The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

The world had changed a lot since I started this, I thought as we left the Pack lands heading east. If I had to guess, we’d lost all the female wolves, and eighty percent of the males. That meant our species was only ten percent of what we had two decades ago. In terms of Packs, hundreds had become thirty. Of the thirty, ten were the kind Luna would approve of. They had leadership that respected traditional ways, that honored Her. These Packs, including Targhee, were the ones I visited on a regular basis, to renew our ties and to recruit.

My own pack had doubled in size in the last eighteen years. The losses had hit me hard at the time; I blamed myself for the ambulance being attacked, for my men and Viper’s being lost. Finding out the losses were due to my own man? That hurt. I know it was his sister, but I’d warned them all, mates would do anything for each other, even if the mating was forced.

Alpha Travis Connors was a good man, he was in his early thirties, having taken over after the last shewolf in their Pack died. He purged the Pack of any who had taken forced mates and set them on a new path with messianic zeal. Zeal I was proud to have put into him when his own mate, who he was waiting to be of age, was forcibly mated by his Beta and subsequently lost in childbirth. He was the first man I had thought of when the idea of an Alpha Summit came to mind, and he had agreed to host it.

In a few months, Eve would be of age and the Prophecy would be fulfilled. I would make sure she found her true mate, they would have many children, and those children would find their true mates.

If we were lucky, our numbers could recover in a century or two. I smiled as we made it to the main road to Jackson Hole. It was all coming together.

Eve’s POV

It had been a two-hour ride east into Wisconsin to our running space. Gabriel had purchased five hundred acres of rolling forest on the north side of Fort McCoy, a mostly shut-down Army base along I-94. We had been coming here a few times a month since I first shifted at age two; Gabriel said it was important that my wolf have her own time, so I would have balance. I loved these runs, we usually did them on clear nights with a moon out. We also did them during the week, before the campers and mountain bike and ATV riders took over the woods on the weekend. I’d asked for a special run since my wolf was feeling antsy, so Gabriel had agreed to send eight men with me as escorts. The rest were either maintaining patrols around their Pack House and our Club or were with Gabriel and Dr. Meghan somewhere out west.

The guys I was with were intimidating as hell until you got to know them. All of them looked like fitness models, all six-pack abs and killer arms below perfect faces. Women were constantly flirting with them, and they were constantly turning them down. All of them had taken a sacred vow, forsaking all other women, and all to protect me. It was a lot to take in as a young girl, hearing that the future of your whole species depended on you. I didn’t want it, I never asked for it, but they wouldn’t be here protecting me if it wasn’t true.

The pressure of it all got to me sometimes. I wished I could be like other girls, like the daughters of the Club members who got to go to school and do things on their own. I was homeschooled, Kelly and others helping me through until I could use the Digital Campus learning. I was officially graduating next month, although most of my senior year I had been taking college-level classes in art and literature. Art was my way of escaping the cocoon that had been carefully weaved around me by so many well-meaning people.

I just wanted to go to the mall and hang out without a ten-person escort and a backup detail.

We pulled off the road, down the trail that led to the parking area we had set up. The area had a shack, a place to store dry wood, food, water and extra clothes. We turned our bikes, parking them in a line facing back towards the road, then shut them down. We all got off the bikes, stretching, taking our jackets and helmets off and placing them over the bikes. I went into the shack, turning on the LED light and closing the door to shift in private.

I pulled off my clothes, placing them on the shelf, then called my wolf forward. The change was magical, almost instantaneous, and I was standing on all fours, looking in the small mirror on the back of the door. I loved my wolf form; she wasn’t half the size of the men outside, but she was fast and flexible. My eyes shined in the dim light, the light blue striking against the silver-colored fur. I was a solid color except on top of my head, where a crescent moon-shaped spot of black went from between my eyes up to the top of my head. I shook my fur out, waiting for the signal the men had all shifted. There was a scratch on the door, and I pushed it open.

I rubbed my face against Michael’s as I moved to greet the others. Michael was still the Vice President and in charge of my security with Gabriel gone. After we all had a good sniff and rub, I gave a quick yip. Michael answered, that was my cue to go play my favorite game- chase.

