Alphas broken mate

Warm hands I

Beast

I woke up alone in bed with another tray of pancakes on the bedside table with a little note on it.

Please stay off your feet until they are fully healed and eat. I will be back soon, pack business to take care of.

Love,

Daniel

His handwriting has changed a bit since we were teenagers. It became a bit sharper and cleaner.

He used to leave me notes similar to this one after my nightmares. We both knew that his parents knew he was in my room at night, but they never said anything and we respected them too much to do it openly. So he would leave in the early hours of the morning before his parents got up.

Before leaving he would scribble a little note for me to wake up to.

It started after he found me crying one morning.

I kind of had a little meltdown after I woke up and the memories rushed at me again.

From that morning he decided to leave me little notes, with something else to think about than just the memories of the night before when I woke up. Those little notes were like a little piece of him left behind for me to hold onto at those dark moments of the morning. When it is still too dark to walk outside, as the sun hasn't risen again. So I was left alone in that room with memories of last night's nightmares replaying over and over again, to the point where I would lose all sense of what was real and what was just a fragment of my imagination.

That was when his notes helped.

They would be like an anchor drawing me back into the current moment... back to the memory of him holding me like a freaking lifeline.

Over the years, those notes changed. From a little encouragement that it was all just a dream and that he would be there for me no matter what. That later on transformed into something a lot deeper, more like little reminders that he loved me and that he missed me for the hours that we were apart.

Sure it was a silly love-sick teenager's thing to do, but those notes kept me from going off the rails completely when he was not next to me.

If not for those freaking little notes he would leave me, I would have crashed and burned, taking the pack with me.

My parent's death had put the pack in a very difficult position.

By our law, I was the alpha until I found my mate. Any willing member of the pack could challenge me to be the next alpha a hundred or more years ago. They wouldn't care if I was a kid. The pack comes first.

Daniel's father would have been the one to kill me the moment he saw my father dead. As the beta, it would be his duty for the pack's future.

He would become the leader and the pack would be strong again.

But I guess he didn't really like the idea of killing a child, his niece and the daughter of his closest friend... or maybe he just didn't want to be the alpha. Hell, I didn't want to be one, but I had no choice.

So Jacob found another way to keep the pack going without killing me.

He stepped up as my guardian and my beta. He took all the responsibilities of running the pack while I was the one doing all the official stuff and ceremonies.

Even at the age of six, I knew what the pack was supposed to mean to me and what I meant to the pack. My parents raised me to believe that the pack's greater good comes before me and there is no other way around and I guess it is also in my blood and nature. As a descendant of an alpha, it is impossible for me to deny my need to serve my pack.

So even when I was breaking apart inside, I showed my best face, an image of a perfect leader, a perfectly happy girl. That was when the pack gave me the name of the child of luck, surviving the bloodiest m******e the pack had seen in ages.

Oh, that name felt like a freaking rock being thrown at me every time I heard someone calling me that. Because I was everything but not lucky. I would have been lucky if I had died with my parents and survived in this constant state of fear and pain.

As I got older, it got harder and harder to keep the image in place.

Once, I even begged Jacob to take my life and take the alpha place. Just take me out of my misery, I begged him, but all I got was a slap across the face. It was the first time anyone had ever struck me so I stood there staring at him.

"Don't you f*****g dare ever say that to me or anyone else!"

Jacob was always calm and collected. This was the first time I had ever seen him lose control.

"Do you even hear yourself? Kill you? You are the only thing left from my sister and my closest friend... not to mention what it would do to Daniel if I killed you."

Back then, I didn't understand what he meant... at that point, I was too clueless about Daniel's feelings towards me, so I just stood there staring at him confused. But before I could ask what he meant, Jacob continued.

"And even if I kill you, what then? What do you think will happen to the pack? Because sure as hell they won't follow me. They wouldn't have followed me back when your father died and they sure as hell wouldn't follow me now, especially after I killed the pack's beloved daughter, the future leader, the freaking golden child. They would kill me and my family. The pack would break out into riots and fight for control."

He took a few deep breaths, obviously trying to calm down, and I guess when we felt ready he continued.

"It is the same reason why I didn't take the alpha place when your parents were killed. Sure, taking the alpha place was the logical thing to do, but I know this pack too well to not see how they would react to anyone forcing them to submit. Throughout the pack's history, there were many times when someone would try to control it by force, but the pack would reject it. This pack always chooses its leader and neither you nor I have a choice or say in any of this."

He returned to me and gripped my shoulders.

"So you grow up. Sure life sucks, but you have a duty to this pack. The duty that was passed down to you from your parents. The same duty was passed from their parents to them and it has been happening for hundreds and hundreds of years. Sure, we all would have liked that it would have happened at a time when you were ready, but the f*****g problem is that you are never ready to take responsibility like this."

He released my shoulders and stepped away from me again.

"Now go, you have school tomorrow and I have s**t tons of work to do. And I swear to goddess if I ever hear you talk s**t like that again I will show you whole new levels of misery."

After that day, I never asked him that again.

My thoughts turned to Jacob and only now did I notice that I hadn't seen him... or caught his scent altogether since we came here. Sure I was a bit busy having meltdowns, but even now I could feel his presence.

Feeling frustrated with my own mixed emotions, I tried to get out of bed, but before my legs could touch the ground a loud voice froze me in place.

"And where are you going?"

I looked up and saw Daniel standing in the doorway staring down at me, with a look of anger and annoyance in his eyes.