Page 8 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

brYN

Two days had passed since Gregor’s death, but I was no closer to finding a solution to the Troy problem.

I stood in front of the mirror in my room, smoothing down the skirt of my dress for the Alpha’s funeral.

In the reflection, I saw the wildflowers on my dresser casting long shadows across the room—dusk was quickly approaching.

Everyone in the Kings’ pack would begin gathering at the eastern portion of the compound in a few minutes. Mom and I would be among them soon.

“Mom,” I called. “Are you sure I have to go to this? Won’t I…attract attention?”

“It’s a pack thing, sweetie,” Mom called back. “It would be stranger if you didn’t show up.”

“Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure no one wants me there.”

“Bryn, honey, it’s not about whether or not they want you there. This is pack business, and you’re part of the pack. Gregor, for better or worse, was just as much your Alpha as anyone else’s. You must pay your respects to his memory, even if it’s brief.”

I sighed. “Okay…” Though I had never felt truly part of the Kings’ pack, I’d grown up on its territory.

Gregor hadn’t given a damn about me, but he’d kept the territory safe from humans, Wargs, and anything else that wanted to cause harm to his pack.

I knew well that he would have forced me out if not for Mom, whose agricultural skills were unmatched by anyone else in the pack, but I supposed it would be disrespectful not to say my goodbyes.

I met my stone-blue gaze in the mirror and again ran my hands down my skirt.

The dress was one of my mom’s nicer hand-me-downs, something she called the “little black dress” of her youth.

Though I was reluctant to attend the funeral, I had to admit that the half-sleeve sheath dress showed off the curves of my bust and hips nicely.

My hair, curled after a night in rollers, fell to the middle of my back in perfect, bouncy ringlets.

I’d borrowed Mom’s worn-down pencil liner and had drawn a thin, black line around my eyes the way that she showed me when I was young.

The slight change helped make my eyes pop against the pale, smooth skin of my face.

I spent many long hours in the garden outside, but I’d never been able to keep much of a tan.

In the summer, I normally darkened for a few days, but it always faded away by the time winter hit.

Pale as the snowcapped mountains, I smirked at myself. I wonder if that mystery man in my dreams would like me much if he could see me outside of the dream. Of course, he probably wasn’t real, so I’d never know how he felt about me.

I pushed my hair over my shoulder and bent to pick up my shoes, a pair of black ballet flats that were so worn down I’d have to be careful if I wanted them to stay on my feet.

I frowned at them for a while, and then inspiration struck.

I removed the black laces from my work shoes and looped them under my soles.

I crisscrossed them over my calves and tied them off at the back.

I studied my feet in the mirror. Heels would have been better—they would’ve added flattering height to my five feet four inches—but all we had access to were outdated, old-fashioned clothes. My outfits were limited to what the rest of the pack no longer wanted or had outgrown.

The Kings’ pack loved to look as fashionable and as wealthy as possible.

Wolves who went to human towns for supplies often brought back clothing and home goods for the pack.

As the hierarchy went, the wolves who were close to the Redwolf family had first pick of the new clothes.

After the Redwolfs’ inner circle, the younger wolves who sought to attract mates were given preference.

Then came the families of the compound, the ones who had already settled down.

Finally, Mom and I were so far down the pecking order that we were never given the opportunity to pick from the new goods.

Because the Kings’ pack went through apparel so quickly, there was an abundance of wasted fabric.

Sometimes that fabric would be recycled into the pack as blankets or home textiles, but the bulk of the fabric was dispersed among other packs in the area, beginning with those most in the Kings’ pack’s good graces.

The Wargs, of course, were never given any of the Kings’ resources.

My solution to the issue of the worn-out flats was a little spur of the moment, but I’d make do. And maybe I was biased, but I kind of liked the way the black laces looked against the pale skin of my legs. I wondered if I’d ever be able to find someone who made me feel confident and desirable.

That question caused me to think about the green-eyed stranger again. Lately, whenever I had a quiet moment to myself, he returned to my thoughts. The only place I felt safe and warm, other than with my mom, was when I was with him, in my dreams. I wished desperately that he were real.

