The Alpha Or The Warrior?

'No no, not this again. Sometimes I fail to distinguish between reality and visions!'

Emily lies facedown on the mattress closing her eyes, trying and failing to remember faint memories from years ago. The memories keep slipping through the cracks in her mind, until all she remembers are the fervent whispers of a redheaded woman.

The voice is that of a woman who knows she is dying and, therefore, resigned to her fate.

"I know you are too young right now, but whatever happens, don't let him get you. You are the only hope of the pack. The last element of the earth, and if you are lost, there's no hope!"

She has no idea what the woman meant by that, neither is she sure she knows what a pack is.

She sighs and opens her eyes.

Remembering that her mate is coming over, she drags herself from the mattress and begins her morning routine.

Welcome is pretty hot, and the residents prefer to get work done early in the morning before the sun becomes unbearable, and she started hearing the tenants of the trailer park going about their business hours ago.

She is the only werewolf in Welcome, at least she was until recently. After years of thinking she was a weirdo for being the only werewolf among humans, a man showed up who was exactly like her. Her parents express dislike of the man, but she finds it hard to let go of the only man who understands everything she goes through every full moon.

Speaking of the full moon, it had been a huge shock to her on her very first shift. It was exactly five years ago and she had still been a high schooler. After knocking off from class that day, she had walked home on her own, and along the way, her body had started to change. She had felt the weirdest tingling all over her body, her thoughts felt as though they were being rearranged in her head. An unbearable burning sensation that hurt like the fires of hell had followed.

A few minutes later, she turned into a wolf after a very painful shift.

She had taken it all almost too calmly. Her parents had not been at home that day, and being the only child, she'd had no one to witness the experience that was her first shift, as her folks would later say.

After she had shifted into a big white wolf, she had waited for the world to end. She had never heard of something like what happened to her before, and Emily was convinced it was the end of the world.

But it has been five years now since she had her first and only shift, and the world is still intact.

She had been immensely relieved when her parents had told her that there was nothing to worry about because they had been werewolves in the past and kept it a secret, that a strange illness took their wolves away.

Although she has never shifted again since the first day, she has always been aware of a voice in her head. This voice belongs to her wolf, and it offers advice, expresses disappointment at some of her choices, and explains certain situations Emily fails to understand.

But she always does her best to ignore the voice. She thinks most people would believe she is mad after learning that she hears voices in her head, and she keeps it quiet. Her parents had told her to never let anyone know she is a werewolf because their family is the only family of werewolves in Welcome, a very small town in East Texas.

And so, she always tries to shut the voice with the words, "You are a figment of my imagination. Shut the f*ck up!"

Her family cannot be called rich by the standards of big cities, but by Welcome standards, they are not doing badly. Her Mama and Papa are the owners of a trailer park and also run a grocery store in town. They had a house in the town but it had gone into foreclosure because of unpaid mortgages last year, the only time when serious financial crisis had hit the family, forcing them to move into a trailer.

Aside from this, Emily has had a fairly comfortable life growing up, thankfully. She loves being beautiful and also making other people look beautiful, usually spending money with her friends on clothes and makeup so they experiment with them. It is no surprise that she got a degree in hairstyling at a beauty school.

~

She met jack a few weeks ago at a friend's birthday party.

He had simply walked over to her, and immediately, her wolf had gotten so happy and excited (Emily had never witnessed her get so excited before) and she had agreed that the man was their 'mate', after Jack had said the words to her. Before she had a chance to ask what the word 'mate' meant, the man had pulled her to himself and kissed her lips.

It had been nothing like she had ever experienced with any of the human boys, her life turned into blissful happiness at a faster pace than she could keep up with.

Jack loves her and likes spending time with her, but the only problem is that he has never offered to introduce her to his family. She doesn't even know if he has a family, or if he has any relatives at all because she hasn't yet visited him at home.

He told her the reason he doesn't introduce her to his family is that his family is a bit outgoing and he would rather wait a little because he is not eager to subject her to them.

"That's a red flag," her parents keep telling her, but then they also dislike Jack, so she isn't ready to take their advice, for the first time in her life.

She is patient with Jack, trusting that he will open up and tell her everything about himself one day. As for her parents' dislike of Jack, She thinks they don't like him because they are a bit overprotective of her, as any sign of a man in her life promises the inevitable fact that she will one day be taken away from them to live with him and not just for a holiday.

And she totally understands them because she is her parents' only child.

She has a funny feeling her parents, especially her mother, would hate any man Emily brought into her life.

Therefore, Jack is going to stick around for a long time, no matter how they feel about the whole thing.