Defying the Alpha

Chapter One: Alpha Ellis

Ellis

“I hate this tie, bring me the other one.”

Becky scurried around the bed to get the other tie I had laid out, the yellow one with blue stripes. She held it out with her eyes downcast. I swiped the tie out of her hands and wrapped it around my neck, tucking it under my collar and knotting it as I watched my reflection in the mirror. Becky just didn’t seem to grasp the significance of the occasion. I needed to look the part.

I was about to be named Alpha.

I smiled at my own reflection and smoothed a hand over my short-cropped hair. The white-blond stubble was baby soft, and it would curl like a f.ucking halo if I ever abandoned my military crew cut.

Alpha Ellis.

I thought I was going to have to kill the old man to get the title from him. But after my mother died, I realized I wouldn’t have to. All I’d had to do was be patient while he drowned himself in his grief. I had allowed him to simply deteriorate until he was too weak to lead. As the pack had weakened alongside him, it became more and more clear that a strong hand would be needed to steer them back on the correct course.

Silently watching him suffer over the last year had been strangely satisfying. However, it was nothing compared to the climax of finally taking the Dark Rising pack from him. I felt almost excited as I turned from the mirror, but I pushed the feeling aside. I needed to appear stoic. People would be watching me.

Becky was staring at me with wide, anxious eyes. She was a small woman, barely five feet, and she was always cringing and trying to make herself even smaller. It was pathetic. Her cheap floral perfume did nothing to cover the scent of her fear, and despite the fact that she was dressed up for the occasion, she somehow still managed to look low-class. The dress she’d chosen didn’t suit her body, and it hung from her narrow shoulders like a sack. But no matter, no one would be looking at her. She wouldn’t be standing beside me, she’d be sitting out in the crowd somewhere. Her place was in the bedroom, nowhere else, and she knew it.

I glanced around the room, allowing the anticipation I had long suppressed to surface. Starting today, I got to decide how I wanted things. No longer would my life be dictated by that ineffectual excuse for a man, my stepfather, the former Alpha Aiden. I would be instituting changes, starting with my living quarters. Aiden could keep his dark and forlorn cave on the other end of the house. I already had plans for how I would remodel my bedroom into the new alpha suite. I was going to knock out the walls between my bedroom and the adjacent guestroom and add French doors and a balcony to look out over the training grounds. I was going to expand the bathroom too and put in one of those jet-massaging tubs. My strict training regimen took a toll on my body and hydrotherapy would improve my level of performance.

I nodded to myself, mentally confirming my plans, and straightened my tie one more time. I rolled my shoulders and headed outside to the training grounds, where the ceremony was set to take place. The portable stage had been set up, and a bunch of folding chairs had been placed across the field, where the entire pack was now seated, numbering about a hundred and fifty in all. I started up the stairs, out of the shadow of the big pack house and into the warm sun, feeling like I was climbing toward my destiny.

My stepfather was already there, seated alongside the elder council. His hair was brushed out and pulled back into a ponytail and he had at least shaved off that god-awful beard for the occasion. His jaw looked naked and pale, and his face even more ravished and haggard without the cover of long whiskers. His cheekbones wanted to break through his sallow skin and his eyes were sinking into his skull, devoid of life. He stood up from his chair when I approached and held out his hand.

I straightened up to look as tall as I could, but even with the extra heel in my boots, I only reached Aiden’s shoulder, something that had always rankled with me. I pushed my shoulders back and raised my chin as I looked out over the pack, the men, women, and children who were about to be under my leadership, and then beyond the training grounds to the forest, all of it was about to be my domain. I took a deep breath of sweet pine-scented air and then turned to Aiden. “Father,” I said, taking his cold hand and shaking it formally. Mother had insisted that I call him “father” from the beginning, but the word always stuck in my throat like a fishbone.

My real father was long dead, my mother was now gone, and soon Aiden would be too.

The last restraint was about to be removed from my life.

