Taking Down the Alpha King

Purpose

“I CAN'T BELIEVE she asked what your name was.” Ben hadn’t stopped whispering those words that day. I felt like a god among men because she had paid attention to me. I even felt lucky.

Scoffing at the yup of a pup I had been, my eyes went blazing as I watched her walk across the camp. Her long hair was swishing carefree as she moved. “Reule.” I could feel the snarl on my lips. This new body was hard to control. Every emotion was magnified across the spectrum by a hundred-fold, and the transformation that came with each spike of testosterone made it tricky to hide. I could feel my canines extending as the heat of anger bubbled through me.

“Put yer fangs away!” Harry chided from my side. “She’s got her work to do just like you’ve got yours.”

The anger that was thrashing my insides didn’t quell. “She’s that monster’s daughter.” It was second-hand rage, really. I hated him, and by default I was determined to hate her. That princess hadn’t done me any favors, that was for sure.

“She had nothing to do with your turning.”

There was something in Harry’s voice that made me stop and turn my attention to him. This whole situation was so far out of my ordinary, I needed him to explain everything to me like I was five. “What do you mean? Sometimes she picks people?”

“Gracious, no.” Harry muttered. “I just meant her picking you out at school because of your knowledge of the woods.” His hands were busy picking apart different scrapings of moss, so he didn’t see the way my body went stiff.

“My knowledge of the woods?” It was all becoming clearer now. That’s what those thoughts had been referencing…

For about two months, Reule had made it her mission to seek me out at school. She would sit with me at lunch, and act interested in different uninteresting things. She would ask questions about the woods, and different migration patterns here and if I had ever noticed odd things happening that I couldn’t explain. I told her everything I knew, because I had wanted her to think that I was cool.

She had even asked me to go hiking with her, and Ben had been sure it was because she’d had a crush on me.

Oh, how wrong he’d been.

I had to find out the hard way that she was Rowland Black’s daughter the day after I’d turned. To make matters worse, she didn’t even seem to care. When I’d seen her first prance across the snow, I thought I’d found a friend during the chaos. But she was feet in front of me when I was smacked with the weight of her mind.

It was like everything that she had ever thought came railing out of her mind and planted itself inside of mine for me to examine and experience over and over again. Even things like her first impression of me, or when she’d mentally thrown up when I’d tried to touch her hand… it was all there. How she mused humans to be the degraded versions of animals.

“She went through all of that to get to these stupid fairies.” I grumbled. We’d been digging for days. We’d plowed through layers of snow and ice to reach what Harry called “the-middle-ground.” If I hadn’t been so disgusted by my new life, I’d probably have thought our discovery was pretty cool.

When we’d scooped the last bit of earth away from our target, underneath we’d discovered a miniature kingdom. It looked like dollhouses you would see in books; all the little houses and castles were neatly carved into the roots of trees and the ground had been glowing gold. I could tell from the thoughts of the wolves around me that we’d found a motherload of fairies. They were rich with dust, meaning that they would produce even after being milked. Harry said they would try to save as many of their kind as they could to keep breeding them.

“Yeah, she’s got a rough lot in life.” Harry’s voice almost sounded sad.

“No rougher than mine.” There was a bitterness that had been growing and festering inside of me. I hadn’t seen my dog or my dad in months. Really, I didn’t know if my dad was alive.

I had no idea if Ben was looking for me. I didn’t even know how I was going to graduate from school now. Everything was messed up, and it was all their fault.

“Oh, you’ll come to like it. You’ll see.” Harry twisted a smile. “You’re strong, and that helps. Ye can mind-link, which means you’re powerful. Ye haven’t discovered half of yer abilities yet. Some of them come with age, ye know.” The spectacles perched on the end of his nose bobbed with every word.

“You mean there’s more that I’ll have to learn?” I groaned. I had barely been able to do the exercises that helped cut out the thoughts of others when I needed a break. I had broken every item I’d touched the past few weeks as my strength kept increasing. “Harry,” I moaned, my head swinging low between my shoulders.

“Yer useful to our master, and that’s good enough for now. Understand?” I didn’t want to, but my mind couldn’t help but sift through his thoughts as he spoke the words.

“What do you mean one day I’ll be able to set us free?” As soon as the last words came out of my mouth, Harry’s hand came to clap my trap.

“Shut yer mouth, boyyo!” He sounded desperate for silence. Slowly leading us away from our workstation where idle ears might pick up on our conversation, he sat me to the ground. His mouth never moved, but his thoughts were clear and concise. There was a prophecy that claimed an unborn lad would come from the land of desolation and would rise against the dark forces to set a captive world free.

