Alpha Black

Alice Forrest

The bed smelt like Nathaniel, the smell intoxicating me and I rolled over to find the other side of the bed empty. I wish I could be surprised, but I was more surprised that he didn’t just drop me at his parents house and leave. Last night I had fallen asleep in his arms blissfully.

While this house was nice, I missed the one I had spent the last two weeks in, I loved the cool breeze that flowed through the French Doors and that every little thing in his house smelt like him, it relaxed me.

I pulled on his tee-shirt that I wore, as I exited the room I was met with the delicious smell of bacon and maple syrup wafting through the halls. The scent seemed to carry me down the stairs and into the kitchen where Ellianna hovered over the stove, flipping pancakes.

“Good Morning dear,” she said, giving me a friendly smile before flipping another pancake. “How did you sleep?”

“Very well thank you, your house is lovely.”

“Oh, thank you darling, that’s high praise coming from someone who’s studied architecture, I’m happy you like it.”

“Is that Nate’s shirt?” a deep voice asked, making me jump.

I turned and wasn’t sure how I noticed the three men sitting on the island bench digging into the stack of pancakes Ellianna had made. Jamie, Thomas and Darius sat happily, munching away. I nodded, “It is.”

Thomas laughed, it didn’t suit his menacing face or the scar that trailed down his face and neck, “it looks like a fucking dress on you!” he cackled.

Ellianna turned around and smacked Thomas with her spatula, “I will not have such vulgar language in my house.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Thomas now shielding himself from Ellianna’s attacks. With Darius, cackling himself, as he watched the scene unfold.

Jamie then got up off his stool and brushed past me in the doorway, stopping and placing his hand comfortingly on my shoulder, “I’ll check in each morning, make sure you’re alright. They’re nice people, but their conservative and dangerous.”

I nodded at his warning, “I picked up your laptop and some clothes on Nate’s request, they’re by the front door, but let me know if you need anything else, you’re on strict orders not to leave the house.”

“Thank you, Jamie,” I smiled, he still held the scowl that graced his face from yesterday and his hair was still tied back behind his head, like he was a different person.

He nodded and left. I took his place next to Thomas, who had now apologies profusely to Ellianna and begged her to stop hitting him. Which she only conceded to, to remove the pancakes from the stove.

“Help yourself, dear,” Ellianna said as Thomas passed me a clean plate and removed Jamie’s from the bench.

I stacked some pancakes and drizzled some berry sauce over them, “So why are you two here?” I asked at Thomas and Darius as they loaded the dishwasher.

“Well, to be honest, Lou can’t cook to save her life,” Thomas laughed. “I bring the kids here for breakfast and drop them off at school while Lou goes to work.”

“And you?” I asked Darius suspiciously.

“Guard duty, honey,” he smiled.

“Ah, well hopefully you don’t have much to do.”

Darius smiled and took a bite out of an apple, “you and I both, but you don’t need to worry, honey, Nate’s got everything locked down, tight.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or concerned about his lack of faith.”

“Oh it’s natural honey, you should have seen my husband when we first met, he was so protective of me he almost took my brother’s eye out.”

“That’s more of a red flag,” I commented, furrowing my brow. But Ellianna waved her spatula dismissively.

“Oh he’s an Alpha, dear, it’s what they do.”

Thomas chuckled and left the room.

“So Nathaniel tells me you’ll be introduced as Luna on the full moon,” Ellianna said emptying the last on the pancake batter onto the stove and turning to look at me. “Has he told you anything about the ceremony or the pack?”

I looked up at her and shook my head, “no, should he have?”

She chuckled, “Probably, but I’m not surprised that he didn’t your father did the same thing to me too.”

“So what do I need to know?” I said, swallowing a mouthful of pancakes and looking at her, now slightly afraid.

“Finish your breakfast and get dressed,” she said gesturing to the shirt I wore, “I’ll walk you through everything you need to know. I’m happy to help out with all the Luna activities, despite my husband stepping down early, I’ve been helping Nathaniel with them for the last ten years while he’s waited for you, so I’ve got the experience under my belt.”

A twang of guilt hit my heart.

