at roughly the same time.

I could see Alice in the window, combing her hair, looking distraught. It was killing me to find out why she had rejected me.

As I watched Elma leave the house in her friend’s mom’s minivan, I leaped out of the tree and landed on the roof of the house. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to make that tall a leap. I wasn’t ashamed that I had used my wolf strength to make that jump.

I lowered myself onto the roof in front of her window and knocked on the window. Alice’s back was turned to the window. The second I knocked, she jumped so hard that she crashed into the door.

“Holy s**t!” she squealed, her hands on her face. “What the hell, man? What is your problem?”

“You are my problem, Alice Hawkins!” I said, thoroughly vexed. “Why haven’t you come to school this week? Why are you avoiding me? What terrible mistake did I make to warrant this behavior?”

Alice came to the window and pulled it up.

“May I?”

“What are you, a vampire?”

“It’s manners.”

“You should have thought of that before scaring the bejesus out of me like that!”

I stepped into her room and was suddenly overcome by the many scents that I had associated with Alice. The fragrance of lavender lotion, the sweet musky smell of her perfume, and a slight tinge of sweat. The air inside her room was rank with the stench of smoke and dewberries.

“Did you burn sage in here? It’s intoxicating,” I said, holding back the urge to cough.

“I’ve been getting rid of bad vibes. But it seems they have a way of following me,” she said dryly, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, you mean me?”

“Yes, you! What is this behavior?”

I took a deep breath. She was aggravated, of course, she was. She deserved an explanation. “Listen. That day in the cove when we were making out. I don’t know what happened to you. I was never given an explanation. Could you please tell me what happened? I’ve been caught in a whirlwind of emotions, trying to make sense of what occurred.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Brandon. There are some things that you don’t know, things that I can’t talk about so easily,” she said.

“There are things you don’t know either!”

“Like what?!”

“Like how I’m in love with you, you weirdo.” Saying that out loud finally felt so good, it was like unloading a burden that had been strapped to my chest. “And I haven’t gotten the chance to say that to you. I haven’t been able to tell you that you are my fated mate. I felt it in my bones the first time we met. That day when we kissed, every fiber of my being confirmed that suspicion. You, Alice, are my fated mate.”

Alice’s face went from aghast to bewildered, her eyelashes quivering, her lips twitching. “First of all, you love me? Secondly, what does fated mate even mean? Am I supposed to know what that is? Who falls in love with someone a week after knowing them?”

“It’s a wolf thing,” I said. “And if you let me explain, I can talk about it.”

“Fine. But you won’t like what I have to say,” she said.

“There is little choice when it comes to becoming someone’s fated mate. I didn’t choose you. You didn’t pick me out of a crowd or something. Yet, when we met, Providence entwined our destinies together. That’s why I said that you might be a wolf too because only another wolf can be a wolf’s fated mate. It’s all too much and too confusing, I know, but please, I am asking that you have a little bit of faith. In me. In us,” I said.

Alice sighed. “Brandon, you’re a good guy. You are. If things were different, I would even humor this whole fated mate thing and see where it goes. However, I have a thing. It’s more of a condition. I can—and I know it sounds cuckoo—see the future sometimes. It happens in the form of a vision. That day in the cove, I had a vision of you dying.”