Hiding from the Alpa

Chapter 1:

Charlotte:

    “Charlie, if you don’t get your lazy ass out of bed in the next ten seconds, I’m coming in to get you.”

    My sister Annie’s voice carries up the stairs and through the solid oak of my bedroom door. I get out of my chair and throw the door open before Annie decides to break it down. 

    "Oh good, you're up!" She sweeps into the room and throws herself on the perfectly-made bed. 

    “Come on, Annie! I just made that.” Her hand moves in a dismissive gesture. 

    “I think I saw a wrinkle before I even touched it. You would have remade it anyway.”

    I rolled my eyes, but she was right. I may be a generally carefree person, but I needed order to function, almost excessively so. Everything in my room has a place, and I go a little crazy if it isn’t exactly the way I made it. 

    Annie bounced on the bed, her short brown curls bobbing up and down. She looked young for her sixteen years, but beyond her bubbly persona lay an intelligent and mature warrior wolf. 

    “So,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes, “do you feel different, Birthday Girl?” 

    I flopped down on the bed next to her and stared up to the ceiling. “Not really. I feel my wolf getting restless, but I don’t feel the pull of my mate yet. He must be from a different pack."

    "I bet he'll be super hot." Annie declares firmly and I smile. 

    "I sure hope so." 

    I let out a long sigh and close my eyes. Now that I'm eighteen, my wolf is ready to find her mate, and I cannot be more excited. I have dreamed about having a mate my entire life. In my head I imagine my mate and I walking hand-in-hand with our pups running ahead of us, laughing and playing with each other.

    Now all I need is my mate.

Connor: 

    I hope I never meet my mate. 

    I mean, I'm not heartless or anything. I'm just being realistic. My pack has struggled to survive for decades, long before I ever became the alpha, and the last thing I need to add to my plate is a mate.    

    Beyond that, it is essential that my luna comes from an alpha bloodline, and most importantly from a powerful pack. I need allies with the power and strength to help my pack defend against the rogues that have been crossing our borders and killing my patrols.

    I need to protect my pack more than anything; more than I need my mate. 

    "Alpha, there was another attack at the south border. We fought " My beta, Jarod, walked into my office unannounced and spread out all over my couch. I sigh and rub my temples. 

    "You're getting blood on my couch."

    "That's okay boss. I don't mind" 

    "How many casualties?" I'm scared to hear his answer. 

    "Only one this time." He mumbles. 

    Only one. 

    One too many.

    And I swear to myself that, no matter what, I will do everything in my power to protect the rest of my pack.

No matter what. 

Charlotte:

    The alarm on my phone goes off and I close my textbook with a sigh. That's all the reading I am going to do today, and no matter how interesting biology is, I told my parents I would only study until lunch time. I managed to get a good portion of this month's assigned readings finished, which is a substantial amount considering the fact i'm a premed student. I placed my anatomy and physiology textbook on the bottom of my bookshelf, lining up the spines perfectly and double checking the alphabetical order. 

    "Charlie! Come downstairs for lunch!" I hear my mother's voice echo up the stairs and I push my desk chair back into its original place. 

    "Coming!"

    I hurried downstairs and slid into a kitchen chair just as my father came out of his study and into the kitchen. He walked straight over to my mother and kissed her before turning to me. I have gotten used to their unwarranted PDA, so I simply roll my eyes at him, hoping deep down that I find a mate one day who wants to kiss me every time he sees me. 

     "Well, if it isn't the birthday girl finally making her appearance!" He teases. 

    "I had homework that had to get done today."

    "It had to get done today, huh? And when is this homework actually due?"

    I shrug, trying and failing to hide my self-satisfied smile. "Two weeks from now."

    "Now Charlie," my mother tuts, pointing a spatula covered in cake batter at me, "you need to get out of your room. You're eighteen now, how are you ever going to find your mate if you never go outside?" 

    I reach out and scoop some batter of the spatula. Licking my finger, I give her a wink. "Maybe I've already met him."

    "Nope." Mom says, emphasizing the "p" sound like she loves to do. 

    "And why not?" I protest as I withhold my laughter. Mom wiggles her eyebrows at me before wrapping her arms around Dad.

    "If you found your mate already, honey, you would not be sitting at the kitchen with your family. You would be in some dark corner somewhere, with your tongue down his throat and your clothes piled in a heap on the floor."

