Alpha Convict - Burgov Series I

1. Sasha

"No! No f*****g way! Show me the rulebook otherwise shove that damn Hive Tyrant up your ass." - Norvin shouted, throwing his hands in the air and strolling away to where his soda was standing.

"Hey! That's not a proper way to address the lady." - Claudia scolded him, glancing from above the magazine she had brought to busy herself with while we were playing.

"This is a war, woman. But if you want to be treated like a proper lady, or even a bad girl, I know you are, you just have to ask." - my obnoxious battle partner taunted Claudia, wagging his brows and flexing his muscles, achieving a completely different outcome than appealing. Let's face it, with his lanky arms, none-existent pecs and too long auburn hair he looked like an epitome of a nerd. But what he didn't achieve in posture, he made up for by his impressive height. Nor wasn't even of age yet, but he already towered above even the strongest wolves in the Pack.

Claudia on the other hand, stayed unbothered by his innuendos, like she tends to, just rolled her eyes and sauntered closer to me. -" Are you done yet? It's taking forever." - she asked in her best whiny voice.

I smiled at my best friend, biting my tongue to not once again remind her that she would have a lot more fun if she would just play with us. - "Almost, Hun. It's the last round. We'll be done as soon as Nor accepts his loss."

I flipped through the rulebook and pressed it under Norvin's nose, which meant I had to raise it above my head.

"See? It's right here in an encircled stratagem. I could move that unit to reserve, which I did in the previous round, and attack with it in this round, just like I'm doing now." - I said, accenting each of my words, making Norvin huff, but reluctantly nodding afterwards.

"Good. So my Flyrant lands six inches from your Boyz and Boss with power claws." - I said putting the winged model right next to the objective protected only by a small squad of his figures.

His eyes grew wide, because Nor just realized what I'm about to do, and I expected the outburst in 3… 2… 1.

"Sasha! You can't do this! You were all the way out there, and suddenly you're trying to take the objective from me. That's a total scam!" - he shouted looking as angas ever. What can I say Nor is a sore loser.

"Hey, don't hate the player, hate the game." - I beamed with a saccharine smile. Then I focused back on the board. - "Let's move to the psychic phase."

After a round of shooting, he still had two Boyz and weakened Boss left, but it's not over yet. I use my last Command Point from stratagem which gives me three dice rolls for charge on those units. All I need is a solid nine or more to take him down.

" 3, 4 and 1. Suck it loser!" - Norvin smirked, crossing his arms looking like the champion already.

I raised my hand with a sweet smile. - "Hold up, I still have a re-roll." - I said and his arms and smile fell instantly.

"I sometimes seriously hate you." - he grumbled, shaking his head.

I threw dices again and held my breath. First stopped at four. The second one made me wince when I saw a single dot on it. f**k. Everything's in the hands of fate now. The last dice rolled and stopped on its edge between three and six and for that split second before it lay flat on the table everything around me stopped. Hummingbird was flying in slow-motion, Claudia nagging and huffing died in her mouth and everything I saw was this dice. Small charcoal-colored bastard that would decide this game's result.

6

"Yes!" - I jumped with my fist held high.

I split attacks on 2 and 2 from my talons to Boyz rest 5 to the Boss, and now everything depends on how good Norvin would throw for their armor save. Let's just say this wasn't his lucky day. The Boyz were out, the last one standing was still his Boss, nasty green fella, with machine-gun raised in the air. Although, I must admit that Norvin's painting skills are much better than playing itself. Even a bunch of nasty Orcs looked amazing from under his brush.

Nor rolled again and once the dices landed I started my happy dance.

"Un-f*****g-believable. I had it. Tyranids weren't supposed to be a threat to the horde. The last round you were so far behind that I… How do you do that, Sasha?" - my friend asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"It was just luck, you know how 40,000 is, fate and dices are unbiased. Today I won, next time you will." - I shrugged.

"Yeah, right. I've been hearing that for the last two years, and somehow I'm still waiting for that day." - he huffed, grabbing his models and putting them back on his shelf.

"Are we done here?" - Claudia reminded us of her presence by impatiently tapping her feet on the floor.

"Yeah. Let me just clean up." - I said, carefully gathering each of my babies and gently putting them in my suitcase.

Claudia is an impatient type, but it's hard not to love her. She may come up too strong, but ever since we met, she always stood by my side. She's like a sister I never had and when we met two years ago, after she stood up for me, when kids at school were making fun of my weird accent, we became almost inseparable.

However, we couldn't be more different personalities and look wise, but it doesn't matter, she's like the milk in my coffee, completely opposite, yet you can't have one without the other.

Once I packed my army, we said our goodbye to still mopping Norvin and we left his basement, which was serving as a Warmahmmer battlefield every two weeks.

"Could we drop by the infirmary? I need to get my blood tested, something feels off lately." - Claudia said, knitting her brows.

I glanced at my watch, and I still had at least an hour before Vanya returned from his shift, so if we made it real quick, we should be fine.

I nodded and we both sauntered towards the hospital building, in the center of the village.

"What's actually going on with you that you need your blood tested?" - I asked when we sat in the waiting room.

