Submit to Me, Alpha

2 Mate

“Yes,” I whispered to the big man, trying not to show my discomfort. Flora says I can trust him, and I know nothing about what being a werewolf means. Maybe he can help.

The man smiles gently, his eyes crinkling in the corners, then comes to stand next to the older woman. By the way he puts his arms around her, she must be his wife.

“Can you tell us where you came from? How you got to Oregon?”

I use my nails to start pulling the hair from my arms, a habit I’ve always done when I get nervous or scared. Where am I from? Russia, where I was born? Detroit, where I was working as a bartender while attending college? I could name them most states on the east coast too, since I was moved all over while in foster care. I narrow it down to Detroit, thinking that's the answer they are probably looking for.

“Detroit. I worked there and went to school. I met Carder,” I paused and grimaced, “at the bar I worked at. We dated for a couple of weeks and then he….” my eyes heat up, and I swallow down the lump in my throat. How do I tell someone else what happened to me? How could I shame myself like that? I started to shake violently, pulling at the hair on my head, feeling so out of control and….dirty. I feel dirty and used. Worthless.

“Shh, shh, hush now,” Luna Hazel tells me, gripping my hand.

“Deep breaths, Natasha. Deep breaths,” The Doctor tells me in a controlled voice, “You’re having a panic attack. Alpha, can you step out? Nurse! I need 5 mg’s of Benzo, stat!”

I try to control my breathing, but the frantic beeping of the machines and the rush of people trying to calm me down send me spiraling deeper. I felt a pinch in my arm, and a cool feeling began to spread through me, calming the crazed emotions and rush of my heart that was swelling from my chest. My body relaxes back in bed, feeling extra heavy all of a sudden.

“There, that’s it,” The doctor cooed at me, pressing buttons on the machine to stop its beeping. Luna Hazel is clearing the hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear.

“Get some rest, my dear. I know this is probably too much for you right now. Just know you are safe and we will protect you. You have a home with us now.”

