Scarred Alphas

Chapter 2

I follow Lauren with the basket filled with tomatoes in my hand.

“What a beauty! These look so ripe and perfect!” Matilda–the older lady who is in charge of the kitchen–says as she takes my basket. “You have all done such wonderful jobs growing and tending to these!”

Lauren gives her a prideful smile.

Suddenly, the Luna walks into the kitchen.

We all sl*p back into rows and lower our heads. She starts to slowly walk around the kitchen looking at everything the cooks have been preparing.

“Matilda, no leek soup tonight. I am tired of it. Make something else.” She says.

“Yes, Luna.” Matilda replies, lowering her head.

I take a peek and see two huge pots that contain this soup. This means that they will throw most of it out and have to spend hours making up for all that work.

My eyes land on the Luna.

In most packs, the Alpha is a symbol of strength and command while the Luna is a symbol of kindness and nurturing.

But not this Luna.

She is hard on us and just as ruthless as the Alpha. However, the Luna is the one. that deals with the pack while the Alpha deals with the war. This means that she is the one who oversees all our

punishments. All of my punishments have been because of her. To her, her children can do no wrong. Everyone else is the villain. in her eyes. She has no compassion for anyone else.

The memory comes back and it is just as fresh as the day it happened. Just like this morning in the field.

After my fight with Colt, Kayce, and Ezra, all I can remember is her.

The sound of the whip hitting my flesh is what has stuck with me the most. Even more than the pain I felt as the whip made contact with my skin.

I remember the Luna’standing on the sidelines with a pack member holding an umbrella over her as rain poured down and a glass of wine in her hand, watching what was being done to me on her command and her “angelic”

children nowhere to be found.

It was the first time I had been whipped. I was just eight.

I screamed for the torment to stop but it felt like the end would never come.

My eyes threaten to water as the memory surges. I am distracted by this until the Luna stops in front of me. I look up at her and her look of contempt makes me want to lower my eyes but I don’t.

She hates me because I am not compliant like everyone else is. I challenge her just by the way I look at her even now while everyone else has their eyes cast

down out of fear.

She leans in. “Cause any trouble tonight, I will strike you myself.”

I stay quiet as she backs away and leaves the kitchen. Suddenly, everyone can breathe.

“Damn. Back to the drawing board.” Matilda says to her cooks.

“We’ll take some of it so it doesn’t go to waste.” Lauren says. “And I am sure others will take some too. I’ll send them your way.”

“Perfect!” Matilda cheers.

As they talk, a sharp pain stabs at my heart so suddenly.

“Uh!”

I hold my chest but try to act normal around the others. I walk to a corner where no one can see me and I rest on a wall.

“I can’t believe he is already at it.” I whisper. “Mother fucker! I hate him!”

The pain is like a knife stabbing my heart. As if it wanted to burst. On earlier days I would scream at the top of my lungs but I am used to the pain now though it doesn’t make it any better.

I take in deep breaths and WILL myself to walk out. I force myself to act normal.

“Can we go back home now?” I ask Lauren.

“Are you okay?” she asks, seeing my teary eyes.

“Same as always.”

She knows what I am talking about. She is the only one who knows.

She closes her eyes and nods. “Yes. Let’s go home. Help me with this.”

She hands me a huge bag with bowls in it filled with leek soup.

“I think she overdid it.” I mutter as we walk out.

Lauren laughs. “You and James will eat this in no time.”

I smile because she just might be right.

We walk the dirt road through the woods until we arrive at our little shack. It is a small house, a bit rundown but it is home nonetheless.

Only those of higher rank are privileged enough to live in the pack house. No privilege to me cause I think that would be the worst kind of torture ever. A bunch of stuck–up people.

Once inside, I help Lauren put the food away and then I head to my small room. It is a tiny room that used to be the dining room but was converted into a room. when I came into the picture. Lauren and I used to share the bedroom until Mom and Dad died. They were killed when the Dark Fang pack attacked us and the fighting spilled into the pack house. Lauren and I survived only because. mom hid us under the kitchen cupboards and she led them away. It was a horrible time for us. Lauren was seventeen then and I was nine. Then, James came into the picture. Her mate. And he is amazing. I am content and I am happy for her. He is good to her and to me, just like a brother. The only problem in this room is that you can hear everything from the kitchen and living room since the walls are very thin so right now I hear plate clattering as Lauren. attempts to prepare food.

I come out of my room. “I’ll eat later. I’m going for a run.”

“Okay but make it short.”

“To the river and back,” I say, assuring her. “But are you sure you want me to come back fast?”

I narrow my eyes at her because I don’t want a repeat of what I saw the last time I came back too early–she and James getting it on in the living room. Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“Yes…” she says. “If James gets back here before you do, all he has to do is spank these buns and give my papaya a quick rub.”