"Not sure, I've been a bit under the weather lately. Constantly tired and at the same time agitated."

"I'm sure that's just because you're coming of age." - I said, putting my hand on top of her.

"Yeah, probably. But it's better to be safe than sorry."

I just smiled and nodded. Thankfully, there weren't too many patients today, and she was done in just about five minutes.

When we were done and stepped out into the cold winter breeze, I adjusted my hat and in the corner of my eye I saw Claudia smirking.

"What?"

"I can't believe you're still wearing that eyesore." - she said, pointing to my black, furry ushanka.

"I told you it was my Mom's." - I said, touching the beanie as if I wanted to protect it from her judgmental gaze.

"Yeah, I know, but didn't she have something more tasteful?" - she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"It's not about fashion, I told you my Father caught the fox it was made of with his own hands, or snout for that matter." - I said with a faraway smile, reminiscing how Mom used to tell me that story.

"Yes, I know. You and your strange relationship goals." - Claudia rolled her eyes - "A romantic gesture to his Mate, but I still think it was barbaric. No matter what the gesture would be, I would much rather want my Mate to be strong, like him." - she pointed somewhere in the distance and when I followed her finger my eyes landed on our Alpha, or at least the man who still holds the title, while everyone in the Pack knows it's actually his sister, who's holding the reins.

"Yeah, because there's nothing like eau de barf and pants stained in old blood or ketchup to get a girl's attention." - I mocked, watching how the sad excuse of a leader was swaying from side to side, while trying to overpower three steps separating him from the Pack House's front door. And the jury was still deciding who would come on top of this uneven fight. My money is on the stairs, though.

"Oh, come on Sasha, you can't possibly say that he isn't cute." - she said, looking at Alpha with those dreamy eyes, every girl with a teenage crush sports. Very disturbing, since the guy is a raging alcoholic who doesn't even try to hide it anymore. And to be frank, I would expect me, with my Daddy's issues, to be attracted to him, not Claudia, who is too smart for that.

"Yeah, he would be the biggest hottie in the rehab, if he would attend one." - I scoffed and turned towards the street leading to my house. - "Come on, I still have dinner to make."

My house wasn't anything special. Just a modest three-bedroom cottage with a small kitchenette, I turned into my personal kingdom, because neither of the men in my family knew what to do with a knife other than throwing it, or stabbing with it.

When we entered through the door, my two babies rushed at me, tripping me on the floor with the weight of their bodies and started greeting me in their usual wet way.

"Hey guys! I missed you too!" - I cooed, scratching each of my boys on their massive furry heads, while they were licking the remains of the mascara from my face. You don't need any makeup remover, when you have two Irish wolfhounds, that's for sure.

Jinx and Bummer were the only truly joyful creatures residing in the Burgovs household. I found them a year ago in the woods on my way from school. They couldn't have more than two days back then, and they were still like little blind worms, but when I saw how they were clinging to their Mom's dead body I just couldn't leave them. So they became a part of the family, although no one suspected how big they'd get.

I released myself from their wet kisses and walked further into the house. Father was snoring loudly on the couch. Judging by the odor coming from his wide opened mouth, he somehow found the way to get his happy juice again, even though Vanya swears he's not giving him any money.

"Hey Ilia." - I said to my baby brother who was doing his homework on the dining table and, as per usual, he chose to ignore me.

He's the youngest of us and took leaving our motherland the worst. He was against moving from the very beginning, but it's not like we had much of a choice. Mama wouldn't want us to separate, she always said that we are like a hand, each of the fingers can do on their own just fine, but when we work together, that's when we're the strongest. So it was either going against what she always taught us, or moving to the US, where we found the only Pack willing to take us in. Too bad our metaphorical fist contains only four fingers now.

We passed my brother and after I left the suitcase with my miniatures in my bedroom, Claudia and I busied ourselves in the kitchen. I put all the ingredients on the narrow counter and pondered for a moment about what to do.

"Can you take care of the onions and mushrooms?" - I asked my friend and she nodded.

She knew the drill, and we were surprisingly in sync in my kitchen. I won't lie, and admit that I was kind of relying on her help. With most of the house chores on my head, Claudia was a priceless help. And it's not like I was using her, she was always eating dinners with us, because her alternative was a crappy meal in the compound where she lives.

We put together a quick stroganoff and while the sauce was getting there, I took care of the noodles and the stoves were off just in time the happy barking announced that Vanya had returned.

I heard him shuffling in the foyer and soon after, he stopped at the kitchen entrance.

"Hey, girls, what's for dinner?"

"Stroganoff." - Claudia and I said in perfect unison.

"Again?!" - Ilia said, stepping next to Vanya. - "Chyort!"

Our older brother hit him in the back of the head with a scowl. - "Behave. You should have thanked Sasha for cooking and I told you, that now that we're here, we're speaking English, especially when there's someone who doesn't understand you." - Vanya scolded.

Neither of us has had it easy for the last two years, but Vanya has become our Mother and Father in a matter of hours on that one feral day. I try to help him however I can, but he's been adamant about me finishing school before I start working. That's why I gladly cooked, paid the bills and kept our home fairly clean, which he allowed me gladly. We both know that he has enough on his plate with work, our Father and Ilia, who entered a new level of defiance after he turned fifteen.

