Claimed by Her Alpha

Chapter 1

“I’ll scream,” Marnie said in a threatening whisper. “You know I will.”

Saki stopped and stared at her sister. She didn’t know want to do. Turning, she looked over at Maddie, who lay sprawled across her bed.

“She’s asleep,” Marnie stated before changing her tone. “What are you? And is that why you keep disappearing?”

Saki turned to Marnie, speechless. She had never given her sister much credit, but she deserved it now. The two times she had gone missing had been during the full moons when she changed. Marnie was piecing things together, and Saki wasn’t sure that she could stop it. Saki backed off and reentered her bedroom.

With Dax‘s offer and Lane‘s quick retreat still running through her mind, Saki didn’t feel like crawling into bed. Standing in her cramped quarters with her eyes locked on the mattress, she didn’t hear Marnie enter her bedroom behind her.

“Saki, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Saki turned toward her sister, wondering why she had followed her. Wasn’t she afraid of her now? Wasn’t this just another reason for them not to get along? It could’ve been, but everything about the way her sister looked at her told her it wasn’t.

Saki peered into her sister’s scared eyes and realized that if she was ever going to explain everything she had done, it would be here and now. Retreating to the living room, she looked back, giving Marnie permission to follow. 

“I promise that I won’t tell anybody,” Marnie said, asking permission to join her on the couch. “Are you what he is?”

The question made Saki‘s chest hurt. Was she what Dax was?

“No. I’m something different,” she said, looking up into her sister’s pudgy young face and inviting her to sit.

Marnie sat and thought before asking her next question. “What are you?”

Saki felt the weight of the world as she came up with an answer. “I am… a Lycan,” she said out loud for the first time.

She had admitted it to herself, but she had never let the word escape from her mouth. “Lycan.” It didn’t sound like the name of a monster. But words could be deceiving.

Marnie‘s eyes drifted toward the ceiling as she searched her memory. “Is that like a werewolf?”

“We’re called Lycan,” she said, with as much indignation as she could muster.

“How is that different from a werewolf?”

Saki didn’t answer because she didn’t know. Maybe there was no difference. Maybe one sounded like a killer, and the other one didn’t. “It’s different,” she said, with no other explanation.

“And him?”

She considered the question for a moment. What was Dax? Was he a killer? Something about him was dangerous. If he had the chance, wouldn’t he have killed Lane and his pack on the island during her first change?

“He’s an alpha. He can shift anytime he wants.”

“And you can’t?”

“Only when it’s a full moon.”

Marnie‘s body relaxed as she considered what her sister had said. Her eyes darted around in thought. Saki watched her as her sister came to a conclusion and looked back up at her.

“Can I be one, too?”

Saki sat, stunned. The question was unfathomable. Why would anyone want to be this? Her anger at her sister grew before she considered her childish ignorance.

“You would never want to be this. No one would ever want to be this. Why would you even ask me that?”

“You’re a Lycan. Haven’t people stopped picking on you?”

Saki looked at her sister, surprise arching her eyebrows. Was she being picked on? By whom? Where? When was this happening? She had never given much consideration to her sister before. Saki was older, but both twins outweighed her by 50 pounds. She was always the victim of their abuse. She had never considered that the same might be happening to them.

“When you became a Lycan, did people stop making fun of you?”

Saki looked away in thought. Marnie was onto something. Once she had become a wolf, no one bothered her again, not her mother, not Torque, not anyone. She hadn’t considered this fact before. The wolf had made her strong, and now her sister wanted to become strong, too.

“You don’t want this. You don’t want to be out of control like this. You don’t get to have a choice about things when you’re what I am. You just have to do what people tell you.”

“But if you can turn into that, why would you have to?”

“Because there’s always someone who’s stronger.”

Both girls sat in the dark in silence. Marnie stared at her sister while Saki further considered Marnie‘s question. Why did she have to do what other people told her? She was now stronger than she had ever been in her life. Why wasn’t she strong enough to get what she wanted? Could she get what she wanted? And, what did she want?

The silence stretched out as Saki ran through scenarios in her mind. What were her options? What did she actually want? Did she want to be on the island when she changed? Yes, she did. But who did she want to be there with? It was the answer to that question that finally broke the silence.

“I need your help,” Saki said with humility.

Without a word, Marnie perked up.

“Can you?”

Marnie asked, “What do you want me to do?”

Saki stumbled on her words. “I don’t know yet. But will you help me?”

Marnie nodded her head in agreement. It was the first time in many years that Saki felt affection toward her sister. She wished it could always be like this between them. For the first time in a long time, Saki didn’t feel alone.

Chapter 2

Monday was Saki‘s first day at school since her breakdown in math class. Her week off after being caged had done her good. And Dax‘s offer helped.

Yet, as she worked her way through the throng of kids, it again felt like her first day. No one made eye contact with her. Even Tiffany, who had once tried to befriend her, wouldn’t look at her. Perhaps the breakdown was too much. Saki couldn’t really blame the kids; she would have reacted the same way. What type of kid has an emotional breakdown in the middle class? Saki had to admit it was weird.