Aiden turned to the crowd and made his farewell speech. “It's been an honor to serve you–” blah blah blah. The man had tears running down his sunken cheeks. What kind of alpha balls his eyes out in front of the pack? Such a display of emotion made me feel fidgety. Worse, out in the audience, I saw many people sniffling and wiping their eyes too.

All that sentimentality was giving me gas.

Finally, he turned to me, and one of the elders brought the ceremonial knife and chalice. There is nothing magical in the knife, it's all just ritual and dumb tradition. He slashed the knife across his palm, squeezed his large hand into a fist, and let his blood drip into the cup. And then he passed the dagger to me. I used the clean side of the blade to cut into my own hand. However, I didn’t cut deep enough, and I barely got a single droplet out.

Someone out in the seats snickered.

I felt my face grow hot as I jabbed the pointed edge deep into the center of my palm, practically cutting through to the back. This time the blood flowed freely, and it didn’t stop.

“Dark Rising, I present, your alpha!” Aiden took my bloodied hand and raised it up, causing the warm trickle to run down my wrist and back into my sleeve. There was applause, but it was polite and subdued, not enthusiastic, or excited. That pissed me off, even though I could understand their reservations.

They didn’t know me yet and hadn’t seen what I was capable of. They would see me differently in time. I was going to take this pack to new heights of greatness. No more stagnating in a false sense of peace and prosperity, playing with the pups like a bunch of housewives! We would train, and train hard! We would expand our borders, destroy our weaker neighbors, and take over the region. In my hand, Dark Rising would be the strongest and most feared pack. We may be small now, but give me time...

It was my turn to make a speech, my first official words as an alpha. I stepped forward and looked down at them, I observed their downcast expressions and their body language. They were mourning Aiden, they weren’t embracing me. But they would. The time would soon come when they would worship me. I would erase all of Aiden’s soft b.ullshit from their minds, and I would fill them with the thrill of strength and glory. I felt my face stretch in a grin as I imagined everything they would be, everything I would be in the days to come.

But for that moment, I kept my speech simple and spouted the usual rhetoric this sort of thing required. “I know that we are all sad to see Alpha Aiden step down today. But I am honored that he has entrusted me to lead this pack.” Blah blah blah. You bunch of p.ussies. I’m going to whip all of you back into shape.

With that, it was done. I felt my chest puff up as people came to shake my hand, calling me “Alpha.”

Oh, hell yes, I could get used to that.

We moved to the pack house, and into the dining hall. As the kitchen staff started putting out the banquet, I settled myself at the head table, in the seat that used to belong to Aiden. I looked around for the old man, but he seemed to have disappeared. I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t there to see me. I would have liked to have seen his eyes as I took the last vestige of his power. The old fool had probably run off to lick his wounds.

His weakness was disgusting. He was like a mongrel dog rolling over and showing the whole world his flea-infested belly. The worst example a leader could ever offer was weakness. Even before my mother died, he was practically a pacifist. How many of his boring lectures had I been forced to endure, disciplining myself not to roll my eyes as he talked about the pack as a family, how strength was found in unity, and how we were only as strong as our weakest member.

My eyes cut across the room to Becky, who was sitting at a back table, huddled in a corner, as usual, her head down, her mousy brown hair practically falling in her food as she ate.

If that was a gauge of our strength, we were in deep s.hit.

Freely letting my gaze wander around the rest of the room, I observed the pack members seated at the long, crowded tables. My mother had decorated the space with warm maple paneling and cheerful curtains in the windows. It felt more like a family dining room than a cafeteria, yet the atmosphere following my Alpha ceremony was heavy and stifled. Normally, meals were full of jovial chatter and noise, as people talked over top of each other, with a lot of laughing and banging of plates and silverware. Today, conversations were hushed and muted. Glances were being thrown my way as if they were already doubting me.

Let them doubt.

I stabbed my fork into the roast, which was a little dry. I would have to have a word with the kitchen staff soon. There were so many changes to be made. But not today. For today, and for the rest of the week, I was going to let the pack settle into the idea of me as their ruler. On Monday, I would start rolling out the new policies I intended to put into place, starting with the new training protocols.

I would make Dark Rising live up to the fearful name their forefathers had given them.