The Female Alpha

Chapter 2

Thud.

Aurora slammed her father's door shut. She barely even banged the door hard but she still couldn't help flinching at the bone-rattling sound it made. Loud, just like the way she remembered that dreadful day, and she had relished silence ever since. But now wasn't the time to cower over a slammed door. No, she was angry. Furious.

She draped her handbag over her shoulder as she strode away from her father's office. Only God knew the type of havoc she would have wreaked if she hadn't left, or the type of chaos she ached to vent out now but she curbed the urge.

" Breathe, Aurora. Breathe." She muttered to herself in the quiet hallway that led to her father's office. " Just breathe."

Her heels clicked against the tiles as she sauntered to the elevator, and out of it, making her way down to the first floor, through the slew of workers— mostly men and a pinch of women in the mix— as she headed for the exit. Her work for the day was done but unlike others, she wasn't in the mood of working extra hours. Not after the conversation she just had with her father, the CEO.

Eyes turned her way, mouths running as they all murmured, spreading both lies and truths. Aurora dug her nails into her palms as she walked, the pricking pain she was inflicting on herself was nowhere close to the tumult their stares and hush words caused.

Ignore it. Don't snap, stay calm.

She chanted silently. That little chant of hers used to work wonders but right now was different. Now the power it possessed had ostensibly been depleted by her father's words.

The murmur proceeded, churning Aurora's innards.

Here comes the wannabe overachiever.

She still wants to become alpha despite her people's customs forbidding it.

CEO's daughter or not, I still think she is in over her head.

Aurora heard everything, senses heightened. The people whispering around her were either humans or lower-classed Omegas who couldn't fathom the Supremacy of the Alpha's bloodline and the power it possessed. All they did was talk. And all Aurora could do was ignore them.

Yes, she wanted to become Alpha. Yes, it was against her people's customs and everything they believed in but actions spoke louder than words. She would show them. Every single one of them.

The glass door ricocheted after Aurora went through it, their silent whispers thinning gradually to the point of inaudibility. By the time that happened, she was already in her car, speeding off.

The drive was long, silent if not for sounds that surrounded her, spewing into her ears, echoing through her. Vociferous sounds, the surging ones like the honking of restless drivers, the sound of tires on asphalt, the sound of the gush of wind made as cars drove by— their only trail. Then there were the minute ones, the ones she savored. The ones that tend to get ingurgitated within the sea of numerous other noises. Sometimes they couldn't be heard. They were weaker, so they were silenced. They were debilitated.

But Aurora could hear them, untangle them from the others and savor them.

The more she drove, the more the number of cars on the road dwindled to the point that she was the only one left. Soon, her car became the only one running on the road. But she kept driving, only halting at the mouth of the woods— the place where man and beast intertwined with nature in an immaculate spindle. A place where sounds— the sounds of chirping birds, rustling trees, and bushes in the roaring wind— big or minuscule, flowing in a harmonic melody.

The Hazelwoods.

Aurora got out of her car, locked it, and took a step forward, then another until she made her way through snapping twigs on the mossy grounds, moving past the thick bark trees that shrouded the place in myriads. When Aurora finally got to a spot she felt was secluded enough, she went ahead to take off her jacket, then her blouse, slowly undoing the zipper of her trousers. Soon, every piece of clothing came off.

She stared ahead, taking deep calming breaths to loosen up her muscles, and then… she transformed.

As she went on all fours, her hands, and feet turned to paws. Her soft milky skin was now cladded with thick pale brown fur and her blue eyes shone brighter. It didn't hurt as much as it did the first time she tried it. The more times a werewolf shifts, the swifter the process becomes. It becomes euphoric to the point that letting one's inner wolf manifest turns into a means of getting a reprieve.

Aurora breathed in the smell of fresh vegetation as the bustling breeze whiffed it into her snout— its wonderful way of welcoming her. It always welcomed her whenever she came here and deep down, she always felt honored. She leaned forward, stretching her forelimbs. And just like that, she took off in a sprint. The wind brushed through her fur as she sprinted deeper into the forest, moving almost as fast as a fired bullet.

Running on these grounds for years had made her quite acquainted with it, so acquainted that it was almost impossible for her to lose her way around here and even if she did, there were still numerous routes she had memorized by heart that could effortlessly aid her to retrace her steps back to where she started.

The Hazelwoods, getting its name from the myriad of hazelnut trees growing there, was one of the largest fractions of the territory controlled by the park—by her father, the alpha. The woods also drew a border between her park, which people knew as the blood moon park, and neighboring clans from the south.

The lush grass was soft against her paws as she bolted through the grounds, leaving a haze of dirt as a trail. Her ears were up and on full alert, twitching at any and every sound it picked up.

And it twitched. A lot.

Only a handful of people knew Aurora's baffling ability to perceive the meager of sounds and even less knew that her hearing seemingly heightens by a dozen folds when she was in her wolf form. Even as she ran, the noise of her paws hitting the ground and her jagged pants, weren't the only sounds she heard. There was so much more.

There were heartbeats, not just hers but of those surrounding her, some louder than others. Heartbeats of the animals inhabiting the area, coming together to form some sort of cacophony. She heard it, she always did.

An abrupt shift in the sounds made her skid to a halt. Amid the clamor, it felt new, different.

Foreign, strangely familiar.

A heartbeat, a rhythmic thump but at the same time, violently threshing just like hers. At first listen, Aurora could effortlessly decipher that it didn’t belong to a human but a beast. Something wild. Viscous.

The sun was setting. Big feral animals weren't uncommon around those parts, the grounds were infested with them. Aurora had encountered quite a number of them on her previous runs but never had one's heartbeat reverberated through her senses before.

The sound drew closer with her every panted breath and she dug her paws firmer to the mossy ground. The breeze ruffled her brown fur, her eyes sharp and keen on the dense thicket.

The heartbeat grew louder. One thing was certain; whatever the creature was, it was larger than she was.

A shadow crossed her line of vision.

Aurora sprang into a menacing stance, her teeth bared like a rabid savage. To her left, a brush rustled and her ears twitched in its direction.

She felt like she was being watched.

A twig snapped, the sound unnerving and mere paces from where she stood, and a low warning growl rumbled in her throat.

The heartbeat was louder than ever. Aurora could hear its breathing. So close, she picked up its scent. It was of her kind. A wolf. Male.

Despite the tension and unease, curiosity still held a firm grip on Aurora. She took a tentative step forward, her senses on high alert.

It leaped out of the thicket before she could get any closer.

Aurora took steps back. In front of her form, it was huge. A wolf almost twice her size, clad in thick black fur, its amber-colored eyes like liquid fire. He oozed masculine grace.

Looming like a shadow, his eyes raked down her form, as if sizing her up, and Aurora growled at him. He didn't seem from around there, Aurora would have known if he was a member of her pack. She had never met this male before.

She took a threatening step forward, her teeth still bared at him. Then she heard it. Howling. A lot of them. Coming from deeper into the forest.

The Hazelwood forest wasn't just a place she enjoyed running in. It also held significant and spiritual importance to her people. It was where her pack had congregated as one for decades, the very place where park leaders were sworn into power by the council under the full moon.

It was also where alphas are laid to rest.

The strange male seemed to have heard it as well because he turned his head in the direction it was coming from, albeit for a fleeting moment before leveling her with his gaze once more.

The howling only grew louder as more wolves joined in the symphony. It was her pack's distress call. Something wasn't right.