Savior of the Wolves

Aiden’s POV

I took a final look at them and forced a smile for their behalf. They deserved that from me. It wasn’t their fault that the world was now this way.

I had a few additional chores today from dad. It was as though he could sense that my wolf was off. He was bothered. I was bothered.

The extra work certainly didn’t bother me. The more the better.

A hours passed quickly and I glanced down at my watch.

“Shit.”

I began to run toward the dining hall.

Lately, if I hung out in the dining hall in the evening, it was too easy to get stuck. I got surrounded by everyone. It was harder to leave when the day was nearly over.

So, I changed my schedule.

I wanted to be their Alpha one day. But not today. Today, I wondered what that would look like. How many of them, whose laughter filled this same hall, would be taken by the war.

I always felt their eyes on me. If it wasn’t a lupa (a delta or gamma female) it was a lupo (the male equivalent.) But the lupos had started pitying me. I sensed it. I loathed it.

So many I had grown up with. We used to talk about females. But it all stopped when we came of age. They didn’t have the weight I had. Their concerns were which beta or gamma wolf looked their way. Any of them could easily find a mate within our community. We were one of the largest in the country. In fact, most had found their mate. They were the ones who pitied my brother and me the most. They knew what we were missing. What we might never have.

Our destiny had been altered. There were no fems (female nobles) anywhere around here anymore.

Because of the attacks.

Our friends were young and with little experience. So, I couldn’t blame them when they linked to the group instead of their mate and shared an intimate conversation with the entire group. I had to live with accidents like that. I had to live with their apologies when there shouldn’t be anything to apologize for.

But they knew what I would give up if I mated with a beta or gamma wolf. What our pack would lose.

The protection.

How they felt was out of devotion and care, but it still angered me. Tormented me. More than I admitted to anyone…even my brother. Sure, I could lean on him. Why not? He was going through it too.

Exactly.

Why remind him that I was as miserable as he probably was?

There was only so much I could take on any given day. Only so many intimate touches and longing stares I could pretend not to see.

So, dinner time…I began to spend alone.

As I entered the side door to the back of the kitchen, Anna smiled at me and grabbed a carry-out box. She put my food in it and patted my arm with her empty hand as she handed me my dinner. She was almost an elder and I could sense that she had a better understanding of how I felt. She never pried. Not even once.

She did however slip me a surprise treat that I didn’t ask for.

Homemade donuts. Fresh out of the oven.

I walked silently to the main library unnoticed and took my usual seat in the back, tucked away behind a bookcase, and opened the last journal I was reading the day before. I was drawn to the letters and journals that depicted the attacks. The attacks that slaughtered so many female nobles.

The attacks were why I had so little interest in the mundane tasks around here. I couldn’t make myself interested in whether we patrolled in groups of six or eight. In intervals of four or six-hour shifts. My pack...all of them... seemed to know their place in the fluid existence of our species. And they were proud of everything that they did.

I envied them. I wanted to feel pride. But I felt something else.

I turned three years ago, as all wolves do, on my eighteenth birthday. The pain was unimaginable. So much worse than I had been warned. But nothing could have prepared me for what happened. Bones moving, skin tearing, teeth ripping through my gums, and somehow it healed almost immediately as my body transformed instantly from a dark-haired man to a large black and gray wolf.

I remember the pride in my mother’s eyes as she looked at me. I was too exhausted to understand it then, but she saw my father and herself in me. I was a mix of their coats. My father’s jet-black fur and her pearlescent silver. Every alpha in my bloodline lost the Luna’s part of their coat once they became alpha. I had no desire to become an Alpha though. I had little desire for anything at all since I turned.

For after the turn, the goddess had your mate destined for you. You were drawn to each other. I heard others talk. I knew that to them the pain of the turn was worth it. They’d do it all over again. Because they found their mate.

But I just got the pain...followed by the void.

I just fucking ached.

I knew it hurt my mother too. So, I faked it.

Almost every single day I faked it.

I strutted around like I was proud and busy. Busy with training, chores, and studies...because that’s the show I put on for everyone.

Mom was like all caring mothers. She wanted me to be happy. Fulfilled. And lately, she was mothering me to death. As Luna, that was her job and yeah, she did that to everyone for the most part. But I knew it was more with her children. She was obvious in her attempts to pry. But that is love, isn’t it? Obvious.

Helping was her instinctive nature. Inbred in her since she was born. She was born to be an Alpha’s wife. A Luna. She was a female noble at birth. A “fem” we called them. She was born from an Alpha and Luna’s union. This sealed her destiny as a fem. As a fem, there was a distinct scent on them that only a potential mate, another male noble (they are simply known as “nobles”) could detect. It didn’t matter how far away she was either. Once a fem came of age, something in a noble knew and was drawn to her as though nothing else mattered. And for a short while, to a noble, nothing else did.

It wasn’t just the animalistic need to mate. The survival of the pack depended on him finding her. So the pull to her was maddening. The goddess made it so strong that he couldn’t...wouldn’t stop until he found her.

When a female noble came of age...it was magical. There was a change in the air. An entire destined pack could feel her. But no one could find her…except a potential match for her. Another noble. An Alpha or future Alpha.

The unmated noble was led to her. He could smell her...track her anywhere. His wolf had one purpose now...and that was to find her. To protect her. Her survival was more important now than ever. And until the goddess showed him if he was the mate destined to imprint with her, he couldn’t leave her until her true mate arrived. Because it was so much more than her survival now. The survival of the species depended on this…on the destined Alpha mating with her to strengthen the pack.

Only then did they receive their special powers from the goddess.

Their “gifts.”

So, the goddess saw to it that each Alpha or noble found her. Or died trying.

And the journals were full of stories of those who had done just that.

Nobles died.

And now I understand it even more. If this void were as full as it was deep, how would I not be willing to die for the fem who filled it?

But no matter the number of noble deaths, nothing compared to that of the fems.

And that is why I study until my head aches.

Better my head than my heart.

That’s the worst part of reading the stories. Knowing it wasn’t fiction. The need for someone. To need someone so badly, that death was no longer feared if it meant their safety.

Dad had that for mom. I saw it every day. I believe he’d die without her. I had no doubt actually. His breaths were no longer for one person. He couldn’t breathe without her.

Maybe that’s why I was so obsessed with the main library and books so much more lately. There were countless journals. What if attacks like this happened before? Did we miss something?

I had to know...because I was a noble. Just like my brother. Just like my sister. I would only be drawn to a female noble. And my brother would also. We would both long for her. Would it tear at our brotherly bond?

We had no idea because it had not happened yet.

For either of us.

For any noble in years.