เรื่องสั้นแนว Familial Bond Werewolf และนิยาย Alpha ในฉาก Face Slapping

During the Spring Hunt, my Alpha mate's adopted sister, Susie Blackwood, used the bow I'd designed for him to shoot two werewolves in the forest. The wounded were rushed to the healing center. Susie was so terrified she broke down in tears. Charles Blackwood immediately paid someone to take the fall for her, then booked two flights heading north. He didn't call to let me know until after he'd landed. "Susie's not in a good place right now. I'm taking her somewhere to clear her head. Stay home while we're gone, and don't bother me unless it's important! "She needs peace and quiet." I was standing outside the emergency room, so frantic that tears streamed down my face. "You need to come to the healing center right now. Your—" Before I could finish, Charles cut me off sharply. "Is this really the time for this? You're still pulling these jealous stunts! I'm not even in the pack right now. "Don't call me unless it's important." Then he ended the call. What Charles didn't know was that the ones lying on the operating table, the ones Susie had shot, were his parents.

The day the pack strength assessment results dropped, everyone was cheering for my twin sister, Lyra, who scored an A-rank. My childhood friend Kaelen, the future Alpha of our Stone Pack, affectionately threw his arm around Lyra’s shoulders. "Why not just stay here? I'll make sure you're well taken care of, Lyra." My older brother Liam quickly chimed in. "Don't listen to him. You're coming with me to the Silvermoon Pack, obviously." Our parents smiled and agreed. "With you two looking out for Lyra, we can rest easy." It took them a long time to finally remember me. "Carrie, your rank is garbage. Just pick some minor pack around Silvermoon," Liam muttered without even looking up. "Right. That way, we'll all be in the same territory, which will make things easier." Kaelen scolded me out of habit. "There's only half an hour before the confirmation terminals close. Don't dawdle." I gazed at the S-rank result displayed on my phone screen and said absolutely nothing. Growing up, Lyra had always been the princess everyone doted on. Liam and Kaelen were her loyal knights. And I was forever just her backdrop. Even when I became the only S-rank wolf, no one cared. Since that was the case, without hesitation, I chose the Bloodmoon Pack—the farthest and most powerful pack from home.

A woman showed up at my cabin door, claiming to be a Beta's mate. She said she wanted to rent my herb field for three hundred dollars a month, to grow medicine for her injured mate. Three hundred? Seriously? That land is the only one in the entire pack—blessed ground that drinks in the Moon Goddess's power. Herbs grown there could pull a dying wolf back from the dead. I turned her down. But she wouldn't let it go. So Sun, my dog, barked and chased her off. Figured that'd be the end of it. Wrong. The next day she came back with two Gammas, busting right through my door. They screamed at me, called me a worthless human who had no business touching pack land. Then they tied me up and made me watch as they burned my herb books, beat Sun, and tore out every single plant I'd grown. What they didn't know? I'm human, yeah. But I'm the adopted human daughter of the Bloodmoon Alpha and Luna. That herb field? Their gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. And those herbs they burned? The only cure for her mate's dying breath.

I was born with Alpha blood, yet I spent my entire childhood drifting from pack to pack. At the pack orphanage, the woman in charge always said I was slow and couldn't pick up on anything unless it was said outright. At the charity school, the boy at the desk next to mine shoved the phone he'd secretly brought to school into my backpack. "Hide this for me. The teacher's coming." I raised my hand. "Sir, he just put his phone in my backpack. "He forgot his own backpack today." When I grew up, I joined the Thornwood pack without any trouble and started working as a warrior trainer. The Alpha was handing out assignments. The pack's Gamma nudged me with his foot and lowered his voice. "Tell him you can take on more warriors. You're new, so you should be doing more of the work." I nodded, stood up, and looked at our new leader. "Alpha, the Gamma wants an easier load. "He says new people should be doing more of the work. "You just became this pack's Alpha, didn't you? That makes you new too. So shouldn't you be doing more than any of us?" After that, nobody in the Thornwood pack ever confided in me again. Then my birth parents brought me back to the pack I was born into. Four years later, they finally held the homecoming dinner they owed me. Their adopted Omega daughter, Elena, walked right past me and sat down between my parents. She hooked her arm through my mother's and smiled at me. "Aurora, this has been my seat for twenty-three years. You don't mind, do you?" Everybody sat there waiting for me to be gracious and step aside. I asked her directly, "You think I might mind? Is that because it's the daughter's seat?" She gave a small laugh. "Well, isn't it?" I unleashed the full force of my Female Alpha aura and went on. "If it's their daughter's seat. "Then you've had it long enough. Give it back to me now."

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

My twin Alpha brothers believed that I have deliberately hidden the vast inheritance left by our Alpha parents so that our adoptive sister Sophia couldn’t by the medical equipment to treat her silver poisoning. For the sake of our adoptive sister, my twin Alpha brothers dragged me before the Council's tribunal. They accused me of stealing pack assets and deliberately harming pack members. If the charges stuck, the Alpha Council would strip away my Alpha power to treat Sophia. My brothers had no idea that years ago, I'd nearly died protecting them. If I lost my Alpha bloodline strength, I would die. In my own brothers' eyes, I was already a criminal beyond redemption. But when the Council used ancient magic to extract my memories for judgment, everyone wept for me. And when my brothers learned the truth, they fell to their knees, begging my forgiveness.

