I Am The Alpha

by A. J. Downey

William

  The day of the Challenge dawned silently, as dawns have a tendency to do. There was no fanfare or brass band striking up a chorus as the sky was first stained a steel grey, then slowly turned to orange before bright yellow sunlight spilled over the horizon.

  I had barely slept, of course. This was worse than Christmas morning, the day before surgery, or waiting for the jury to come back with a verdict in your trial, I was unable to rest for even a moment. My life was going to be decided in several different ways before I sought my bed that evening. I would either be dead, and without worries or concern anymore, or I would be the Alpha of the largest Pack in the entirety of North America. I would have hundreds of people counting on me for leadership, strength and guidance. And I had better have Chloe with me as well, or there would be hell to pay.

  “Did you sleep at all, Pup?” Markus asked.

  I didn’t turn from the tall window in my bedroom, my eyes still fixed on the slowly rising sun. I had heard Markus pull up outside, the distinctive rumble of his Jeep ingrained in my memory. I would recognize that vehicle anywhere. The door downstairs had opened and he had walked purposefully up the stairs until he stood where he was now in the doorway.

  “Didn’t feel like it… couldn’t.” He gave a tired sigh and I spoke up again in my defense. “I tried, honestly. I just couldn’t.” I’d lain there with the smell of her still fresh in my mind and I just couldn’t sleep. Every time I tried to close my eyes I would find myself staring up at the ceiling with no idea when or how I opened them again.

  “And I’m sure that Rom slept like a baby and will be well rested and ready for tonight.”

  “He may think so but I’ve made a practice of working with little to no sleep. It won’t affect me much.”

  “You’re walking a razors edge here, Kid. The slightest dulling of your edge could get you killed. Even an hour’s sleep could mean the difference.”

  “Are you going to sedate me to get me to rest?”

  “I was thinking I could just get you drunk,” he said and I could hear the grin in his voice which made me turn and stare at him, one eyebrow arched high in surprise.

  “Seriously? And you think being hungover will make the fight any better for me?”

  “No, not seriously, ya dumb ass.” He raked his hands back through his short cut hair. Well, more like rubbing his hands over his hair more than through it. He sighed again, his arms dropping back to his sides, his palms slapping his jean covered thighs with a loud snap.

  “Look, you need to try to get some rest. For Chloe’s sake if nothing else. Lay down and try, even for just an hour.”

  I gave him a wary look. I couldn’t deny the logic to his advice, but logic and emotion very rarely go hand in hand, and at that point? I was exceedingly emotional. I wanted nothing more than to go right over to Rom and Rem’s apartment in the city and rip my brother’s throat out with my teeth. At the moment I wasn’t entirely certain which brother I most wanted to destroy. I was half afraid that Remus was playing me, playing Chloe, but something about the way… My instincts were solid, my wolf was sure that my brother’s intentions were above board but I’d seen it out of him before, the down and dirty manipulative side of him. I couldn’t be sure of Remus’ intentions. Nobody could.

  Markus was still giving me an expectant look, waiting for my answer and finally I sighed and walked over to the bed. “I’ll try,” I muttered. “But only for an hour, if I can’t get down by then, then I’m getting up and doing some work.”

  “Almost finished the sculpture?” he asked and I nodded as I flopped face down on the bed.

  “I’ve just got to add a bit of tarnish to it, make the whole thing look old and weathered.” My body felt heavy and I heaved out a deep sigh before I vaguely heard Markus retreating and consciousness fled me entirely…

  ***

  “He was exhausted even if he didn’t want to admit it. He hasn’t slept in at least two days, minimum, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent half the night every night in that shop working on the tree, did you look at it when you came in?” Markus was saying as I opened my eyes an indeterminate amount of time later. I had passed out, holy crap, how tired had I really been?

  “Yeah, it’s amazing.”

  “That’s not the point, Kid,” Markus snapped and I heard Brent chuckling and Nora whined slightly. I could just picture her ducking her head in deference to the higher ranking Arbiter.

