Once a Rogue, Now an Alpha

One - The Wrong Heir

LENNOX

There was something about today that had my heart dropping in the pit of my stomach from time to time. A warning, maybe, but then I didn’t even know what it was.

I sat absentmindedly looking through the window when I felt her hand touch my arm and sparks flew. I turned to look at her, noticing the worry that was in her eyes. “Is everything alright?” June asked, rubbing on my arm, sending tingles all over my body. This act alone made every negative feeling disappear. The effects the mate bond had over a disturbed mind like mine.

My mother was seated in the passenger seat in front, and she was silent throughout the ride as always. She had been hurt deep in her soul all these years and I didn’t know why, up till this point, she decided to stay as the Alpha King’s mistress when she could leave if she wanted to.

“You wouldn’t understand the matters of the heart, my boy.” She would tell me when I was younger. And sure enough, I didn’t understand it.

June gave a squeeze and I averted my gaze from the side mirror, looking at my mother’s emotionless face. I turned to my mate and I gave her a small smile before pulling her to sit closer to me, and she was in my arms. “Perfect,” I murmured, enjoying the feel of her body against mine. “Everything is perfect now.”

And it was. Or so I believed it.

The car drove into my father’s compound along with the hundreds that were either parked or driving through by the valets for parking and once it was our turn, the driver stopped in front of the red carpet that spread from the entrance of the hall.

I took June’s hand in mine, leading her up through the crowd and into the venue where the Annual Ceremony of the Evergreen Pack was being held. This year my father wanted it to be grand, to be different and to be close to home.

For me, this year it meant that I had my mate with me.

June and I slipped through the crowd to get to where my Father stood with his Luna, a woman who wasn’t even his fated mate, leaving my mother on her own and alone on the side.

I took a deep breath and readied myself to approach them when my eyes fell on Weston, who was at the far end of the bar behind his parents. He gave me a f*****g smug look and I felt the urge to smack it off his face. Weston smiled, noticing my displeasure, and I flipped him the bird in response to which he laughed at like it was a joke between us.

Weston always knew the right way to not only get on my nerves but to also piss me the f**k off, and I had a feeling he was about to do something incredibly stupid today.

Maybe it was what I was feeling earlier.

I felt my mate squeeze my hand just as we got closer to where my father was, and I flashed her an assuring smile.

She had no cause to worry. Everyone already loved her, seeing as it wasn’t the first time she had met them. Being the Beta’s daughter, I grew up with her. I got to see her every day until I developed a crush that had since been blessed by the moon goddess, and we turned out to be mates.

I was as ecstatic as she was if not more, and my mother was happy for us. The rest of my family, however, were somewhat shocked by it like they didn’t expect someone like me to ever find a mate or even get one.

My father’s wife pulled June in for a hug the second she saw us, and she gushed about how pretty she looked. I kept a smile on my face because her words were no lies and June indeed looked pretty.

Luna, however, had her eyes looking me up and down, her smile dropping before she spoke with so much disdain dripping from her voice. “Oh, you made it.” Yes, my mother did too. I was about to answer, but something kept my mouth clamped shut.

I had greeted my father as I should but all I was met with was a grunt from him and not even a glance my way. June left the Luna’s side and stood at mine, with her hand resting on my chest as if to calm me down.

There was chattering around as the party went on. Weston was in a corner drinking himself away while my mother was somewhere…. Where is she? I couldn’t find her as I searched around. I had started to get worried because lately she had been more reserved than usual, and it worried me that she was slipping further into depression despite her medication.

But I did find her, she was walking out of the hall and I moved to follow, but then my father walked up to the stage, and he began to talk. At that instant, I found myself torn and at a crossroad. Which was to either listen to the announcement my father had to make – he had instructed that both Weston and I be present – or to follow my mother and find out what was wrong with her.

“Thank you for coming everyone and a good evening to you. Today is supposed to be a day we celebrate our pack, the good we have achieved and the bad we have survived. And even more so, I want to use the medium to announce that I will be stepping down as Alpha King.” What?

My heart dropped at this point and my hands felt cold. He was stepping down? How did I not know about this? And did Weston…. Of course, he knew. That was why the bastard had a f*****g smirk on his face when I walked in. He f*****g knew!

My heart clenched painfully, feeling left out from an information like this. I couldn’t understand my father and one f*****g thing he did. Was I his son or not?

I wasn’t the only one in shock, of course, and it just happened that my eyes met with Weston’s as I glanced through the crowd’s reaction. Everyone wondered who the next Alpha was going to be. But I knew. Like the three other souls that knew and discussed it and thought I had no idea, I f*****g knew it now.

“That being said, I would like to call my son on stage.” At this point, my worry grew even more for my mother. Was this why she looked broken beyond repair?

“Mom, where are you?” I searched through the mind link she and I shared privately as my heart thumped away.

I had my eyes on the ground feeling my mate’s hold comfort me a fraction. “Lennox, come up here son.”

What? I asked myself, unsure if I heard right. “Lennox,” my father called again through gritted teeth, and I lifted my head to look at him. He had a smile on his face, like I had been the son he was proud of. But if he was calling me – I glanced through the crowd and saw that Weston was red with rage and in shock.

He thought that he was going to be the Alpha King. Heck, even I was sure he was going to be. I turned to the door for one last glance before walking up the stage where my father was. I had so many questions.

And it seemed I wasn’t the only one in need of answers. I was the unloved son, the child that was birthed only out of convenience. The son that was hated and treated like trash alongside his mother, who should have been Queen of the pack from the onset.

Me, I was going to be Alpha. Never in my wildest dreams did I think such a thing was going to happen. “No! That’s not possible.” Seraphina, my stepmother countered in a loud voice. “You cannot name that delinquent as Alpha King when my son is the rightful heir.”

I said nothing as she spoke. I had learned the hard way to keep off from situations like this, but the look in Weston’s eyes unsettled me. He sure was about to say something that would rile me up. I knew it.

“Like mother, like son. I bet his mother had to w***e herself to the Alpha King to get him this title…” he spoke, then his lips curled into a sinister smile.

Not my mother. Anything but her.

I hated every time they would call her names when they were the ones sitting on her right. “Says the son of a mistress who actually whored herself to a man she knew had a mate…” I spat back at him, earning gasps from everyone, my father included.

My head whipped to the side painfully and my face stung with pain. When I turned to see who had hit me, as usual, my father’s face was in view. “Don’t even think for a second that I am doing this because I care about you or that mother of yours. If I had my way, Weston would have been Alpha King instead, but custom demands that I name you…” his eyes disdainfully moved up and down my body, his face scrunched in disgust. “...as my successor. So watch the way that you speak to my Luna and my son.”

So this is it then. This is the only reason.

I have heard about the rules of the kingdom, but I never actually paid any attention to it. And especially not with the way my father treated me. I was a hundred and twenty percent certain that he would break that law for Weston’s sake.

“No, it’s not fair, father. I am your firstborn son. It is my right to be Alpha King!” Weston cried like a child throwing a tantrum.

Just then, my mother walked into the building, almost as if she was just finding out that I was going to be Alpha King. She had this relief on her face that lessened my worries by a notch. She wasn’t walking up to go on stage with me, she just stopped where June was and they held hands. But that seemed to have triggered Seraphina because she approached my mother at a speed I couldn’t catch up with. And before I knew it, her palm collided with my mother’s face.

This right here did something to me. I felt a rage that seemed to have been locked up for ages and right now it had found the right moment to escape. “Hey!” I roared, running off the stage. “You will not touch mother, you mate stealing w***e!”