Rejection on the Alpha #1
03

CHAPTER 3: Black Death

He slammed his head against the metal again.

BANG!

He broke through the metal with a slice that ran down his snout and metallic blood fiddled into scented air. I widened my stance as he breathed heavily. He swished his tail and leaned down low as he growled aggressively, barring his teeth at me. He lengthened his claws. My lips curled, and the skin along my snout wrinkled as I measured his growl with one of my own and took a swipe at him, essentially telling him to ‘back the hell off.’

Martin was a beast the size of a bear, with lycanthrope features running through him. It’s why he was bigger in every way. He licked his chops, staring at me with predator’s eyes when he broke the surface of the platform with razor-sharp claws, ones that could rip into full-grown pine trees by the mere size. So, the rumours about this Alpha being a descendent of some distant lycanthrope race had substantial evidence behind the claim.

The pure definition of a lycanthrope was that they were larger than any normal werewolf, larger than any Alpha for that matter, but that their particular taste under the moon goddess was to rebel against her in ways where they were once royals able to walk in realms where she could not.

She was a spirit, like a metaphorical ancient being that lived more than just in the form of a woman in a white silk dress with a halo on her head and her habitat being the moon, her powers revolving around it and the creatures of the night. Lycanthropes were rare, unusual, they don’t follow the rules of our race the same way we do.

I spun in my form, having managed to outmanoeuvre him out of the front hole he’d created when he threw himself through the metal to place his claim on my transformation. I heard his battle cry behind me. I felt the claws he stabbed through the snow as he dashed after me.

The reverberated sound of a thud against my skull was my heartbeat. It pounded against me like nuclear bombs in a warzone. I pumped every muscle to its limits, my paws against the snow.

I leaped over a large pile of it, thrown sideways by a heavy pile of large momentum. I howled at his suddenness when our skin connects and the pain in my abdomen increased, screaming for something I wasn’t ready for as he slides us against an icy lake.

I snapped my wolf head up, lounging knife-like claws at his snout that had just recently healed. I threw him off me when he dug his paw into my stomach and tried stuffing his wolf head in the same direction. We rolled aggressively along the frozen lake. I bent my ears back and clamped my jaw down, my teeth sunk into the fur and skin of his front leg.

I savoured in the howling roar that left his lips. I kicked him with my back legs as I ripped into the muscle of his upper thigh. His growl was deafening as I watched him slide further down towards a rock. Down a large field of trees where lit-up torches are located.

I watched the large, midnight sky Alpha male roar and roll to a crunching stop. I slowly lifted myself up on my hind legs. The ice-cold conditions numbing pain in my lower limbs as I stared down at a struggling Alpha that kept trying to get back up to me, growling when he continued to slide down.

I gave his wolf a flat look and snorted.

He heard it too and froze before he flew through the air. In a powerful leap that had me dashing quickly towards the heavier part of the tree line, a place in which he should struggle to get through, yet his shadow flows through the trees to get to me. I panted heavily the further I ran. I dashed towards a dark tunnel. Hearing his demeaning roar behind me was a warning not to go in, but I did anyway.

I ran faster than the wind through a matter of instincts when I felt the claws of his own paws in the wet soil. I pumped my legs faster, my black fur probably distinctive in this tunnel. He felt like he was only a breath behind me when I leaped over and heard his excruciating howl behind me. I tumbled through the air. I watched him scrap the edges of where I leaped as he howled and growled louder, lifting his large midnight-furred head to the dark sky. My heart raced. My blood thinned.

My body flew through a dark mist of a white haze. The snow clung to me. I landed with a deep slap against the polluted black water, illuminated and thick against my fur, yet all it brought me was a strange sense of strength as I paddled through the crashing waves towards a snow bend. I straightened my muscles, feeling my black fur tense with a mind of its own, so I gripped the roots of the floor and lifted myself up.

A roar that shook the ground underneath my paws entered the atmosphere, and I watched in turmoil, lifting my head as a furry shadow leaps off the cliffs. He landed with a larger smack against the water. My tendons felt like they were freezing over when I watched its midnight-furred head leap out from the water in the same position I had just moments ago.

The bastard followed me down.

