The Golden Daughter

Home Coming

(Ryan Hendrekson POV Made out of Sarcasm, a Six Pack and Coffee) 

    I couldn’t remember the last time I exited that school. The Academy didn’t allow field trips. Though I doubt anyone would let a bunch of misfit teenage criminals onto their property. The packs always sent the kids they couldn’t handle to the Academy.

   The Academy used to be a prestigious school that focused on training history's greatest warriors. Now, in this time of peace, the pack only sent the kids that got into trouble. So they could get straighten out or die.

    I almost scoffed as I watched the famed Academy I was condemned to for five years disappear in the distance. The rumored Academy that parents use to threaten their pups with. Saying that if they didn’t behave they would send them to the Academy to get straightened out.

    If any of them actually knew what they did in there they wouldn’t even joke about sending one’s pup. They didn’t know 60% of each class died in their first years. If you disobeyed you got whipped to the bone. If you were discovered trying to escape you were tied to the posts until you passed out, or died. Sometimes when we were sparring the Commanders will force us to keep pushing, hitting, punching until one of you is dead.

    I sighed slumping back in my seat. It didn’t matter, I should be focusing on how I’m going to survive my reunion with my family. I was still ruffled from leaving so quickly. It happened so suddenly a driver came then they dragged me out in the middle of class along with all my belongings in my dorm. The new dorm I just got for becoming a Senior. The one and only privilege the Academy gave as a sort of congratulations for surviving until their final year.

    Still, I left a year early. Once I formed a route in the Academy and learned to keep my mouth shut and emotions blank I was less worried about being whipped to death and started dreading the days of my return to the pack. I wasn’t sent there because my pack Alpha couldn’t control me. My father sent me there to become a cold emotionless weapon for him to use.

    I tapped the door handle, barely feeling the leather under the thick calluses covering my fingers. I wondered how much it would hurt if I bolted. If I unlocked the car jumping out onto the hard pavement. The car sped up making it impossible to escape, almost in a silent answer saying; Don't even try.

    Father invested too many years into training me for me to escape that easily. He was planning something. I vaguely knew the reason I came home early was because of the HalfCrest peace treaty.

    I was stumped as to why, though? Why the hell would Father want a peace treaty after years of hating and raiding the HalfCrest’s smaller territories?

    Father has had a deep-seated hatred for the HalfCrest pack since… Well before I was born. He refused to tell me but I heard rumors of how he was cast out of the pack. That when the first peace treaties were signed Father was against them. But even as the Beta of the pack the HalfCrest the Alpha didn’t listen to him.

    Then one day my father challenged the Alpha, the famous Royal blooded Alpha that conquered dozens of packs with his bare hands. However, my father was Royal blooded as well. Distantly, a mere cousin of one of the Royal blooded lineages but he was strong.

    Even so, he lost and was cast out of the pack. Forming the root of my father's hatred for the HalfCrest pack. He soon after started the ShadowFang pack despite the peace treaties and continued their reign of terror even after other packs turned to the nice cushy life of peace and prosperity.

    The ShadowFang pack should be at its strongest. In the Academy I kept up with the news articles about all the villages the ShadowFangs raided, stealing their resources and people. And the HalfCrest supply trains they attacked. The pack's goal was always to fill my father's thirst for revenge. However, they don’t know how deep his hatred runs…

    The driver slowed, causing me to glance out the window as the car passed the black iron gates that lead to the ShadowFang territory. I squint through the tinted windows as we pass through the pack's town.

    Like most packs, Moonbright was where the capital of my pack was. This was all the main resource should be. But the small dirty run-down houses with doors hanging off their hinges betrayed the wealth that the ShadowFang pack should have. Some houses were boarded over, others with the glass still lining the streets from where their windows were busted out. Beggars, homeless, and thieves are at every street corner, clinging to their dirty children.

    What the hell happened?

    Almost as if a vial has been lifted, the car takes a sharp turn going up a hill. Large billowing mansions peek over the trees each with their own private driveways leading to a house with more than enough rooms and servants and food to supply them for ages. Each with a backyard leading to forests, a desired trait among Lupines.

    It was just like my family house, all of them. I don’t even have to see them I knew they each have extravagant useless chandeliers and draperies. Rooms that have never been used. A waste, all of it.

    The difference was night and day between the town and the upper-class citizens of the pack. But there was no doubt both were ShadowFang. The driver seems so unfazed it must not have been a very new occurrence to have the town living so differently from them. It made me sick.

    At the Academy Creed Bakersfield, one of my classmates survived despite him being skinnier than a stick when he first arrived. He was as slippery as a snake and always had a wicked grin on his face. He quickly learned to wipe it off his face when the Sergeants were around but it never faded. It was one of the things I most respected and wondered about him.