It was a full moon, and my mate, Alpha Ethan, bailed on our son's coming-of-age ceremony rehearsal. All because his Omega mistress, Scarlett, was in heat. Then, during the actual ceremony, our son Caleb was ambushed by a rival pack. By the time I heard the news, Caleb had been shot. He was dead, lying in a pool of his own blood. I knelt beside him, completely breaking down, when Ethan's voice, faking an apology, came through the mind link: "Sorry, Scarlett needs me. I'm sure Caleb can handle things. Just make sure Caleb gets some rest early, don't let him run around and mess up tomorrow's celebration." I looked at my son's broken body, my voice trembling, "He won't be running anywhere anymore." "Good," Ethan said, sounding pleased. "Scarlett's bloodline is purer. She's better suited to give the Stone Pack strong heirs. You should understand." I cut the link. After I committed my son's body to the flames, I found the secret ritual to break a mate bond and contacted a wolf I hadn't spoken to in a long, long time: "The protection wards on Stone Pack territory are down. You can make your move."

Word had it that the roses my mother-in-law Nancy and I planted on the back hill were in full bloom, so we decided on a whim to go see them. We never expected to be stopped at the entrance by a she-wolf caked in heavy makeup. "Do you even know where you are? This is no place for two low-ranking Omegas." "Look at you two — dressed like beggars. That's probably exactly what you are." Our good mood evaporated instantly. I shot her a look. "As far as I know, the back hill is public territory. Every member of the Silver Moon Pack is welcome here." "You have no right to block us." The she-wolf's eyes turned bloodshot with rage. "You pathetic little Omega — how dare you disrespect me!" "This mountain belongs to the Silver Moon Pack, and the Silver Moon Pack belongs to my mate." "If you know what's good for you, get on your knees and apologize. Then crawl out of my sight before I lose my patience." I glanced at Nancy. Her eyes burned with the same fury I felt. As the one and only Luna of the Silver Moon Pack's Alpha, I had no idea there was supposedly another Luna running around.

The night of my first shift at eighteen, my two older sisters brought home a fifteen-year-old orphaned boy. My Alpha sister seized the rare healing herbs I'd spent all my savings on — herbs meant to ease my first shift — and gave them to him instead. "You're strong enough," she growled. "You don't need such precious herbs." My Beta sister snarled with fury, pointing toward the door. "Get out! Don't come back!" I said nothing more, just grabbed my packed bag and left. They assumed I was merely throwing a tantrum, that I'd return in a few days. My sisters, finally free of my presence, took the orphan boy on an international vacation to the Caribbean islands I'd always dreamed of visiting. Many days later, when they returned to the pack, they were shocked to discover I'd accepted an offer from the neighboring pack's Head Healer. The position required fifteen years of isolated herbal research. I could never return home. That night, they fell apart.

I was the best healer in the world. The Alphas of every pack fought over me day and night. To escape that exhausting life for good, I faked my own death. Then I put on a pair of dark glasses and pretended to be completely blind. When the Silver Moon pack found me and brought me home, I thought I was in for the usual family drama: the biological daughter and the adopted one fighting over their parents' love. But my older adopted sister, Evelyn Howard, turned out to be sweet and kind. She learned Braille for me right away. My father, the Alpha, and my mother, Eleanor, were consumed by guilt and heartache over me. My seven older brothers, the backbone of the pack's defenses, guarded me as if I were the most precious thing in the world. I didn't have to save anyone. All I had to do was sit there quietly , play the part of a proper little blind girl, and do nothing. That all changed when eight packs joined forces to crush our family. William Carter, an Alpha and the Cedar pack's heir apparent, kicked in our front door with his wolf guards. "All Silver Moon territory is under our control. If your whole family isn't off this land by morning, I'll slaughter every last one of you. "As for the older sister and the little blind girl ... they stay. I'll lock them in my private cage as pets." I looked at my seven brothers. They had been beaten until they coughed up blood, yet they still shielded me with their bodies. Then I looked at my adopted sister, sobbing as she offered her life to save us all. I twirled my cane between my fingers and let out a slow sigh. Without the pack to protect me, how was I supposed to keep doing nothing? As my family watched in despair, I rose from the shadows and calmly took off my dark glasses. "William, go ask the Chief Elder something for me. "Three years ago in the Alps, I repaired his heart myself and injected a life-saving serum into it. How's it working out for him? "Tell him his three years are up today.And now I'm cutting him off."

I was the only she-wolf in the Frostfang Pack in the past hundred years to shift at just twelve. I even earned honors in battle. But my family saw my early shift as an unforgivable sin. When my sister found out, she burst into tears and threw herself into our mother's arms. "It's all right, Elsie. None of this is your fault. Your sister took too much from you before you were even born." My mother frowned and kissed the top of Elsie's head again and again. My father shot me an irritated glare. "Freya, you know Elsie can't shift. Did you really have to rub it in her face?" Even the priest stood before the whole pack and blamed me for Elsie's condition. He claimed I'd taken too much from her in the womb, leaving her too weak to ever shift. To them, I had been guilty since birth. So I walked away. I found a pack that truly accepted me. And when I finally returned to Frostfang, I came back as North Ridge's Alpha heir.