Introduction
You are born an alpha, you don’t become one. My brother and my entire life was based on the assumption that we were alphas. That when our wolves awakened when we turned 18 they would be alphas. He is older than me by a year and a half. I am the fallback. If his wolf isn’t an alpha, then I am the last hope.
Years ago we had two older brothers. They died in the last war. Our pack fought for our King against the vampires. The loss was a great deal to our pack. It put our pack in a very dangerous situation. Not many alphas are even born. They are almost always born to alphas. It is a tradition that as soon as we get our wolves and the next alpha is awakened they would train under the current alpha for a year and then take over. My brothers never had that chance.
Our father left for the war before either of them turned 18. When Dolph’s wolf awakened and it was discovered he was an alpha there was a great celebration. It was cut short by bad news from our father. Dolph left the next day to join the fighting. Not much longer after that he was gone from this world. Our mother Anya was here ruling and patrolling our lands. Keeping them safe and keeping things going for when everyone returned. Our second brother Kurt turned 18 two years after Dolph. He was an alpha too. I was told he was very proud of his wolf and left the same night with dreams of avenging our older brother. When the war was over five years later father and Kurt returned home but Kurt wasn’t the same. He had seen horrible and unspeakable things. He was raised a warrior, just like our whole family but nothing prepared him for what he saw. Six months after returning he took his life. He couldn’t understand how he had survived and Dolph didn’t. In a way the war took him as well.
The war affected all of the packs in the area. In the end neither side won or lost. Enough blood was shed on both sides that an agreement was made to end the war. A peace treaty was drawn up and everything was supposed to go back to normal. It was anything but normal. Our kingdom covers all of North America and consists of 6 packs. All ruled by one King and his pack. The war depleted all of our numbers. Mainly the men but the war wasn’t limited to male fighters. Many of the young men who left for the war after turning 18 didn’t return to our pack but instead stayed in the King’s pack where they found their mates and settled down. Traditionally when men found their mates the she wolf would move to the male wolf’s pack. However, after the extended stay caused by the war many couples had settled down. So our numbers dipped lower not only because of the deaths but because once settled many didn’t return. As expected when the men did return there was a resurgence of life which helped a great deal to replenish our loss. My own mother fell pregnant with my brother Eric and then me.
My father had no choice but to have more children with my mother. They were both further along in age and had no remaining heirs. The pack was entirely dependent on our father to produce the next alpha. The stress, combined with the uncertainty of not knowing if any of the children she was producing were actually alphas, and her age ultimately was too much for my mother and she died giving birth to me. Thus making me the only fallback.
My father never remarried after my mother passed away. My brother and I were raised by a kind woman named Emilia who had lost her husband in the war. Her two sons returned and had families of their own. We grew up playing with her grandchildren. Once Eric and I turned 6 we were taken away from childish games and made our father’s shadow. We began our lessons in ruling the pack. To our surprise it was more than just bossing everyone around. Every morning we would check in on the night guard and get a briefing from our father’s third in command about any happenings in the night. Each morning consisted of a few hours mitigating issues between the wolves and deciding punishments for crimes. Every afternoon we would train with our father’s guard. It was an exhausting lifestyle but duty was number one to our family. Our schooling had to fit in between all of the pack lessons. While Emilia had been nice as a mother figure she was a hard school master. The pack had a number of schools spread throughout our territory but we received a homeschool education. We didn’t have time for the lax schedule of our peers.
King Rudolph was a beast of a man who ruled with an iron fist. He was patient with our pack for having an older alpha sense our father’s heirs were lost in the war. His patience was wearing thin. In werewolf society having a strong alpha to lead a pack is key. We didn’t win the war with the vampires. We were in a peace treaty that was shaky at best. If they sensed a weakness the King was worried they might take advantage of the opportunity. King Rudolph was graced with 6 ass-holes for sons and 3 were already of age and alphas. The King threatened more than once that if my brother and I didn’t turn out to be alphas he would place one of his son’s as our alpha. Fully insinuating that I would be married to one of his heathens whether we were mates or not. My brother and I have a lot riding on our shoulders. A week from now my brother will turn 18 on the night of the full moon. Nothing can go wrong. It must all go according to plan. Our pack depends on it. My life depends on it.