    Plus he has an uncanny ability to get out of the worst situations. He came from the ShadowFang pack and used to spout nonsense all the time about unfair taxes. I just didn’t realize that not all of it was nonsense.

  Father may be cruel but I have always considered him a fair Alpha. Something must have changed very deeply.

    The driver continued up the hill, suddenly pulling down a private driveway cresting the hill, and stopping in front of a towering mansion. It’s painted a soft crystal white and several omegas in the lawn scrambled away at the sight of the car. 

    At least the house didn’t seem to change. It was still imposing with tall shiny white pillars out front and was as wide as a castle. Dozens of windows and balconies each leading to their own spare rooms. All never used. 

   What a waste...

    Standing on the marble stairs leading up to the house were two boys. One was a tall but gangly teenager that lacked any muscle. And the other a young rosy-cheeked boy, no older than ten I instantly recognized as Thomas.

    I glanced at the dangling teenager again. Will... 

    I could hardly recognize him. He wasn’t as tall as I was, yet. And he was skinny like he just hit a growth spurt and hasn’t regained any muscle back. He also looked scared, his eyes wide and frightened as he frantically examined the car. Thomas on the other hand was practically buzzing with energy with a wicked smile on his face.

    I doubt Thomas remembers me. He was no older than four and balling his eyes out when they forced me in the car and took me to the Academy. I always liked Thomas and his endless curiosity and fact that he always drew danger to himself. Will was more of a damsel in distress that I had to protect whenever I wasn’t too busy picking on him myself.

  Then my father stepped out of the front door in a navy-blue suit and a stern expression, per usual. I was surprised he even came out of his study to greet me.

    I unlocked the car taking a step out, running a hand through my hair. It was getting unruly and longer than the Academy regulated. After one of the new boys dropped a scorpion down the barber's shirt and he ran out quitting on the spot I haven’t had a decent haircut. I would have tried to cut it myself but they didn’t allow students to have scissors.

    I leaned against the car as my family remained silent, watching me from their position on the steps. Will refused to meet my gaze and when I glanced at my mother she had a steely look in her eye. They were preparing for the worse…

    It was like they were posing for a picture. My mother's hands rested on Thomas's shoulders and he was dressed neatly in slacks and a button-down shirt. While mother had her preferred heels and pencil skirt. Even Will was wearing a suit.

    The driver came around the car, dropping my suitcase down beside me. I didn’t even realize he got out of the car. I glance down at the suitcase with all my belongings. Which wasn’t much; my uniform, a spare change of clothes, and books. The Librarian let me keep a few saying it wasn’t like the boys there used them.

    I snatched the handle taking a step forward. My mother dragged Thomas back, Will quickly followed. I paused, a little surprised. They could have at least pretended not to be afraid of me.

    I didn’t like how much it still hurt. I thought I stopped caring about them when I realized that they didn’t care if I was dead or alive. They didn't visit me once in the five years I was at the Academy. I use my carefully concealed anger to fuel me the rest of the way, ignoring when my own mother stumbles out of my way. Her back pressed against the rails to get as far as possible from me.

   My father blocked the door and stopped in front of him.

    “Son,” Father's head tilted up to look at me. It was strange being taller than this man but he still finds a way to look down on me. Making sure I remain the cold lifeless weapon and think I am too. Not the Alpha I would soon be. Or the Alpha son. I was the weapon. Watched as he eyed me with approval.

    “Father,” I replied, trying to match the dangerous ice in his voice. I met his eye openly challenging him. Not a great idea on my first day back, so I backed down first, stepping around him. I don’t care for little shows of dominance. I rather find out what the hell he was up to.

    The door opened for me and I was met with a grand foyer and a curved staircase leading up to the West and East wings of the house. It was just as big as I remembered. But the interior was different. 

    It wasn’t a big surprise. Mom used to redecorate every other week. It was the only thing his Father let me do, besides harassing the omegas. 

    I sighed, not bothering to take the time to glance at all the useless nick-nacks that were strictly decorative (And my mother probably spent hours picking out). Nothing is really different or memorable. It doesn’t feel like home, never did.

    I made my way up the stairs, going to the last bedroom down the hall. There was a punk rock band sticker peeling off on the bottom of the door from a few months before I was sent away. I smiled faintly.

    I wished that wild thirteen-year-old was still there. That some small part of that boy remained. But the Academy drilled that weakness out of me. I opened the door with a click stepping inside and slumping down on the bed.

    I stayed until Mom sent for me for dinner.