I dashed through the darker set of trees. Even as I felt my paws slow, the coating of the snow on me ruffled around me at the strange sensation in the air. It was bitter and thick, heavy with a darkness I could not describe. A bristle echoed through the air. I heard whispers through the wind, dark ones, speaking of the color of red, the smell of red.

I watched its sleek black, slug-like leg move out from a branch.

My heart beat faster as my hackles bent back. I directed my form into attack mode when the creature moved its haunted eyes and bald black branch-like head out. Its razor teeth were a bloodied silver, dripping with tar, black coal covered its belly, and fear gripped at me like a knife to the neck.

The dark werewolf shadow that had been following me leaped over me with a darker roar, not a warning, but a killer growl that meant death. The creature crunched away, slowly back into the branches of the trees. I turned around quickly; the second the Alpha snapped his pissed-off silver eyes and pitched black pupils to me, I ran straight back towards the water.

A stabbing pain shot through my back paw. I whined when it crumbled against my underbelly, and I squeezed my eyes shut when the pain worsened to the point where I struggled to breathe. A large furry form slammed its two front paws in the snow next to mine. Its underbelly slides over my lower back, forcing me to lower to the snow.

I growled, hoping he won’t attempt to mate with me. He thankfully doesn’t as he dropped all his weight on me. I howled in pain when he does. He curled his wolf paws under mine and shielded me from seeing everything, he curled his bushy tail around us both.

The first wet and rough muscular tongue ran under my ear and I stiffened in shock when he began grooming me. I slapped him with the same ear he licked with his tongue. He growled lowly, yet softer than before, as he sniffed under my chin and licked a strip down there too. I curled my claws into the back of his paws. He made no sound as he groomed me. I bit at him in annoyance. He did the same to me, only harsher as his muscles branched out wider. His fur was longer than mine, messier on the underbelly. Even as he licked my forehead, I attempted to knock his muzzle away with mine. He licked my nose.

I sneezed.

He froze before his chest rumbled in a case of laughter. I dumped my head on my paws as his chest continued to rumble against my back.

I stared out to the water as he treated me like a mother hen would her baby and continued rubbing his scent all over me, his hackles were on high alert for intruders. I closed my eyes slowly, calming my breathing from the eerily long run. He didn’t stop, even when I’m close to drifting off. Normally, a female’s heat is as painful as giving birth, but it’s different in the snow. I bathed in the chance to lessen the fire burning in my lower limbs.

Martin decided that instead of mating during a forced heat, he groomed me, and made damn certain I was connected to all of him, especially in this form. As if it would lessen my pain and calm his own beast down to the point where he began purring loudly above me. He licked my fur with a strange sound, deeper than most males, strip after strip.

He curled his wolf head against mine, yapping once; it sounded like a small growl of approval, a rumble resonated from his underbelly as he licked the tiny whiskers along my snout. I knocked his head away, rumbling my own annoyance as he met my eyes in the dark storms of his. His emotions thundered in his eyes.

We’d stayed in that position for six hours until he started growling his head off when tree branches began snapping and the whispers began touching our skin. He nudged me roughly towards the water and shoved my half-asleep form in.

I gurgled before I paddled to the surface with a growled huff, turning to figure out what he was bloody well doing, when he dived into the water and slammed his head in the direction of the other bank. I followed him with aching muscles and a heavy head. He aided in lifting me onto the frozen grass.

I slumped and slouched in my form, shaking out my soaking wet fur. He did the same, only with a larger splashing vantage point, where most of it drops onto me. I slammed my form into his, pissed off that he woke me. He growled lowly yet didn’t make a move to attack me. I lifted up and shoved him onto his back, using an adrenaline rush to snap at him as dominance radiates from my pores.

He does something that shocked me.

He shifted in front of me.

Muscles of the wolf form rippled into his pale skin as the fur drowned away and enfolded, leaving his skin bare to my eyes. I removed my eyes from his naked form in irritation, surprised he shifted instead of showing dominance in retaliation, even though I knew he had that one topped on me.

“Shift, now.” He said to me harshly.

I flicked my tail at him.

He growled, “Now, Celeste.”

I walked towards the trees as he stood barefoot in the snow. He stomped toward me and hurriedly wrapped a burly arm around my neck, throwing my wolf-form to the wet floor in his human skin.

“Do it, Celeste.” I reached behind and stared up, trying to snap my jaw at him because flailing my claws wasn’t working. I didn’t want to shift, even if my life depended on it.

