by Angela Foxxe
Alexa felt as though a sudden gust of wind had just bowled her over. Her mother, the one who had always been there for her, had just called her stupid. Alexa took a step back, breaking away from her mother’s harsh grip. She could see, in an instant, that Sabrina had realized her mistake.
“Wait, Alexa …” she murmured. She tried to reach forward, to put a hand against Alexa’s cheek, but Alexa slapped her hand away with a dark glare.
“If that’s what you think about me, then I don’t need to listen to you anymore,” Alexa growled. She didn’t wait for an apology from her mother, instead shifting into a slim wolf, and taking off in the direction that the alphas frequented.
Her huge paws slammed against the ground as she ran, and she barely managed to weave in between her sparse pack mates. When she arrived where the carcass and alphas had been earlier, Alexa was greeted with nothing. Not a single alpha was lazing about, and only bones were left of the body, some fur strewn about here and there.
Alexa approached the kill, sniffing around and selecting a bone for herself. It wasn’t enough to sate the hunger that had been growing in her stomach, but it would at least allow her something to gnaw on and take out her frustrations. She settled a few feet away from the mangled body, and began to chew on the bone.
She assumed it hadn’t been long, only a few minutes after she sat down with her bone, when an alpha approached. She recognized the female, large and imposing but with friendly eyes. Noemi settled herself in front of Alexa and whined at her, pawing at the bone. Alexa growled lightly, but passed it over to Noemi. She’d done a number on it, leaving gashing teeth marks all over the milky surface.
When Noemi shifted back, so did Alexa. Her fur retracted, replaced by pale, but flushed skin. Her hair was messed up from her run, and she could hardly think. It was as though her head was swimming with angry bees.
“Did you have a fight?” Noemi asked.
Alexa snorted. “A fight is one way thing to call it,” she scoffed. She sighed at the look Noemi gave her, telling her to watch her mouth and know her place. “Yes, I had a fight,” she said. “With my mother. She called me stupid, and a few other things. I would really rather not relive it just now.”
Noemi nodded, mulling over the bone in her hands. She glanced up at Alexa, raising an eyebrow. “What were you fighting about?” she asked.
It was a question that Alexa had been expecting. Noemi was a curious girl, who had to know everything. However, the light in her eyes made Alexa wary.
“Why does it matter to you?” she asked.
“You were fighting about Antony, weren’t you?” she asked. Noemi tossed the bone aside, and leaned back on her hands, displaying her powerful muscles all along her body. “I think I heard something about him wanting you to meet him.” Noemi’s lips transformed from a peaceful state into a wicked smirk. “Or did I hear that part wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alexa muttered. She looked down at the ground, avoiding looking at the alpha. She could feel Noemi’s harsh stare, but she refused to look up and meet it, for fear of what would happen to her.
“I think you do,” Noemi said. There was no hint of malice in her voice, but she could tell that she was scaring Alexa. It was a talent of hers, managing to make younger or lower wolves cower before her. “And I want you to tell me about it. Right now.”
“Why were you listening to our conversation?” Alexa asked, glancing up at Noemi, and then glancing away again. It was all an attempt to show her deference to Noemi, a way of showing the alpha her belly without rolling over.
“Because I was curious,” Noemi said. “And with how loud the two of you were being, I doubt there’s a wolf in the pack who didn’t hear you.”
Noemi sat forward again, getting into Alexa’s space and making the wolf look up at her. She smiled at Alexa after a moment, tilting her head to one side. Alexa seemed to realize that Noemi meant no harm to her, and finally looked up at the alpha, holding her gaze steadily.
“Tell me what he said,” Noemi instructed.
Alexa sighed, and raked a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face. “He wants to meet me,” she said. “On the next new moon, which is only in a few days. He claims that under the cover of darkness, we can meet each other again.” Alexa let a short laugh pass her lips. “It sounds ridiculous now that I say it. It’s impossible.”