Saki delayed entering her homeroom. As the bell rang, she stepped in. She took a quick scan of the room and saw all of its usual occupants. Dax’s crew were all seated together as if they needed each other to breathe, and Lane‘s pack was again surrounding his desk.

Though she stared at him for a while, Lane did not look up at her. Taking a deep breath, she found her seat in the front row and stared blankly at the chalkboard.

As she stared forward, she noticed an unusual feeling. For some reason, school had a simplicity to it again. When she was back in North Carolina, everything about school was easy, except the social part.
Classes, homework, and tests were the easiest thing in the world to her.
All she had to do was show up, pay attention, and do what she was told, and she got A’s. For the first time in months, school seemed that simple again.

Throughout her morning classes, she realized she had missed stuff during her month-long mental absence. For the most part, she could keep up because she has covered most of the material at her old school.  

However, she had forgotten some of the material or never known it at all. She couldn’t remember if they had covered today’s chemical reaction in her chemistry class. And though they had done pig anatomy in North Carolina, it didn’t seem to fully translate to the frog they were dissecting in biology class.

It all came to a head during math class. Mr. Adderley was the math teacher, and something about him just wasn’t right. Saki didn’t think that he was a wolf or anything; he was just a bad teacher.

Mr. Adderley had this way of humiliating his students if they didn’t know the work. Often, he would randomly call on someone to answer a question on the board. Unless the student said he didn’t know, Mr. Adderley would make him stand there staring at the equation for minutes on end.

Luckily, Saki hadn’t been subject to his torture. Whenever she was called upon, she did know the answer from what she’d learned at her old school. But what they covered today felt unfamiliar. Though usually Saki would openly drift off during class, today she tried to pay attention when Mr. Adderley called on her.

They were going over the math problems assigned as homework. She could have said she hadn’t gotten the assignment, which was true. But in her heart, she was sure that she would know it. If she was could just look at it a moment, it would all come back to her.

Saki stood in front of the board, clutching a stick of chalk. She recognized the equation. It was a sine/cosine problem. As the moment stretched out into two and then three, she experienced what the other students had for the first time. She was trapped at the board with everyone staring at her and no way to escape.

Before long, her mind drifted off. How had she gotten herself into this situation? She was a werewolf caught between two packs. She had been in love with one boy and had betrayed him for another. She was a leaf floating on a pond, going wherever the current took her. Was this who she wanted to be? Was this the only person she could be?

No, she decided. None of this was her. She had always known why she wasn’t popular—she was different. Did she have to be different? No, she didn’t. She could have chosen to fit in, but she hadn’t. She had always chosen to be her own girl. In the last few years, it had paid off. She had friends and was popular in her own way. Now, here she was drifting like a leaf on a pond. This wasn’t her.

Saki placed the chalk on the board as if she were going to write. She didn’t. But she knew she was about to come up with her answer.

I want Lane and the island
, she decided.
And I’m going to do whatever is necessary to have them both.
Saki wrote an answer on the board, returned the chalk to the tray, and sat back down behind her desk.

“That is correct,” Mr. Adderley said. “Does everyone see how she got that?” he continued, as Saki again drifted off.

The rest of Saki‘s classes passed by in a haze. She was making plans. She didn’t know how she was going to do everything, but that would come. First, she needed her accomplices, and her first one was sitting in the front seat as her mother silently drove them home.

Saki watched for an opportunity to pull Marnie aside. As always, the twins sat watching television while pretending to do homework. Saki sat on an adjacent couch with a romance book open in front of her. When Maddie finally got up to make food, Saki got Marnie‘s attention and signaled for her to follow her.

Saki retreated to her room and waited. In a minute, Marnie joined her, pulling the door closed as she entered.

“Do you still wanna help me?” Saki asked from a seated position at the head of her bed.

“Yeah,” Marnie replied excitedly. “What do I do?”

“I want you to deliver a message to someone.”

“Who? Is it that shifter?” She asked, with building excitement.

“No. And stay away from him. He’s dangerous. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah. So who do you want me to deliver it to?”

“Lane.”

Saki pulled out a notebook and flipped to the back page. Grabbing a pen, she wrote:

Dear Lane,

I am so sorry for what you saw. I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking straight. I can’t be caged again. But I love you. And I will never stop loving you. If you forgive me, I have a plan that will give us everything we want. We can be together, and we can have the island. But I need your forgiveness and your help.

Saki looked up from her letter. She wondered if she should mention Dax. She then wondered what would happen if he got hold of the letter. She read it again.

Saki looked up into Marnie‘s cherubic face. She looked so pleased. Saki knew that she couldn’t put her sister into danger. If Dax saw her and read this, no one in her family would be safe.

“No. You know what? I don’t want anything written down. I want you to go to the humane society, ask for Lane. Don’t give the message to anyone else. I want you to tell him I’m sorry, and that I would like to see him. Tell him it’s important. Can you remember that?”

“Go to the humane society, ask for Lane, no one else, tell him that you’re sorry and that you need to talk to him, because it’s important.”

“Yes.” Saki‘s eyes drifted upwards in thought before she spoke again. “I am going to walk to the Fish Fry. I want you to wait 15 minutes and then leave. And if you see Dax…”

“The alpha, right?”