I blinked a few times, not completely catching what he was implying. Pointing at my chest, he nodded his head. When ye shifted, and made it through without dying, I took that as the first sign. Every human that undergoes the process has to face death and come back through it. That’s the curse o’ the wolf. But when I saw the sign that formed across yer cheek in the heat of the fever, that’s when I knew.

My hand came to touch my own cheek, a question filling my eyes.

It’ll show the first time you shift under the full moon. Rowland has put me in charge of you for a reason. If my predictions are correct, you’ll be the most powerful weapon that the wolf world has seen in a thousand years. I should know. I’ll be eight-hundred and thirty-nine on me birthday this year.

I shook my head, not really buying into the poppycock. Squinting my eyes against the blare of the sun that was shining off the snow, I looked back across the empty field. “I don’t believe that. Not a word of it.” Picking up a clump of snow, I rubbed it onto my bare shoulder.

Ye won’t have to. It’ll happen, and then ye’ll come asking me for pointers. Harry laughed out loud at himself.

“What would make me so different? I was born human, right? So doesn’t that mean I’m a mutt? I hear that word thrown around enough to know people are talking about me.” I didn’t want to also say that’s what they all called me in their minds. Even Reule. She was the worst sometimes.

Harry’s shoulders shrugged as his fur-covered legs crossed in front of him. “That is a mystery, boyyo. But in all my years, I’ve never seen what I saw on the likes of you as ye went through that process. Many men stronger than you faced that burning death and didn’t pull through. But for some reason,” he smiled at me. “Ye did.”

“Now,” he said standing to his feet. “Do your practices to bury that information. I’ve been trying to keep that hid for weeks now, and I don’t want your unlocked mind to ruin everything I’ve been wishing for. Do as yer told. Help an old man back to his work.”

I helped Harry back to our table. Our hands were busy again picking through moss as my mind wandered. From the time I was little, I’d felt that I’d been born with a purpose…but never in a million years would I have thought that this was for what I was born.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Did you see that boy? What was his name…Logan?” Dremelda asked from her spot in the kitchen. She was descaling a pile of fish that we were to prepare for dinner.

“What about him?” The whole camp had been buzzing about him. He was strong, he was a mind linker… yuck. He was also a mutt.

“He’s pretty handsome, don’t you think?” She raised a brow in my direction. “And isn’t he your age?”

Heaving an irritated sigh, I dropped the knife I had been holding. “OK. Spit it out. Do you want me to ask him if he’s interested in you?”

Dremelda chuckled from where she stood. “Oh, no. But I have seen how he looks at you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone your own age to talk to?”

I knew it was her job to show motherly concern, but she couldn’t be further from the mark on this one. “I think I’ll manage just fine as I am, thank you.”

“He’s so handsome,” she droned on. “I haven’t seen a transformation quite like that in a long time.” Her tone took a dreamy shift, her eyes wandering to a far-off place. Gross.

“Really?” I baited her. “What other handsome victim can you recall?”

“Oh, years ago there was a man that shifted named Geoffrey. I thought maybe he would be the goddess’ reward to me for loyal service, since I’d been so kind to him in his early days… but when the moon ceremony came and went, he ended up with another. And I was still alone.” A small laugh huffed from her lips. “I guess you could say I pined after him for quite a while.”

“Does the moon goddess not always give a mate?”

“Some of us are better suited to serve in other ways.” She returned to her tasks, effectively ending the conversation, but I wasn’t quite done.

“Is it because you shape shift?” Shapeshifters were powerful but were also the result of recessive genes. It was assumed that if you were a shape shifter, you were also sterile.

She hesitated before answering. “I’ve wondered that from time to time. But if you remember, my mother was a shapeshifter as well. Anyways,” she turned her back to me. “It was just a suggestion.”

“It’s only a few months until I participate in the moon ceremony. I hope I don’t receive a mate.” I wasn’t kidding either. I’d spent enough time being one man’s property. I did not want to waste the rest of my life being another’s.

“Be careful what you wish for, Reule.” Dremelda scolded. “If you don’t receive one, that leaves ample opportunity for your father to trade you off in an unsavory match.”

Rolling my eyes, I picked the bones from a fish. “I’ll just fluff him full of dopamine. I’m not worried.”

But in the back of my mind, I knew she was right. If I didn’t receive a mate in the moon ceremony, I was determined to never come back here.