  “That wasn’t cool,” I said with a halfhearted glare at Markus a minute later when I walked into the kitchen. A glance at the clock on my nightstand when I had been climbing out of bed told me it was already past noon and I had slept for a good six hours.

  “Hey, I didn’t do a thing but talk you into laying down for five seconds. You passed out all on your own.”

  “And would one of you have woken me in time for the Challenge if I hadn’t woken on my own?” I couldn’t help but ask. I knew none of them really wanted to see me fight Romulus. If I won or if I lost I was going to lose something no matter what. This wasn’t a situation where a victory would feel much like one. I wasn’t at all looking forward to that.

  I was determined to see it through though, that made anyone who tried to get in my way a liability. A liability that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, afford.

  “Of course we were going to wake you,” Brent said with a derisive snort. “Why do you think we didn’t bother to keep our voices down? If that hadn’t woken you up we were gonna come get you within the next hour or so.”

  “Why so late?”

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” Nora shot back.

  “I would rather not be late to an event like this. It’s considerably better to arrive early.”

  “Actually it is best to arrive neither late nor early, but on time. If you’re late it doesn’t look good, and if you’re early it makes you look afraid, or anxious, neither of which look good either.”

  “Have you picked out my clothes for me, Dad?” I couldn’t help but snap and I immediately felt a pang in my chest and I closed my eyes taking a long breath through my nose and expelling it out of my mouth. “Sorry, Markus. That was uncalled for.”

  “No worries, Pup. You’re under a lot of stress right now.”

  “And the Alpha is always under a lot of stress. I can’t afford to be biting the heads off of my friends and family when I’m stressed if I want to be an effective Alpha. Father built this Pack but we’ve been floundering for years, just sort of keeping our heads above water and the Pack has a great deal of potential to actually become a serious force in this state.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Markus asked, curious now that I had given him a hint into my thoughts about the Pack. I knew it could be more. I knew it could be better. And I obviously had an idea of how to go about it. But I wouldn’t be getting into that yet. If I didn’t become the Alpha it wouldn’t matter.

  We killed a few hours. I cooked again and we all ate in the living room until it was finally time to leave. They filed out of the shop ahead of me and I turned, giving my workspace a last look before I turned off the light and stepped out into the gathering dark, closing the door firmly behind me.

  The drive from my house to the Olympic National Forest wasn’t particularly long. Fifteen, twenty minutes at most. Part of the reason I had chosen that area to live in in the first place.

  On that night though, I kind of wished it had taken a bit longer. The majority of the Pack had already arrived when we got there, much deeper in the forest this time than the previous meeting two weeks ago. It was the night of the full moon and once it rose, those of us that were still young would undergo the transformation into our wolves, most without any control. It took a few years before one was able to resist the monthly change and I wondered briefly if Remus had been able to get through to Chloe in regards to her first transformation.

  I pushed the thought aside and climbed out of Markus’ Jeep. I didn’t have time to worry about that. I needed to keep my head in the game or Rom
ulus was going to remove it from my shoulders.

  “Romulus should be here any minute,” Markus muttered so quietly that even with the enhanced hearing of our kind I was barely able to hear him standing right next to me. Absolutely no one else would have been able to hear him speak and I nodded slightly to show that I had heard, my eyes raking through the crowd, searching constantly for a familiar shock of red hair. “You know he’s going to do something to try to piss you off, throw you off balance. Don’t let it get to you, whatever it is.”

  I nodded again but I didn’t trust myself to speak. Romulus had just made his entrance and Markus was right, he really was pulling out all the stops. He’d succeeded in making me blindly furious too.

  Rom strolled calmly into the large clearing, the she-bitch, Lucinda, hanging on his arm like the simpering cunt that she was. In his right fist he held the end of a heavy length of stainless steel chain. The other end was clipped to Chloe as he led her in like a dog. The chain was hooked to a leather collar, an extremely high leather collar. It covered her entire neck and forced her to hold her chin high to prevent it from digging into her flesh. The center of the collar was fixed with a solid metal ring to which Romulus’ had attached the chain leash.

