The Alpha

Leora

After Coda helped me finish up the bathroom stalls in the Alpha's quarters, I moved down to the pack house. The hall was my first port of call. The one thing Amarie did well was ensure the omegas were left to handle the cleaning and that certain areas were blocked off so we could do a thorough job before he let them back in. While I was in the bathroom, many of the pack seemed to mingle downstairs while the cleaning happened upstairs. After I finished in the bathroom, I could hear everyone throughout the house. I needed to work fast.

If time hadn't been on my side before everyone moved upstairs, I'd be in for it. My conversation with Coda put me behind my usual schedule. I normally had the top floor completely clean by now. As I heard approaching footsteps on the stairs, I filled the bucket with water and soap and pulled it into the hallway to complete my last task on this floor. The gait of the approaching person made me tremble. This wasn't who I expected to come up here at this time of day. This couldn't be good.

I moved too quickly, twisting my foot awkwardly, and tripped over the bucket. My body crashed to the ground, and pain radiated through me from the fall. I grabbed my shoulder, which had taken the brunt of it, and then something cold and wet coated my side. At first, I thought it was blood, but then I realized it would be warm, not cold. I looked over to see the bucket on its side. What I felt was the cleaning water.

With Alpha Brennan and his son Caleb coming.

And Alpha Brennan hated messes.

"What is the meaning of this?" he snarled as he reached the top of the stairs. Caleb's gaze raked over me, and when our eyes met, I felt a strange zap of electricity. "What did you do?"

Shit. This was not good. It wouldn't matter that it was an accident. What mattered was that I had made a mistake. Again.

"It's alright, Father. She just tripped over and fell," Caleb defended, moving over to try and help me up, but the zap of electricity made him step back again.

My wolf screamed MATE in my head, and I groaned internally.

Fuck my life.

Alpha Brennan gasped. Then his eyes hardened to two hard stones. "Caleb? Go back to the house."

Caleb stalled, confused. "But Father..."

"Back to the house with you!" Alpha Brennan growled menacingly, making Caleb squirm. The young Alpha gave me one last frustrated look before disappearing down the corridor and out the pack house.

My wolf whined, a dull ache engulfing my chest. When Alpha Brennan's claws dug into my scalp and I felt the pressure of my hair being pulled as I was dragged to my feet, my wolf surged to the surface to keep me calm. It didn't work. My body shook as my eyes met Alpha Brennan's brown ones, which were glowing gold with the rage warring inside him.

I cast my gaze down to avoid provoking him further. My feet dangled off the ground, and my head felt like it would explode if he didn't put me down soon. I couldn't risk doing anything to piss him off further—one wrong move, and he'd hurl me down the stairs.

His son, Caleb was my fated mate.

I needed no soothsayer to tell me that Alpha Brennan heavily disapproves of it.

"No son of mine is having a weak excuse of an Omega as a fated mate. It has never happened in the history of our pack, and it won't start with me. I'll make sure of it."

When my feet finally touched the ground, I felt a little relief, but then Alpha Brennan yanked my hair and dragged me down the stairs with a fistful of my hair wrapped around his hand, knuckles white. I couldn't tell which hurt worse—the hairs being ripped from my head or the pressure on my scalp from being dragged. Either way, my vision blurred with stinging tears that filled my eyes. I tried to lessen the pain by putting my hands on Alpha Brennan's, but I heard him snarl in response. There was nothing else for me to do other than let him do what he wanted right then. I was at his mercy.

Which was the worst thing to be.

After two sets of stairs, my heart thumped louder in my chest than anything else. It was the only thing I could hear outside of my Alpha Brennan's growling. If anyone witnessed this, they wouldn't dare help me. Anyone who got between the alpha and someone he wanted to punish ended up dead. We could only be heading toward the dungeon.

Unfortunately, I was proven right. When we reached the bottom of a near-endless staircase, I was swallowed by the darkness of the dungeon's depths. Brennan dropped me to the ground, and I shook violently as I waited for the punishment. I knew better than to think this was over. This was far from over. His movements were fast, and suddenly, his hands were around my wrists, yanking me to my feet. I felt the rope scratch at my skin as it was pulled up above my head. Before I knew it, my feet weren't on the ground, and the rope bit into my skin enough to draw blood. I dangled above the ground, and my shoulders screamed from the pain as I waited for what came next.

The alpha stepped into view, the yellow lights above glinted off his shaved head. The menacing look on his face made my blood run cold. His muscles rippled underneath his button-up shirt as he unbuttoned the cuffs to roll them above his elbows. I knew what this meant. If I wanted to survive, I needed to drift off into my happy place. He wouldn't be satisfied with the results until I was unconscious. Sometimes, he threw a bucket of cold water on me to wake me up so he could start over again.

As I went back to that field and dreamed of my mate, who would take me away from all of this, I felt his fist connect with my side. I sucked in a breath, knowing that if I screamed, it would only send him into a worse fit of rage. If I wanted to live long enough to meet the king and request to leave this pack, I needed to endure this.

A punch to my temple came quicker than I expected. I don't know how much time had passed, but when I came to, I was in a cell at the end of the hallway. This was so that even if someone came down here, they wouldn't see me, and I'd be stuck until Brennan came back for me. Who knows how long that would be? Days, most likely. The last time I was in here, it took him four days before he released me. I expected this to go the same way.

I didn't understand how Caleb could be my mate. He...just wasn't who I was expecting based on my dreams. He wasn't the gold-eyed man who came to me.

Maybe the gold-eyed man was only a figment of my imagination, my wolf supplied in a tiny voice.

It could be.

While tucking my knees into my chest, I curled into a ball to bring myself some warmth as I lay on the stone floor against the stone wall. The bars of the cage added to the coldness of the room, and my body ached as I moved.