The Rise of the Alpha

10

A constant ringing in my ears, a barrage of muffled-sounding mindlinks from my worried and confused pack members, the sweet aroma of a brave little rabbit sniffing around my forehead, and the continuous rainfall helped to pull me from the thick darkness that'd consumed me so suddenly. Groggy, dizzy, and thoroughly confused as to how I was even still alive, I sat slowly upright and took in my surroundings, wincing all the while because my entire human body was weak, battered, and sore. From the dried blood practically painted onto my skin to the deep, red scratches all up and down me to the blue and purple bruises of all shapes and sizes decorating me, I looked every bit as bad as I felt – like absolute Hell! I had no idea how long I'd been, by all appearances, d.ead to the world, but that matter became increasingly irrelevant (as did the mindlinks) the longer I surveyed the c*****e around me. I couldn't pick up any scents of any kind other than blood (which kind of churned my stomach, in all honesty), and as my teary eyes passed over body after lifeless body of both friends and enemies, the fragile grip I'd had on my…well…everything vanished, making me wail at the top of my lungs. I was all alone, and boy, did I ever wish I wasn't!

The fuzzy, murmured mindlinks continued to pour in, but this time, I'm the one who put up a mental block. It was unbelievably hypocritical of me to do such a thing, I know, but I just didn't know what else to do! The utter shock and devastation I was feeling straight-up wouldn't allow me to reply! What could I have possibly told them anyway when I, myself, didn't fully understand what had just happened, and even more so what had gone down, if anything, while I was knocked out? Hell, I needed answers just as much as they did!

Despite begging my limbs to cooperate with me enough to crawl to one of the few hidden stashes of extra clothes we'd always kept stocked throughout the forest, they just would not get the memo...and that's precisely when a particular thought ran me over like a semi truck – where was Mom at? We were side by side when I'd lost consciousness, but she wasn't near me when I'd come to! I could, without a doubt, feel that neither she nor my father were amongst the living, and oh my goddess, I hated it! In soul-crushing desperation, I tried to link them anyway, but my foolish attempts were expectedly met by walls, for my links to them existed no longer.

Gutted yet keeping my block in place, Chloe insisted then that we try crawling again, so in agreement with her, I demanded my limbs to move accordingly. Slowly and painfully, I crept across the wet, forest floor to the outskirts of the warzone then retrieved a dampened pair of cotton shorts and a T-shirt and threw them on, stifling sobs brought on by each deceased, n.aked body I had to climb over. I couldn't believe the number of casualties, all of them crumple in pools of their own blood.

At last, I reached my father's mangled body and collapsed beside it, cursing the night and sobbing over my soul-shattering loss. Several moments later, I attempted to pull myself together, brushing away the rolling tears with my fingertips and taking as deep of breaths as I could muster. That melted right away, though, the instant my sight landed upon the smaller, feminine figure curled in the fetal position on the other side of him (out of my initial view, mind you). Weeping, I hung my head in defeat, shame, agony…you name it! I was absolutely shattered and cursed the night, asking the Moon Goddess why the f.uck this bullshit had happened to me. My strong and courageous, loving and caring parental rocks – my alpha and my luna – are simply no more, and that tremendous weight was destroying me with each passing second!

I was so caught up in overwhelming loss that I c.ompletely missed the footfalls coming nearer until whomever was out there had finally stepped into view, a look of genuine pity etched across his face. "Uncle Amos…," I choked out that instant, a choppy wave of relief washing over me.

"Goddess above...," he said slowly, his expression dropping in time with what his eyes were beholding. "What have you done, dear niece?"

"Uncle Amos, I-" I began to explain, only I cut myself short and just averted my gaze to my feet because I truly didn't know what to tell him. I had passed out when that a.sshole rogue charged me, so anything beyond that is truly beyond me!

"Weren't you told to stay put where you were?" he pointed right out, however there were traces of sympathy present in his voice. "You disobeyed a direct order from your parents, and now look at them-"

"No!" I snapped back, my eyes darting directly upward to his concerned ones. There was just something about the words he'd said – not the way they were spoken – that had me jumping to defend myself. "What the hell was I supposed to do? Huh? None of you would respond to my links, and I had to make sure everyone was okay! Besides, you saw what happened to me. I blacked the f.uck out and don't have a clue what happened after that. And another thing … where were you and Silas?! Why weren't you here fighting alongside everyone else?!"

"Deary, your father commanded us to stand guard at the border, so that's precisely what we did," he answered without missing a beat, the response taking me by surprise considering it seemed so out of character for my dad. Unfortunately for us all, though, he isn't here to answer for himself.

My head was spinning, and understandably so! With teeth bared, I made a shaky attempt to stand, however my legs buckled and I ended up smacking the ground with an audible THUD.

Uncle Amos pulled me right to my feet. "Are you okay?" he asked, genuine concern etched across his features.

"No, I feel like I just wrestled a two-ton grizzly bear," I spat in return, "plus I can't even think straight right now! I'm drenched, my head's k.illing me, and my heart feels like it's been ripped from my chest and stomped into the ground! I'm scared to d.eath to remove my mental block because I know I'm gonna get bombarded the second I do. Kinda panicking over here … and by 'kinda', I mean really!"

"Well, now, there's no need in panicking just yet, okay?" he replied, his eyes wandering the scene around us.

"Huh?!" I squawked, then I glanced over my own shoulders to try to figure out who the hell he was speaking to so crazily. "Do you even hear yourself right now? How can I not stand here and panic?! The pack knows their alpha and luna are no more."

"Well…," he began to reply, drawing out the syllable unnecessarily. "You do understand you're the reason for that, right? Truly, had you just done what they'd told to do, they might very well still be here. You pretty much left your mom and dad no other choice but to defend you ... and they paid the ultimate price for it."