Spare For The Alpha

The Forest

The next day it was more of the same mundane.

Wake up, go for a run. I’d always enjoyed running but I was only able to run around the gardens now. It got quite boring. Work out in the gym, and shower, and Mrs Alpin would study with me for school. She was petit with Mousey brown hair, huge round glasses and brown hair. She wore a brown checkered pinafore, dressed with brown tights and brown leather shoes, with a brown handbag. She was kind enough, but she was so unbelievably dull. It was always difficult to learn when her dreary voice drowned out and was filled with my imaginative thoughts.

After school studies, which lasted for two hours per day. I was able to go out in the garden. Come rain or shine, I would make sure that I went back out in the garden to get the air I needed. I refused to let my mental health deteriorate. Sometimes I would dance in the rain until my clothes were soaked right through.

I would have my lunch, and be scolded by Sally as she told me I was ‘going to catch my death’, even though werewolves don’t catch their death from a little rain. She was so dramatic. Then I would have my Luna studies.

Each afternoon I had to have Luna studies. It was completely absurd. I don’t even think the current Luna to be, who was engaged to Quinn, was taking part in this many studies. Luna Vivian would come over and teach me etiquette, werewolf politics and history. She would come around three times a week and then send someone else the other days. I was able to have weekends off. Beatrice always said it was because she felt guilty about the situation and would come to check I was okay. Sally always said she was just checking her insurance was still in place.

I was the spare for Alpha Quinn. His fated Luna would never been strong enough for him. A seer had once told Luna Vivian that Alpha Quinn’s Luna wouldn’t survive. So basically, I was the backup. It wasn’t even guaranteed. How do we know what the seer said was even the truth? Losing a fated mate was like losing part of your soul and it could take him years to even consider moving on. He needed someone strong and familiar to help him through it. Someone he loved dearly someone who would put up with his behaviour but could also give them heirs. It was outrageous. It's what the rumours were though, and the only thing which made sense.

Quinn had always been a hopeless romantic. He played the bad boy card often, but deep down he was all in as soon as he found his fated mate, just a few years ago. She was an omega and she wasn’t very strong, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care that she had no wolf, he didn’t care about anything other than loving her. You’d think that was great and I was just jealous. The thing was, it made her an easy target for other packs. She had allergies and everything had to be inspected before her consumption. It was selfish of him to keep her and make her his.

Emily was a petite girl and very beautiful. She had naturally white hair down to her shoulders and blue eyes. She was quite thin and pale. She was really shy and didn’t speak much. She was nice though. I remember her from school. Quinn didn’t even know she went to school, in the same classes as him, until he realised they were mates.

If only I’d be allowed to interact with other males then I might find my mate. There was no chance of that happening though. They couldn’t let the spare find her fated mate.

I went for a ride on my pet horse Pippin, an Appaloosa mare with Theo. Theo rode Maximus who was a big black shire horse. Our horses were the best of friends, they were so funny together. Nuzzling each other every time we tried to get anywhere. We always said they were fated to be together and it was why our horse rides consisted of going at snail's pace, whilst they nuzzled. The Lovell family owned a huge forest where they trained. A lot of the centre was set up to help them train, but there was a running and a riding trail too.

Theodore had to book it out as nobody was allowed in the forest during training, but also, nobody was allowed near me either. Being a beta meant I was probably fated to another Beta or Gamma warrior. I only had to find my mate before anything happened to Emily. Once I was marked by Quinn and we mated, it meant I wouldn’t be able to find my fated mate. You could marry and live a whole life with another chosen mate, whilst your bond still remained. People often had a girlfriend or boyfriend they had mated and accepted before they found their fated mate. It didn’t work with an Alpha though. Once you were marked and chosen by an Alpha, your fated mate bond would be broken forever.

‘Clem.’ Theodore shouted loudly. I looked at him, still a bit dazed from the thoughts in my head. ‘Clem, where were you? I kept shouting at you and it was like your head was in a totally different realm.’ I shook my head before laughing at him. ‘What is it, Theo?’ I asked sweetly. I’d always respected him as my little brother and he looked to me as a big sister. ‘There, there.’ He pointed to a small animal on the floor in the woods. A foal. As far as I knew, the Lovell family didn’t have any foals, Theo would have told me if one of his horses was in foal.

I slowly got down from Pippin, passing her reigns to Theo as I walked over to the poor foal. I didn’t want to scare it. I crouched down to see the foal panting and in pain. ‘The poor baby is injured.’ I cried to Theo whilst stroking the foal.

‘I wonder where it came from?’ He asked me. The only stable yard for miles was the one at the pack house. Pippin lived there too, although I wasn’t able to spend time at the pack house anymore as our time together was slowly coming to an end. Just in case it turned out that I was fated to Theo when he turned eighteen in a few months. I hoped he would find his fated mate quickly so that we could still see each other.

They would forbid one of their sons a fated mate, just so that their eldest son had a spare. It was wild to me. Even wilder, they assumed our sibling-like bond would result in mating.

‘Eurgh.’ My wolf Tine said to me. She had woken from her sleep. It’s all she really did since nothing interesting really happened in our lives. ‘Don’t be putting those images in my head.’

As I held my hands out, Theo jumped down and came over to me. We looked at one another, before interlocking our fingers together. One of us is on each side of the foal, our palms facing down over the body of the foal. We began to sing our song together ‘We may, we might, bring this creature back some light.’ As we did, we noticed that the bleeding wound started to close up. We kept our palms over as we looked at each other and smiled.

This had been a top secret since we were pups. After everything had gone down on my fourteenth birthday I would sit outside alone. On the day of my father's funeral, I found a little Robin dying on the bench next to me. I couldn’t bear to see anything else dead. Theo came over and he tried to cover it with his hands so I couldn’t see. When I could still see, he used my hands too. Interlocking our fingers with our palms over the bird. It made me smile, that he was trying to protect me when he was only ten years old. He said those words and asked me to say them too. We were essentially, giving the little bird a funeral. We said them together at the same time and I felt a warm sensation in my hand, Theo did too. We let go as our hands felt like they were on fire and as we let go, the bird flew away.

From that day on, we both swore each other to secrecy. Healing any injured bird we came across together. We had never tried any other animal before, so it was a wonderful surprise to see that we had helped this foal. We didn’t know if the song was completely necessary, but it sparked our inner child, so we continued to say it.

The foal scrambled to its legs. We both looked as the dirty white fur began to glisten in the shaded forest. We looked at each other quizzically. Then right before our eyes, the foal began to talk. Theo passed out, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest. I was frozen to the spot. ‘Thank you, ma’am. Your generosity knows no bounds. Whenever you need me. Just call me.’ It had a male voice, so I guess it was a he.

The foal then trotted off into the forest. I don’t know where he could have gone as the forest was heavily guarded on the outskirts. There was no way out, except into the pack house gardens.

When Theo eventually came around, I explained what had happened. ‘I think we inhaled some forest mushrooms.’ He said whilst I burst out laughing, hitting him in the stomach as we rolled around on the forest floor, Theo tickling my ribs as I tried to kick him away.

‘I wish we were eating forest mushrooms.’ Tine said to me, as I snorted and laughed even louder.