Claiming The Rogue Alpha

WHAT LOVE CAN DO

I hadn't even moved before my door flew open.

I didn't even get time to process what was going on before my bed tilted violently, I couldn't grab anything and before I knew it I was falling off the side, I landed hard on my hip and elbow with the duvet tangled around my legs. I lay there blinking, still half asleep, wondering when my lucid dreams got violent.

Then I felt a palm in my hair. His fist closed around it and yanked harshly. The pain that shot through my body snapped me awake.

"You stupid b***h!!" He hollered

I looked into his eyes and what I saw made my body grow weaker and colder than it was before. He has veins running through his forehead and rage in his eyes that made me fear for my life...

He recoiled his hand backwards and before it hit me I already shut my eyes and I still didn't expect the force that hit my cheek.

"Dad?" My voice wavered and my vision went shut for a second. The pain burned through my whole body so much that I didn't realize I was bleeding till I tasted metal.

It hurts

It hurt

It hurts

"What's this I'm hearing?" His voice went low and cracked in audible rage. "The Alpha runt chose Minet over you?" His breath grew louder and more erratic like he was holding in him something dangerous, something deadly

The more I tried to take my gaze away from his, the more I feared that he would do something terrible if I did. My body trembled and my chest began to hurt from all the pounding. It hurts....

"Answer me!!" He yanked my hair and I let out a shriek, tears gathering below my eyelids. "How dear you bring shame upon this family!!" The louder his voice got, the more I flinched "I f*****g gave my sweat and blood to sustain what's left of this....

The floor felt frozen underneath my palm, My cheek was on fire. How did he find out so fast? I kept my eyes down.

"Answer me." He yanked the fist still twisted in my hair. "How dare you bring this shame on to this family. How dare you."

I stayed quiet. I knew how to stay quiet. I'd built the skill over the years. I had learned that silence was the fastest route through a storm like this. Keep your head down. Let it pass. Don't give it anything to push against.

That didn't seem to work today, he kept on talking, bellowing cruel vulgar words at me. Droplets of spittle spewed from his lips to the floor. I could even hear his heartbeat and smell the strong stench of sweat and engine oil.

I looked at my hands and they'd somehow stopped trembling, my heart was beating three times faster. The burning sensation on my cheek had subsided. I could feel something clawing at my chest, burning to break free. I couldn't understand what was going on.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you goddamnit!!" He raised his hand to hit me again and at that moment something shifted in me.

The thing rose from my chest fast and uncontrollably, and before I knew it, it bursted out...

A ragged and gutteral sound escaped me, bouncing through the walls of the room.

Dad went very still. The room seemed to go silent too.

He lowered his gaze to me at, his expression moved through surprise then switching to something that had me shivering. He released me and stepped back.

"Did you just—" He asked slowly, like he couldn't believe what was being heard, neither did I."Did your useless self just growl at me he asked?."

My wolf? I have a wolf I wondered about but kept my lips sealed. The feeling in my chest was still there, hot and brewing, and I didn't know what to do with it or how to calm it down.

"Your weak little wolf finally found the audacity to appear huh?, and what it can do is challenge me, your own father?" He laughed, short and ugly. "You. You."

He pointed at me before leaving the room.

I stayed on the floor trying to catch my breath. My cheek was already swollen,pulsing with pain, and my scalp ached in patches. The feeling had faded now, I almost couldn't believe I'd done that, I heard him moving around in the other room..

I should've run.

Looking back, I know I should've run.

But where was I running to?. He was my father, besides,he was just too angry at the revelation he'd wished for me. He wouldn't hurt me…

He came back with a small white container, it was already open. The smell that reached me was nothing to write home about, I could taste the bitter air, it was sharp, and worse than most chemicals I've encountered, something about it made the hairs on my arms stand straight up with recognition. No. My blood went cold.

My stomach dropped to the floor.

"Dad." My voice came out cracked. "Dad, no."

It felt like my pleading had fueled his momentum because he walked faster.

"Please." I begged while backing up, I hit the wall harshly, the bed frame catching the back of my thigh. "Please, no, please—"

He grabbed my jaw with one hand, forcing it open, he tightened his hand so hard I felt like he wanted to break it. He tipped the container over my lips, the liquid hit my tongue and the taste—

There are no words for the taste of wolfsbane. There's the initial bitterness, that rapidly coats every surface, and then there's the burn that comes behind it, and then somthing else I can't describe.

