Page 64

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Amelia

My leg bounces in anxiety as we approach Oak Fur. So many awful memories from fifty-six years living in that hell hole have begun resurfacing, memories that I wished would have stayed gone forever. I was an only pup until I turned twelve and had trained to take over the pack in case my mother couldn’t have more children. Then everything had changed.

The pack had thought that my mother was unable to conceive after having me due to her and my father being middle-aged by werewolf standards, but then Ramos was born. I went from being the heir of my pack to nothing but a she-wolf who would provide strong pups one day—spares in case Ramos couldn’t produce a pup himself.

My father ridiculed me when I said I wanted to continue my alpha training when Ramos turned five. I was seventeen when that happened, a year away from being considered an adult and able to sense my mate. My father told me that being an alpha was the male’s job, that if I were to mate anyone, I would either be a beta she-wolf helping the Luna take care of the pack in a maternal way or become a Luna myself. I would never amount to anything else.

And so I trained.

I would sneak into the training room under the packhouse and practice alone. I would work out and beat a punching bag until my knuckles were bruised and bloodied. My mother caught me once late at night when preparing for a banquet. She had come down to make sure the equipment was in proper shape and walked in on me practicing. At first, I thought she would yell at me, but she and Beta Lori surprised me by joining me in the ring and teaching me proper form.

From that night on, my mother and Beta Lori would meet me every night in the basement training room and teach me everything they knew.

“Penny for your thoughts?” David whispers, his lips next to my ear. I jump, not expecting my mate’s closeness in the small van, and blush when I spy his amused expression.

“S-sorry,” I mutter, turning to look at the farmland outside the window.

“It’s fine, love,” David says with a small chuckle, taking my hand in his and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it. “I was just worried about you.”

I sigh, leaning against David as I continue to watch outside. The vans were moving faster than expected, and we would be back in Oak Fur soon.

“I’m sorry for worrying you, hun,” I start, closing my eyes and trying to shake the images of beatings and scoldings I received from my father, all because he blatantly favored Ramos. “It’s just some memories of the past coming back to haunt me.”

David sighs in understanding and unclicks my seatbelt. Without warning, I’m lifted onto his lap, the omegas driving us pretending not to notice our interaction.

“What brought the past up this time?” David asks, his voice low and gentle. This is why I love him and never want to lose him.

David was the third son of an allied pack. His brothers were chosen to become alpha and beta of the pack while he was left to do as he pleased. Because of this, he became close with his mother, Luna Mavis. He learned how to budget pack expenses, how to plan new vegetable fields, and when to plant each crop.

My father was happy when he and I met at a banquet in Oak Fur and learned we were mates. David was four years older than me and had yet to meet his mate. His father had pressured him to take on a chosen mate, but David had refused. If he hadn’t been so “rebellious,” we would have never realized we were fated.

“Just returning to the pack that made life hell,” I admit, taking a deep breath. “How my father beat me for ‘being disrespectful to the future Alpha.’ How Ramos made sure we would never be the beta pair due to you preferring being a homemaker. How he blatantly kicked out Kaylee for the whore that now carries his spawn,” I continue, a frown on my face.

“I know Kaylee and Lucas can handle the stress of running a pack, but part of me believes Oak Fur should be destroyed completely,” I finally admit, feeling lighter after revealing what I have thought since Ramos’ allies sent wolves to spy on Ivory Fangs since the day they attacked us without warning.

“If that pack was destroyed with all the pawns under Ramos killed, the world would be a better place,” I finish.

“Would you really be able to watch Oak Fur be completely erased?” David asks after I finish speaking, the question catching me off guard. Would I be able to see it completely erased? Maybe.

“I’m just worried that the darkness inside that pack will harm Kaylee and Lucas,” I finally answer, fiddling with the button on David’s shirt. “From what I’ve read in the history books of Oak Fur, not one alpha has been a good one.”

I smile sadly as I think back to the packhouse library, how I spent my days reading about the history of Oak Fur and the many alphas who had ruled over it for one thousand years. Every alpha had led with an iron fist, putting their own wants and needs above that of the pack. At first, some would protest this treatment only to be slaughtered, but soon, everyone accepted the norm that the alpha’s word was law.

Things shifted three hundred years later when Luna Abigail started to take over more traditionally female roles. The alpha still demanded things go their way, but Luna Abigail had started the movement of creating farmland and making sure the pantries were full of meat from hunting. The pack grew steadily, with only a handful of executions happening every so often, and even then, those started to subside when the next Luna and alpha pair took over.

“How bad were some of these alphas?” David asks, making me chuckle darkly.

“So bad that their sons would kill them and take over thinking they could do better,” I answer, the omega driving so surprised by my words that the van swerved for a moment.

“Sorry, Alpha Amelia,” Tommy, the wolf driving, apologizes.

“Don’t be,” I shrug, smiling. “Anyone would be surprised by this revelation,” I add, getting a chuckle from David.

“May we ask how Ramos became alpha?” Miles, the omega in the front seat, asks.

“He killed my father after a hunter poisoned him,” I answer, closing my eyes.

I can still picture that day vividly. It was just before Lucas was born. Lidia had begun nesting, knowing she was due soon, when my father was carried into the packhouse, his wounds smelling of silver and wolfsbane. Ramos was coming from his office at that time and watched as our mother rushed upstairs when she smelled Father’s blood. She was hysterical, pleading for Ramos to call the pack doctors, but he just stood there silently watching on. Then he struck.

Ramos’ hands had turned to claws, and without hesitation, he had clawed our father’s head clean off from the base of his neck. Everyone was stunned to silence at that scene, even me, yet I kept as calm as I could considering the abuse both he and our father had inflicted on me.

After killing our father, Ramos told everyone that he was a dead man anyway, and this was just ending his suffering before grabbing Lidia and climbing the steps.

I made a deal with him that I would not do anything to take the pack from him, nor would David and I become the beta pair if he left my mother alone.

My heart breaks as I think about my mother. She was the epitome of that word—was the kind and caring mother and Luna a pack needed. And she nearly died that same day.

When Ramos and Lidia became the alpha and Luna, my mother moved into my and David’s house. She died just before Adam was born after self-isolating from everyone.

“So now the cycle continues, with Lucas preparing to kill his father,” Tommy muses, his words so soft I can barely hear them.

“Not quite,” David states, his eyes staring out the window beside him. “Just like the alphas before him, Ramos killed his father in cold blood for power. Alpha Leo would have lived had a doctor been sent for him. Lucas is killing Ramos to protect those he loves. That’s what makes this situation different.”

I smile at these words and feel myself relaxing. David is right. Lucas is nothing like the power-hungry bastards the past alphas of Oak Fur were. Ramos tried to mold him into that role and make Lucas as power-hungry and misogynistic as he is, but Lidia had planted enough of her warmth and love into Lucas that things had turned out differently.

“And to be honest, I don’t think the darkness of Oak Fur will affect Lucas or Kaylee,” David states, a loving smile on his face. “Those two have too much hope for the future to allow the past to drag them down.”

I can’t help but agree with this observation about our nephew and our goddaughter. I know that in three days’ time, they will take down Ramos and change Oak Fur for the better.