Auctioned to the Rogue Alpha

I was raised from a young age as the sole heir to the Blue Moon pack. Even though I was a girl, I trained as hard as any son would, harder even to prove myself to my pack for a role that wasn’t traditionally given to females. Blue Moon was one of the original packs broken from the Moon Goddess’ one pack. Even though we honored those old traditions, my Father pushed to find a balance between honoring our heritage and modernizing our pack. At twenty-five, I was to take over the pack, and I was determined to uphold the work he had done and build on it. My twenty-fifth birthday passed months ago, but taking over the pack was the least of my worries since my father fell gravely ill, and we still had no explanation. ___ “Come quickly, Katerina,” one of my favorite Omegas, Grace, woke me from a now usual fitful sleep. It was still night. The look on her usually overly optimistic face told me something had taken a turn for the worse. My father was stable; he had been for a few weeks. We had time; we had to have time to find another healer, to find another option. I grasped her hand and ran behind her. My heart thrummed loudly, sounding my fear through each beat. I almost skidded past his room. The door was open, and I made my way to him, my breathing heavy and erratic. I grasped his hand in mine; it was too cold. His eyes were closed, but they fluttered a bit. A small bit of the tightness lifted; he was still with us. His face was too pale, and his golden hair, which used to be the same as mine, almost looked white. He seemed as if he had aged fifty years in the past few months. Our doctors hadn’t seen anything like it, no one had, but that wasn’t strange. As werewolves, it was unheard of to die of sickness. Even our best doctors couldn’t find an answer. “What happened?” I demanded to no one and everyone. I only saw him a few hours ago before I went to bed. He was sitting, chatting with me, and I left with hope that he would get better. He was getting better. My uncle John walked up to the other side of the bed, standing next to the doctor who suddenly seemed so breakable, or maybe that was because I wanted nothing more than to break the man without answers. I hadn’t even noticed anyone else in the room until now. My uncle stood there, tall and imposing. His dark brown goatee accentuated his angular face. His light blue eyes were constantly assessing, even now, as they held mine. These past few months, he had stayed here; it was the longest I had remembered him being with us, even when I was young. He would go off for years at a time, showing up sporadically. No one really had any idea what he was doing, but there were rumors. My father had tried to get him into counsellor or ambassador roles, but he always turned them down until he accepted one and royally f.ucked it up so bad my father stopped asking. I always wondered if that f.uck up was intentional, but I was unsure what it really entailed. I heard something about an Alpha’s daughter, too much wine and some stolen money. I know that his actions always saddened my dad, and he never stopped reaching out and inviting him to all events. Now that he was here, I hoped they had time to work out anything amiss between them, and when he got better, they could be as close as they apparently were as children. “Just now, he had a fit,” My uncle explained, motioning to his brother lying between us. I noted the cuff of a suit now and actually looked at him. His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a dress jacket and pants. What could he have been doing at this hour? “Will he be okay?” My voice was shaky as I asked the doctor. “What are the next steps?” I demanded. The doctor looked at me, his face almost as ashen as my father's. “I- I - I’m afraid.” “Speak up,” my uncle commanded. “Yes, sir.” The doctor bowed his head. “This might be it,” he explained and flinched. “John, what is it?” My dad’s most trusted advisor, Cletus, came in. The name suited him. He was robust for a werewolf, and his cheeks were red from the effort. He locked eyes with John and swallowed. I had to look away from the confirmation I saw in his eyes. I grasped my dad’s hand; his fingers were cold and frail and nothing like the man I still saw in my mind. The one who raised me since my mother passed when I was a child. This man was a ghost, a hollow comparison haunting me every time I closed my eyes recently. “Dad? Please,” I begged, tears streaming down my face. His mouth twitched, but that was it. “Daddy?” “Leave us,” My uncle said to the doctor. The door was shut, but Cletus still lingered in the room. I didn’t care; nothing mattered; the entire pack could be watching right now. My dad slowly opened his eyes; the vibrant brown I remembered was now dull and lifeless. He locked eyes on me. “Katerina,” he rasped. The name he gave me for his own mother was a struggle on his lips. He reached out to me, but his hand fell back to the bed. “You have the most beautiful eyes, your… Mothers… Eyes.” “Dad,” I cried, lifting his hand to my cheek. “You were the best… Are the best... Daughter,” he managed through wheezing breaths. “It’s okay, Dad. Rest now,” I said, trying to mean it. “The best… heir.” he went on as if he didn’t hear me. His dull eyes flickered to life for a moment, and I saw my father again for the last time. “You will be a great.. Alpha,” he managed out, and then his hand went limp in mine. I cried out. Agony ripped through me, shaking the room. Words and logic didn’t work. The only thing was the torrent of grief that poured out of me. I don’t know if or when I left my father's body.