Not My Alpha

"Lean back for me, love." the deep, rumbling voice said above me. The shadowy figure leaned over me, dark and intimidating, yet somehow...safe. I leaned back against the pillows, my breath catching in my throat as his hand trailed up my sternum, between the milky mounds hidden by the fabric of my bra. Who was this man? Why did his touch scorch my skin in such a way, yet his presence makes shivers crawl their way up my spine?? His hands tangled themselves in my fiery red curls, gripping it tightly as he whispered in my ear...- "ROWEN!!!" I bolted straight up in bed, my name bouncing around painfully in my head. I began to make mental notes of the aches and pains. My trim, muscular body was trained for hard work, but Caleb took it to an extreme every once in a while and, of course, the Oracle Moon Festival was one of those times. My five-foot-four limber body could lift more than any human, and my shoulder-length hair bounced freely around my face, needing brushed badly. "ROWEN! GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP! CHORES NEED DONE!", my "Sponsor", Caleb, could be heard shrieking up the wooden staircase to the attic, where my small, minimalist room was situated. I groaned and slid my feet off the side of the bed, sitting and holding my head for a moment. The dream sat rent-free in my head, a recurring thing I had no idea how to stop. They were getting more and more intense as the Festival drew closer. This time, I could almost feel the mystery man's touch when I awoke. They had been plaguing my thoughts and sleep for WEEKS, now. I sighed. Time for another day in the Oracle Pack... "Coming, Caleb!" I replied, my irritation evident in my voice. I stood and dressed, wrapping my apron around me as I made my way down the rickety wooden stairs to the dining room, knowing he would have something to say about my talking to a superior that way. To be fair, I was lower than an Omega; I had no status. I had a "Sponsor" as our pack called it, who would take in a classless wolf and house them in exchange for working for them. Honestly, I'd almost rather be a Rogue... However, Caleb had stepped in on my behalf because he needed someone to clean and serve in the bar. We were nothing more than glorified slaves to the pack. In my case, the pack feared me, as I was the only wolf in the region with thick, fiery red hair and gleaming jade-colored eyes. They believed I was bad luck, and so did not want me handling important things or mating and creating anyone like myself, endangering the pack further. So, I joined the Classless and lived with a Sponsor. "Clean up the breakfast kitchen!" Caleb snapped as I rounded the corner into the dining room area. I nodded and silently walked to the kitchen to begin cleaning it for the lunch rush. I knew opening my mouth further would only fuel his ire. I had no desire to challenge him today. As a Classless, I just wanted to keep my head down and find my way in my pack. There weren't many options, but I could do SOMETHING useful. Someday I would figure out what that was. For now, I cleaned the kitchen for the lunch rush, and later I would prepare for the Oracle Moon Festival, where the Alpha would be announcing the Alpha's decision to split the pack hunt into two days or three, Bind himself to his Luna, and initiate the new Omegas. The ceremonies would go on throughout the night, until the morning began to break the next day. I was in charge of keeping everyone well-fed and well...hydrated, if you will. The bar was a small building, situated near the center of the pack's small village. We would be the apex for festival food and drink, and the festivities would go on around our building. Caleb had me move folding chairs and tables out to the sidewalks and around the pathways around our building for festival goers, once I had finished cleaning the kitchen and prepping for lunch rush. Around noon, I started to smell the delicious scents of meats, baked goods and delicious sweets all around me. I stopped for a moment while setting up a table umbrella, to take in the wonderful aromas surrounding me. How I wished I could join in the games and activities held within the pack. I just wanted to belong. Pack members sneered at me, even Caleb didn't like or trust me, but he still had SOME humanity in him at least, taking me in like he did. He knew my mother and father well, and when they brought me to him the day they were killed, he kept the pack from throwing me out as a child. As much as he may have thought about my mother and father, that kindness did not extend to me. He kept me housed and fed, barely, but he was also gruff and harsh, never let me get away with anything;I always had to work. It didn't matter none of them would associate with me anyway; Only one of the Classless would even speak to me. Just as the thought of her