Save Me Mr. Alpha

“I will give this all up if that is what you desire.”

I stare at him, shocked, my mouth hanging open at his confession. He was staring at me and I felt a strong feeling of hope rush through my body that belonged to us both. It was a feeling we both wanted to cherish and hold on to as long as we both could.

“Tyson, I want that more than anything in the world.”

“But I can’t. I can’t leave this world now. Chase is part of it and I can’t leave my family behind.”

Tyson puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet.

“So what now?”

“I don’t know. I’m stuck and it’s something I hate feeling. I just--I can’t escape now.”

“So what will you do now?”

I sigh, “what I’ve always done. Adapt.”

“And what does that mean for us?” he hesitates. “For me?”

I look into his piercing hazel eyes and my eyes trail down to his perfectly pink lips.

“I don’t know.”

I kept my word to Chase and Katie and as soon as she was cleared for visitors, I brought Chase over to the hospital with the help of Babe. It was strange watching the interaction between Chase and Katie. My brother has never been known as hesitant, but after we had arrived at the hospital he had stood outside her door staring in to her room and watching her while she slept.

Her body was quickly healing, at a rate I couldn’t believe to be honest.

“It’s the werewolf genes. She’ll probably be healed in a few days.” Babe explained once Chase had finally entered the room to sit in the chair “conveniently” placed next to her.

“I see. Will Chase heal faster then?”

“It’s hard to tell with a late shifter. Some do, some don’t. It’ll probably just depend on his ancestor’s rank in the pack.”

I look at him, “How do we find that out? Like, is it something we can check on? Who it was I mean?”

“Tyson has already called the Archivist to start looking into your family’s records. He thought you would want to know sooner or later and if Chase decides to join the pack it could affect where he is placed in rank.”

“Okay...” At the mention of Tyson, my head was filled with question upon question upon even more questions.

“What’s going on Sassy?” Babe asks as he leads me to a waiting room. Pack members nodded to us down the hall, mumbling “Luna, Beta,” as we went.

“I don’t know, Babe.” I sigh.

“Is it about Chase?”

“No, it’s not. I’m happy for him as long as he is happy with the news.”

“The pack?”

“No.”

“The attack?”

I shake my head.

“Tyson?”

I pause at his name and Babe sighs, leaning back in a plastic covered hospital chair.

“Ahh the love and loss of mates, the eternal battle,” Babe murmurs.

“Babe...”

“You want to know what happened to her, to my Vanessa.”

I don’t respond to his statement, not wanting to push him too far.

“You might as well know the full story so you can see the big picture.”

“Seven years ago there was an uprising of rogues across the werewolf world. It wasn’t uncommon to have rogue attacks, but the sheer number of them was sudden and overwhelming. Vanessa and I were living in the northern most part of our old pack when it was attacked. Nessie and I were the Beta couple meaning we were responsible for the warriors and training. Recently, Ness had been out of training due to taking care of our son, Jamie and her current pregnancy. But when we were attacked, she went to the battlefield just like everyone else. Jamie was taken to the shelter with the other pups and non-warriors to wait out the attack like we had trained.

“Ness was a beautiful fighter. She was strong like most warriors, but there was something special about the way she moved. Some people liked to joke that she was blessed by the Moon to be a warrior, that she had an almost ethereal glow that surrounded her when she was fighting. It truly was a sight to behold,” Babe pauses, lost in his memory.

“But like I said, she hadn’t been training that much recently and she quickly became overwhelmed. I was on the south side of the battlefield when I heard her howl. My wolf took over at this point when I heard her cry out in pain and I saw that one of the rogue leaders had forced her to go back into her human form. He had her by the throat and a knife to her stomach. It was the second worst moment of my life to watch my beautiful mate be restrained like that. Especially knowing that the rogue was threatening...”

He takes a deep breath before continuing.

“She was staring at me, but she wasn’t scared. That woman was fearless, she never backed down to a challenge and she never backed out. So when I saw her staring at me like that, I knew what was going to happen. She--she managed to disarm the rogue and get away for a moment. That’s when the rogues brought out their real target. The rogues brought out the children of our pack. They had managed to kill the guards protecting the children and had killed all of the women and elders in the safe room. They wanted the children, for what reason I’m unsure, but this time they needed to use them as leverage. The five children that they brought out had included Jamie and the look on Ness and I’s faces that they had our child was... terrifying. They had our baby boy, our light, our sunshine, and worst of all they had a gun up to his head. They must’ve known he was a child of higher rank because they saved him till the end. They shot the rest of the kids, three girls, one boy, right in front of us. Nessie and I were charging the rogues who were threatening our son when it happened.

“A shot came out of nowhere and hit Ness before she could attack the rogue and the rogue hit Jamie with his gun on the top of his head and he crumpled to the ground. I felt his bond to the pack leave me at the same time Nessie’s did and I knew that my whole family had been killed by the rogues. They killed almost everyone in the pack, taking hoards of bodies with them on their retreat. They usually take a few bodies, dead or alive, as trophies for themselves to taunt the next pack with the dead bodies and they had taken Jamie with them. Only a few of us had survived, most with severe injuries that would prevent them from fighting again. After I buried her, I couldn’t stand being around reminders of her constantly. Having lost her and Jamie in the same day, in the same moment, was something that overwhelmed me and I couldn’t-- I just couldn’t cope living in the house by myself where my family had lived and grown only to have their graves sit outside of it. So I left and came to Northbrooke and became the very thing I hate, a rogue.”

