Chapter Two
Alrick
For all intents and purposes, there are three ways that an Alpha can claim leadership of a pack. Bloodline, murder, or theft. To my mind, the explanations are all simple, but I have come to understand that not everyone agrees about the inherent simplicity.
An Alpha can take leadership of – or form – his own pack through his bloodline, his pedigree, relatively easily. As the son or daughter of a pack Alpha, they can simply accept control when the reigning Alpha - their father or mother – steps aside, allowing a peaceful exchange. Or, an Alpha from quality lineage can court prospective Betas and, in a perfect world, an Omega, to allow the creation of a new pack entirely.
Murder, I think, should be obvious. A successful challenge issued to take over an existing pack that leaves the reigning Alpha dead. Some would argue that this, a successful challenge, would, in fact, not be murder, but to my mind, causing an Alpha's death not in battle, not in defense of innocents endangered, but to take what was theirs, was the most egregious of crimes. This belief had been the crux of many a late-night debate with the men under my command, and more than once I'd been told that my moral code was over strong, overly complicated, but I remain unconvinced.
Finally, the option of theft. Not as common as the other two, but still not impossible. Some Alpha's have been known to populate their packs using stolen shifters; overpowering them, cowing them into swearing fidelity.
For me, the pup of a pack that had deemed me damaged and abandoned me to the council, the first option wasn't an option at all. The second and third? Well, let’s just stop at morally repugnant and move on to where I did end up which wasn't leading a pack.
The Alpha of the pack that had fostered me in Greifswald, Germany, was adamant that no pup – and we were all still pups to him, regardless of age – leave his care without a plan for his or her future. So, when I reached my majority, Heilrich was more than willing to allow me to stay; he'd even offered me a paid position so I could earn some money before I struck out on my own.
But, like so many young Alphas, I was determined to prove that I could make my place in the world strictly by my own merit. Of course, what I was to learn – and quickly – was that at the ripe old age of eighteen, I had no merit. Instead, I clawed my way forward, every advance bought with blood, sweat, and tears, until, eight grueling years later, I commanded the North American team of the most elite special forces in shifter society; the Böxenwolf Brigade.
That service was how I came to find myself in my current predicament; standing in the Terena de Dragoni royal castle, pretending that I couldn't hear every word between the two whispering Omegas at the other end of the room. Spencer, the prince consort, was a plucky wolf-shifter who had unexpectedly hooked the prince of dragons. It was definitely an…untraditional mating, but the more I saw the two of them together, the more convinced I was that they complemented one another perfectly.
The other Omega, Sebastian, was always in my peripheral vision, even though at first I wasn’t sure why. From the first time that I saw him, he set an unfamiliar heat under my skin. It was almost like an itch that I couldn't reach to scratch. Initially, I'd marked it down to my uncanny gut instincts, an otherworldly warning that he, in some way, meant the princes or their guests harm. For that reason, I'd taken on his protective detail personally, telling myself that it was for the purpose of guarding against whatever harm he intended. Then, slowly, I began to recognize the feeling for what it truly was. I was a werewolf in love.
Once I'd realized how I felt, I'd begun trying to make small overtures to Sebastian, hoping to ingratiate myself, to get close enough that he might at least consider me a friend. Although, my ultimate desire was, of course, more than that. To date, my crowning achievement had been one scalding-hot stolen kiss - several long moments with his sweet body melting into mine, his aroused flesh pressing against mine, our tongues stroking one another as I eagerly swallowed the moans that he'd panted into my mouth - in the sudden darkness of an unexpected blackout on Solstice Eve but, coward that I was, I had fled before the lights were restored. The room had been crowded with shifters of many species, an overwhelming hodgepodge of scents that had made it all but impossible to single one out, and to the best of my knowledge, Sebastian remained unaware of who had kissed him.
Unfortunately, even if I'd had any reason to believe that the sweet little Omega would entertain a claim from a nomad like myself, my initial suspicion of him followed promptly by my inconvenient obsession with him, had unsurprisingly made him fearful of me. This was the topic of the whispered conversation that I was pretending not to hear at the other end of the room.
There was an unpleasant tightening in my gut when Sebastian brought up the subject of leaving. I knew he was only visiting, assisting with the daily running of the castle and the care of several orphans that the prince and his consort had unexpectedly received temporary guardianship of, but I hadn't really thought ahead to whether or not he would be returning to the United States. Now I was being forced to accept that not only was he considering leaving but that my inability to let him out of my sight was the cause. Had I been one given to cursing, this would have been the time.