Beginning
---POV Esa---
---Two years ago---
I was jolted awake with screaming. I winced seeing the gentle hue of yellow and orange dancing through my window. "ALPHA!" I jumped out of my bed and completely disregarded my shoes. It was not important, and the obvious reality was true. We were under attack.
Our pack wasn't the strongest, nor did we boarder anyone. We made it a point to keep to ourselves and be a haven for those who have nowhere else to go. You decide if that is a good idea or not. Many of the other packs out there don’t even know our name. The Whispers Pack. I, the current Alpha as of three years ago, have done my best to keep up with the traditions my father instilled in me and made it a point to protect our own. However, ‘from what’, was the million-dollar question. I always asked myself that as I rolled my eyes at my father’s fear. I don't know what he was thinking, but attacks on our pack? It never happened. At least, not until today.
I jumped over the railing on the fourth floor and landed with ease on the aged textile rug decorating the pack house's ground floor. I shot my head up hearing the screams again flooding into my head. I took a deep breath and felt my eyes glow silver. My wolf was enraged. “Soldiers! Find shelter for the elderly and children. Make sure my siblings stay down there as well. I don't care if they are almost fifteen. They are not fifteen yet. We need to get everyone ready to make it to the tunnels.” Triplets. Yep, my younger siblings are triplets. They all try so hard to keep up with me, especially my younger brother. I enjoy training them and the adoration I see in their eyes keeps me going every day. I'm glad I can call myself their role model.
“Yes, Alpha!” Rang clear in my head and I relaxed a bit.
“Gamma team, I'm holding you all responsible for that. Beta team and Alpha team, you are with me.” Some people may ask why we call our top warriors the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma teams, but it's obvious. Whomever leads the team, that is their names. We have others, but they are the top three and they work hard to make it there. Fighting for and fighting to keep their spot was an understatement, and they usually consist of the direct relatives of the main three: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Not by favoritism, just by pure strength in the final one-on-one battles.
“I’m coming guys!” I shouted and morphed into my wolf, Lydia. Her thick light grey coat ruffled out to its full glory in the dim light. I huffed before bellowing an ear-shattering howl throughout the pack house. I will not lose! I pushed myself through the doors and sprinted to the main fight.
“Marie!” I shouted to my Beta in the mind link.
“Yes, Alpha.” She was heaving. She was…injured.
“How…no! Stay calm. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” I forced myself to move faster and the panic I felt was a new high. I didn’t have a mate yet so all I had was my pack and my family. Marie – or Leena when she is human – is my best friend. We have been inseparable since childhood. As the eldest child and daughter of the previous Beta, she worked just as hard as I to prove herself. I wouldn’t say we are the only pack to have a female Alpha, but we are the only one who was bold enough to have the Gamma and the Beta be females as well, but it wasn’t really like we had a choice. All three of us were the oldest. We were chosen and none of our siblings could beat us in battle. We earned our spot.
I still think it’s a bit barbaric that they think it’s normal for an eight-year-old to fight an eighteen-year-old. In all our cases, that was the truth. We were the oldest by ten years. Now at twenty-five, all of us have been training to take our father’s places since eighteen and completed the task at twenty-two. Don’t get me wrong, my siblings have tried at least once a year to beat me, and we are all of alpha blood, so there is no way that our age gap is that much of a deterrent. We trained since we were young. We fight seriously. Enemies don’t hold back, and neither do we.
“Come on, Marie. Hang in there!” I shouted. Then I heard it. My Gamma’s voice violently becoming silent. Cali was gone. I slammed to a halt and the pain I felt was overwhelming. But not as bad as her mate that is now screaming and begging for death. I winced. It was the death they gladly gave him. “No….No!” I shouted. I can’t lose both Beta and Gamma in the same night.
I shook my ash grey fur from side to side, trying to focus. “Lydia…please…just tell my family I’m so –” Another heart-clenching silence. Both…both of my brethren sisters were gone.
