The Alpha Twins of Red Moon

“That's enough, Ally. I don’t want to hear any more of this childish nonsense.” My father's voice boomed through his home office. We didn't usually fight like this, my wolf Kali begged me to back down, to submit to him. Kali did not want to accept our father's decision, but she was a wolf and right now, her instincts were telling her to obey her Alpha, but I couldn’t. Not this time. This was too important. “No, Dad, I won't do it.” I stomped my foot on the floor and bunched my hands up at my sides. He was calling me childish, but he was going to try and force me to marry a man I had never met. “It has already been decided.” He snapped at me. The vein in his forehead was pulsating, it only ever did that when he was really, really mad, and I had never been the cause of it before. But I would be damned if I was going to bite my tongue and accept this. “And if I don't?” I challenged him. “Then I will kick you out!” He roared in my face. I know he doesn't mean it, he just thinks it will scare me into doing what he wants. But if he wanted to make threats, that was fine by me. I would honestly rather be a rogue for the rest of my life than marry someone who wasn't my mate and whom I could never love. “FINE.” I seethed bitterly. A victory smirk turned the corner of his lips up momentarily. He was wise to school his expression because I wasn't done yet. “I will say goodbye to mother, and I will be on my way. I guess this is goodbye, father.” I never thought our relationship would come to this. The room darkened immediately. My father's Alpha presence was all around me, commanding me to stay; it was suffocating. “Don't you move a damn muscle!” he grinds his teeth as he hisses at me. He put every ounce of authority he could into that one command. I hadn't officially broken my ties with him yet, and because of this, my feet were cemented to the spot. It was wrong that an Alpha had the power to force a person to bend to their will. It was a disgusting abuse of power and I hated it with a passion. I should have been smarter and left without so much as telling him. I was dumb to have shown my hand so quickly. “YOU WOULD ABANDON YOUR PACK LIKE THAT. ARE YOU SO SELFISH THAT YOU WOULD LEAVE YOUR PEOPLE IN DANGER? FOR WHAT LOVE?” His eyes were almost bugging out of his head. He raised his hand to hit me, and because of that stupid Alpha command, I couldn't even lift my arms to defend myself. I braced myself for the incoming pain, but I was lucky, he dropped his hand before it connected with my face. Relief as I had never known before flooded through me, that would have hurt like a b***h. “I’M NOT ABANDONING MY PACK. IT’S YOU I'M WALKING OUT ON!!!” I shouted back. It wasn’t my pack that I was stuck in here with demanding that I marry a man I didn't even know. There were other ways of forming strong alliances. We didn't need to marry me off to some other pack’s beta, just to form a relationship with them, these weren’t medieval times, women had choices now. We had made plenty of alliances over the years and I hadn’t had to mate anyone. Why should this be any different? “Let's all just calm down.” My father's beta Jared moved between us. He had been so quiet this entire time that I had completely forgotten he was even in the room with us. Where was he a moment ago when my father almost slapped me? What a coward I thought. “Why don’t we all just take a seat.” Jared placed his hand on my father's shoulder, I watched as his cold angry eyes snapped to his beta, for a moment I thought he might just snap beta Jared’s hand clean off but instead he finally relented. “Sit down please Ally.” My dad asked cordially of me, I could tell he didn’t want to. This was probably the first time my father ever looked at me with such disdain, but he was afraid of losing the respect of his Beta and so he settled. Against my better judgement I dropped myself into one of the two armchairs in his office, beta Jared moved to the other and my father sat down in his large black office chair on the other side of his desk. “Ally, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. We are a smaller pack. We have many alliances, but they are all with smaller packs like ours. We have strong wolves, and many brilliant, talented warriors but the rogues will always be a problem for the smaller packs like ours. They never stop coming, we need the help of a bigger pack to send a message to these rogues, one that will force them to listen otherwise they will never leave us alone. The red moon pack is the biggest pack in the land. They have Luna crescent pack beat by 400 hundred plus wolves and Luna crescent is not a small pack.” Luna Crescent and Red Moon were the two biggest packs in the world, and they both just so happened to be in the United States. Everyone wanted to align themselves with these packs because they had strength and power, and as wolves, we were naturally attracted to both although few ever truly achieved both. “What does that have to do with me?” I huff. I had two younger sisters and yet I was the only one in here. “The Alpha twins are determined to wait for their fated mate. They simply won’t agree to take a chosen mate, but their beta Adam has. If you mate with Adam, they will align themselves with our pack, offering us their protection.” I could understand where my dad was coming from, he wanted to make sure that he was going to be able to protect the pack at any cost, only he wasn’t the one being expected to pay the price. I was. He and everyone else got to wait for their fated mates. I wanted that chance too. It was incredibly selfish to think it was their right to trade me off like cattle. “And why can’t one of your other show pigs do it?” I glared at him, for the first time I could feel myself truly hating my father. “DO NOT speak of your sisters like that.” I did feel a little guilty honestly, I loved both of my sisters very much and we were all extremely close, it would hurt their feelings deeply to hear me refer to them as show pigs, but I am mad at them. It wasn’t their fault, it was father’s, but still why was this all on me alone? Aria was only fourteen, so yes she was too young, but Emily was eighteen. She was old enough. “Oh, I see, so I am the only one unworthy of basic respect.” I don’t care if I sound petulant. He sounded misogynistic, and I’d rather be childish over a gross pig. “This is not about respect!” He sounded so exasperated, but what else did he expect? Did he really believe he could call me in here, demand that I mate with this Adam and think that I would be so delighted by the news that I wouldn’t even question it? I can’t believe that I was naive enough to think that we were close. I feel like I don’t even know this man. “No, this is about what you can gain, you are not the one making any sacrifices here. I am.” I slammed my fists down on the table, his pen cup went flying and I knocked his coffee cup clean over, but I didn’t care. “Do you really think I’m not sacrificing anything? I have to send my oldest daughter away. I was hoping you would bring us in our next Alpha.” he complained. “Hoping I would bring you the next Alpha?” The words tasted sour on my tongue. I really was just an expandable tool to him. “Ally, please stop being so difficult. You might even be happy with Adam.” The longer I stayed in this office, the more respect I lost for my dad. “Might? Might be happy? I might also get beaten and raped, we don’t know this man, but I’m supposed to just mate with him. While you are going to be safe here in your little office, with your two daughters, your destined mate, living a good life, nothing changes for you, but I will be miles away suffering all alone.” I spit. “You are being ridiculous. They are a respectable pack.” How could he just dismiss me and my very valid concerns like this? “Okay say this Adam loves me. Say we are really good together who’s to say I won’t hold a grudge?” I shrug. My father's face is red as a tomato. “And what do you mean by that exactly?” His hands gripped his desk, I don’t think he even realised how many papers were being scrunched and torn. I couldn’t say outright that I would order Adam to cut off this pack completely or worse attack it, I would be labeled a traitor and they could have me killed so instead I left the implication hanging in the air and smirked at my father. “I think we should re-convene at another time.” Jared was a smart beta, I liked him. In fact, I appreciated that he was here. Who knows how far my father and I would have pushed each other today without his presence? “You may leave.” My father dismissed me. I stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind me so hard I could hear the picture frames hanging on the wall rattle and drop. I hope he treads on broken glass. He would heal in minutes but still. It would sting like a b***h.