Chapter 1: Alpha Darren's Secret

P.o.V. Alpha Darren/Tybris

"Four AM is a vile time to wake up." Alpha Darren groaned internally to his wolf as he drug himself out of bed.

"Don't blame me," a distant sounding grumble huffed back to him. He felt Tybris retreat deeper into his mind. Probably to keep sleeping. "Damn lucky dog," he muttered as he pulled on clothes for the day.

Alpha Darren Leary was a big man. Not just in importance to his pack, but in physical size as well. As he drug himself out of bed, he kept the shaggy comforter wrapped around himself. His wild mass of dark curly hair and bushy beard blended into the dark blue of the blanket in the dim light making him look like a great bear rising from its slumber. Only someone standing just in front of him could have seen the small patch of ruddy, sun reddened skin between his mustache and hair. Aside from the copious laugh lines, his eyes stood out the most. A light brown, almost golden hue with a sparkle that shone even through his tiredness.

Alpha Darren sulked over to an armoire in the corner and began pulling things out at random. He barely managed to find a shirt when the door burst open and Luna Fallon strode in. A tall, slim figure, Luna Fallon was the opposite of her mate. Her green eyes almost shone against her pale skin and strawberry blonde hair which today was braided into a tight bun and held fast atop her head. Aside from the stern look on her face, she had a clipboard. It was going to be a rough morning if she already had a clipboard.

"You aren't ready yet?" she exclaimed, looking at her husband's unkempt nest of hair. "We have a crew here already building the pyres and the platform is half up. You know the kitchen Omegas will be working all morning to have lunch ready for the families at noon so there won't be a breakfast sitting."

"If the families don't get here until noon, why am I up now?" He demanded as he moved into their bathroom to wet and brush his hair.

"You need to have the whole afternoon free and you're the one who decided to put off your work yesterday to train with the twins. And the day before that to plan the path with Beta Owen. And the day before that with the trainers to plan the new rotas. You should delegate more." Checking off something on her board and without a note of the irony in that sentence, Luna Fallon swept out of the room to go check on whatever was next on her list.

"I bet she just checked 'Get Lazy Alpha Moving' off that list," a deep voice chuckled in his head. Alpha Darren smiled at Tybris. "It's just nerves," he thought back while he got ready. "She is excited for the twins' presentation tonight and wants it to be perfect. No matter how much we tell her the ceremony will be great she will just dig deeper and plan harder."

"We should have broken the clipboard, dragged her back to the bed, and made her lay with us."

"That's your solution to everything when she's involved," he laughed as he finished adjusting his clothes in the mirror.

"Well it got us the twins. Seems like it's a successful method," Tybris finished as Alpha Darren opened the door and went to his study.

He bent over the paperwork on his desk. Patrol report synopses for the last several days, a new trade agreement with the Upper Valley Pack and the High Top Vampire Clan, clinic supply orders for medicines as well as tonics, a request from Coven Mistress Caldwell to help petition the highschool for alchemy and potion courses, the latest harvest numbers for the herb yields... it just kept going on. When did being the Alpha become all paperwork?

Glancing out the window at the crisp clear sky, he thought back to training with the twins yesterday. Patrick and Moira. His inseparable children. Both 14 and both with wolves who joined them on the same night. They apparently formed a pact together not to show anyone else their wolves until the ceremony. Not even their dad. That had to be Moira. She always wanted to surprise him with whatever they were getting up to and seemed to feel adults were just interfering.

They continued their activities like normal after their wolves arrived: school, chores, running to wherever pups ran to these days to play, and training with their dad. That was something he insisted on in spite of the protests of his mate and pups. Now that they had their wolves, they had both become stronger and faster and would need to start honing those skills. He knew Beta Owen did the same for his daughter when she met her wolf. It was an option open to every werewolf family and would help them prepare for when they joined the warrior training after the ceremony. But a troubled look crossed his face thinking of their improvements.

An Alpha wolf is bigger, stronger, and faster than any other. They are the peak of what a wolf, and, as a result, a werewolf can be. He remembered the sudden improvements in his own skills when Tybris joined him. He thought back to their training yesterday and the skills of his twins. An Alpha shows itself even if you can't see the wolf...

He shook the thought off quickly and dove back into paperwork. Trying to drown his thoughts in boredom.

After an unknown but seemingly endless amount of time, Tybris spoke to him. He was calm but serious, Darren always thought of this voice as his Alpha-Tone. "You know you can't avoid it after tonight. Everyone is expecting Patrick to be an Alpha. You should tell Fallon before the ceremony so she can prepare."

Tybris was right, but Fallon was the embodiment of traditions. She followed every ceremony tradition down to the absolute letter. Seeking advice from elders to ensure they were as exact as she could get them. She has plans for after the ceremony for Patrick to start training with his father and Beta Owen. For him to attend meetings soon and start learning the business side of running a pack. It would ruin her plans. It would break tradition. And Fallon was Tradition.

As he finished the paperwork, the tediousness that he was using to avoid what he knew had to come next wore off. Tybris had remained quiet, he knew what they would do. They would tell her. Before lunch. Now is better than later.

Alpha Darren mind linked his wife, "Can you come up to my office before the other families arrive?"

"Can't you come to the twins' rooms. I'm getting them ready and Moira is being stubborn about her hair. She gets that from you, you know?"

"I know. We can't help it. Our hair just doesn't like to be tamed. But I need to speak with you before the other families get here. In private." He put all his feelings of how critical this was into the thought and he felt her jolt.

"I'll be right there."

As he gazed out the window waiting, he practiced what he'd say until he and Tybris thought it was just right.

"The Moon Goddess has truly blessed our children with strong wolves. They have both improved greatly in training since they met their second half. But Patrick's wolf isn't an Alpha. Moira's is."