“ALPHA!!” I had to hold in my pain. My pack needs me. I turned back to the pack house now miles away from my current location on our little plot of land.
“Alpha! They found the kids; we have to go!” I nodded toward my soldier’s update, burying my emotions far beneath the surface. I heaved a heavy breath before releasing another howl.
“Let’s move closer to the pack house. Johnny and TJ, you two come with me to remove the irritation trying to get to our cubs.” I heard howls of response coming from all directions before their feet followed, pounding hard into the ground between us and them.
“ALPHA!!!” The screams kept getting louder and more urgent.
“I’m coming, Alison. Please…please let me know what’s happening. Take a deep breath.” I tried to calm my sister down, but this whole situation was a mess. How was this happening? How can we stop it? Why was it happening?
“TJ, do you know who is attacking us?” I asked and heard silence. “TJ?” I felt another jolt. They are picking us off one by one. “Why!” I screamed out in a pained cry over the mind link, slowly failing to keep my emotions in check. As the Alpha, I feel every loss of my pack I feel the sharp initial pain of a mate losing their other half. I feel the burden of my pack. A strong leader would never have to feel this pain because their pack will be impenetrable. Or at least that’s what I thought, but strength is irrelevant.
We fought day in and day out. When you turn fifteen, every pack member is required to learn how to fight, but when you are old enough to walk you can volunteer. We even had some of our members contracted out as hired bounty hunters and assassins because of our ability to train everyone. Those who were just better, learned more and learned to help our little pack financially in the only thing we are good at collectively. Fighting. Even I would take some of the more sensitive jobs to make sure everyone else stayed safe. The little pack, whom of which is not known as The Whispers Pack by many, is definitely famous as the Assassin’s Guild by all. I guess we kept each name on the low so that the two would never be identified as the same. When your pack is only 200 people, that’s a target we could not afford to collect. We may be trained, but we are outnumbered by any pack. Even the rogues that wander around together seem to overpower us. Maybe the people attacking us now put the pieces together and want revenge. No…there is no way. I cannot keep everyone safe when I don’t have any help. There is a reason we live, hunt, and survive in packs. The bigger, the better. “Come on! How are they doing this?!”
“We can finish this, Alpha. Please don’t hesitate.” My father’s voice rang through my ears, and I realized it was strained. Mo was in charge. He had shifted and he was fighting. I smelled for their scent as I pushed myself harder toward the little ones. They were still here and safe. I sighed in relief as I moved closer, but then I saw the pack house in flames. I guess safe was a relative term. I fell back and my whole body shook.
“I’m coming kids. I’m coming!” Right as I was about to lunge for the door, I was headbutted by Johnny and one of the elder Beta’s sons. “What are you doing?!” I screamed through the link and tried my best to get around them. That’s when I noticed I was surrounded by eight other men of varying ages and ranks from our pack. “Traitors!” I growled, feeling the hair on my back rise as I poised myself to fight my own men.
“No! No! Alpha, we are not traitors. We are following orders.” I tried to comprehend what Johnny was saying while a couple of the wolves surrounding me were fighting off the wolves and…and I don’t know what else to call those other things running to me.… To me!? I looked around at each wolf protecting me and their strength – whether their scent was beta or omega – was unprecedented…interesting. That, and many of the intruders had stopped what they were doing and came to attack me.
Some even screamed, “We found her!” I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but they were looking for me?!
“What’s going on?” I asked, enraged and doing my best to make sure Lydia didn’t completely take over.
“We have to get you out of here!” The circle started to shift as they all pushed into me, and we started moving toward the escape tunnels that seemed to be untouched. How is that possible? The weaker pack members were supposed to be here by now!
“What are you talking about? I’m not leaving my family! Where are they?!” They all winced at my pain and forced their way through my alpha dominance that I was proactively pushing on them at this point.
Johnny grunted as he and the other nine pushed me into the tunnels. I looked over at my mother and father and I saw that our eyes locked together. They nodded and my mother blew me a kiss before their pained smiles, not at all meeting their eyes, appeared for the last time.