“No it’s not,” Noemi said, her eyes bright and alert as she watched Alexa. “I’ll help you.”
“What do you mean?” Alexa asked, furrowing her eyebrows at Noemi. “Why would you do that? I don’t even matter to you. How do I know you’re not trying to get me killed?” A growl was creeping into her voice, her wolf taking on a defensive stance.
Noemi raised her hands in an attempt at pacifying Alexa, and rolled her eyes at the other female. “Calm down, I’m not here to ruin your life. I just want to help you,” she repeated.
“I know what you’ve said, but I want to know why,” Alexa growled.
“Is it that wrong for me to want to help a friend?” Noemi asked.
Alexa felt a rush of air go through her, and she looked up at Noemi. Everything about her was sincere in that moment; her relaxed posture, and the genuine light in her eyes. Alexa was taken aback, she had no idea how to react. Her own mother had denied her when she spoke about Antony, but here was an alpha that she had only truly befriended that day, offering to help her.
“You think we’re friends?” Alexa asked.
“I don’t really know what friends are,” Noemi admitted. Her posture relaxed again as she returned to leaning back on her hands. “I’ve never really had one, but I assume that it’s what we do. Talk together; sit together. As an alpha, I’ve never really had the opportunity before.”
“I’m sorry,” Alexa murmured. “I didn’t know that it was like that.”
“It’s not that horrible,” Noemi said. She was smiling, but Alexa could feel the weight behind every single one of her words. “There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with being one of the only alphas in the pack, and it takes a toll on any sort of social life that you might have had at one point,” she said.
Alexa listened with downcast eyes. She assumed her whole life that alphas had it easy, that they were permitted to do whatever it was that they felt like doing, when they felt like doing it.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a long, shared silence.
“It’s not your fault,” Noemi said. “But I’m here to help you, just trust me.” She offered her hand, and Alexa shyly took it. “I’ll get you out there to meet him, and you won’t be caught. I’ll make it work,” she said.
“How?” Alexa asked. She didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seemed too perfect. There would be no way that Noemi would be able to get her out of the pack grounds without being caught. Noemi might have been able to get away with it, as an alpha, but Alexa would be killed on the spot.
There was still a hint of doubt in her mind that Noemi meant her harm, rather than good. She didn’t give voice to her worries, knowing that it would be better for her in the long run to trust the alpha.
“I’ll figure it out,” Noemi said. “I don’t have a plan right now, but it won’t be hard to figure one out. I’ll make up an excuse and we’ll sneak out. Anything along those lines will work.” She looked Alexa up and down, and then gave a lazy grin. “Everything will be fine, I promise.”
With that, Noemi stood, and left Alexa on her own. She had taken the bone with her that Alexa had gnawed on, and tossed it back onto the carcass pile. A billion little flies scattered, and Alexa curled her nose. She stayed where she was, thinking over what Noemi had told her. She wondered, only briefly, if she could somehow think of her own plan. Perhaps she wouldn’t need Noemi’s help, but then again, the alpha had already offered her help.
If Alexa turned her down now, and then disappeared a few days later, it would be suspicious. The last thing Alexa wanted to do was get on an alpha’s
bad side, and end up like the wolf in her nightmares.
She stretched out on her back in the soft grass, staring up at the steadily-darkening sky. It was already sundown.
There were only two days until the new moon.
CHAPTER FOUR
Alexa could hardly find it in herself to function. She found her mind clouded and swarmed with too many thoughts, thinking only of what might happen. The situations she was thinking of were completely impossible, but she couldn’t help herself from thinking of the worst situations. Anything that might go wrong was playing through her head.
Perhaps Antony was setting up a trap all along, and he didn’t mean any of the things that he had said to Alexa. There was also the possibility that he pulled this stunt with every female that he mated with. The thought made Alexa’s head spin as she looked around at the few pups that were in the pack grounds. None of them had his looks or his strength, but they might have just inherited only their mother’s traits.
