Alpha Aria

***Content Warning: Violence and s****l Assault*** **ARIA** (**POV will be at the beginning of each chapter in between the asterisks**) “Daddy, I’m scared!” I cried, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. My father stood protectively in front of me, blocking the view of my mother and the attackers, but I could hear the fighting. The sound of fangs shredding flesh, yelping and squelching, growling, and snarling were flooding my ears, and the terror in my chest was constricting my breath. “I know you’re scared, but you can do it. Your mommy and I love you so much. Just run, darling!” I shook my head, tears now streaming down my face. “I can’t!” “Yes, you can, Aria!” His hands moved in a circling pattern, fingers pointed, and he mumbled something quietly that I couldn’t make out above the cacophony of battle. A ball of green light formed between his hands, and his eyes glowed, matching the crackling energy he wielded. He pushed his hands toward me, and it flew at me, absorbing into me painlessly. I had no idea what spell he just cast on me, but I knew it was meant to protect me. “Now go!” he shouted at me, turning around to face the fighting. “Whatever you do, don’t look back. Run, Aria! RUN!” The urgency in his voice connected somewhere deep inside of me, and I was compelled to obey. I turned and fled, trampling the chanterelles scattered on the forest floor with my feet. We had spent all morning gathering them before the rogues ambushed us. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my basket of found treasures that I had collected, and I leaned over to grasp the handle, but I didn’t see the tree root sticking out of the ground. My small body tumbled forward, and I landed in a crevice of the roots. My ankle burst with intense pain. Despite my father's warning not to, I looked up, and I could see my parents in the small clearing ahead. My mother had shifted partially into her large black wolfish human form. She stood on two legs, her muscled body covered with fur, her claws sharp and long. Her snout extended partially from her face, two wolfish ears protruding from her head. This was the strongest fighting form for a werewolf, and only possible on the full moon, unless you are an alpha. This was the classic werewolf form from legends that humans thought were myth. My father was next to her, facing two partially shifted rogues. For any other person, facing shifters as a human would be fatal, but my father was no human. He was a powerful witch. Green flames shot from his hands and landed on them. They screeched in agony as the magic enveloped their bodies , and they burned, and a moment later, they fell, their bodies charcoaled. The spell must have taken a lot of his mystical energy, for he fell to his knees, exhausted. I could see three dead rogues sprawled on the ground around my mother. When an Alpha fights, they fight fast and ferociously. There were two left fighting her, slashing at her with long claws extending from their fingers. She jumped and tore out the throat on one of them while the other slashed at her shoulder. She turned to him, blood dripping from her fangs and snarled at him. They lunged at each other, and my mother seized his neck and disposed of him quickly. I breathed a sigh of relief, which didn’t last long. A tall and wiry rogue with one eye and greasy black hair dropped from the trees behind her, and for some reason, she didn’t hear him. He moved so fast I couldn’t keep up; he raked her from behind, so deeply I could see her ribs. Blood instantly came gushing out. She turned to him to attack, but she didn't even get one hit in before he had jabbed his hand into her front. He pulled away, holding something in his hands. I couldn’t see it clearly enough to know what it was, but then I saw the hole in her chest. She stared ahead, her eyes dazed, and she collapsed, her body crashing to the ground. She transformed back to her human form, naked and unconscious. I could see a blackness spreading through her veins as she rapidly turned gray. My father cried out in anguish. "Victoria!" He threw himself onto her body as a sob wracked his body. The one-eyed rogue spit on him, a sizzling sound coming from the skin on my father where the saliva landed. He spoke in a gravelly voice. “After I am done with your Alpha, I will have fun with you, witch!” The rogue kicked my father in the stomach with strength that I had never seen before, and he flew, landing against a tree trunk. I heard a loud snapping sound, and he slumped over, lifeless. A sinister smile quirked on the evil rogue's face, and he turned his attention back to my mother. Bile rose in my throat, and tears flowed from my eyes, blurring my vision as he grasped her hips. He positioned her body and started pumping, jerking himself in and out. Then he raised his face and howled in victory EEP EEP EEP EEP EEP... The sound of my alarm blaring woke me up, and I bolted upright, gasping, my heart pounding. I looked around the room frantically, my head spinning from the nightmare. I turned my alarm off and took a deep breath, my whole body shuddering as I tried to steady my nerves. It didn’t matter how many times I had the same awful dream. It always felt so real. I'd been having the same nightmare more frequently lately, and it was starting to drain me. I