Alpha's wolfless Luna

Chapter 2.: Unsettling dreams

Liam, the Alpha of the Nordic Ice pack, opened his eyes abruptly as the nightmare forced him out of his sleep. A nightmare which followed him occasionally in the past half year. The scenery in his dreams changed from one dream to another, but the faces he saw there were always the same. A girl who he knew from his previous dreams, pursued by a group of werewolves. In his dreams he was forced to watch her being tortured, brutally beat, stripped and r***d once those werewolved caught her. In the end, when they were finally done with her, they killed her with no hesitation.

He wanted to scream, but never found his voice. He couldn’t move. Liam was always bound to a place, forced to watch the scene playing out in front of him without being able to stop them. Although he never saw that girl outside of his dreams, he felt like he knew her his entire life.

“You know you could stop those dreams.” Liam complained to his wolf. His eyes have wandered toward the nature behind his window, searching for some solace in the darkness of the trees. It was still a deep night. The sun didn’t rise yet but Liam didn’t feel like going to sleep again, afraid to close his eyes.

“I can’t.” Fenris, his wolf, answered him. Liam overheard the distress in his voice, which surprised him. It seemed Liam’s dreams affected Fenris as well, but Fenris never mentioned those dreams openly, nor did he complain about the feelings they brought to both of them.

Liam exhaled sharply getting out of his bed as he decided to work to try and forget about the dream. It was the same routine every single time he had this dream. Going back to sleep was entirely out of the question and the only thing left was to get up and distract himself.

Liam dreamed about the girl before. The first dream appeared more than five years ago. They tortured her, treated like rubbish. She always suffered injustice and roughness whenever she appeared in Liam’s dreams but compared to what he had just witnessed in this last nightmare, those dreams from before were almost docile.

Liam took a quick shower in order to thoroughly awaken his body before he put on his clothes and headed straight to the kitchen. It was too early for anyone else to be up, so he prepared his meal by himself. Usually, the omega responsible for the kitchen would do so, but he didn’t want to wake anyone up since he was fully capable of doing his own breakfast as a grown man.

“You had a nightmare again?” Kayen, Liam’s adoptive brother, approached him silently, instantly earning Liam’s attention.

“Can you please stop sneaking up on me this way? One day I might just separate your head from your neck if you startle me enough.” Liam told him nervously. Kayen was supposed to be asleep as everyone else, but whenever Liam had a nightmare, Kayen would meet him in the kitchen. Despite this happening every single time the dream appeared, Liam didn’t quite get used to it. Kayen's sudden appearance always surprised him, especially because Kayen was a sound sleeper and one would not expect him to be up so early. He loved sleeping more than anything. Liam usually had to come to his room around noon to wake Kayen up any other day except the day he had the nightmare. These were the only occasions Kayen woke up that early.

“I want to see you try that.” Kayen answered him, laughter echoing through the room. Even though Kayen was three years older, he was weaker than Liam when it came to strength. Liam’s parents found Kayen in an abandoned cottage in the forest near the pack territory shortly before Liam was born. Even though he didn’t carry the werewolf mark, Liam’s parents could sense Kayen belonged to another supernatural species.but Still, at his young age, they couldn’t determine which species exactly he belonged to. Liam’s parents didn’t hesitate a second and decided then and there to adopt Kayen. It was years later they found out about Kayen’s magic. Werewolves and witches or wizards rarely worked narrowly amongst themselves, but, despite his apparent origin they refused to give him away. Only when Kayen’s powers grew stronger and he became unable to fully use and control them, they let him join a nearby coven to learn and master his powers.

“You think I can’t beat you?” Liam accepted his challenge, sparks dancing in his eyes as he focused entirely on his older brother. Kayen enjoyed the look in his brother’s eyes. He always welcomed the sparring time, especially since it was the only time he could openly kick his brother’s a*s without consequences.

“Take it out, you two, will you?” Abby yawned the same moment she entered the kitchen while both Kayen and Liam snapped their heads toward her at the same time, equally startled. She wore her sleeping shorts and tank top with one of her shoulder straps loose but as always, her hair was neatly combed up into a perfectly shaped bun and her face already done-up with her mascara, blush and some sort of lipstick or something which highlighted the color of her lips. Liam could never understand how she did all of that with her eyes partially closed due to the lack of sleep.

“Good morning, Abby. You got up early today. What’s the occasion?” Kayen asked her. Abby was the beta of the pack and also a friend of Liam and Kayen, although she was four years younger than Liam. As a daughter of former Beta, she had to go through tough training as a child, yet she never lost her desire to present herself as the beautiful girl she was. Even during her rough training sessions, she always kept her hair and make-up while usually sporting a shiny pink tank top together with the tight black leggings, perfectly shaping her curves. Most wolves she beat on the training ground were too distracted ogling her with drool dripping from their mouths, instead of focusing on her punches. Abby always used her body and looks as her weapon, so seeing her in such a shabby outfit like her sleeping shorts was really a rare occasion.

“You can ask our Alpha here. He is connected to every single wolf in the pack, so when he wakes up thanks to the nightmare he’s been having lately, everyone feels it.” Abby answered in a very low tone. She made her way around Kayen standing in the kitchen's entrance and walked past Liam to prepare the coffee in an attempt to wake up. It was early for her to be up, especially since she always goes to bed quite late. With the lack of sunlight, she couldn’t bring herself to fully open her eyes.

