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“You came back. You didn’t have to, but you came back for us, knowing exactly what you were risking. You risked your life for us. I couldn’t help you or Mom, but I can show him whose side I will always take. I want him to have that constant reminder when he looks at me, that I would risk everything for my new Alpha,” Luke tells me.
I swallow and meet my mother’s eyes.
“Do it,” she tells me.
I sigh as she helps him remove his shirt.
She kneels in front of him, gripping his arms. “Are you ready?”
Luke nods, and my mother nods to me. Lining the small branding tool on his shoulder blade, I press it against his skin and count to five before I remove it. Luke doesn’t utter a single word, no pained noises, and I know that is for my and our mother’s benefit. One day he will make a good Alpha. Until then, I will show him what it means to be one.
Chapter
Sixty-Nine
Later that night
After the celebration and dinner, I settle the boys back in their cribs. Tucking the blankets tight over them, I turn to see my mother waiting by the door. She inclines her head to the side, wanting me to follow her. Leaving my room, I follow her downstairs and through the giant living room.
The front screen door creaks as she opens it, and we step outside into the cool, fresh air. Sondra is sitting in her rocking chair, and we take our seats beside her on the other two. It is peaceful out here. The sky always seems clearer. It is tranquil, and I can see why Sondra favors her rocking chair. The view is spectacular, and you can see the city lights from the front veranda.
Forest lines one side of the property with rolling hills. The city is to the right and barely a stone’s throw away. If only Axton knew how close I truly was. Sondra’s property is nearly at the border of his pack lands. The other side of the ranch is all open land for as far as I can see.
“I may have done something,” my mother tells me, making me tear my gaze away from the city.
My mother chews her lip and sits back in her chair, watching me. Her lips tug up in the corners.
“You know, when I married your father and allowed him to mark me, I didn’t think much of it. What I was losing, what I was gaining.”
Michelle opens the door, coming out with a tray with mugs. She sets the tray down and hands me one. I find it is hot chocolate. She smiles and moves to sit on the top step with her mug.
“The Bardots owned the city, and we founded it. Amongst our pack elders, it was no secret that the pack was run by the Lunas, not the Alphas,” my mother continues.
“I don’t understand,” I admit, not knowing much of our family tree, not on my mother’s side, anyway. That has always remained a mystery. Same as my father’s. He’s always said never to dwell on a past we can’t change.
“Like you, I was next in line to become Alpha. Yet my father ensured I would always be Alpha behind the scenes; he named your father his successor. Just like you, I trained all my life for a position that would never be mine. My mother raised me as the next Alpha. Just like me, she was also denied her birthright,” she tells me, and I shift in my seat, keen to hear a little of her history.
“When the pack originated, it was by my great-grandmother. Much like you did here with these women, she banded with rogues and built her own pack. She couldn’t handle her mate’s cheating, so she rejected him, and he kicked her out. He also took her daughter, so she built an army, a pack made out of rogue women. Women who were also wronged by their mates. Together, she took down his pack, and he fled like the coward he was, and she got her daughter. However, the councils refused to let her name remain on the pack’s title. So she was forced to take her mate back, and he took her pack out from under her. He changed her pack name, which was originally Arctic Moonlight Warriors; he then stole her title as Alpha.
“My father always believed my great-grandmother cursed us because every firstborn of each generation has been female white wolves, arctic wolves. It was the only trait we got to keep. Every firstborn generation has been female and white wolves, until now. You are not only the first official female Alpha in my bloodline, but the first to give birth to boys.” My mother sighs and sips her hot chocolate before tracing her finger around the rim of the mug.
“Each generation was denied their birthright. Our pack has had many names, but never its rightful one. My father promised my mother he would hand the pack back to me. He let me believe I would be next in line, promised my mother. And then your father marked me, swept the rug out from under my feet when the announcement was made. It wasn’t my name called to take his place, but Derrick’s.” She exhales loudly.
“Your father watched me write out my speech, even helped me with it. Let me stand by the podium while waiting for my father to name me the next Alpha. I was going to be the first ever female Alpha in history. We were supposed to change history, rewrite the stereotypes. I even picked out my Beta. You know her daughter,” my mother tells me with a smile, and my brows furrow. “Gia, Tieriny’s mother, was to be named my Beta.”
Her words make me think back to what Tieriny said in the kitchen the night Axton held the dinner. How she said my mother would have made a great Alpha. Now I understand what she meant. Not even I knew my mother’s family history. But now so much makes sense.
“Gia and I were so excited. I was to be the first female Alpha, and she would be the first female Beta. Then, my father called yours forward. He was just like the rest of them. That day, I watched all hope of the change my mother was promised leave. He didn’t just betray me but her.” My mother shakes her head.
“The speech your father helped me write was never for me, but for him. He knew all along, and that cut me up the most. It was humiliating, and I felt foolish. Once again, he changed the name of the pack. It’s why in our ancestry, our pack looks brand new, each generation the pack is renamed, pushing us further from our roots, our history, the history of Arctic Moonlight Warriors.”
My stomach sinks for her, knowing all too well that feeling of betrayal. Yet mine isn’t public like that, not in front of the pack at the naming ceremony. Hearing so many generations betrayed by their fathers and mates saddens me.
Mom wipes a stray tear and sniffles before looking at me. “Once I realized your father was doing the same with you, I started to plan. And then, when he kicked you out, that was my tipping point. History would not repeat itself. I did not watch you slave away for a position you wouldn’t get. Not again. So I decided to rewrite history myself. Restore it into its rightful hands,” she tells me, a coy smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“After seeing the devastation on my mother’s face the day your father was named, I promised myself I would not let history repeat itself. So before I rejected your father, I changed the titles, Elena,” my mother tells me.
I’m taken aback by her words when she sits up, pulling out some documents under the cushion of the chair. She passes them to me. Glancing down, I open the envelope; I pull the documents out.
