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I stood up slowly. “Or what? You’d force me?”
Just as in a typical Varg Anwyn Pack, orders from an Ibridowyn above your station could not be disobeyed, especially a formal command from an Alpha. You either submitted right away or suffered, your strength seeping away from you until you did. As my Alpha, if Nolan gave me an official order, I would have to go.
No, no, no, no…
My mind was spinning. I wouldn’t go back. He couldn’t make me.
“Of course not.” His cheekbones hollowed as he clenched his jaw. “I only use that when absolutely necessary, and with great caution. This is far from one of those moments.”
I let out a deep breath, my quivering insides stabilizing a bit. At least he wouldn’t do that. At least he wouldn’t take away my control over myself. Unlike…
“Good,” I said, pulling my shoulders back to try and take a stronger stance.
“What I’m asking of you is tradition, not torture.” He shook his head, his dark hair swishing across his forehead. “So why are you acting like what I’m asking would ruin you?”
“Because it would!” I said, my voice piercing. I wished I hadn’t answered—it was only three words, but they elicited so much more than I wanted him to know.
“What does that even mean?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t know how much more I could take before I crumbled, but I would push myself to the edge before I backed down on this.
“Then give me one good reason why you can’t make it tonight. If you give me just one, I’ll back off.” His hands braced on the desk, towering over me, eyes flaring a bright amber before returning to their usual dark green hue.
I was angering him, his wolf seeping out because of it, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t.
There were important reasons why I didn’t go to the camp anymore, why I avoided it as if I would catch on fire the moment I crossed the threshold. The moment everything changed for me was at my last campout, just under a year ago. The incident where every piece of me had been broken and shattered. Where I’d felt everything slip away, forced from my grip. I wasn’t ready to go back and face that moment again.
Yet, even if I was, there was something far more shameful that I was hiding from Nolan. Something that I had barely been able to admit to the rest of the Hierarchy.
I hadn’t been able to shift into my wolf form since that incident.
That part of myself, the other half of who I was, had disappeared. It was locked away somewhere deep inside me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to make it emerge. My strength and abilities in human form hadn’t disappeared, but I couldn’t even make my eyes flair their beautiful gold. It was like that part of me had been nothing but a dream, something that my imagination had created to amuse me.
So much had been ripped away from me on that night last year, but losing my wolf form was the worst of all. It was the other half of my soul, my essence, my life. It was my freedom, my fearlessness, and my strength. Every inch of myself was tied to that part of me; my identity couldn’t exist without it. So why,whydid it evade me?
Why did it walk away from me when I needed it most?
Maybe if I could still shift, my life would have turned out differently.
I shook away the thought, reminding myself that it was just my darkness trying to get the best of me. I had tried to argue that with my first psycho-physician, but she had put a stop to that pretty quickly. She’d told me that dwelling on what could have happened wasn’t going to bring my wolf back; the only way to gain it was to move forward and heal.
And I was trying. Damnit, I was trying so hard.
But of course, I couldn’t say any of that to Nolan. Even if I didn’t recoil at his presence, even if I was just fine with him being my Alpha, I couldn’t admit that I was unable to turn. What if he reported me to the High Faction? They could demote me even further, or worse, force me to retire and go through the Removal. What then? I would be nothing but a shell of who I once was, of everything I had created for myself.I had fallen far, but I refused to fall that far.
“My reasons are my own,” was all I could say. It was pathetic and I loathed myself for it, but I had no other words. It was either give into the protection of acting immature, admit details about myself to Nolan that terrified me, or face the campout.
I’d rather he see me as an immature and defiant Beta than let him know the truth of my brokenness. Of the terrible options in front of me, I had to choose the one that was trying to protect me. So I stood my ground.
“You know what, fine.” He threw his hands in the air, backing up a few steps. “If you want to act like a brat, go for it. I guess now I’m starting to see the true reason why you were passed over for Alpha.”
I snarled, my teeth bared, but I had no words to retaliate with. I wanted nothing more than for him to take back those words, even though every bit of my heart and soul knew there was truth in them. This new me, this person that had been forced into existence a year ago, wasn’t an Alpha. I barely had any control of myself, and my wolf had abandoned me. That wasn’t a leader, that was a failure.
I was no Alpha.
And that was a truth that was impossible to accept, but Nolan finally calling me out for it meant I was no longer able to ignore what was fact.
He growled right back at me, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then…hopefully in a better mood.”
