Chapter 5: Feuding Alphas - Alden

The rest of training was a total blur. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sorrell. Not about her beauty but the longing and sadness in her voice when she talked about fighting for the pack.

'Face it, you were also thinking about her beauty,' Atlas sniggers.

'Okay, so what if I was? Why can’t you just tell me if she’s our animai or not?' I ask in irritation.

'Because not even I know for sure if she is, I admit we are sometimes given signs, but I could be reading the signs wrong. I don’t want to risk it and find out she’s not the one,' he whines. I wish we could know from birth who our soulmates were. Would be sweet, actually. Maybe grow up side by side with the other half of your soul, always having them close, never wasting time with people who could never hold a candle to that person.

'Oh yeah, nothing like baby soulmates, how romantic,' says Atlas almost repulsively.

'What would be so bad about that? It’s not like I’m talking about intimacy. I just mean having that person your whole life as like your best friend,' I say, defensively.

'It’s a sweet idea Alden, but it’s not as beneficial as you think. I think Zarseti has the right idea of waiting until becoming eighteen.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because it means you have a chance to grow up and become your own person. Learn who you are and who you want to be, and not make all your life decisions based on someone else. Maybe that’s why it takes some people so long to find their soulmate; because they’re not mentally mature enough to handle it. Whoever our soulmate is, we’ll meet them when the time comes, just be patient,' he reassures me. I sigh. I never can argue with his logic. I just hope I don’t have to wait much longer. I don’t want to get our hopes up either, but something deep in my soul tells me Sorrell is the one. I’d stake my life on it.

Walking towards the Alpha suite I catch the scent of my parents, and I immediately want to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, but like a man, I suck it up and open the door. Stepping in I see mum in the kitchen making some food and dad sitting on the couch reading the paper. I’d love to just walk to my room and pretend dad isn’t here, but I’d never just ignore my mum.

I walk over and kiss my mum on the cheek, “Morning Mammina.”

She gives me her bright, beautiful smile. “Good morning, angioletto, how was training?” She asks, warmly while she whips up an omelette, instantly making me salivate.

“It was good, things are going great,” I say proudly.

“So the women haven’t cracked under pressure yet?” Asks my dad, snidely. My mum sighs, and I have to take a deep breath to resist the urge to turn around and give him a piece of my mind.

“They’re rising to the occasion just like I knew they would. Everyone in this pack is capable of doing more, you just have to give them the chance,” I say, grabbing a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and pouring myself a glass.

My dad snorts, “Since when did I raise some flower-loving hippie?” Atlas is snarling in my head and I’m trying hard not to shatter the glass in my hand.

Every morning before training or after, my dad has laid into me about how I changed the training regime to allow the woman to really push themselves and test their skills, and dad was even more livid when I had Roland change the patrol rosters so that the women weren’t always paired with men. The man has to step into the 20^th century and accept that this is 1972, not 1952. He can lose his shit all he likes but it changes nothing. I’m the Alpha now and what I say goes, and so far the changes are working. Some of the guys are resistant, but the women are loving it. They’re being given a chance to show what they are really capable of and each of them is rising to the challenge, and it fills me with so much pride.

“How does having faith in my pack and wanting them to strive to be better make me a hippie? If you ask me, that makes me an Alpha,” I say, sipping my drink.

Dad gets up from the sofa, his light brown eyes glowing as he stares me down, “Did you just sass me, boy?” He asks, aggressively.

“Amazing how disagreeing or standing up for myself is sass in your eyes,” I say indignantly.

“Please don’t fight. Can’t we have one morning of peace, please?” My mum pleads.

“Keep out of this, Monica!” Dad hisses at her.

Alright, now I’m pissed off.

I step in front of mum, my eyes glowing, “Don’t speak to her like that,” I snarl, “You want to lay into me, go ahead, I don’t give a shit, but show your soulmate and my mother some fucking respect,” I spit.

“Alden, it’s okay,” soothes my mum, placing a warm hand on my arm.

“It’s not okay, no one should speak to their animai like that,” I say, squeezing her hand.

“You’ve got a set on you speaking to me like that,” says my dad through gritted teeth.

“You may be my dad, but I’m the Alpha now, and there’s some shit I won’t put up with. You better start showing mum more respect or so help me…”

“What will you do?” He mocks.

“You don’t want to find out,” I warn. I turn, kissing the top of my mum’s head and head to my room to take a shower. I turn the hot water on high and let the sting of the burning water ease the tension in my muscles.

My dad wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time he was a good man and growing up we didn’t butt heads this much. Something seemed to change in him when my grandmother died. Grandpa became a nasty son of a bitch and for some reason, it rubbed off on my dad, and not even mum could fix it.

My parents had me pretty late in life, even by mutolupus standards. My parents met when dad was twenty-eight and mum was twenty-three. She was on holiday in the United States, visiting from the Malocchio Pack in Abruzzo, Italy. They just bumped into each other one day and bam, instant bond. How can you not call that fate? However, it was fifteen years before my mum conceived me. It was the longest our pack had ever gone without an heir. Mum was heartbroken over not being able to conceive during any of her heats, and while dad was also broken-hearted, he focused more on being there for my mum.

Then one day in 1951 I finally came along. I grew up with two parents who loved me something fierce and loved each other just as fiercely, but at some point, something changed. I don’t know why Goddess Morrtemis made my parents suffer so long without a child, and I don’t know what made my dad into the prick he is now, but I have to believe there is a reason for everything.