The alpha's witch

Chapter 2: Macon Forrester

Macon Forrester

I was married once. I had a pretty, little wife that I'd known since childhood. Lya. She had jet black hair, and sky-blue eyes. We had lived on a small farm in Conques, France. I was not born a werewolf. I was bitten. There had been something stalking our farm, killing our livestock, and so I had gone out to kill it.

I had taken some men from the village with me. It had been a long day in the forest, and we hadn't found anything. But as we were going to head back, we came across the carcass of a dead deer. It had been torn to shreds in such a violent manner no one knew what to think of it. But then we heard it. The howling of a wolf. We headed in the direction of it, determined to kill the beast.

Finally, when we came upon it, it was like no wolf we had ever seen. Giant, and snarling, and standing on its hind legs. The other men gave chase, screaming as they ran away. I stared at the thing, knowing that I had to kill it to keep my home safe.

I had a bow and arrow with me to kill it. I readied my weapon, pulled back on the quiver of the bow, and.... I wasn't even able to shoot the beast before it lunged at me. It bit into my arm, making the worst kind of pain imaginable pierce through my body. I cried out as blood seeped from the wound. As I screamed, the world faded to black.

I remembered being in so much pain. The kind of pain that went through my whole body. Everyone assumed I was dead. But my wife, Lya, didn't give up on me. She spent a whole day in the woods searching for me. She carried me back to our village though I was bloodied, unconscious and nearly dead.

In our small home, she nursed me back to health. Everything seemed fine. I regained strength. The wounds healed, although I would always have a scar on my arm from where I had been bitten. But even though I'd healed, I felt wrong. Food didn't taste the same anymore. I wanted meat, always. Flesh and blood were always on my mind. I wasn't the same.

I knew something was wrong. There was something else with me. Another voice in my head that hadn't been present before. The wolf. My wolf. And it was hungry, and I could feel the way it looked at Lya like it wanted to do the same thing to her as the wolf in the forest did to me. It wasn't only the voice in my head that had changed about me. It was my senses too. I could hear everything, see everything, smell it…from miles away. Then, the full moon came.

I remembered lying in bed with Lya, only to bolt up from a fierce pain. A sound escaped my mouth like none that I had ever heard before. A howl. One that woke my wife up. I could feel myself changing----hair growing all over me, claws piercing through my skin, teeth growing pointed....and a kind of ravenous hunger that I had never felt before.

I looked at my wife, who looked back at me with horror. I was not Macon, the simple farmer anymore. I was someone else entirely. In that moment, I thought of sinking my teeth into my wife's flesh and turning her into the same thing I was. Something, some small part of me, was horrified by this.

I snarled at her, then ran from our small, wood cabin off into the forest. Never to be seen or heard from again. And I had no idea what happened to my beautiful wife after.

At first, I was alone in the forest. But eventually, I was found by my maker. I joined my pack. But I never fit in. They were werewolves by birth, so they could shift when they wanted because they'd been taught. They had a power that I didn't. The only way I would control my wolf that way, since I'd been human before, was if I became an Alpha.

Alphas are made by blood and battle. I fought for my title. I killed my maker, the man that had taken everything from me. And I gained power over my wolf. I was no longer controlled by the moon. I learned of mates and everyone told me I would find mine. I still saw myself as married, even though I could not be with Lya for her safety. And I didn't think she would even love me if she knew the truth of what I was. But centuries had come and gone. I'd seen wars and technology change the world, switched continents, and been part of giant, cultural shifts. I could have had anyone. No one would have challenged me.

Yet, I remained true to my wife, the memory of her and our vows. The life we had had. Even though time had moved on, I had not.

The Setter Coven had been friends with us since they allowed my pack to stay in Moon Shadow, California. We'd come in the 1800s and never left once we forged an alliance with their ancestors. An alliance that had been made because a member of my pack had been mated with a witch. Someone not from the Setter family, but their coven.

Covens were determined by those who swore allegiance to families with great power, something the Setters had lots of. And, though the mates that had shaped the alliance had long since passed, it still stood. We protected them from those that wanted their magic, and they protected us from the same ones that would kill us for what we were. Hunters, after all, were not something magic people could afford to fight alone. Not when they came after all of us.

So, I'd watched the Setter family for generations. Seen Revealing's of mates many times. Gone to weddings, and births. I never once thought that they were my destiny. But the night of Serena Setter's eighteenth birthday, her Revealing, I saw my name get seared across her naked back in the middle of the woods. I heard it echo through my mind and I saw, in flashes, our life together. Me, inside of her. Our wedding. Our first child…a possibility of happiness I had never allowed for myself.

And there was something else.

A shadow, always lurking in the background that I could not place.

“MATE!!!" I roared, and the entire town that had come out for Serena's birthday turned to look at me, shocked. Fear in their eyes, knowing our coupling could only mean one thing. Darkness was coming.

Serena was balled over on the forest floor in pain. High Priestess Imogen, her mother, had run to her side. When she looked at the tattoo on her daughter's skin, her brows furrowed together in confusion. Then she looked up at everyone.

“The Goddess has chosen," she said. “Alpha Macon Forrester is my daughter's mate."

She was met with silence. No one said a word or even dared to move.

Mates were all about power. Give and take. Who could protect the other best. The Goddess was telling us something was wrong, and that Serena needed protection. That I needed protection, too. Somewhere, something bad was conspiring against Moon Shadow.

I walked forward from my place, standing by their tent that I had been in only moments before. Everyone's eyes were on me. And Serena. The entire forest, which had been filled with music and laughter before, was silent as I did. When I got there, Imogen had helped her daughter up, and she was shivering, still naked from the Revealing. I bent down and picked up the pink, velvet cloak that she had been wearing.

Hesitantly, Serena looked up at me. She was a small thing, maybe five foot four, with brilliant, red hair and green eyes. She took the cloak and put it back on. Then, I heard her mother whisper something.

“Evanescere," Imogen whispered, and one minute, Serena was there, then she was gone. And I roared.