Page 141 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha
I straightened to meet them, and the chatter in the dining hall fell to a hush. I felt the eyes of every wolf in the building on me, and I knew that what happened next would set the tone for every future interaction I had with the pack.
“Claire, Val, Inez,” I said, addressing them by their first names. “How have you three been?”
Whatever Val and Inez had been expecting from me, those words weren’t it. Surprise replaced the disgust on their lips, butthey didn’t speak to me. Instead, they snatched up the hands of their pups like I was something dangerous and hurried away from me.
I refused to take their reactions personally. Honestly, that had gone much better than I’d expected. Silence was always better than hurling insults my way.
I turned to Claire, who watched me with curiosity in her gaze. She held her pup’s hand, but she wasn’t turning her son away from me like I was a leper. Instead, she tried to smile.
“I’ve got to say, Bryn, I’m surprised as hell that you turned out to be a shifter.”
I laughed, not because what she said was particularly funny but because I needed to release some tension. “I doubt you were as surprised as me,” I said. “I thought my whole life up to the moment I shifted had been a mistake.”
Her smile became more genuine. “I bet.”
I took a seat at one of the dining tables, and Claire sat across from me. “Henry’s gotten so big since I last saw him,” I said.
“I know.” She rubbed his back. “He really hit a growth spurt, but he still clings to me like he did when he was a toddler.”
I giggled. “How are your other children?”
She and I fell into the rhythm of our gentle chat. Around us, conversation resumed, but I knew that everyone was scrutinizing every move we made.
“So, what was it like to discover that you were a wolf?” she asked.
“It was like magic,” I said. “Every fairy tale I’ve ever read suddenly made sense.” I beamed at her. “It was a miracle.”
Afterward, I got up to leave. I wasn’t really hungry, and I had plenty of food in the fridge if I changed my mind later on. For now, I was just happy with that interaction. As I headed toward the door, I noticed that there weren’t as many people glaring at me with disdain. Actually—and I hoped this wasn’t just my wishful thinking talking—their gazes seemed more curious and accepting.
It was such a small step in the grand scheme of things, but to me, it was a start, and that was all that mattered. I walked through the pack community and thought about how insane everything had become. So much had changed, but in many ways, things were still the same. Same paths, same buildings, same cabins—but I no longer felt like I had to scurry from place to place just to avoid detection from either Troy or the Terrible T’s.
As I moved deeper into the compound, I paid more attention to the land rather than just the buildings and the people of the pack. Grass that had once been beautiful, lush, and green was now dead. The foliage lining the compound had become unkempt and overgrown with sharp, pointy weeds. Branches that had fallen during storms and harsh wind still lay where they had fallen. Most had started to rot. I knew by sight that if I touched them, the wood would cave under my touch like an overripe mushroom.
The flowers were dead, and one or two of the cabins—the cabins that were closer to Mom’s in size—were starting to fall apart from unnatural damage.
Someone had purposefully destroyed those buildings, but Wargs hadn’t been the cause of it. That meant that Troy had allowed this destruction to occur under his watch and had done nothing about it. I frowned. This was a far cry from the beautiful homethat I had been taken from five weeks ago. I’d need to put in some serious work to get this place back to its old state.
I knew my position as Alpha would only last a month, but I wanted to take it seriously. That was why I wanted to make sure the reconstruction projects went along smoothly. I had no clue how to be an Alpha, knew nothing about all the various tasks that being an Alpha entailed. Of course, I’d never gotten the chance to watch Gregor work or to even form an idea of the daily activities of an Alpha. I was willing to learn because I wanted the pack to do well and because I fully intended to serve on the Kings’ council after my term ended.
It felt like an overwhelming amount of work that I was about to tackle. I wondered if this was what Night had felt when he became the Alpha for the Wargs.
“Hey!”
I froze at the sound of the terribly familiar voice. I turned slowly, and the moment I laid eyes on Samson and Harlon, I nearly burst into tears. I immediately started to second-guess my decision to keep them in the pack.Wouldn’t it be better to just send them away? To never have to look at them again?
“You don’t fucking belong, bitch,” Harlon said, revealing a sharp-toothed grin.
“You’re not fucking fit to be Alpha,” Samson spat. “It’s a disgrace to the Kings to see any woman in the position, especially a formerhuman.”
My hands trembled. I was back in the cave, back in the entry of Violet’s apartment, back in my childhood when these two and Troy would torment me. I wanted to turn tail and get the fuck out of here, but I clenched my hands into fists to hide the waythey shook. There was a crowd forming around us, and I couldn’t back down. I needed to show that I could be strong even in the face of this heckling.
“Yeah,” Trish’s voice cut through the brief silence. Whatever I’d been about to say died on my tongue as she, Tanya, and Tara stalked toward me. The Terrible T’s in full force.
“You’re a fake wolf!” Tara shouted. “You must have used black magic to make yourself shift. No human can be a wolf.”
The crowd had grown. It wasn’t as big as the one in the dining hall, but I heard them begin to murmur to themselves that I must have used magic, that there was no way a creature as horrible as a human would be blessed with the ability to shift.
I clenched my hands even harder and straightened my spine. The only way to get them on my side was to be honest and open with them. I felt that this crowd would somehow know if I lied.