I gagged violently.He pinched my nose, stopping air from flowing through forcing me to swallow so I could breathe. The pain started in my stomach. It began like hot coals, then cramping, then a feeling worse than either. I felt something moved violently in me, trying to claw it's way out. Was that my wolf? Was she dying before i'd had a chance to meet her. I'd been praying to the moon goddess for my wolf and now I'd lose her. My eyes watered in anger and pain. Argggh... Dad, I called out.

He looked at me one last time before turning his back to leave. He pulled the door close, leaving a little space. I groaned trying to move my body against the wall. My tongue was already swelling blisters.

Wolfsbane could be administered a hundred different ways. Skin contact, smoke, injection. The healers talked about it in pack education like a cautionary tale, like something that happened to wolves who wandered where they shouldn't. They didn't talk about this. They didn't talk about swallowing it. They didn't talk about what it felt like from the inside when it moved through you looking to bound your wolf. They didn't talk about it being administered to dormant wolves. They'd said either way the point was to weaken your wolf and I guess I didn't understand it…till now

The cramping worsened. I pressed both hands against my stomach to surpress it, I breathed through my nose harshly, the only way my body would let me. When I tried to swallow saliva it felt like moving broken glass.

So, this is how I die?.

---

"Anya."

"Anya."

I thought I was dead. I genuinely, sincerely thought that was what had happened and this was whatever that came after… if this was it, it wasn't so bad actually, it was—

The ceiling.

I stared at it and understood slowly that I was still alive, but i was in my bed now. I turned my head.

Dad was sitting in the chair by my desk. He looked smaller and quite older, compressed to the side as if he was afraid to take up any more space. His hands were intertwined on his lap. He was watching me with an expression I hadn't seen on his face in years. Pity

I moved, desregading my screaming body, I scrambled back against the headboard wishing it'd swallow me. Anything to keep him away. Every nerve in my body shrieked Danger, stay away, away, away.

He flinched.

"I'm sorry," he said.

I pressed my back into the headboard still hoping it'd shield me from whatever was coming next.

"Anya." His voice broke slightly at the end of my name. "I'm sorry. I was so angry — I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear I didn't mean—"

He reached out to touch me and I recoiled, he saw it and his hand dropped.

The cold that moved through me didn't have anything to do with my room temperature, The fan wasn't even on. It was one you'd get when looking at someone you finally realized, no matter everything you do to please them, they wouldn't stop at a chance to harm you. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"It's just — Carmen met me at the shop." He lowered his voice in a way that almost had me feeling sorry for him. Almost. "He was gloating. About Minet and the little Alpha and the… he was right there in front of me, Anya, he said like a little child, and I just—" He pressed a hand over his face. "I snapped. I cracked and I took it out on you and that was wrong. I know that was wrong."

He looked up.

"You know I love you. You know that, right? You're my daughter. I didn't mean to hurt you." I nodded. It was all I could do, anything to get him to leave. My tongue sat in my mouth like a foreign organ attached to me. The blisters were bigger now, I avoided moving my lips so it wouldn't pop. The wolfsbane was fading too, the difference was clear but the deed had already been done. I was exhausted inside out, my bones ached.

He watched me nod and his face crumpled.

"Oh," he said softly. "Right. I'm sorry, princess. You can't—" He stood slowly. "You can't go to school tomorrow. It's best if you rest. You'll be better by tomorrow." He moved toward the door.

"I'll go make dinner," he said from the doorway, he said quietly, I almost didn't hear him. "I'll make that chicken soup you used to like."

He pulled the door but didn't shut it. I waited to hear his shuffling feet but instead I was met with silence and the feeling of his stare through the space. I refused to meet it. Instead my gaze stuck at the space where he'd been.

He'd meant to hurt me. I knew that. For years I tried making excuses, pretending like this big fact wasn't true. I mean I had no physical proof yet, but he did show signs. Something deep in my bones knew that one day, father will have no problem letting me know what he did when things didn't go his way. And i guess, today is that day. Even if I'd try to put this behind me, knowing he'd gone out, taken time to search for what he wanted and used it on me, the daughter he claimed to love was something I could never forget.

And now he was making soup? I almost laughed. I would have, except my tongue wouldn't let me.

I slowly pulled the duvet up, and wrapped it around my shoulders. I sat still replaying the whole incident and allowing the chill to settle in my bones.

I just confirmed that I was the only person in this house who was going to keep me safe.