I growled lowly when he pressed against a certain point against my neck, and I screamed. I howled in my wolf form as I writhed underneath him, my pale skin shimmered from my pitch-black fur.

My rustic honey-blonde curls flowed down as I remained beside his position above me. I squeezed my eyes shut when another shot of pain snaked up my spine, and my abdomen clenched as I gasped at the freezing cold air.

I covered myself as much as possible while his hand flattened under my head. He picked up my frame and nuzzled his forehead into my temple, “I didn’t mean...what I said before. I’m sorry.” He whispered against me, still sitting in the snow with me against his chest. I wasn’t certain what he meant. I didn’t care much either as I covered my breasts with my forearms and tried to curl in a more detailed position, my teeth chattering against the wind.

He lifted me higher as he stood, “Celeste?” He murmured against my skin.

I reached forward and pressed my breasts to my knees. He doesn’t touch where he isn’t supposed to as he hunches his shoulders around me and waits before the sound of a roaring truck enters the atmosphere.

The lights hit my face as I shivered more. A long brown cape is placed in front of me. Martin aided in sliding it around my shoulders. I wrapped it tighter around my form as he moved us towards the back of the truck, where it’s open. I glanced towards the driver’s seat, where Beta Robert got in with Gamma Dorian in the passenger seat.

Martin merely closed the back of the truck, and sat on a pair of cushions. He slid my barely-covered form up his legs and held the side of my head. His ice-cold thumb skims my equally ice-cold cheekbone, and he heats, changing his temperature as the car moves. I stared through the open window, I saw those creatures linger and sniff the snow where both mine and Martin’s wolf forms had sat.

I kept the cape securely, covering my entire form. It looked to be daytime, even though the rustling storm darkened the atmosphere as the garage doors closed and the car doors unlocked. Martin allowed me to step off the car on my own, even remaining in his exposed form as he stared down at me with an indecipherable expression.

I sensed a longing in his aura.

The look made me want to hurl.

I tried focusing more on the bounding Beta Reina, who gave me a wide-eyed look, “Goodness me, Alpha. What the bleeding hell has Martin done to you?” She breathed out, stepping toward me.

Those creatures in the forest plagued my thoughts dangerously as Reina guided me toward the steps. The cape-like gown around me was large enough to drag along the floorboards. I didn’t speak. Even when she kept asking me questions, “Celestine, we heard you’d jumped off the forbidden mountains; what on earth were you thinking, child?” She asks me, fluttering around me as Robert stands next to Martin, now wearing a pair of trousers, watching Reina and me with raised eyebrows. Like he’s surprised by her open worry. I wondered when her façade would end and when the mask would rip off just so we could all face reality together.

Considering I was the only realistic one in this forsaken group?

“I haven’t seen her act like this before,” Robert whispered. Talking about Reina.

Martin sighed, “I was acting the same in my wolf-form. I made the jump too, and once I’d found her...I ended up grooming her.” He whispered, thinking I couldn’t hear it. Robert paused and looked at him with wide eyes. Martin nodded once, still staring at me.

“Celestine?” Reina said, cupping my cheek. I moved away from her hand and out of her embrace. She paused in slight shock, but quickly masked it as she grabbed my arm, still with the cloak wrapped around me.

“You must be cleaned up and ready for breakfast.” She said to me, void of all emotion.

I ripped my arm away, “I don’t eat breakfast.” I snapped at her, my throat hoarse, but I tried to remain strong. I wanted to rest—not that I’d care to admit it.

She snarled, “You need to get cleaned up. You’ve been out in the snow for too long. Your heat is much weaker than most females. I’m not even sure why that is, since you’re a Luna, the heat should be far stronger, far more demanding too. When you and Martin mate, he’ll have to be quick for when you’re at most fertile.” She said to me.

I gave her an incredulous look, “I’m eighteen.” I growled at her.

She raised an eyebrow, “I had my son at seventeen. Like most of the females here have done. I’m severely surprised Martin didn’t consummate your binding.” She said to me.

My eyes widened, “I’d bite off his tail if he even thought about doing that!” I snapped at her before glancing to the side where Martin and Robert stood, watching our interaction.

Martin blinked.

Robert smirked.

Reina gaped.