Home. I always wanted a place to call home. Foster parents always tell you to make yourself at home, then put you in a closet of a room with a mattress on the floor. They would get a paycheck for housing me, but it was never a real home. My eyes flutter closed as I wonder what this home will mean to me.

~~~

I stayed in the hospital for a week, recovering while Luna Hazel and Alpha James Moore slowly told me what being a werewolf now meant for me. They were Alpha and Luna of Crooked River Pack. A pack is a community of werewolves, and the alpha and luna are the leaders. They also told me there were other ranked wolves after the alpha and luna. Beta was second in command. They told me their son, Andrew, was currently filling that role. Their former Beta didn’t have a son to replace him and he was ready to retire. Andrew would one day be the alpha, and his brother Cori would be the beta at that time. Andrew is my age. Someone my age having authority over thousands of people….I mean werewolves, sounds crazy to me.

Luna Hazel said that it’s normal in werewolf communities. The strongest lead, and you’re at your strongest when you’re in your early twenties. She said back in the day, when there were wars about land disputes, and survival was hard, they had to have their strongest as their leaders. The tradition stayed even in our modern age, and she says wars are still possible, though a rarity now.

Alpha James and Luna Hazel are what’s called mates. She said all werewolves have one, me included, and that a mate is a gift from the heavens and the other half of our soul. Even if I used to be human, I was destined to be a mate and one day my mate would find me.

I’m not sure I want a mate, or any man for that matter. Not after what I went through with Carder. I’m damaged and broken. Dirty. No man deserves me being forced on him.

The other girls saved the same day I was were all originally werewolves. They were sent home to their original packs and families after being detoxed from the drugs they forced on us. Since I don’t have a pack, Alpha James offered me a place here. I had to say an oath to him and his pack, and I felt this weird string being snapped in place at the back of my mind.

“It’s the pack bond. We can mind link anyone in our pack now,” Flora told me.

“Mind link?”

“We can talk to other people with our minds, like you’re doing with me right now.”

Alpha James showed me how to use the mind link, and even though it was freaky, it was also really cool. Like a built-in walkie talkie.

Today I’m being released from the hospital. Alpha James offered me a job at one of his businesses. A huge casino at the base of a cliff called Rock Bottom Casino. He said Andrew had been complaining about the piano bar being understaffed, and since they only have women bartenders working there, he thinks it would be a good fit.

I stare at my reflection in the small mirror above the hospital sink. I look disgusting. My cheekbones are sunken in. My ash blonde hair is wispy and dull, and the ugly scar on my forehead makes me sick each time I see it.

Dr. Victoria told me they could perform surgery to cover it, but my forehead will always be marred and scarred. The brand is a crudely drawn dragon, coiled inside a circle. The warrior guards, that’s what Luna Hazel called them, came in and took pictures of it, and documented all my other scars and wounds. She said if they find the one responsible for putting me in that trafficking ring, they want all the proof they can to try and take them down. I’m more than happy to help.

Luna Hazel brought a suitcase full of new clothes for me. Alpha James had someone go check my studio apartment in Detroit to bring me my belongings, but the apartment had already been cleaned out and rented to a new tenant.

I slip on some soft leggings and a thick sweater, toss my hospital gown in the corner of the bathroom, and I’m ready to go.

Luna Hazel is taking me personally to the casino. She said that there is housing for staff in a small village-like setting by the golf course. She assigned me a small one-bedroom cottage, and I was excited to see it. It’s the first house I’ve lived in on my own. I could only afford small, rundown apartments and the homes I lived in as a child were always ratty and falling apart.

The casino is massive. It looks like a giant mall or something. The hotel connected to it is where the shuttle van pulls up, and a doorman gets the door for me and the Luna.

I looked around in awe as we walked in. It’s modern and sleek. Black and gold accents with clean lines. Signs for everything you could think of pointing every which way. Spa, restaurants, fast food, the aviary, and, of course, all the different floors and halls for the casino.

“This way, dear,” Luna Hazel called out to me. I followed her behind the hotel’s front desk, down a long hallway full of offices. The biggest office at the end of the hall has a name plate on the door reading ‘Andrew Moore’. She knocks, but there’s no answer.

“He must be out. Why don’t you take a seat in here, Natasha? I’ll go look for him and be right back.”

The office is clean and neat. The files on his desk are organized and lined up perfectly, and even his pens are sorted and uniform in their holder. He must like keeping everything clean. I feel very out of place in the pristine and orderly setting.

The door opens suddenly, starling me in my chair. The air in the room feels 20 degrees warmer all of a sudden, and electricity feels like it is shooting through my veins. His smell. Why is his smell doing things to me, making me feel things I thought I would never feel? Not after what I’ve been through.

The man standing before me, stunned at the door, is gorgeous. His dark blonde hair is styled perfectly resting above his chiseled, perfect face. His handsome brown eyes are sparkling with desire as his mouth lifts slowly into a brilliant smile.

“Mate! Mate!” Flora is screaming in my head.

“Mate,” the man breathed out like a prayer, taking a step towards me.

I slowly stand at my feet, nervously shifting in place as he approaches me. I have a mate? Already? I’m not ready. There is no way this perfect man was made for me. Not dirty, broken me.

“Who are you?” he asks softly, reaching out and touching my shoulders. I jumped in surprise when tingles shot through his touch down my arms. What is that? Why does it feel so good?

“That’s the mate bond, sweetie. It makes you feel attracted to even his touch,” Flora tells me.

“Natasha,” I whispered my name to him.

“Natasha,” he parrots back. “Nice to meet you. I’m Andrew Moore.”

I jumped back in surprise. He’s Andrew Moore? The Beta? The alpha and luna’s son? I looked around his perfect office in my panic. This perfect man, with this perfect office, with the perfect family and perfect life can’t be destined to be with a dirty, broken person like me.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew reaches out, but I flinch away from his touch.

“I can’t,” I gasp, trying to hold myself back from a panic attack.

“What?” Andrew’s eyes, full of concern, searched my face, and I shrunk back ashamed at his stare. My scars and appearance are evidence in and of itself that I’m not deserving of a fated mate like him.

Alpha James told me one more thing about mates when I started panicking about being forced to be with one. He told me how to reject a mate, so you can both move on with your lives, severing the mate bond.

“Don’t you dare! Don’t!” Flora was screaming in my head.

“I have to. I don’t deserve someone like him, and he shouldn’t be cursed to stay with someone like me.”

“I, Natasha Fedorov, reject you, Andrew Moore, as my fated mate.”

I clutch my chest at the same time as Andrew, we both bend over gasping in pain. My eyes fill with tears, and I feel like my heart is shattering into a million pieces.

“Why?” Andrew gasped out, clutching a chair for support. A tear was streaking down his face, amplifying my own inner grief. Flora is howling and whimpering inside me, her own pain mixing with my own.

“I don’t want a mate,” I choked out, then used my last remaining strength to run from his office, leaving my broken heart behind with my rejected mate.