POSSESSION OF THE ALPHA BROTHERS

PEARLS WERE HER EYES

The very first time I had heard of it was when I was merely an eight-year-old, the tale of the Moon’s daughter, Lune. The years that succeeded should’ve made it moiling to recall the same, but it didn’t. I could still start from the very beginning, describing every little event that constituted the end, just like my dear late grandfather.

Lune, the deity of immaculate beauty, had an admirer on our fair planet, who’d sing to her every single night. Swooned by the passion of this lover, she descended from the heavens to unite with him. As fate would have it, she did manage to locate him, allowed him to profess his feelings for her and then took her wedding vows to abandon her life as a heavenly being, which she could still pursue till she possessed her black pearl, something that she entrusted to her husband till her time on earth.

But, life can’t always be flowers and rainbows. The husband’s mirthfulness procured the envy of his kin, inspiring their Alpha of his pack to kill him and steal his pearl and his woman. Having been taken captive, Lune was made to remarry this enemy, who made her bear her children and refused to return her pearl, the only means of going back to her home.

Mournful, she set the entire pack ablaze, sparing only her children in the process. The ruthless Alpha’s death, however, didn’t help alter her dismal reality as she couldn’t find her pearl, a misfortune that led her to take her own life with a vow to return to collect her pearl and annihilate anybody who might prove to be an impediment.

“I wonder if she ever came back, found her lover and took back her pearl,” I mutter.

Chewing the metallic tip of my pencil, I gazed outside the window, admiring the birds, freely roaming the endless sky, without worrying about their homework or worse, exams. Since I obviously had to do both of those things, I couldn’t wallow in fancy and waste away my precious hours before tomorrow’s final.

A revision meant for half an hour turned into an entire night of cramming, leaving me as tired as a worn-out shoe the next morning. After the entire night's struggle, I did harbour an indomitable desire to crash on my bed and skip the exam. Nonetheless, the desire to escape my circumstances compelled me to rush into the bathroom, freshen up and then fit into my uniform, and when I finished arranging my backpack, I scooted downstairs and picked up some toasted bread from the dining table before hurrying to the exit.

I almost seemed to have made it to the outside when I encountered an impediment in the form of a squeal that emerged from behind me, made by my paternal aunt, Gretchen.

“Where do you think you’re going without doing the dishes, bold one? There's no free food for the one that dawdles."

Losing all colour from my face, I stared at her in a state of complete dread. Just how she'd been the very first day she'd been introduced to me, she didn't seem too fond of entertaining my silence which she clearly considers my impertinence. Thus, by placing her hands on her waist, she abridged the distance between us, causing an inadvertent tremor in me, a state in which I was incapacitated of both speech and action.

Because of my inability to produce an answer, the aunt grabbed me by my arm and began dragging me to the kitchen area with such ferociousness that I ended up bumping my knee into one of the legs of the table, causing me to jerk my hand to release it from her hold and wince in pain, which unfortunately attracted my father’s attention and forced him to attend to me.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Cognisant of how bringing up aunt Gretchen’s mistreatment of me was bound to leave me with nothing less than several more bruises and a blue eye once he’d left, I presented to him my injured knee in a self-deprecating attitude by blaming myself for it, “Being a clutz, I once again wounded myself, dear father. What else do you expect from an airhead like me?"

“Let me take a look at it,” said my father, affectionately.

The aunt growled behind him, causing me to take a few steps away from him and then rush out of my home, without offering him an explanation for the sudden withdrawal, for I feared for my life. As soon as I reached my school, I straightened the creases on my skirt with my palms and then hurried to the examination room, where I saw my best friend, June Webster, awaiting me.

“It is the last exam, yet you cannot manage to be on time,” carps June.

Swallowing the pain caused by the early morning’s unpleasant exchange with the aunt, I did not offer her any answer and hurried to my desk. Somehow managing to sit through the exam without being trammelled by the tumult that was caused within me, I finished it as quickly as my situation would allow it and then deemed it best to head to the rooftop.

Heavy-breathed, broken by my anxiety, I ascended the stairwell. Once I was on the rooftop, I shut the door behind me and headed straight to the far left corner, allowing the wild winds to strip me of my concerns. Spreading my arms because of being protected by the seclusion that this spot offered, I questioned the ceaseless sky, the very home of our reverend moon goddess, “Why did you not give me my powers? Why can’t I shift? Don’t you know how I get so vulnerable when the other members of the pack pick on me?”

“You needn’t be fearful of anything till you are by your Alpha’s side.”

Unexpectedly, my query was answered, but the answer hadn't come from the sky. It came from behind me, from a mouth which wasn’t too far away from my ear. A bit startled by the proximity between this person and me, I turned around to confront the intruder but ended up laying eyes on one of the most handsome faces in my school, Tobias Knight, who happened to be my boyfriend.

“What are you—”

“Shh!”

Refusing to allow me to break away from the spell that his piercing blue eyes casted on me, he pressed his index finger against my lips. Awe-struck by my man’s striking features, I failed to protest against his finger that plunged downwards from my lips, making its way to my neck.

Stopping just above the collar, he unbuttoned the very first button of my shirt and asked, “Wouldn’t it be something to have s*x here, sweetheart?”

My cheeks burned red and I pushed him away, for my feeble heart couldn’t take such intense provocation. Hardly affected, Tobias, on the other hand, grabbed my jaw and made me stare into his eyes as he shot another question at me, “What sort of a girlfriend are you, Dimitra Swan? When you get so anxious over a simple touch, how will you keep up when I would wife you and make you bear my children?”

Placing my hand over his mouth to stop him from flirting anymore, I reminded him of his purpose, “You must become the Alpha before that. Your brother, Kai, is doing everything in his power to ensure you don’t get the position. We'll think of marriage once you've procured the throne."

The mere mention of his brother painted a frown on Tobias’s face, which was followed by an aggressive declaration, “I am going to be the next Alpha of the Rage pack and everyone will acknowledge me as their one true leader.”

The bellicosity with which Tobias asserted his right to the position of the Alpha left me aquiver with discomfort, which didn’t go unnoticed by him. Reluctant to see me fearful of him, he put his arms on my shoulder and pulled me closer to deliver a kiss on my cheek.

“Forgive me, Dimitra,” said Tobias, extending his kisses to my neck seductively. “There’s nothing that I’d hate more than having my future bride fearing me.”

A soft moan escaped my lips, and I turned to him to allow him to better tease my aroused body. Aligned with my desires, Tobias pressed his lips against mine, shoving his tongue inside my mouth while his sneaky hands moved inside my skirt, caressing my butt and thighs.

Breathless, I had to pull away from him. Unwilling to let go, he grabbed my hand and threw me against a wall, declaring, “You are not going to leave until you satisfy me.”

“What if someone walked on us?” I asked, battling against my own desires which compelled me to give in.

Smirking, the guy announced, “I rule this entire institution. Nobody would dare come here.”

The impact Tobias thought he had made didn’t seem as profound as he’d like to believe, as a sharp knock was made on the very door he’d claimed would be left undisturbed throughout the entirety of our intercourse. Overwrought by the increasing intensity of the knocks, he opened the door only to meet up with his worst nightmare, his brother, Kai Knight, our class representative.

Instead of holding the guilty one by the collar and charging him for misconduct, Kai grabbed me by the wrist and began dragging me away to the student council’s room, something to which I didn’t consent.