  Her eyes were tight with anger, her cheeks blushed with her humiliation. Lucinda had very obviously dressed her for the occasion. Her dress had a low cut, strapless, sequined bodice that adequately covered her breasts but from just below her breasts to her waist it was a sheer, transparent lace. The skirt hung on the ground in the back but was cut so high in front that it did little to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing any panties beneath it. Her feet were strapped into a delicate looking pair of extremely high heels which made her stumble, partially because she couldn’t look down with the collar holding her head high, but also because the heels sank into the soft forest loam.

  To sum it up, she looked like an extremely high priced hooker dragged behind Rom like she was on display, up for bid. I felt my blood, which was feverish to begin with, absolutely start to boil in my veins. A hand on my shoulder was all that kept me from throwing myself at Romulus right then and there. He knew it too, the bastard, because a moment later Rom grinned at me and gestured to my mate with one hand.

  “How do you like the easy access dress I put your bitch in, little brother?” he asked and I heard a smattering of shocked gasps and some uneasy mutterings run through the assembled Pack members like a wildfire. Yeah all you motherfuckers wanted him so bad. Now you get to see what you’re dealing with and you ain’t so sure, I thought grimly. I said nothing, simply glared at him and fought the urge to bare my teeth and growl. I needed to be cool. I needed to contain my shit. I needed to prove I could do this. That I was worthier than him, but I wanted to fucking kill his ass so goddamn bad it made me itch from head to toe.

  “Such behavior is hardly becoming of an Alpha,” Markus pointed out to the crowd, fixing Rom with a calm but withering look. Another round of mutters spread through the crowd. I could already see support dwindling for Romulus, but it was going to be too late if I couldn’t beat him. Still, it was his own desire to push the envelope and attempt to humiliate me that was doing it to him, undercutting his support. He was destroying himself and by extension would destroy the Pack our father had worked so hard to build.

  In the crowd I saw more than a few members that I knew to be mated pairs, looking at Chloe with sympathy before looking back to Romulus with open disgust on their faces. Yeah, he was going to destroy this Pack over my dead body. Which it was likely that it would and could come to that. I stared at my mate, her blue eyes so full of trust and belief in me over the whore red lipstick Lucinda had painted on her. I felt my determination redouble. I wasn’t going to leave my woman like this, in Rom’s hands.

  “Are the combatants ready?” Markus asked and stepped away from me, raising his voice slightly to ensure that he was heard throughout the clearing.

  As quickly as that, the Pack’s attention was diverted from my mate, from her humiliation and it was back to Rom and I and the circle. Romulus handed the end of Chloe’s leash to Lucinda who jerked hard at it, almost pulling Chloe off her feet as she led her to the side where a set of stands had been erected for the Pack. One set of bleachers stood at either end of the clearing with a large circle in the center outlined by a ring of charred grass. A fast burning accelerant had been poured there and ignited to create the thirty foot wide circle that we would fight in.

  I removed my coat, boots, and pants and handed them to a Pack girl who gave me an appreciative look up and down once before she winked, laughed and turned away. One of Rom’s supporters. I made a note of it; if I survived this I could do something about a few of them.

  Clothes would only be a hindrance in this fight, so there really wasn’t a need for them. I turned and walked across the grass, the slight wind playing across my body, and ignored the hundreds of pairs of eyes that followed me. I’d been wolf-kind long enough that it didn’t bother me to be nude in front of them all. Ten feet away, Romulus came to a stop facing me, similarly naked, and raised his fists in a simple boxing stance.

  More muttering ran through the crowd. Individual words were impossible to make out but I could guess the gist of it. At half a foot taller than me and twice my bulk, Romulus was an impressive looking specimen. His chest, shoulders and arms were massive, almost grotesquely over developed. Every muscle looked to be carved from stone beneath his skin. I wasn’t a ninety pound weakling myself, but I knew I didn’t stack up visually in comparison to my brother. I would be relying on speed and skill more than strength to win this fight. It felt like the wolf-kind equivalent of David versus Goliath.

