The Alpha's Fallen Angel

This was a nightmare. This wasn’t happening. “I’m sorry Angel, I swear I couldn’t have known this was going to happen. You have to believe me.” Each pleading word that left his mouth was another strike of the knife of betrayal to my heart. To my soul. Pain blossomed in my chest, racing through my system and leaving my nerves numb in its place. Warmth spread through my fingertips, and I blinked down to see his fingers curling around mine. “Angel, say something, please.” Jacob begged me, squeezing my hands tighter as he tried to get me to meet his gaze. “I…” I attempted to answer, but I was at a loss for what to say. What did one say in this situation? Jacob and I had been inseparable since we were children, dating since middle school, and as of last year we’d been engaged and planning our wedding and accession ceremony. We’d planned our entire lives out, together. Every aspect of our future had held the other in it, we had been so sure we were mates. So sure that we were destined, that we’d planned our wedding day for our twenty-first birthday, the day the moon goddess sees fit to allow you to find your mate. And yes, in a strange twist of fate, we shared a birthday. A coincidence, my mother claimed, while I knew it was another sign we were destined. Or at least, I’d believed. The image had been beautiful in my head. Walking down the aisle, seeing him for the first time standing beside my father at the altar, tears in his eyes as Alcheman, his wolf, cried out in his mind that I was his mate. Knowing that the universe had declared us as one. We’d even discussed what would happen if, by some crazy chance, we weren’t destined mates. Jacob had said he didn’t care, and I’d agreed, mates or not, we loved each other more than anything else in this world, we would marry and bind our lives together, completing one another. We were all we needed, all we wanted. I’d believed in it, in him, in us, so much that I wasn’t nervous as I dressed this morning. Watching in the mirror as my mother and best friends stood around me, fussing over my hair and make-up, declaring me the most beautiful bride they’d ever encountered. How lucky Jacob was to get not only a woman as beautiful as me, but an Alpha at that. Yes, as shocking as it may seem, I’m an Alpha wolf. I’m also next in line to inherit my pack. Jacob was the son of one of the packhouse Omega’s, and as an Omega himself, our paring was a bit odd, though not unheard of. Even my father had blessed the unison, seeing as how I was more than powerful enough in my own right to protect our people. Between my father’s Alpha blood and my mothers Angelic heritage, I was a force to be reckoned with, and my parents had voiced many times I would require a submissive man as my mate, or we’d be butting heads constantly. But none of that had happened. When I’d walked down the aisle, my gaze looking for Jacob across the lawn, it wasn’t his tear-filled eyes I met, it wasn’t his handsome face split into an ear to ear grin at his luck of having such a beautiful bride. No, it was to the shocked faces of the guests as my father held my fiancée off the ground growling in his face, my best friend and maid of honor, Lidia, on the ground crying for her Alpha to please release her mate. Jacob had found his mate, and it wasn’t me, it was the girl who just ten minutes before had been kissing my cheek and telling me how perfect me and him were together. Upon seeing me, frozen in place in the middle of the aisle, my father dropped my fiancée and stared at me with a mixture of regret and sadness. My fiancée watched me with guilt as Lidia threw her arms around him and cried into his shoulder. He didn’t have to say the words, I could see it in his eyes. He was choosing his mate, Lidia, my maid of honor. I was being left at the altar. I felt nothing as I pivoted in place and walked back down the aisle, throwing the bouquet toward the guests sitting and watching the spectacle play out. Numb would be the best way to explain the lack of emotion I was feeling as I moved back up the aisle to the pack house, head high, shoulders and back straight, refusing to show even a smidge of pain. Jacob had run after me, and here we sat, in my room, behind closed doors as he begged me to understand why he couldn’t reject her. Did I want him to reject her? No, of course not. Jacob and Lidia had been my best friends since we were all small children. I’d never wish either of them the pain of rejection. But in their happiness, the future I’d planned was gone. In the blink of an eye. “Angel? Are you alright?” Jacob’s soft words, filled with worry, brought me out of my musings and back to the present. This was no one’s fault. There was no enemy. There was nothing to be righted. It just was. They would be together and live their life happily ever after. And I would be forced to watch. “I’m fine Jacob, it was just unexpected.” My words were much calmer than I’d expected and filled with a strength I was far from feeling. “You and Lidia deserve each other. You were made for each other. I just need to process everything, okay? Go to her, she must be a blubbering mess over all of this. I’ll be fine, promise.” “Angel, I-.” “Don’t, Jacob, I mean it, I’m fine. Go to her, I know you want to.” Leaning forward I brushed my fingers along his cheek and gently pushed his shaggy auburn hair behind his ear. Forcing a smile, I stared into his hazel eyes and squeezed his shoulder gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong Jacob, but I know you feel guilty, so I want you to know I forgive you. Now go, that’s an order.” With a nod, my now ex-fiancée stood from kneeling before me and left the room. Leaving me all alone, wrapped in a skintight white satin gown with a veil so long I’d tripped on it rushing up the stairs. “I told you he was a bad idea.” Midnight, my wolf, spoke up for the first time that day. She’d been giving me the silent treatment all week. After a year of trying to convince me not to get too attached to Jacob. She’d repeated over and over that getting attached before we knew who our mate was had been a terrible idea, but she’d been too late. By the time I’d gotten my wolf at eighteen my heart had well and truly been Jacobs. “Shut it, Midnight, the last thing I want to hear right now is ‘I told you so’.” I growled back, snatching the veil and attached tiara from my head and tossing them on the bed. My hair pulled with it, but the sting was welcome. It was nice to feel something other than the numbness that had settled into my soul and the pain that was pulsating through my heart. “You