Claimed by the Alpha Who Raised Me

Chapter 2

Elowen's POV

He scoffed, “since we’ve found your tongue, hopefully your wolf isn't that far off.”

He turned to Aldwin and said something low that I didn't catch, and the next second, turned back toward the door.

Aldwin understood before I did and helped me to my feet, his old hands trembling against my arm. "He means to take you with him, little one. Come, let's pack your things."

I asked where he would go once I left and he zipped my suitcase with a small smile, saying he'd return to the rural dens of his birth pack, that he was tired after a lifetime of service and wanted nothing but quiet.

The smile fell apart as he gripped my shoulders with both hands, looked me in the eyes with tears running down his old face.

"Once you enter Thornveil territory, forget you were ever the daughter of Duskbloom. Learn to yield, to endure, to survive, because that is your only path now."

He'd watched me grow from a pup who couldn't hold her human form into the girl standing in front of him now, and we both knew this was probably the last time we'd ever see each other but neither of us could say it out loud for fear of making it real.

I watched his stooped figure through the rain from the back of the black car until I couldn't see him anymore. Then I turned to the man beside me with my voice barely holding together.

"Could you bring Aldwin with us? He can do anything, and he'll work harder than anyone you have."

"I don't need more staff."

Kael leaned back against the seat looking completely unbothered. His pale eyes moved from the pink backpack on my lap to the stuffed rabbit keychain on the zipper to Sable curled in my arms, and his brow creased deeper with every second he spent taking it all in.

"Please,” I begged again, knowing how life in a rural den would be for an old one like Aldric.

Kael heaved a short sigh and stretched across me, opened the door and looked me straight in the eyes with all conviction and no remorse as he spoke.

"Your options are simple: come with me now or get out and survive on your own. You have three seconds to decide."

The guard glanced at his Alpha in the rearview mirror, then at me, staring at the open door.

“Well?” Kael’s eyes reeked of impatience. I could tell he was not a very tolerant man.

I peeked into the rain once more and found no sign of Aldric and with shame, I gently closed the door and the driver took off.

As the car rolled off, my mind rolled on, spinning everything that had happened, my parents, the estate seizure, the elder’s interrogations, the questions I couldn't answer about things I didn't understand.

It emptied me so completely that when sleep finally pulled at me, I didn't fight it.

I heard low voices after that and the faint click of a lighter, but none of it stuck. Then Kael’s voice, flat and final: “Enough talking. Drive.”

And I was gone again.

In my sleep, I vaguely remember nestling against something unexpectedly soft, warm enough to make me rub against it absently for what felt like forever.

When I woke up properly, it took a few seconds to understand where I was. The engine was humming, the car was moving, and my face was now pressed awkwardly against the cold car door— a far cry from whatever soft thing I had apparently been clinging to in my sleep.

Kael was at the wheel now, which meant at some point he had moved me without waking me, and the lingering warmth trapped in the leather beside me was enough proof of where I’d actually been sleeping.

I scoffed internally, even as heat rushed to my face, refusing to believe the man of steel was nice enough to let me nap on him.

The highway outside was completely dark, except for the headlights carving a narrow path through endless pine forest on both sides.

His driver had claimed the passenger seat, slumped sideways, snoring loud enough to rattle the windows. Sable had migrated from my lap to the seat beside me and was asleep with her chin on the cushion, utterly unbothered by all of it.

Hearing me stir, Kael's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "There are rations in the back," he said, the same flat tone he probably used on the battlefield.

Our gazes met for a split second before I shook my head. He said nothing more.

Five minutes passed, maybe ten, the dashboard lights casting his features in pale blue.

I couldn't stop watching him, the strong bridge of his nose, the hard line of his jaw, the dark hair falling across his forehead with a carelessness that had no business on someone so controlled.

“Did your mother never tell you it was rude to stare?” Kael’s voice snapped at me.

“What— No. I mean— yes,” I shook my head, not understanding why I was so nervous and jumbling my words. “I wasn’t staring.”

He scoffed, something I was beginning to notice he did a lot.

“You should have stayed back at your pack. Thornveil is no place for a wolf not even confident enough to find her words,” his tone carried a note of disappointment.

“I am confident.”

The condescension in his tone forced me to defend my dignity, what little I had left.

“If you say so,” he glanced back at me, "I want to smoke," he said, rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers. "Find my lighter. It's in the compartment."

"Smoke? While driving?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I'll turn eighteen at the end of the year."

"So a pup basically. I’m ten years older than you, so do not lecture me on the rules of driving."

I had an uneasy look on my face as I searched the compartment and reluctantly handed him the lighter.

He put the cigarette between his lips, one hand on the wheel, the other grabbed the lighter and he lit it before tossing it back towards me and rolled open the moon roof before he exhaled.

I watched him with careful eyes and the familiar smell of this brand of cigarette brought back memories of the other man I know who smoked them but the only image of him my mind could produce is the one of mother’s wolf tearing relentlessly into him.

I heaved a deep, sad sigh and turned my teary eyes towards the window, wondering what life held for me where we were going.

“Elowen,” I heard Kael call my name and when I look at him, the hardness in his eyes is gone for a moment.

"The dead are gone, Elowen. They have lived their course and it has ended. The living have to keep going. I can’t promise you s**t, but if you’re anything like your mother, you’ll survive in Thornveil and maybe even thrive.”

I did not know what to make of his words but they brought me comfort, in a way even I did not understand.

Our journey ended and he took me to a cabin on the far edge of Thornveil territory, not the estate, not anywhere near him, just a small stone house ringed by pines so tall they blocked out the sky.

He walked me to the door and introduced the woman waiting in the kitchen as Maren, my housekeeper. She looked me over once with flat uninterested eyes and turned back to the counter.

Kael pressed a leather pouch of money into her hand and told her it should cover everything through the end of my schooling before he turned to me.

"If you need anything, send word through Maren."

And with that, he was gone. I didn’t even get the chance to thank him.