The Alpha and Her Match

s e v e n

Time.

That’s what I asked for before I excused myself and ran out of the house, leaving everyone behind and going straight to the forest right behind the Alpha’s mansion. I ran, my feet sinking into the ground as I went deeper into the forest until I could no longer see the orange haze of lights coming from our snow covered house.

I can hear the heartbeat in my chest. I’m breathing so hard that it’s the only thing I can hear over my huffing, but I am not tried from the run. I am breathing hard because I feel like I am falling quickly… rapidly, losing my footing under me.

The last Basco. That is what they all called me.

Generations of us, of Bascos, are all bound to this responsibility and I am lying to myself if I say that I am not wavered by this fact. I see it in my grandmother, the duty she fulfilled and the help she has given to the kingdom. She did that. She made things better for everyone. I see it in my uncle Eros when he is tried and just wants to escape the castle by coming to spend Moon Festivals with us. He made things right for all of his people too, helping and upholding his destiny to be the leader that everyone needs.

Now, they are asking me to answer this call. The call that they all answered.

To be the next Basco.

I want to bury my face in the snow and scream out my frustration.

If I give this up, if I let this go, the crown for the very first time since it’s conception will fall to someone outside the bloodline and it would be my refusal that does it. And if they fail, if the one that takes the crown destroys the kingdom? It would be my fault. I would be the Basco that destroyed generations of work.

I could never live with myself if I destroyed what my family has sacrificed their lives for. I just can’t be the one that does this, that breaks it. I may not use the name Basco or proudly say I am one of them, but I respect my family too much to lose everything.

The Royal Council even said they didn’t think Orion was fit to lead, the next one in line is untrustworthy, the next and the next and the next all unworthy.

Could I risk that? Could I risk our entire race on people the Royal Council didn’t trust or think could become the next King or Queen?

But then, can I even be the Queen in the first place? I know nothing about the capital. I have no love for it or the position that I will have. I was not educated or trained for this role.

How sure are these council members that I can even do the job anyway? I could be incompetent. I could be a failure too.

With a shrug, I sucked in a breath until my lungs burned from the cold air. “I won’t fail. I have never failed before. I don’t think I will start now.”

My thoughts continued on this for hours while I lay on the snow covered ground and let the flakes of snow cover me. Living in the most northern part of our country, it is winter every day with the weather ranging from cold to the coldest and the falling of snow is constant. The waters in every lake or pod are frozen all year round and the trees nothing more than bare branches and withered leaves. The cold temperatures make my lungs burn with every breath and my skin sting with every second I spend outside.

But everything was still beautiful. I still found everything beautiful. There’s a winter season in the capital. I have known that much since I heard from my grandmother, but I wonder if it’s as beautiful as this.

I blow the snow away with my warm breath until it melts and I do this as I watch the sun rise up into the sky. The darkness of the night changes colors until it is finally bright blue, signaling a new day.

It does not come as a surprise who found me first.

Dax always finds me.

I spoke first, breaking the silence. “You heard?”

There was shuffling around me before I felt his warm body lying beside mine, our eyes solely focused above where the snow was falling. “Everyone heard. I’m more surprised you didn’t come get me when you found out.”

My breath came out in smoke. “I’m sorry. I had a lot to think about.”

He was silent for some time, thinking and probably absorbing what had happened so suddenly. “Will you go?”

“I don’t know.” I told him honestly. “I really don’t know.”

“Do you want to?” The question was a completely different one from the first because it is my want now, not my duty.

“I don’t know that either.” I admitted, feeling clueless.

“You have time.” Dax reassured me calmly, not giving anything away. He always has a way of making things less difficult and less complicated than they really are.

“Do I?” I asked, my fingers tracing the cold snow. “With the tournament so close and my uncle retiring soon? I think time is running out.”

“What did the Alpha say?” Again, his voice held no emotion, no hint of what he was feeling.

My lips parted to let out a deep sigh. “Nothing. Like always, she is letting me decide without her opinion or anyone else’s.”

He finally turns to face me, his expression light and playful. “Who’s higher in position? Your mother or the King?”

“Spiritually, my mother is higher than everyone else. Even her dead ancestors.” I say before we burst out laughing at my words, knowing my mother has her own special bracket when it comes to hierarchy. Her will is stronger than the tallest mountain and nothing can ever move her.

Well.

Almost nothing.

“She’s definitely God mode.” He agrees, looking proud that my mother was our Alpha.

“If only she can use that to scare away time,” I whispered wistfully.

“You have time.” He repeats his earlier statement. “They will make time. You’re a Princess-“

“Don’t call me that.” I grumbled out, refusing to have him call me anything else but my name.

“—They have to make time for you.” He finishes.

Another moment of silence comes before I break it with a question I had been thinking about since the moment he found me. “Do you want me to go?”

“You know I can’t answer that.” Dax replied quietly, turning back to stare into the clear morning sky.

“Because you don’t want me to go,” I concluded for him.

He hums before responding. “I’m not confirming anything.”

“You’re not denying anything as well.” I countered, poking at his side.

“Anna,” He breathes out.

I swallowed, watching him from my peripheral. “Dax,”

He sucks in a few lung fulls, his eyes fluttering close. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t want to go either.” I finally allowed myself to say. What did the council members expect to happen? How did they think I would react to them coming here all of the sudden and telling me I had to leave? I have a life here, a future of my own to discover.