Babe looks at me with sad eyes.

“I would give anything in the world to have a chance to have my mate here, even if that meant taking her place. Mates are not to be ignored or taken for granted. Mates bring eternal love that lasts long after death and mates bring eternal pain long after death. But I wouldn’t exchange that love or pain for anything in the world.”

Babe’s story had pierced my soul while I waited in the quiet hospital waiting room. He had excused himself for pack business while I kept an eye on Chase and Katie. The doctors had informed me that as long as she stayed mostly immobile that Katie could be discharged and go home with me.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome, Luna.” I responded, looking into the room where Katie was sitting in bed and Chase was packing up some medical supplies into a bag Tyson had brought by earlier. Katie had changed into a comfy shirt and sweatpants and looked absolutely overjoyed to have her mate in the room.

“Cassie?” I turn and see Marie standing a few feet away from me, looking at the door leading to Katie.

“Hello Marie.”

“Is she alright?” Marie asks quietly.

“She’s fine. She found her mate.”

“Your brother. I heard.”

“He shifted in the process.” I respond.

Marie looks surprised, “So the Future Alpha Queen actually has some werewolf blood in her?” she murmurs.

“So it seems.”

We’re both quiet as we watch Katie and Chase finish up packing and Chase kisses her on the cheek causing her to light up with a bright pink blush.

“She looks better.”

“She does.”

That’s all Marie says before making her exit and leaving the hospital.

To say Chase and Katie were happy to have found one another was an understatement. If I didn’t love my brothers more than anything I would have probably punched Chase in the face for the stupid look plastered on his face the last two days.

Chase and Katie were healing well and were officially off bed rest and were enjoying being ‘mates.’ I was avoiding Katie’s brother as much as I could and it seemed he was doing the same. I hadn’t felt Tyson come near me in the last two days and the break from his demanding demeanor was a welcome relief.

Unfortunately I knew it wouldn’t last and that he and I needed to talk about the attack. Packmembers were asking me about the attacks and if Yakunda was back and I had no idea what to tell them. I didn’t even know what it meant. Finally after Babe refused to tell me what Yakunda meant, most likely to encourage me to talk to Tyson, I relented and went to his office at the Packhouse.

He had permanently vacated my old house as his office, leaving it for the boys and I to sleep in which meant that he had moved into his main office again. It was directly attached to my sky ceiling office which was probably convenient for other Alphas and Lunas but more of a nuisance to me. Once I neared his office door, I could feel the sparks running down my body. They were getting warmer and warmer the longer I waited outside the door until finally I relented once again and opened the door to his office. Tyson was at his desk, rubbing his eyes as he sat up and looked at me, bags under his eyes.

He obviously was getting as much sleep as I was.

“Cassie.”

“Tyson.”

His words from a few days before drifted into my mind,“I will give this all up if that is what you desire.”

“Is everything alright?” He asks, panic waking him up and he quickly stands. “Is Chase okay? Katie?” he demands.

“Everything is fine. I just needed to talk to you.”

“Oh. Oh!” Tyson’s hazel eyes flutter wide open as he processes my words. He motions to a chair in front of his desk and I sit down, unsure of how to start.

“Tyson, we need to talk.”

“Of course.”

“About Yakunda.”

Tyson flinches, barely noticeable, but he flinched nonetheless.

“I figured you’d want to hear about him at some point.”

“He did orchestrate an attack on our pack, so I would think it’s probably pretty important.”

Tyson lets out a small chuckle.

“What?”

“You said our pack. It just made me chuckle is all.”

I roll my eyes and wait for him to tell me the story behind the attack. “Go on.”

“Yakunda is the man who killed my father.” I freeze at his words, “Kill might be a bit of exaggeration given the situation, but in my eyes, he killed him, plain and simple. It makes dealing with it easier for me. Not as easy for my mother though.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember what Beta Webster said that night we met? Out by your father’s treehouse?”

I shake my head, trying to remember.

“He mentioned our pack ranking and how I had defeated a rogue pack two years before we moved our operations to Northbrooke.”

“So?”

“That was Yakunda’s pack,” he explains. “We destroyed them all, leaving just Yakunda behind.”

“Why? Why didn’t you kill him as well?” I ask, even more confused.

“Did you know that if a werewolf’s mate dies in battle or basically any circumstance other than disease or old age that their mate will practically go mad? Typically if a mate dies in battle and the other one has young children to hold them together, they last longer. But if there’s nothing keeping you centered, you lose your mind with the death of your mate. Especially fated mates. Killing Yakunda was a death sentence for his mate and I couldn’t bear to do that to her.”

“To who?”

“My mother.”

***

A/N: Duh, duh, duh..... Yakunda is (or at least was) Marie’s mate... talk about a plot twist!