Alexa doubted it, but she also doubted that Antony was that kind of wolf. Deep within her, she knew that Antony had meant what he said, and had said what he meant. She nearly idolized him for it, replaying his words over and over in her head.
Throughout the two days after she had mated with Antony, she was useless as a pack member. She earned more than one bite from an alpha for lingering for too long and getting in the way. Pups ran about her legs, trying to stir her into tripping or making a fool of herself. Alexa held her balance for the most part, but her thoughts were elsewhere
Sabrina could see it in her daughter – that dazed look of being somewhere far away. She hated that look, and she knew that Alexa was planning something. The girl had never spaced out to this degree before. If she was right, it was the night of the new moon.
She approached Alexa as the girl sat down after getting her meager share of deer meat for the day, watching her with a raised eyebrow. She was languid in cleaning her paws with a long tongue, taking ten minutes on a task that should have taken only a few seconds.
“How are you feeling?” Sabrina asked.
Alexa’s wolf looked up at her, jaw splitting in a lupine grin. She rolled over onto her back, and wiggled around a bit – a sign of submission, but also of happiness. Sabrina sat down near the wolf, and tugged her fingers through the mottled silver fur.
“I’m assuming better than you were a few days ago,” Sabrina said. She frowned at Alexa as the wolf nuzzled up against her hand and whined cheerily. “Are you still planning on seeing that male?” Sabrina mused, trying to bring up the situation casually.
Alexa’s reaction, however, was anything but casual. She jumped up and away from her mother in an instant with fangs bared. Sabrina frowned at the reaction, and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Don’t growl at me!” she snapped. “Speak to me like a civilized being,” she ordered. She used a voice that she rarely did, one that could be similar to the demands of an alpha. Alexa hesitated for one moment longer, but then shifted.
“I don’t think what I plan on doing is any of your business,” Alexa said. “And even if I am planning on meeting him, I can trust that you won’t turn me in and get your oldest daughter killed, right?” she asked.
Her mother’s eye twitched, a clear signal that she was being pushed past a boundary that she didn’t often like to cross. “If that is what I must do, then I will do it,” Sabrina replied. “There isn’t anything you could do about it.”
“You would betray family like that?” Alexa asked, wide eyed. “What about my father? What would he think about what is happening here? I’m sure that he would want me to go and meet the man that I love. The man who I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Sabrina growled, a hint of her wolf coming through in the way her eyes sparked and shimmered in the light, “but that isn’t going to happen. You don’t know what your father would or wouldn’t want. You didn’t know the man, and I hardly knew him either. It was brash for me to say that I loved him. It’s like insinuating that love at first sight is something that can happen.”
“It can happen!” Alexa growled. “You just wouldn’t know because you’re so determined to follow pack rules that you won’t live your life!”
“You two might want to keep your voices down,” Noemi said.
Alexa jumped to attention, staring up at the muscled female. She was standing over the both of them, her arms crossed.
“Unless you want it to end up like last time. Although, this time around, even more wolves might know about what is happening. You know that we all have excellent hearing, right?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?” Sabrina asked.
Noemi could see the fear in her eyes. She could tell in just one glance that Sabrina had no idea that another wolf knew about her daughter’s treacherous actions and thoughts. A smirk graced her lips. She could use that knowledge to her advantage. It wouldn’t be hard to make the she-wolf fear her even more than she already did.
“I’m taking Alexa,” Noemi replied. She hardened her voice, tinged with that alpha tone that would send an omega cowering for their life. “And you don’t need to know any more than that.” Noemi glanced at Alexa, motioning with a jerk of her chin for the wolf to follow her.
Alexa, though confused, stood. She stepped behind Noemi, using the alpha as a shield from her overprotective mother. Sabrina stared up at the two of them, her eyes wide. She could hardly form the words to speak out against an alpha, let alone one that was as powerful as Noemi was.