Liam blinked several times in confusion and Kayen tilted his head as Abby walked past him. For the past six months, no one ever mentioned this to Liam. As an Alpha he obviously knew about the connection the pack shared. It allowed them to communicate with each other using only their minds, regardless of distance between them . What he didn’t know was that when the Alpha felt any kind of personal distress, they could all feel it as well. It also seemed no one felt like sharing this information with him nor complained about it.

“Why did you never tell me that before?” Liam asked her with surprise. For Kayen, this was also something new. He read almost everything he could on all kinds of supernatural beings walking the face of Earth, but honestly, he didn’t know Alpha’s nightmare could wake up the entire pack if it was strong enough to inflict fear.

“Interesting.” Kayen whispered mostly to himself as he continued listening to the discussion between Abby and Liam.

“There was no reason to do so. It’s not like we can stop you from having those dreams, and it’s not like we can share the nightmare with you to lessen the load. We just feel that something is amiss and if the feeling is strong enough, it can wake us up as well and urge us to rush and aid our Alpha any way we can. Well, not everyone can actually feel it. The stronger the wolf, the stronger the connection between him or her and their Alpha. As your Beta, I am the most affected by your current state. It also serves as a defensive mechanism for pack members to be able to protect their Alpha at all times. That way if you get into a dire situation, we will know it.” Abby explained it like it was common knowledge and nothing special. Liam kept staring back at her in disbelief. He couldn’t sense anything from his pack members. He felt their presence in his mind, but not their emotions. Liam also felt everyone who went too far from the pack and got out of the reach. It felt as if the cold needle seared through his mind when he lost the connection to his wolves and he felt warm sunlight filling every single corner of his mind when they would come back and the connection was restored.

“Why don’t I feel that from the others?” Liam completely forgot about his previous question he failed to ask, caught in the explanation Abby gave him. He suddenly felt inadequate in not being able to sense his pack the same way the pack senses him.

“You are the Alpha. You have other things to take care of and worry about that are more urgent than the emotional state of your people. On the other hand, we should always make sure our Alpha is alright.” Abby answered him nonchalantly, without giving him a single glance. She kept focusing on the kettle, waiting for the water to finally start boiling so she could pour herself a cup of coffee, which she urgently needed.

Liam pouted, displeased by the words Abby said. He understood the importance of his position in the pack as an Alpha, but he still felt not being up to par as everyone could sense his emotional state while he couldn’t sense anything except their presence in his mind.

The click of the kettle announced the water was finished boiling. Abby took the kettle and poured the hot water over the prepared coffee in the cup, stirring it well so the sugar would equally melt in the drink before she finally took the long-craved sip. The moment she turned around and faced her Alpha, her eyes were finally fully opened and alert, her entire composure looking a lot different than only a moment ago.

“What are those dreams about, anyway?” Abby wanted to know. The question choked her for the past half a year. At the beginning, she paid little attention to it. She thought she had just randomly woken up. Later, she realized the strange, unsettling feeling she felt every single time she woke up, weren’t at all hers. It took her nearly two months to realize she woke up because of her Alpha, but whenever she saw him right after, he looked normal, with no signs of distress or sadness. She didn’t understand what was going on, slowly starting to ignore it altogether, until today. Distress she felt today was a great deal stronger than before, startling her as well.

“You remember those dreams I told you about before?” Liam asked her. Kayen pressed his lips into a thin line, knowing precisely which dreams Liam talked about. Those weren’t just ordinary dreams and Kayen knew that as well as Liam. The girl he saw was a real person. Someone he had a connection with.

“You mean the girl who seemed to be in Dagon’s pack?” Abby asked. Liam told her briefly about his dreams right after the girl seemed to run away from the pack, or at least it looked like that since Liam dreamed about her running away. He sent his men close to Dagon’s territory, exactly in the direction in which he saw the girl running, but they claimed they saw no one. They simply came back empty-handed, with no traces of what Liam dreamt of whatsoever.

“These nightmares started after she ran away. Week later we sent our men to look for her. In my dreams she is always in a different place, but Dagon’s men are after her. The moment they find her, she gets brutally beaten and when brought back to their pack, tortured, r***d and killed. Every single time I am forced to watch without being able to move, scream or do anything to protect her. Not even Fenris can get me out of those dreams. I always wake up when she dies.” Liam exhaled slowly with a hidden desperation behind his voice as he spoke in a low tone, afraid of saying those words out loud really, like they might yet trigger a curse to bring these things to life. Abby listened carefully to his every word, trying to understand the things in between the lines, which Liam did not say but were there nonetheless.

Abby was very good at analyzing things and seeing through everything, but these dreams Liam had for a long time remained a mystery to her to this day. When Liam sent his trackers close to Dagon’s pack and came back empty-handed, she thought those were just dreams after all, although Liam still seemed convinced on the girl being real. Kayen seemed to be convinced as well, but he never shared his opinion with Abby on this matter.

Abby thought about it for a moment, reminiscing about the nights she woke up abruptly because of her unsettling feelings, which originated from her Alpha’s mind. They came with no noticeable pattern and the time length between each dream also seemed to differ. Abby sighed loudly, unsure what to think of it. They couldn’t send a person to Dagon’s pack and ask him directly if there was a fugitive fleeing their territory. Dagon would never share classified information such as that with any outsider, especially because of the strict policy of not letting anyone come in or out, except his closest warriors. Not to mention that the relationship between Nightfall Bloodhound pack and any other pack out there was absolutely non-existent. The Nightfall Bloodhound pack belonged to one of the oldest ones out there, same as the Nordic Ice pack. However,unlike others, they followed now mainly abandoned ancient rules which were established by the founder of that pack and thus always led separate lives from the rest of the werewolves’ world.