The Alpha's Wolfless Breeder

Seventeen years! Three hundred and four moons gone! And in just a few hours from now, someone's fate will be decided and that person is me. The sun would finally set on me, and the moon goddess would offer me her last chance if I could change to my wolf form. The thought of that alone crashed into me as I lay in my bed. My chest heaving just in a way I couldn't explain and my vision peeked into the cracked ceiling above. I was physically right there in my room but my mind had veered off to somewhere I couldn't explain. Then a soft knock on the door, the door opened without my response. “Mitchell,” my mother's voice broke through the room. Luna Selene crossed the wooden floor in a whisper of silk. Her lavender ointment gave her out. But today was different, intense desperation filled her voice. “ They are waiting for you outside. The carriage is ready. We must reach the sacred land before mid-day.” “Anger rose like a sea tide. I rolled my eyes, turning away from her, drawing my bedsheet closer to my upper chest. “Mother please…” “There is nothing to discuss,” she replied, moving closer, sitting at the edge of my bed. Her fingers trembled a bit as she smoothed my bed sheet. “ The Seer is waiting for us. I promise you sweetheart. This very last one would work out…” “Every healer was always the last one.” I countered quietly, not allowing her to finish, “ Every witch, every specialist. From every cursed region of this territory I had grazed for a solution…” I sat up slowly, tossing the bedsheet from me, “I had consumed portions, until my stomach rejected them. I bathed in the hot spring. Maybe I could find a solution… I had lost count of the time I had swallowed ashes from the elder trees… but still nothing here…” I poked my stomach, anger simmered in me. “ There is no wolf inside me, mother. There never was!” My voice thickened, I turned to her, “ Do you even think…” “No…no… Mitchell's mother cut-in quietly, tossing her finger at my face, “Don't go there.” “I shouldn't, mother?” I replied, letting out a dangerous smile, " I will be eighteen in the next few hours. No phantom heartbeat. No pull towards the pack bond. No sensation of anything other than this hollow space…" I pressed my hand firmly against my chest. “... This hollow space where something should be breathing.” “My mother grabbed my hand enough to hurt, “ then we tried again .. and again until we got what we wanted from Mitchell. Because the alternative…” mother's voice broke, like something had pressed it down, " your father had spent fifteen years of his life building the Moon bridge pack to what it is today… and the bloodline…" She paused mid-sentence like someone who doesn't want to let out so much. " I know about the bloodline, their connection with the elders’ council. " countered, I pulled my hand free from her, standing up from the bed walking across the room like I was pursued. " I have known them since I was twelve. I heard both of you at midnight whispering about them." I paused, turning back to her, “ their stances are clear. No wolf. No heir. No heir … father loses everything. Because the pack council would demand a challenge. Garrison's name would become a cautionary tale told to pups during Rites of awakening.” Mother's face drained with color, trying to defend everything I have said, " who told you that?" " No one had to tell me that," I replied, my voice tensed. “ I had been quietly listening my whole life, mother, to every prayer you thought I couldn't hear. To every tear you shed when you thought I had slept off…" Shock painted on her face and before she answered, the door slammed open. Alpha Garrison stood at the doorway like an obstacle. With his broad-shouldered hat that covered the reflection of light into the room. The air grew thick with the weight of his presence and the instinct that made lesser wolves lower their eyes. Unfortunately, I wasn't a wolf. I kept my eyes steady. “You are still in bed!” Father's voice cut into thin air like a whip, “ The carriage had been outside there waiting for you for more than fifteen minutes. And your mother has been here for the past twenty minutes speaking to you.” “Father!” “Don't father me!" He countered, he stepped forward, the floorboard groaned under his shoe. " You will get dressed. You will go with your mother to that sacred land. You will consume every concoction the seer gives you and you pray, daughter, that the moon goddess will steer something in you before tomorrow's ceremony.” I squeezed my jaw tight and raised my chin up. Anger simmered, “ and if nothing stirs?” Deep silence followed. A kind that is louder than a scream. Alpha Garrison curled his hands into fists, I watched how his wolf flickered behind his eye. Cold. Dangerous. “Then your second name would be called a disaster. And every sacrifice I had made. Every bridge I had burnt. Every enemy I had made just to protect your secret would have been for nothing!” Nothing! The words dropped like stone. “I will go.” “Good,” he replied, turning his heels angrily and was about to leave “ Don't regret giving you this last chance.” He walked to the door and slammed it hard. The sacred land smells like old magic and unforgettable sorrow. If stench was a name, I wouldn't know the one to call this. The offensive odor almost made me vomit, everything I had taken before this journey. Myself and my mother had travelled for almost six hours, clugging up together in the leather carriage seat, watching the familiar forest of moonridge fade into ancient woods where shadow moved without wind. The Seer hut sat at the edge of the comfort river. Its walls, covered with dried bones and shrubs clattering together like chattering teeth in the wind. He sat in front of his hut on a small stool like a forgotten king abandoned by time itself. He didn't greet us nor did he even offer water to comfort quench the thirst of a long journey to his place. Bad. I mean very bad of him. “Strip off your cloak and enter the water!” His voice came out raw and sharp like stones grinding together. I blinked severally like that was a joke or something. In front of the world? In front of the guards that brought us here. Should I do everything for the world? My mother quickly shot a wink that I should obey. As if I truly had an option. I entered the river, the coldness of the water stole my breath. Like the cold waiting for someone at midnight. I stood waist deep in the middle of the river. The Seer chanted some kind of strange language that made my ears ache. Burning concoction and pressing hot stones against my back. He forced three portions of the concoction down my throat, thick as mud. And bitter as gall. The world around me spun. Please feel something. I begged my own body, reaching inside for a spark, just for once. But nothing. The seer's chant grew louder than ever expected, the ground trembled under my feet. Then silence. “No sparks,” the seer said bluntly, “ No ember, her wolf is dead or probably it never drew breath at all.” she turned to my mother, “ some vessels are born empty Luna, no magic could feel this one.” The word slammed into me. My eyes widened apart, causing my eyes to almost bulge out from its socket. “Noooo..!” My mother cried out loud like a disaster had struck from the river bank where she stood. The journey from sacred land to moonbridge had been nothing tastier than sorrow like someone died right in the carriage we sat in. It was like the king had kicked the bucket. I hurried out of the carriage immediately and we got into the palace into my bedroom like I was being pursued. Shame overwhelmed like thick silk. Few maids had sensed it , they knew something was wrong. They sensed our journey wasn't fruitless. I wrapped myself with a bedsheet glaring through the window. Thinking about what tomorrow will look like. What would be the fate of my father in this pack?