popped into my head, a small ball of tussled brown curls came bursting into sight, huffing and puffing and finally stopping beside me to catch her breath. Her small frame made her seem like she was a child from afar, but up close, Freya was a BEAUTIFUL young woman. "Freya! Breathe, girl!" I said, bending to check the color of her face as she heaved. The seventeen-year-old fireball looked up at me, her curls in her eyes, making her blink repeatedly at me. My eyes widened when I saw how red her face was, and I heard myself automatically asking, "Freya, what's wrong??" "Jason caught me watching him mow the lawn over our fence this morning! Adam just told me!", the now obviously embarrassed girl was beet red, tears welling in her eyes as she continued to try to breathe through the combination of hysteria and catching her breath from her marathon race to tell me whatever was going on with Jason, the boy she was crushing on but wasn't sure if she would be mated to when she turned eighteen. I laughed and shook my head. "Girl, you are going to give me a REAL heart attack one of these days, I'm tellin' you." I sighed and continued with the umbrella I was attempting to set up, but the clasp was snagged. Freya calmed down a bit and seemed to notice I was struggling, and reached out to help me un-snag the pole from the umbrella's safety loop. "What are you up to today?" I asked her as we worked together to get the table and its umbrella upright and stable. She grinned. "Nat and Gabe said I could spend two hours at the festival!" she said gleefully, then upon seeing the shadow of sadness cross my face, she instantly added, "I'll bring you something sweet!". I smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. Natasha and Gabriel were a couple in the pack that couldn't have pups themselves. So, when Freya's family were killed in an accident at the pack mill, they took her in and became her Sponsors. "You're sweet. Go have fun while you can, and when you come back I will have a plate just for you," I told her and pushed her toward the games. She flashed me another smile and ran off. I knew she was going to swipe whatever she possibly could for me and bring it when Caleb wasn't looking. I'd set aside an extra portion of mashed potatoes for the little gremlin. As the afternoon wore on, things began to settle down a bit, and the pack began to gather by the stage set up in the grass plaza across the street from the bar. The Alpha, Beta and their parents took to the stage, the parents standing to the right of their legacies. The Council stood to the left of the stage, where they readied the ceremonial dagger for the Binding of the Alpha to his chosen Luna, a pretty girl named Adrianna. She was kind, but feared me as well. The Beta, Kess, HATED me. He always glared my way, made more work for me whenever possible, and always had unkind things to say about me whenever I was within earshot of him and his buddies. Alpha Slater didn't hate me, but he didn't do much to put a stop to the Beta's harassment. They saw me as Classless, a slave no matter what they called it. The Ceremony began with the announcements. They had decided on a three-day pack hunt, and the Alpha had ordered a new section to be tilled for harvests to increase. Next was the Binding of the Alpha and his Luna. Adrianna took to the stage, where Alpha Slater met her in the center. One Council member brought the ceremonial dagger forward, and the couple made a horizontal slice across each of their palms. Another council member held a sacred chalice beneath their hands, where they each dripped a drop of their own blood into the cup of ceremonial oils. They then clasped palms above the chalice. A gust of wind encircled the pack, breathing into us the smell of the forest, the sounds of the earth and the promise of longevity among the pack. As the wind began to pick up, many pack members began to cry out. This was not normal for a Binding ceremony. The air turned stale, and smoke took over our lungs as canisters slid across the sidewalk, the road, bounced into the crowd, thrown around by the gusting wind. Suddenly, the wind whipping around them, hiding them as they dodged in and out of the smokey, whirling mess, I caught a new scent. None of my pack held this scent. It smelled...warm...earthy... Wait!, I thought angrily to myself, my pack was being attacked, and I was standing around sniffing them out?! I had to do something.! Freya, where is Freya?? Just as I took a step forward to look for curly haired teenager, I felt myself yanked backward, grabbed roughly by strong, firm hands, a bag stuffed over my head, and before i could scream, something hard hit the side of my head. Just before I sunk into the dark oblivion overtaking my mind, I heard him. I smelled him. He was ANGRY. "Did you HAVE to hit her?!" And my world went black.