The Alpha King and His Fated Protector

CHAPTER FOUR

ELINA

The festival of the blood moon starts as usual, with the inauguration by the monarch of the festivities on the palace grounds , a kind of bazaar, and it helps so each pack can put up different tents in which they trade products that are grown or manufactured on the grounds of each one, and there are also games of all kinds, small competitions, and jousts that are carried out between members of the different packs , and although ideally, these types of small competitions should be friendly, they usually lead to fights that later have to separate by the guards as best as they can before those involved want to start transforming, since once they do , it is their wolf who takes the reins and they are not cautious at all, there is usually a couple of deaths after each festival.

That is why the large tent belonging to the infirmary is located at the front of the grounds , so that everyone can find it easily and bring the injured people here so they can receive a quick medical attention, and although seven years ago at the last festival of the blood moon I was not yet part of the medical staff, this year I do have to be here along with my mother and members of other packs, mostly women, attentive to heal and assist any wounded that may arise, which at the end of the fifteen days that the festival lasts, turn into dozens of injured people , some of whom are almost completely healed before the festival ends, because our species heals much faster than other species, especially after a complete transformation.

My mother notices how restless I have been since this morning, but she is so busy that she does not have time to tell me anything or ask questions , although I know that at night she will probably harass me with questions of all kinds, as she usually does when she notices that something strange is happening to me, and I know that she is probably worried that this is the first time I have participated in the festival since in the previous two, and due to the presence of the late King Colin Vark, my parents decided to leave me at home to prevent him from having one from his very famous spontaneous fits of rage, and decided to finish what he started three blood moon festivals ago , when he took advantage of the fact that the entire kingdom was already drunk on the festivities thinking they were in the middle of a truce, and broke in with all his best warriors and mowed down my entire family.

Not only this year will my birthday happen on the last day of the festival, as that was the date my parents were murdered and I was born in the arms of one of the Vark's royal guard , but it will also coincide with the great closing banquet of the festivities, so it will be difficult for my family to refrain from attending and trying to celebrate my birthday, although they know that it is not a particularly joyous date for me, because it concurs with the anniversary of the fall of my kingdom and the death of my entire family, and still every year they try to celebrate it in one way or another , always trying to respect my state of mind at the moment.

At the end of the first week of the festival is when the blood moon competition takes place, in which all those who want to rise in rank in one way or another participate in it , it is specially designed for those who want to rise in a category, to go from being a beta to be an alpha, something that does not happen often, or go from being an omega to being a gamma or even a beta, something that is basically impossible, there are also those who participate to join the elite force of the kingdom.

And this year the competition is different, since there will be a new king so he will need his personal guard in excellent shape, and the king's guard usually consists of the seven best warriors in the kingdom, but because a member of the old king's guard passed away along with him in last year's Rogues attack , the winner of this year's competition will automatically become the seventh member of King Bastian Vark's personal guard.

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When the end of the week comes and the main competition is approaching in a dizzying way, my nerves are on edge and it is almost impossible to hide all of my plans from my family , I can feel how they exchange glances at dinner, I hear them murmur in the mornings before leaving home, I see their worried looks constantly haunting me during the day, and I know they think that just being at the festival for the first time in my life is affecting me in some way, but they don't suspect the reason behind my anxiety is that the day when the whole kingdom will hear the name Bloodmoon again is getting closer and closer , and that terrifies me, but at the same time fills me with an emotion almost impossible to describe.

Alpha Roger has been training with me in the evenings after the festival, and although I haven't told him the real reasons why I put so much effort into my training , I know that he suspects that I am not just doing it to learn how to defend myself against the Rogues, but he is wise enough not to ask me any questions, he has simply been increasing the intensity of the training as he sees my progress, and in the last few weeks we already achieved my complete transformation to a wolf, but we have not managed to make it last more than a few seconds, and that has frustrated him quite a bit.

“You have to stop thinking about it so much, Ellie, the more you think about it, the less time you will be able to stay in your wolf form, you must let your instincts completely take over you , let the rage, fear, and happiness take control of your mind and your body, let your wolf take the lead, I know you can feel it in the back of your mind, every time you feel stronger emotions than usual , it is your wolf wanting to surface, and you have to learn to let go and let it out when necessary,” he told me frustrated, the day before the festival started, while I lay on the floor panting from all the effort I put into a complete transformation that only lasted for a couple of heartbeats.

Since then, I have tried to practice on my own as well but I have not managed to advance much more than I have advanced with Roger's guidance , and that is what has caused most of my anxiety to arise and my nerves to get on edge over the smallest things, I have to achieve a good place in the competition to become an elite warrior, or else all I will achieve is to make a fool of myself in front of the entire kingdom and leave my family name even more tainted than it has already been in the last two decades.

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