“But you think you have to?” Dax deduces, reading me clearly. “You’re free to decide on whatever you want to do, Anna. You know that.”

“I am the last.” And that was the whole truth, the deciding truth of all of this. “There is no one else.”

He nods. “I know that.”

“Really? Because I’m still trying to convince myself of that fact. Maybe we’ve missed something. Maybe there’s a long lost Basco somewhere.” I hopefully told him, wondering if there was someone out there... but it wasn't possible. Our family tree has always had very limited branches.

“With a council like that?” Dax scoffed with a mocking laugh. “They would have sniffed out that sad person by now.”

I let out a defeated sigh. “True.”

“What are you thinking?” He asked after I went quiet.

“The future,” I answered vaguely.

Dax turns to me, his face curious. “What’s it like?”

The smile I make is not at all from happiness. “Dismal but I think I know what I have to do.”

He sits up and glances down at me. “We don’t have to do it now.”

I raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “What do you have in mind?”

“A run if you’re up for it.” Dax grinned widely, the challenge in his eyes.

“You mean a race.” I corrected, my skin already pulling with a shift.

He doesn’t get a chance to reply because I have already ripped through my clothes, pieces of fabric and material flying everywhere as I let the shift take me. My wolf takes over and I’m pelting through the forest before I can even think.

It didn’t take long for Dax to follow. Side by side, our wolves run as fast they can, our paws digging into the snowy ground. We were a blur of color in the otherwise white plains and I took this all in, enjoying the moment.

I closed my eyes, letting the peaceful silence and the familiar, soothing presence of Dax wash over me.

The sun was about to go down again when Dax and I finished our run, shifting out of our wolf forms near the house and scrambling to find clothes. They were all thick coats that we pulled close to our bodies. We blew on our hands to keep them warm as we helped each other dust away snow flakes from our hair.

My hand slips from his messy hair and right as it falls to my side, he catches it with his own. Dax’s fingers interlacing with mine tightly… surely and intensely, conveying things that our lips could never say.

It was bittersweet.

I did not want to go. Dax did not want me to go either. All these years and the castle— the title seemed such a far off thing. Now it was literally and figuratively kicking down our door, but I wanted nothing more than to ignore its call.

My mother spoke of the castle only a handful of times but I have heard enough about it, seen enough about it to know that maybe it is not for me. Though I think it’s the Basco in me, the one that cannot turn away from responsibility and duty that compels me to try.

Plus, I owe it to my family to try.

We do not say our goodbyes nor do we say anything. Dax and I were never good at words. Our hands reluctantly let go and with that, we go our separate ways.

I’m about ten steps away when a hand pulls me around to face back. Dax. He had run back to me.

He’s staring at me, his chest raising and falling with each breath he took. “I don’t just think I like you. I know I do.”

The words leave my lips before I can think about them. “I know I do too.”

“Let’s ruin a friendship then.” He says before his head dips, his warm lips pressing against mine in the softest of kisses.

A flutter distributed my heartbeat and then I was kissing him back, forgetting all the promises we made to wait. The air crackled around us, as our hands pulled each other closer.

The moment was gone before it even started. The only proof of that moment of weakness was the phantom of his warm lips on mine and the stinging of my skin from where he dug his fingers.

“Never goodbye, Anna.” He whispered, his voice getting lost in the breeze that blew.

We weren’t even apart yet, but I was already missing him. I wanted to say more, the words were at the tip of my tongue… nothing came and soon I lost him in the dregs of winter.

They were already waiting for me when I arrived. The council member’s faces were impassive while my family’s looked almost nervous. None of them have talked to me since, all giving me space to make the decision on my own, but I can still feel the weight of the pressure painfully pressing down on my chest.

I turned to face the Royal Council, my back straight and my chin up, radiating a confidence that came from somewhere within. “I will come to the castle.”

Everyone in the room let out breaths of relief, murmuring their approval and already excitedly planning.

My mother and my grandfather were the only ones with a straight face.

The council members clapped their hands, cheering a bit. “Marvelous! This is the best news.”

“I’m not done.” I said to them, most likely squashing their hopes and dreams.

Their expressions of delight fell.

Without missing a beat, I continued on. “I will only come if I am allowed a trial period. Where I can leave and return here if I decide that this position isn’t for me. I want to keep my options open.”

“That’s not possible.” They protested all at once. “What you ask for is unattainable. This is the crown, not some washing machine you buy at some human department store.”

I raised a hand up, despite wanting to correct their wrong analogy. “Make it possible because if you want a Basco, that is her condition. Take it or you may go and tell Orion Vitalis he is the new heir to the throne.”

The council members opened their mouths. “But,”

“Those are my terms,” I said with a shake of my head. I do not know what lies ahead in the castle above the mountain. I can only hope the good things overshadow the bad. “Do we have a deal, Royal Council?”

They must really not like Orion Vitalis because the council members begrudgingly nod. “Three months. That is your trial period and then you will be crowned heir apparent.”

Three months. That was all I had before I would be locked into this. I almost asked for more time but I know I have already asked for too much. “Good. We have an understanding. When do we leave?”

“Now.”