should have just slept with him and gotten him out of your system.” She continued indignantly. “Though what you see in him is beyond me. He’s weak and pathetic, which is just more painfully clear with the way he was begging and groveling just now.” “I said shut it, Midnight, if I want your opinion I’ll ask. Don’t make me block you out, you know I don’t like doing it.” Throwing myself onto the bench in front of my vanity, I started snatching pins out of my hair, letting the perfectly curled mass of mahogany locks fall around me. When every pin was discarded on the vanity, I stared at my reflection while I contemplated what my next move would be. Absently, I was proud that my make-up was still in perfect order, not a tear had been shed from my big honey brown eyes. “I say we exchange this white gown for that red party dress in your closet that matches your lipstick, and we head for a bar to drink and dance.” Midnight whispered into my thoughts. I was tempted to push her back, to throw up a mental block like I’d threatened, but her suggestion was a temptation I didn’t want to fight. Going out would get me away from here, far from my parents and everyone else who would be asking me constantly if I was okay. I wasn’t ready to talk. I wasn’t ready to discuss what we did moving forward. I needed booze, lots of them, and some good music I could get lost in. Hell, maybe an attractive man to get drowned in for the night. I’d been holding onto my virginity for twenty-one years, waiting for the day I either met my mate or married. It had been my mother’s only real rule. Due to our angelic heritage, purity of body was important for a girls coming of age. Which sounds misogynistic and archaic, but it’s only because of my blood line that she felt this way. If I didn’t have angel DNA she wouldn’t have cared if I’d been the w***e of Babylon since I was sixteen. But because an angel doesn’t get her wings until she’s come of age, and in doing so she must be untouched, I’d abided by my mom’s one request. Of course, I’d woken up today with no wings, so by now we’d all assumed my blood was too diluted for me to take on angel form. “Oh, s*x with a stranger, that sounds perfect. Can I get a say on who? You know I have a great sense of people.” “Down girl, we’ll see what happens.” I told her with a chuckle. It took all of five minutes before I was ready, leaving the expensive wedding gown in a pile of silk and satin in the middle of the floor, forgotten. Turning in the floor length mirror of my walk-in closet I grinned at the purr of approval Midnight was sending through my head. I had to agree, I looked hot. The red elastic material only came down mid-thigh and clung to every curve of my body, which was rocking if I did say so myself. One good thing about being the future Alpha of a werewolf pack, I pushed myself harder than I did anyone else, which meant I was in better shape than almost any other female in my pack. I’d thrown my hair up into a high ponytail exposing the pale column of my throat, the deep brown curls teasing my neck and tumbling down my back beautifully. Add in the four-inch black stiletto heels and I was ready. As I started out of the closet, a glimmer of shine caught my eye in the mirror. Bringing my hand to my face, I eyed the beautiful engagement ring. It was a family heirloom, so not really from Jacob, my father had given it to him to give me when he’d expressed the desire to propose. Even if it did rightfully belong to me, I didn’t feel like wearing it tonight. I didn’t want questions of who I was or if there was someone waiting at home. Slipping the ring off my finger, I placed it on a shelf beside the mirror and left. To avoid questions and unwanted attention, I decided to jump out my window. With the moon high in the sky, it was still bright, but I could stick to the shadows, I’d always aced spy training. With my heels in hand, it took no time at all to slip around the house to the garage and slip into my candy apple red corvette my father had gotten me for my eighteenth birthday. In case it hadn’t been mentioned before, my family is loaded. My grandfather had taken a small pack, no one had ever heard of, and after some savvy invest opportunities, had built it into the biggest in the state. After my father had taken over, he’d expanded, and now he was Alpha of Alphas of the entire northwest portion of the country. Some thirty plus smaller pack Alpha’s answered to him. When I ascended to Alpha, I’d have to fight the other pack’s leaders to prove my place as Alpha of Alphas, but with the events of today, I wasn’t sure how far away that event would be now. My father didn’t want me taking over the pack without a mate. Not because my mate was needed to lead, but because a mate was who kept you grounded, who you leaned on and showed your vulnerability to when you couldn’t show anyone else. A mate was mandatory he’d said. Even a chosen one. The sound of the engine purring to life had the door connecting the garage and the pack house opening and an omega poking a curious head in. I simply waved to let her know it was me and not a thief, and backed out, not waiting for one of my guards or parents to come rushing in to stop me. Soon I was flying down the road, a cloud of dust in my wake, the rush of freedom putting me on a natural high. When I reached the main gate house, I didn’t bother stopping, instead, speeding straight behind a supply truck that was leaving, the bar coming down right behind me. I hit the main road like a bat out of hell; and I was gone. After an inner dialogue with Midnight, we decided to travel a good hour out of town, there was still the risk of being recognized, but it was minimized with distance. And the fact that I was choosing a human bar over a shifter bar would help. Pulling up outside of a small biker dive on the outskirts of a bigger city, I decided it was a decent place to start the night. A few drinks, a little flittering, if I wasn’t feeling it here, I could go into the city to one of the many clubs the humans frequented when they wanted to get lost for a night. Parking, I got curious looks before I even stepped out. My car was the kind that drew eyes no matter where I went, and normally I preened under the attention she got, but tonight I wanted all eyes on me. And I got it the second the door opened, my heeled foot crunching on gravel as I slipped out the door. The heated looks my way told me I’d have no problem taking the pick of the place home for the night. Well not home, but a nearby hotel would do. If the man I was seeking was even here. Guess we’d see.