Mom’s head popped through my open door as I pulled on my jacket. “Are you ready?”

I jumped. “Y-yeah! Are you?”

Mom grinned and stepped further inside. “What do you think?”

My eyes widened. Mom looked twenty years younger in her own black dress.

It was a warmer day, so she wore nothing on her feet, as was the custom of shifters when the ground wasn’t wet.

Her silver hair was wrapped into a chic chignon bun at the nape of her neck, with a few tendrils hanging at the sides, brushing gently across her shoulders.

“Oh, wow, Mom! You look like a stone-cold fox.”

She burst into laughter, and I joined in. It felt good to laugh so hard, to feel the happiness bubbling up from my stomach and spreading like warmth around my heart.

“A fox, huh?” she asked, carefully wiping a tear from the corner of her eye so as not to smudge her eye makeup. “Oh, my dear heart, there used to be one of those in my life, but he has been gone a long, long time.”

I sobered. My mom had once had a lover, but she lost him.

The reminder upset me more than I’d have thought.

I watched her twirl one of the free tendrils around her finger to put more of a curl in it.

I loved her fiercely, and it didn’t matter that we didn’t share a drop of blood.

I had always admired Mom for her protectiveness and her bravery.

When she had taken me in, not a soul in the pack supported her—though Gregor, who hated humans the most, didn’t seem to care as long as she kept me out of his way.

That said, I was never formally accepted into the pack. This meant that I was condemned to being an outsider, and Mom, who used to exist higher up in the pack hierarchy because of her gardening skills and knowledge of the mystic, was brought down to my level.

Mom had to make do with much less now, but she insisted that she didn’t care what her former friends or the larger community said. “You were mine,” she had said to me, “I knew the moment I saw you.”

That story always made me tear up. I wished I were the kind of woman who could stand up to those who ridiculed me.

I wished I could rise above the bullying and the bullshit that Troy and his lackeys put me through.

But I was weak. Female wolves had few rights and very little power in the pack already, and I had even less.

A woman like Mom deserved every good thing that life had to offer, not ostracization and second-hand goods. For all the respect and kindness that Mom showed the others in the pack and for how hard she worked to grow delicious crops for the community, shouldn’t she enjoy an easier life?

Looking at her, I felt the deep bond we shared travel like a root down my spine and spread like vines through my veins.

Something inside me stirred. The feeling was strange, causing me to step back from Mom and put my hand on my chest. There was something else, something like a whine in the back of my mind. Was there a wolf somewhere nearby?

Mom noticed my stiff expression in the mirror. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just have some jitters, I guess.” I forced a chuckle.

But the tug I’d felt in my chest was nothing like the nervousness that spiked in my gut when Trish or Troy were nearby.

I had never felt anything like that. What’s more, Mom was the only shifter in the house. Where had that whine come from?

I tried to shake it off and looped my arm through Mom’s. “Let’s get going. The faster we get there, the faster we can be done with this.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile and let me tow her downstairs. “That’s one way to think about it, sweetie.”

The entire pack had gathered on the eastern corner of the territory to say goodbye to Alpha Gregor.

At our backs, the sky was ablaze with the colors of the setting sun.

The compound’s infirmary was nearby, and those who were recovering from injuries, ailments, or births were pressed against the windows, staring down at the proceedings.

In the middle of the crowd was a circle of people, and in the middle of that circle, a wood coffin lay without a lid.

Gregor’s lifeless body was inside. He’d rarely eat with the rest of the pack in the mess hall and often avoided interactions with me or Mom.

From the occasional glimpse I’d caught of him around the camp, I’d only known him to be stern and unfriendly, with a permanent scowl darkening his features.

It was surreal to see him look so peaceful.

His straight, auburn-brown hair was carefully styled around his face, and his large beard was combed and coifed.

Though he had been dead for days already, he was handsome even in his casket; the only thing marring his face was the old scar on his right cheek.

He looked like he could wake up any second, and his dark emerald eyes would survey the crowd.

The coffin was made to suit his body, but his large shoulders pressed awkwardly against the walls.