hated reliving the last moments I shared with my parents, and I was being forced to in my dreams nearly every night. There were details about that awful day that I must have repressed because I didn't remember them from my childhood. Little things like the color of their eyes, tattoos, the way they moved, the awful things they did to my mom that I was too young to understand when I was five. Now I knew, and I desperately wished that I didn't. Taking deep breaths, I tried to think about happy things to distract myself. Diego's grinning face was the first thing to pop in my head. I focused on his face and studied each feature in my mind, allowing my heartbeat to steady. Slowly, my body began to calm. I exhaled deeply and finally stepped out of bed to face the day. Absorbed in my thoughts as I threw on some loose jeans and a cropped tee, I almost didn't hear my phone buzz with an incoming text from Diego. //We still on for training after school?// //Yep// //Sweet. Prepare to be destroyed// I chuckled at my best friend's confidence. We had been training together since we were 6 years old. He was an excellent fighter and very strong, but I was fast. //Ha! We shall see about that. Is Cameron finally going to come?// Cameron is our good friend who recently decided that he is going to start training with us. He already does the mandatory morning training on the weekends, but since we are in high school, we are excused during the school week. Diego and I like to go more often, and Cameron decided that Diego was getting too buff. He joked that Megan was going to dump him and go after Diego. Which was ridiculous because they were so obviously in love that there was no chance that would happen. They had been together for nearly two years. Regardless, Cameron is trying hard to get in better shape to impress Meg. //Nah, he and Meg are going shopping. Meg wants a dress for this weekend// Ah, yes. The Alpha Summit was this weekend. I giggled at the thought of Meg dragging Cameron all over the mall. That boy really would do anything for her! It was a long drive to Bend, the closest real shopping venue in the area, so they would not be making it to our customary movie night on Monday. //Okay, see you soon// I grabbed a banana and a bagel from the pantry and left the house quietly, trying not to wake Uncle Bill. After my parents died, he took me in. He was my mom's younger brother and the pack had wanted him to take her place as Alpha but he refused, citing that he was too weak from the loss of his mate a few years prior and now his sister, his only sibling. The elder council subsequently passed the title to then-Beta Brian, who took up the mantle with pride. As I walked to school, I munched on my breakfast and thought about the rogues that attacked my parents when I was little. I was still worried that the one-eyed monster would come for me someday. I don't know why. We hadn’t had a rogue attack since they killed my parents. Of course, there had been the occasional rogue sighting, but never any attacks. I tried to convince myself that I was okay, I was safe, and that Diego and my uncle could protect me. I may be a good fighter, but without my wolf, I was no match for a shifted werewolf, rogue or not. Diego had already shifted at the normal age of sixteen, but my wolf had never come. My eighteenth birthday was 6 days away, and it hadn't happened yet. At this point, I figured it never would. I also hadn't exhibited any magical abilities, like my father. I remember him telling me that every firstborn in our family had been blessed with magic by Gaia, the earth goddess, for centuries. He and my mom had often mused if I would be a werewolf or a witch one day. Secretly, I had always hoped to be both. I would be the first wolf witch hybrid known to our kind. The universe must have other plans, however, because I'm neither. Thinking of my mom and dad caused a familiar pain to start to creep into my temples. Ever since my parents died, I have been connected to emotions on a physical level. Not just my own, either. Other people's feelings affect me even more. I've never told anyone about it, not even Diego. After all, it is just one more thing that makes me feel like a freak, different from everyone else. Passing through the park our pack had created in honor of my parents, I was drawn to the bench with their dedication plaque on it. I spent a few minutes resting, my head swimming with jumbled thoughts and feelings. The nightmare started playing in my head on a loop. I felt the familiar sensation of a panic attack setting in. I hadn't had one in years, so it caught me off guard. "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10" I repeated over and over in my head. I tried taking slow breaths to calm my heart rate. Instead of slowing down, however, my pulse quickene and my lungs felt like someone had turned off the oxygen in the air. I gasped, and my breath came faster and faster. All of a sudden, the one-eyed monster's face stared at me, snarling, his fangs bared. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to dispel the horrific vision from my mind. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would jump out of my chest. I was drowning in panic. Everything started spinning, and I fell off the bench, hitting the ground hard, and the darkness consumed me.