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And it was a fucking mess.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “No wonder everything is going so slow.” I ran the security software. While the system check was running, I sat back in the chair, the back of my head hanging off the back. I looked up at the towering bookcase behind me, seeing old books with golden script on their spines with such titles as THE HISTORY OF LYCANTHROPY and THE MOON AND YOU: FACT AND MYTH.
I stood up to browse the shelves while the computer did what it needed to. Michelle had never said I couldn’t, and while she wasn’t necessarily here to say otherwise, it still felt like I was skirting a line.
“It’s just history,” I whispered to myself. “I’m allowed to learn.”
I was alone in the office of the Alpha of all.
What could it hurt?
With Tony’s voice whispering in my ear and the vision of a white wolf in a crumbling house, I brushed my fingers over the covers. Some, especially near the top of the shelf just out of reach, were covered in a thin layer of dust, as if they hadn’t been taken from the shelf in years. I could see which books had been taken down, given there was no dust in front of them, but they were all rules and regulations, ancient laws that governed the wolf world.
In other words, all crap.
Except.
There were two volumes near the top right corner, shoved between larger books. One looked very old, the words on the spine once gold but now faded. The other, the thinner of the two, had no title on its spine.
“What’s this?” I asked no one in particular.
I glanced back down at the computer.
Only halfway done.
The house was empty.
Outside, I could hear wolves talking to each other.
Rain was coming. It’d be here within the hour. I could smell it.
Against my better judgment, I pushed the chair against the bookshelf. I climbed on top of it. It wobbled but held.
The thick layer of dust on the top shelf caused my nose to itch. Whatever these books were, they hadn’t been moved in a long time. I pulled them both out, the older book on the top. My skin started buzzing at the faded gold pawprint embossed on the cover.
The pages were stiff, almost like cardboard. The words on the first few were illegible, the handwritten notes having faded with time. I made out a couple of dates in the top right-hand corners. If it was real, the book I held was over four hundred years old.
I stopped when I came to a page that held a drawing.
A beast.
A monster.
A wolf, but one unlike any I’d ever seen before. It stood upright on two legs, the muscles thick in its calves and thighs. Its arms were long and ended in misshapen paws almost like hands, with hooks for claws.
Words were written underneath, some more legible than others: lost and broken and tether and mate and pack.
“An Omega?” I mumbled, brow furrowing.
I could make out one more word, and it chilled me to the bone.
Sacrifice.
I looked away from the beast to the margins of the page. Written in much newer ink, in different handwriting, were more words.
Is this what he could become? Should we have killed him when we had the chance? I don’t know. They assure me he’s trapped forever.
And what of the other? He’s more than what I thought. He’s an Alpha. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But if this is true, if the beast can rise, then an equal and opposite must also rise.