"Thanks for cooking, Sasha." - my younger brother said mockingly and rolled his eyes, before going away to set the table, which was one of the few things he actually did around here.

Vanya sighed and shook his head. - "He's getting out of hand."

I squeezed his arm in attempt to give him some strength. - "He'll be fine. And stop worrying, he's just his usual snarky self. I don't even hear it anymore." - I said, handing my older brother five plates and cutlery.

"You shouldn't allow him to treat you that way." - Vanya said firmly, holding my gaze, and I reluctantly nodded, hoping this would end this discussion.

I actually didn't mind Ilia's antics. He was still a boy, no matter how tall he grew, he was still angry at something neither of us had any impact on.

"And what's with Papa? Where is he taking the money from?" - Vanya voiced the question I'd been asking myself.

"No idea." - I answered with a heavy sigh mirroring my brother. - "Let's just eat. Will you get him?" - I tilted my chin towards the living room, from where the drunken snoring was still sounding strong.

When we finally sat by the table and everyone dug in, I kept on glancing at my Father, who was eating with such difficulty that if he wasn't my own Father I would probably laugh. But there was nothing funny about it, especially since I can clearly remember the kind of man he used to be before our lives turned south.

I should probably be embarrassed in front of Claudia, but she became an honorary member of this family a long time ago. She knew everything, just as I knew about her own struggles after she lost her parents during her Pack's seizure, and how much her own life changed after a few that were left were relocated here, in the Midnight Banes Pack. So she's basically one of us now.

"What are your plans for the big day, Montgomery?" - Ilia asked my friend and it was shocking he cared at all.

"Crash a party, drink till I black out and dance my legs off. You know, the usual." - she said with a straight face, but I was barely holding my giggles seeing Ilia's excited expression.

"Cool, can I come?" - my brother asked and Claudia glanced at me and we both burst out laughing. - "What? What's so funny?"

"I was just kidding. Tomorrow's a day like any other. I'll go to practice, do some cleaning and probably come here for dinner." - Claudia said, taking another bite from her plate.

"That's so lame. It's not how you celebrate your eighteenth birthday." - Illia announced, stabbing another noodle with a force you would expect from her archenemy.

"What can I say, I'm not a wild child like you are." - Claudia said with a smile.

Ilia watched her for a moment before he smirked. - "Yeah, right." - he snorted.

After dinner, Claudia and I cleaned up and once she was getting ready to go home, I took the small box from my bag and handed it to her just as she was about to go out.

"Open this at midnight. It's not much, but my Mom believed it's supposed to show you the true colors of the person you're speaking to. So if you find your Mate, maybe use it on him, before... You know." - I said and Claudia smiled, looking at a tiny silver box, then she wrapped me in a tight hug.

"Thanks Sasha, you're the best friend any girl could ask for." - she said against my ear and then she stepped away with teary eyes and, with one last smile, disappeared behind the door.

Two scratchy tongues locking each of my hands reminded me how much I still had to do. I laid my books on the dining table and focused on my homework, while Vanya took the dogs for their evening run. Ilia, as per usual, locked himself in his bedroom, doing the Goddess only knows what any fifteen-year-old does.

By the time my brother got back with Jinx and Bummer, it was already time to call it a day. I was going to my room, when I noticed Vanya standing above our passed out Father once again sleeping on a couch. The same couch that serves as Vanya's bed.

"You need a hand?" - I asked.

"I honestly don't know where he takes money from." - Vanya shook his head and placed both hands on his hips. My brother was always the serious one. The one that put his duty and family first, even before his own needs. He took the family reins and tried his best to provide for us and created as normal home as possible. But even he sometimes looked defeated.

"Not from me and not from you. And I think it's safe to assume Ilia doesn't share his pocket money either." - Vanya snorted at that. - "Maybe he has a job we don't know about?"

"As what?! Liquor tester?" - my brother said, but he shook his head, getting rid of his frustration with our Father. We promised ourselves that we won't be blaming him for the situation we ended up in. That was just an accident, after all. - "Take him under one arm, I'll take the other." - my brother said finally.

The two of us walked our Dad to his bedroom, where I made a mental note to myself that it desperately needed cleaning, and then we went to our respective beds.

It was a bit of a Tetris to sleep in one bed with two dogs, which were both bigger than I was, but not even a tight space, or fur in my mouth every morning would make me want it any other way.

I was just drifting into slumber, when my phone pinged with a new message. I didn't have too many friends here, so I knew it was either Claudia or Norvin, and they would only text me with something important at that time.

I unlocked the screen and found a text from Claudia.

'00:02 I found my Mate. Call it luck! Or better yet, call me Luna of Midnight Banes! Benson is taking me for the ride, so don't call before noon. Luv ya!' - ended with too many emojis to count.

I frowned at first, because I had my reservations towards our Alpha, but if anyone could set him straight, it's definitely Claudia. Good for her. She'll be the most badass Luna. And with her attitude and determination this Pack can grow into something great.