“Where…?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“That’s not any of your business,” Noemi replied.
With that, she grabbed Alexa by her shoulder, and pulled her away. The two didn’t look back until they were across the pack grounds, safe and tucked away from any prying eyes. Alexa turned to Noemi the second that they were away from everyone else, and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Thank you, Noemi,” she whispered. “I would have been doomed if you didn’t come get me. She’s asking too many questions and I don’t know what to tell her or what I can say to answer her.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Noemi said. She ran her fingers through Alexa’s hair, and then lightly pushed the other girl away to break the hug. “We shouldn’t be seen touching. If someone sees, they might think that we’re friends.”
Alexa nodded, and then stepped away from Alexa. She bit at the inside of her lip, staring up at Noemi. “What’s the plan for tonight?” she asked.
Noemi sighed, and leaned her weight on one foot. “I’m not going to tell you,” Noemi said. “I need you to be surprised when it happens, otherwise it won’t be as believable. Of course, you’re going to know anyway, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t scare you senseless,” she said with a wide grin.
Alexa nodded. She could understand that Noemi didn’t want to tell her. After all, it would be better for them to bide their time, rather than jump right into it before they knew what they were really doing. Alexa glanced up at the sky, and furrowed her eyebrows. It was late in the afternoon, and with how late in the season it was becoming, the sun would set soon.
“I trust you,” Alexa finally said. “I know that you know what you’re doing.”
Noemi laughed, the kind that had her head thrown back to the sky. “I wouldn’t put that much faith in me,” she said. “I’m a good alpha, but I’m not the best of friends. We’ll see if this actually works out in the end.”
“I think you’re a good friend,” Alexa said.
Noemi almost lurched back at the sudden statement, her eyes going wide. “You really think that?” she asked. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. It was strange to hear her being so meek. Alexa wasn’t used to it at all.
“Yes, I do,” Alexa assured. She took a step forward, though made sue to maintain a respectable distance from the alpha. “You’re doing all of this for me, and I didn’t even ask you to,” Alexa reasoned.
“Two days ago I was making fun of yo
u,” Noemi muttered with furrowed eyebrows. “I assumed that your life was a picnic because you got to fuck every month. I rarely get any time to myself. I was jealous that you weren’t an alpha. I realize now how much of an idiot I was for thinking something like that.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Alexa said. “I think you’re very smart for having learned the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Just because you didn’t know something doesn’t make you an idiot.”
“I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life,” Noemi replied with a sad laugh. “I hardly deserve to be thought of as a decent friend.” She pushed her hair behind her ear, and sighed. “We need to stop talking, or later tonight we’ll seem suspicious,” she said. “I’ll come and get you when we’re ready to leave.”
“We?” Alexa asked, scared that perhaps Noemi had decided to invite another alpha or some other wolf that Alexa didn’t know.
“Just me and you,” Noemi said. She put a hand on Alexa’s shoulder, and smiled. Noemi gave the fellow wolf’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, and then turned and walked away.
Alexa stayed where she was for a long time. It was quiet there, with no other wolves and no pups running around. For once in her hectic life, everything seemed calm and manageable. With no screaming in her ears, Alexa could finally think. If Noemi wanted to help her, she would believe the fellow she-wolf. There was no reason for her doubt her, even if the thoughts in her head were looming towards that something had to be wrong.
Alexa settled herself on the ground, staring up at the sky and crossing her arms beneath her head. It was nice to have some time to herself. She hadn’t had much since the twins were born. They were the last two of their litter, sticking together, through thick and thin.
Alexa sighed, and closed her eyes. She listened to the sounds of the world going about its business. Birds in the trees, flapping their wings and chirping at each other and somewhere in the distance, a squirrel scuttled. She let her wolf take over, and breathed in deeply. The heightened senses always calmed her, adding a layer of depth to the world that she wouldn’t normally have.