  “The Challenge Circle has been called for this night,” Markus started. Tradition needed to be observed. “Through a majority acceptance by the Pack, Romulus Reese has been named Alpha of the Pacific Northwest Pack. William Reese has issued a formal challenge for Alpha and Romulus has accepted. The Challenge fight will proceed according to the law of the Pack!

  “There will be no outside interference of any kind. The battle will consist of three rounds. In the first, the combatants shall fight each other in human form. In the second, they will fight in their Hybrid form. And in the third, they will fight as Wolves. Each of the first two rounds will last for five minutes, at the end of which we move immediately to the next round. The third round will last until one of the two breathes their last.”

  The entire Pack raised their voice at that in one long howl that seemed to rip the night apart. The torchlight wavered and Romulus and I never once took our eyes from each other. We were simply waiting for the signal. As I watched him, Romulus grinned slowly, his smile growing wider and wider until he was showing an unnatural number of teeth in a caricature of humor. His eyes were wide and wild and he licked his lips. He was already enjoying this and was looking forward to the fight as much as I was dreading it.

  And that was what I had needed to see. The rage, the hatred, the fear and uncertainty that I had felt for days suddenly evaporated as if it’d never been. Romulus Reese really wasn’t worth the time or effort to hate. He was broken, diseased; dead inside. If anything I pitied him.

  Chloe…

  At the thought of my beloved, I felt a resurgence of my determination and it was just in time. The signal blew, an air-horn held aloft in Markus’ hand, the look on my face changed, reflecting the pity I felt for him, and Romulus’ expression flipped from smug to enraged as he saw it.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” he roared and flung himself at me.

  It was amazing. I was calm, finally. The fear and rage that he had worked so hard to build in me with his actions had all been holding me back. It really was just a matter of finding a way to remain calm and in control. The sound of his bare feet pounding across the grass was loud in the clearing. The breeze rustling through the trees and the sputtering hiss of the torches and fires used to light the ring equally loud. The Pack sat in silence. This was not for their entertainment, this was
n’t a gladiatorial style battle to please the masses. They knew what was at stake now. This was a moment for honor and solemnity, and as such, it was met with a determined silence in their observation.

  I swayed to the side and stuck out my foot as Romulus lunged at me, one massive fist leading. If he had struck me it would have been a terrible blow but he missed me by the proverbial mile and I couldn’t help but smile as he tripped and sprawled in the dirt. Before I could react he rolled and sprang to his feet and I was suddenly on the defensive. Punches and kicks seemed to fly at me from every direction and it was all I could do to keep ahead of him. A glancing blow struck my shoulder and I spun with it, pivoting on my foot and sending my elbow flashing out and up as I completed the tight turn.

  My elbow smashed into his face so hard that he was lifted bodily from his feet, legs flying out as he turned almost horizontal in the air and I drove my elbow down, smashing his stomach with the bony joint and driving him into the earth beneath our feet. The air was driven violently from his lungs as his back met the ground and I dove in for the kill. Or I would have except for the fact that he spun, still gagging and unable to draw breath, and lashed out with one foot which caught me across the side of my head and sent me flying several feet until I landed heavily on the grass. I was dazed for a moment by the force of the blow but rolled quickly to put some distance between us.

  We both climbed to our feet, snarling and spitting blood to the side when the air-horn went off again signaling the start of the second round and I grinned.

  The Pack stirred, shifting almost as one as we began our change. The scent of blood was in the air and the wolf loved the smell of blood. The silent Pack began to yip and cheer, slowly growing from the quiet crowd into a fevered mob. I grew in height and bulk. My arms became longer, reaching almost to my knees which bent backwards with a sickening cracking sound as my feet grew longer. I stood up on the balls of my feet, heels in the air as my claws dug into the ground beneath me. I still held the advantage in speed, finishing my transformation before Romulus was even half way through with his and I leaped at him, covering twenty feet in a single bound, arms outstretched, hands reaching for his throat.