* * * * * * * * * *

I felt refreshed after a hot shower, and clean clothes, and after wearing one of Nathaniel’s shirts to bed, I was happy to wear my own clothes again. I enjoyed the smell of clean linen as I joined Ellianna in the dinning room where she had compiled a mountain of books and rolls of ancient looking paper. Further more she’d gone to the time and effort to lay out a large map down one end of the table, the map it’s self a piece of artwork.

“Let’s start with the politics and geography of the pack, shall we?” Ellianna said, standing up straight as I entered the room.

“Just diving straight in then, hey?” I laughed.

She smiled sweetly and took my arm, and lead me towards the map, “So the pack land is divided into eleven territories, we’re here in the central territory, which is the biggest,” she pointed to the biggest parcel of land that spanned from the Eastern Coast Line to the mountain range that spined down the middle of the map.

“Central is has the largest population and aside from Nathaniel and Jamie is over seen by Thomas, an elected Beta by the Alpha, and Christoph, who is elected by the people. Each territory has this combination of an Alpha appointed representative and a people elected representative. They speak on behalf of the Alpha for their allocated parcel of land, the two parties keeping each other in check, the Beta ensures that there is no uprising and the elected ensures that there is no extremism or assertion of power.”

“So there is more to it that just a massive parcel of land,” I noted to myself.

“Exactly, having such a large chunk of land is dangerous, Nathaniel Senior’s Father discovered this when he had an uprising and early lost the Northern Boundary.” She pointed to the pack on the North East of the territory.

“We then have the North West Range – which is mostly mountains and snow, the Western Boundary – which connects the North West Range to the Southern Boundary. There are the Midlands, which are divided into Northern, Central and Southern,” her hand ran elegantly up the map, her finger stopping momentarily on top of a black dot which symbolised the location of a pack house.

She glanced at me before continuing, “finally you have the East Cost and Eastern Central. Eastern Central, split off from Central about sixty years ago when the human population there sky rocketed, obviously some of the younger pack members were interested in living there so we built another pack house that could facilitate them there. We also have a vampire coven that lives in the city, but they’re no trouble as they’re small in number and have an agreement with the Alpha.”

“Seems straight forward enough,” I said, no longer fearing the lesson, “I’m very surprised to hear that they have elected people though, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Yes, a lot of new members to the pack are surprised to hear that, but it’s not easy to be an elected person, you need to have a majority to be voted in, and a significant majority at that. Territories are often happy not having an elected like the East Cost at the moment, but my daughter’s Sophia and Georgina live down there with their mates.”

I smiled at her words and traced the river that ran through central, “is this the river where they train?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s Savage River, same name as our little town here,” she smiled.

“It, and it’s waters run through most of the territories, so it’s a bit of a tradition to train in it, we also have a couple of ceremonies in it…”

By the end of the training session, I’d end up writing a list of the annual ceremonies that Nathaniel and I would be attending…

Every full moon there was a meeting where the elected Beta would report to the Alpha the happenings within the pack, any new pack members would be sworn in, and any importance announcements would be officially made.

On each Equinox and Solstice, there would be large pack gatherings with the Spring Equinox being known as the lovers day, as all unmated wolves were highly encouraged to attend in hopes of finding their mates – ultimately leading to a lot of Spring Weddings… and then Solar Eclipse, where the wolf was at it’s most powerful, where a lot of young wolf pups would shift for their first time making them into men and women. It was tradition that the Alpha, Luna and Betas would be waiting at the other end of the shift. Helping them to control their new and overwhelming urgers.

There was then the less formal New Year Celebrations, where we would have to light a giant bonfire together and praise the spirits for blessing our lands. Nothing new, but these ceremonies taken a lot more seriously than in my last pack.

“So I have a full moon in 3 days, another full moon in a month, an eclipse, full moon and solstice all in December and then New Year.”

“Yes,” Ellianna confirmed nodding her head, “I would avoid trying for Children in March, it’s always hectic at the end of the year.”

I laughed, “did you have that issue often?”

“Only the once, with Sophia, but Louisa and Nathaniel were both born in January so I was very pregnant in December, something I would also not recommend.”

I smiled at her words, but kept it to myself that children was not something I ever felt like I wanted, Nathaniel knew, and that was what was important.

Ellianna stood up and stretched her arms over her head, “Would you like to help me with lunch and we can talk about the Full Moon Ceremony this month?” she smiled.

“Of course, I’m happy to help,” I smiled, happy to stretch my arms and legs after a couple hours of study.