I took off running, knowing I had a five-minute head start. I was perfectly safe on our land as four other men had left hours earlier and did a complete patrol of the territory before we arrived. My wolf loved to run free, and it was good training for the men to have to track and find me. I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

I ran hard, trying to put some distance between us before I started to do evasive maneuvers. There was a stream that ran across the land, it would be a good spot for my first tricks. I reached it, turning right I ran in the shallow water for a few hundred yards before I reached a large oak tree with branches reaching over. Shifting to human form, I climbed up into the tree, moving all the way to the other side before dropping back to the ground in wolf form again. I ran as quietly as I could back the way I came, keeping a few hundred yards away from my track and downwind.

I grinned in my mind as I heard the group thundering towards the creek, they were making so much noise they’d never pick up mine. When they were past, I ran hard until I was closer to the road that ran along the south border of the territory. I turned left when I got close enough, running at an even pace. My goal was to loop around the outside of the territory, then after I had won the bet on how long I could evade them, make a run back for the bikes.This material belongs to NôvelDrama.Org.

Everything was going perfectly, I thought as I crossed a small ravine.

I should never think that again. As soon as I reached the bottom, I was knocked off my feet and rolled. I got up, not recognizing the male werewolf who was staring at me with crazed red eyes. Before he could recover from the shock of me being female, I took off the way I came. “Michael, rogue wolf, I’m at the southeast corner of the territory, running west. Send help!”

“On the way,” he said. I heard a bone-chilling howl in the distance, and a loud growl behind me. I poured on the speed, hoping I could evade him long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

I ignored the pain in my shoulders as I raced through the dark woods. I could hear and smell the rogue behind me, and I was scared. I had been taught about what happens when a wolf loses its humanity, when it goes feral from loss of mate or Pack. The balance becomes unstable and the wolf takes over, and that wolf is the most dangerous thing we can face.

I pull on all the practice and training I’ve had in my eighteen years as I dodge trees and shrubs. I can feel the blood coming down my front legs and under my neck, the damage from his bite is slowing me down. He’s gaining on me.

I feel a sharp pain in my back hip, his teeth have found purchase, but a quick burst frees me from them. I dart right, losing some speed but getting back on track. My muscles scream in agony as I continue to work them, pulling the wounds apart, the blood continuing to spill.

“Duck down in three, two, one DUCK!” I drop to the ground, skidding along on the leaf litter and dirt, as a huge grey and black wolf flies over my head. There is a loud thud as he crashes into my pursuer, but I don’t stop. I get up and start to run again, painfully, trusting Kushiel to take care of the rogue. I hear the sounds of the fight, then a loud snap as a neck is broken.

I slow down as I see the others closing in on me fast. They surround me as Michael’s wolf checks me, licking at my bleeding wounds. “Can you make it to the shed?”

I moved my body, I was stiffening up, but I could do it. “Yes if we don’t run fast.”

Michael licked my face as I got up, and the rest of the group formed a protective perimeter as we made our way back. I was glad I had worked my way back towards the start, it wasn’t a long run and soon I was inside the shed. I shifted, and immediately I screamed at the pain. “Do you need help?”

I held the door shut with one hand while I fought back the urge to scream again. “Not yet.” I pulled on my panties and carefully worked shorts up over the gashes in my left leg. My neck and right shoulder was more of a problem, I put on my bra very carefully, and held a T-shirt to my front. “I need help now,” I said.

Michael opened the door, his body filling the frame, clad only in shorts and a T-shirt. “Can I look?” I nodded, and he grabbed a flashlight from the shelf, checking the wounds carefully. I flinched as he touched the wounds, the gentle pulls sending sharp pains. “You’ll live, but you’re not going to like what I need to do to patch these up,” he said.

“I didn’t expect this to be fun. What the hell happened out there, Michael? How did a feral wolf get inside our land without us knowing about it?”

His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know, but I’m already setting a few guys onto finding out. Meanwhile, let’s get you patched up as best we can until your Dad gets here.”