"Shouldn't we wait for Lucas?"
"Oh, no, he's cooking still. He can hear us though so don't worry about him." Janet crossed her legs. She had her eyes focused solely on mine but while I was half watching her, I noticed Fletcher glaring at the ground, fidgeting with his fingers. Dillan was slouched, arms crossed. "Where do we start?"
"The beginning." I jumped. Glancing at Aurelia, she mimicked Janet's position, crossing her legs. "What you are, the pack, so on." Fletcher's eyes briefly flicked up to Aurelia and with keen interest I watched as she turned away, Fletcher's gaze lingering a second longer until he looked down again.
Janet's clap drew me back to her. "We're shifters. Technically, we *are* werewolves but shifters is such a nicer word." I smiled at her. She paused to think, continuing a second later. "Every shifter has a special bond-"
"She knows this bit," Dillan interrupted. Janet turned to him.
"How much?"
"Start with the pack structure, she doesn't know that." Once again, everyone turned to Aurelia. I wondered how she knew what I had been told but I assumed it was part of her being a witch.
Janet sighed. "Well, just like a normal hierarchy, we have two leaders. They are the Alphas and they are trusted to take care of the pack, putting the interests of others before themselves, producing heirs to replace them, so on. In a pack, there are several families. The Alphas would lead them with a Beta pair alongside them and every other shifter slots into place."
"Several families? How are the pairs decided? Who's the Alpha?"
Dillan cleared his throat. "Do you remember Sophie and Steve or Mark?"
My eyebrows dipped. "No. Should I?"
"You met them once, last year." Dillan looked away and I instantly turned to Fletcher, since he was good at filling in the information Dillan was hiding.
Sensing my eyes, he looked up and said, "They're a part of the pack. Dillan was hiding them-"
"I wasn't hiding them."
"-Because he didn't want you to befriend any of them and find out that we're shifters."
I thanked him by nodding and he returned to his slumped position, staring down. Internally, there was a growing anger aimed at Dillan because, faintly, I remembered Sophie, an enthusiastic woman who greeted me with hugs and talked to me all evening until she left. The next day, I couldn't find her number in my phone and Dillan claimed he didn't remember her. Deliberately, I turned back to Janet.
"The pairs are mates. You are born into the roles. Imagine you were born into the role of a Beta. If you found your mate and they were in a rank below you, they would join you as a Beta. Similarly, if you were mated to an Alpha then you would move up." It sounded simple enough and I waited for Janet to continue but she didn't. Curious, I asked again.
"Who are the Alpha pair?"
"It was Lucas and I." At her words, I tensed. Aurelia's fingernails curled into my skin but it became a dull pain against the dread clogging my throat. Clinging to my last shred of hope, I stared at Dillan, praying he would tell me that it wasn't who I thought. "The position is passed down to the eldest."
I recoiled, leaping from my seat. As I moved, Aurelia moved with me. She positioned herself directly in front of me, pushing against my arms.
"Let me go," I hissed. "Let me go, now."
"Anya-"
"Shut up!" Aurelia shouted. Dillan didn't speak again and she focused on me. "Sit down, Anya. You can storm off and continue ignoring us after Janet's explained everything. Okay?"
أنت تقرأ
Brother's Betrayal
المستذئب"It wasn't that he could have been, that he was, a beast; it was that he didn't tell me. He would've let us marry, have kids and a future, without telling me, so I left. And here I am." * Anya's life was proof that living can only be perfect when th...