    My poor father, who was in the middle of sipping his coffee, spluttered and choked out a somewhat difficult to understand "over my dead body." Mom and I were both laughing at the poor, traumatized, male. She patted his back consolingly as she winked at me, which sent us both into another fit of laughter. 

    "That's it," Dad says when he can finally breathe again, "no mates for you until you're twenty-five, no, thirty-five."

    I quirk my eyebrow at him. "Is that an order, Alpha?" Mom rolls her eyes. 

    "Calm down, Samuel. Our baby girl is growing up. It's perfectly natural for young she-wolves to fool around with their mates at eighteen. If I remember correctly, dear, you had me knocked up within a month of our mating bond kicking in."

    Dad growls, but he doesn't put any alpha power behind his words. "New rule: no mates until I'm dead. Even then, make sure you wait awhile and make sure I'm not haunting you before you do anything I don't want to see, hear, or know about."

    "Well, that's an interesting time to join a conversation." Annie says as she waltzes into the kitchen and pulls up a stool next to me at the table. I set my face into an over exaggerated look of concern. 

    "Dad just realized that his daughters are capable of having sex." Annie gasped in mock horror and brought her hands over her mouth. 

    "And we tried so hard to keep it a secret!"

    "Knock it off you two! I only need one heir, and your mom and I can make another one of you in a minute. Any more of this and I'm ending you both, then I'm taking your mother to our room and trying for some docile, respectful daughters." Annie and I burst into peals of laughter, and Mom ruffles his hair affectionately.

    "Nice try, Sammie. I'm sure next time you'll scare them."

    Dad leans down to kiss her. "I still think we should make more babies. Our daughters might be defective, and if we have a boy then I won't have to worry about some she-wolf impregnating him and then leaving." Mom looks at him, amusement and love shining in her eyes.

    "Your girls will be fine, though we don't need to try to make more babies. You kinda covered that base already." She placed his hand on her belly, and grinned. "Surprise."

    Dad's face moves from petulant, to amused, to stunned in a millisecond. Without saying a word, he picks my mother up and marches out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their room. 

    "Sammie, what are you doing! Put me down right now before I knock you upside the head." He grunts. 

    Annie and I skitter after them, laughing and squealing with excitement. 

    "Bea, you are going to lay down on the bed and wait for the doctor to come and confirm. If he says you are safe to walk around, then and only then will you be allowed to get up."

     Mom protests, saying she's fine, but Dad moves with a single minded focus, making her comfortable and yelling at the doctor over the phone. Annie and I keep Mom company, knowing that, until he knows she and the new baby are safe and healthy, he will not be able to think of anything but protecting her. 

    "Possessive Alpha asshole." My mother grumbles, but I know she likes it deep down. A male wolf's possessive tendencies are legendary, and an alpha wolf's power magnifies them. Mom deals with my father's over-protectiveness every day, but this pregnancy is going to drive them both nuts. 

    The pack doctor came and went with a congratulations and a list of foods for Mom to avoid, which resulted in Dad throwing out all the fish, soft cheese, and coffee in the house. I protested the loss of caffeine, but there was not stopping him from protecting my mom from the evil dark roast. Thank goodness werewolves are only pregnant for a few months, because I don't think I can go very long without my coffee. 

    As Mom is forced to endure endless pampering and untethered affection from my dad (a real hardship, I know) I face a different kind of torture: party planning. It is customary that after the birth of a pup, the community celebrates together. For my parents, the alphas and lunas of all the North American packs will come to give their congratulations. This means that I not only have to plan the celebration, but also make sleeping arrangements for at least fifty alphas and their mates. 

    The next month passes in a haze of custom stationary and coordinating colour schemes. Before I know it, my mother has given birth to a healthy pup named Jaxon, and our visitors are descending upon our pack house en mass. I fill every room in the building with alphas and lunas, and I move two bunk beds into my room to house the four unmated alphas. Annie takes on the role of hostess, dutifully showing each visitor to their room as I frantically chop vegetables for tonight's soup dish. I cook the meal alone and spend the entire evening in the kitchen cleaning up.

     It takes hours for the house to settle for the night, and I drag myself up the stairs and into the bed I am sharing with Annie for the next few days. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and my clothes smell strongly of onion and sweat, so I just peel off what I'm wearing and climb in beside Annie, sleep overtaking me before my head even hits the pillow. 

    If I did sense my mate in the room down the hall, I don't remember it.