“EEEEEWWWW STÓPI”

She laughs like a maniac while I run out of the house not wanting to hear more.

I hate how she calls her privates, papaya. I haven’t been able to eat one of them ever since she started doing that

Forcing all of that out of my head, I go outside and take my clothes off as I enter the woods. I shift to my wolf form and run. This makes me feel better. I feel connected to my wolf when I am in this form and my fears and anxieties away as if they were never even there.

go

I am enjoying this time to myself when I suddenly hear something just in front of me that makes me come to a stop. I immediately stop and I am irritated when Niles jumps out of the bushes in his wolf form.

This man will not leave me alone. He doesn’t bully me like the others, it is worse, he makes advances at me. Keeps asking me to be his mate. A man twice my damn age, mid–forties. His mate died a long time ago and now he has his slimy

eyes set on me.

He is a nasty man and no other she–wolf wants him, and since no male in the pack wants me either, he thinks I will be easy to have and that I don’t have any other choice but to mate with him but the joke is on him, I’d rather be alone the rest of my life than be with someone like him.

I make an irritated growl sound that comes directly from my own wolf. I can sense her feelings inside of me and she dislikes him as much as I do.

He walks up to us in a stride. He gets close to us in a tall posture which is a sign of dominance and then starts sniffing the back of my ears, leading to my n*eck. It is a way to try and enamor us or rather my wolf. My wolf snaps at him and he growls back attempting to be dominant but we do not accept it. My wolf snaps back at him and he retreats taking a step back but my wolf does not stop barking and growling at him. She acts like a maniac which makes him uncomfortable.

We start running back to the house because our mood has been ruined and no manner of running will change it.

“That was fast. Food is ready.” Lauren says.

“Not hungry anymore.” I say.

“Oh? Well then start getting ready!”

I sigh. I hate dressing up. And by that, I mean still looking like a bum but one that is trying not to look like a bum.

I take a shower and then I put deodorant on and fish for a dress on my clothes

rack.

“This will do.” A white summer dress with frills. It looks childish and not my twenty–three–year–old ass at all but I don’t really care anyway. I am not trying to impress anyone not even him…the cause of all my misery.

With my dress on, I turn around to look at the mirror. Old scars from before I had my wolf and I couldn’t heal are on full display. I used to hate them, but now I don’t care.

Still getting ready, I go into my jewelry box and pick up my golden n*ecklace. The only thing of value I own. It has my name on it and it is the only reason why people know my name at all.

When I was three, I was found near the river. My mother was dead next to me. At least that is what I was told. I don’t remembe any of it. They think my mother ran away from her rogue pack. Female rogues are treated worse than I

am so it makes sense.

Lauren’s parents were the ones who found me and asked to take me in. The Alpha agreed and they made me their daughter. Treated me like their own. I will always be grateful to them for that. Lauren from day one has been a loving sister to me and once our parents died she took the motherly role. She is now thirty–one and she and James have not been able to have children which is a shame because they would be such great parents.

It rides down because it is too small, I fix the dress at the chest area, quickly covering my burn mark. I have had it since I was a child. don’t know or remember how I got it. I tend to hide it every chance I get. It almost looks like a brand but it is not. However, kids always teased me because of it growing up. They always said that I was branded and it meant that I was the lowest of the pack which I am but I’ve had this mark since before I was in this pack.

I am part of the Omega hierarchy but I am actually one of the runts of the pack. The lowest of the Omegas. Weak, ostracized, rejected by all, and unwanted, excluding Lauren and James.

Looking in the mirror, I put concealer under my eyes so that I don’t look so beat up, and then I put my hair in a ponytail, trying to tame it but to no avail, it still looks like a dark lion’s mane.

I am thinking that maybe I should cut it. Curly hair is so hard to take care of when it is so long.”

After James comes back from his work at the farm–he works with the farm animals- -we eat and after he and Lauren get ready, we leave for the pack house. As we approach, the festival is well underway and my heart starts to pummel inside my chest as I realize that I am going to have to see him again.

“James, how are the cattle doing?” Beta Christoph suddenly comes up to us. A strict man but not without reason.

James is the one in charge of the farm and so they start talking about the farm until another man of high rank interrupts.

“Speaking about cattle, is it true? Did the warriors really bring back prisoners this time?”

“Yes,” the beta says. “This time, the Dark Fang Pack attacked the wrong.

encampment. They were not counting on our warriors being there and now we have prisoners

of war.

I shiver to hear about the Dark Fang Pack. They were the boogie man to us growing up but the difference from the boogie man is that this pack is real.

As I turn trying to distract myself from that conversation, I suddenly find myself thinking that I’d rather be facing the Dark Fang Pack just about now as I look at the person who approaches.

My damn mate!