“Yeah. If you see him or anything that looks like a wolf, I want you to just walk away. Forget everything I told you and just walk away. Anywhere else. Just don’t go to the humane society. You understand?”

Marnie bubbled with excitement. “I understand.”

“I won’t be back until later tonight. But you can’t tell anyone else what you’re doing.”

“I know.”

Saki slid out of bed, looking for her shoes, while Marnie stood watching her. Saki could feel her sister’s eyes on her, examining every movement she made. Saki was sure that Marnie was looking for the differences between who she was and the wolf she had become.

Saki left the house and immediately wondered who was watching her. She had to believe that someone was. Dax could be anywhere. With so many trees and bushes around them, she knew that he could follow her and never have to step out in the sunlight.

As Saki turned the corner, she could feel the animal shelter on her right-hand side. She dared not turn, though. Any slight interest she showed in Lane could ruin everything. Instead, she set her sights on where she had to go and didn’t waiver.

The Fish Fry was as busy as it always was. All of the outdoor seating for the restaurants were full. Each of the tables had bottles of Kalik beer.

Once there, Saki didn’t know what to do with herself. All she needed to do was be seen. As long as she stayed in the open, she was set.

Saki walked down to where she had first met Dax. Sitting on the edge of the pier, she began to wonder how different her life would be because of that one decision she made. She had only gone out that night to get back at her mother for hitting her. Her desire for vengeance led to her first meeting Dax. Sure, she would have met Dax in school eventually. But the blood she had on her face mad their meeting inevitable.

As a wolf, Saki‘s sense of smell had increased tenfold. She had never imagined that the world was rich with so many scents. Everyone had a scent. They weren’t necessarily bad, but they weren’t all good, either. Blood, she had found, was the richest scent of all. Everything that seeped through a person’s pores was magnified in his blood. Saki still didn’t understand why the boys were so drawn to her scent, but the scent of her blood had made her attraction inescapable.

Saki continued to stare at the horizon as darkness fell. The large field lights were already on, as the ocean slowly turned a midnight blue. Just as a familiar scent entered her consciousness, she turned around to an unexpected site.

Dax‘s pack, the boys from her homeroom, were all standing in front of her. Saki scrambled to her feet and stared back at them. The tall thin boy with the turned-up nose spoke.

“Dax says that you’re now a part of our pack.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“I’m Gully.” He turned and pointed to the boys behind him, all of whom she recognized from their homeroom. “That’s Patrick, Mark, and Frank.”

“Hi,” Saki acknowledged to a few weak “hellos” in reply.

Saki wasn’t sure if they knew who she was before today, but she certainly knew them. These wolves had tried to kill her and Lane‘s pack. Patrick had blondish brown hair and was the quietest; he was also the best looking. Mark was the obnoxious one with a thick Bahamian accent, awkward body, and a mullet. Frank was the small one with the deep tan.

“You want to hang with us?”

Saki looked at them again. She didn’t want to hang with them, but it was the best way to gain Dax’s trust. She knew that they would report everything she did back to him, and with Marnie delivering the message, hanging with them would be a great alibi.

“Sure,” she said, stepping toward the group.

With Saki and Gully leading them toward the bars, Gully began asking questions.

“So, where you from?”

“Here,” Saki replied.

“I thought you went to school in the states?”

“I did. In North Carolina.”

Gully smiled. “How is that? I bet that was really weird.”

“In the beginning, I guess. But you get used to it.”

“Did you miss here?”

“Sometimes,” Saki answered honestly. “But I didn’t always like it here, either.”

“Which elementary school did you go to?”

“Kingsway. What about you?”

“Lyford Cay Primary.”

Saki had never met anyone who had gone to that school before. Lyford Cay was the expensive part of the island, where all of the famous and rich people lived when they bought a house in the Bahamas.

“Why did you change to SAC?” Saki asked about the school they both now attended.

“Because my parents didn’t want me attending St. Andrew’s. They thought I would get a better education at SAC.”

“When you started going to SAC, did you think it was weird?” Saki asked devilishly.

Gully looked at her with a smirk. “Yeah, a little at first, I guess. But you get used to it.”

They both looked at each other, then burst out laughing. That moment broke the ice between them.

Saki was surprised to learn that Gully wasn’t such a bad guy after all. They had all tried to kill her and Lane, but maybe they weren’t the monsters that she had believed them to be.

“Listen, it’s getting late. My mom said she’d kill me if I stay out long.”

“That’s cool. Do you want a ride back home?”

Saki looked at Gully, trying to determine his true intent. Staring into his eyes, all she found was a willingness to drop her at home.

“No, that’s okay. I just live up there,” she said pointing up the hill toward her home.

“Okay, that’s cool. Then we’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you at school.”

The other boys just waved as Saki broke away from the pack. Stepping into the darkness, she felt surprised by her interaction with Dax‘s crew. They weren’t what she was expecting. At least Gully wasn’t. She didn’t get a very clear impression of the others.

As she thought about it, she got the same impression of Gully that she had gotten of Dax when they had first met. Dax didn’t come across to her has this stuck-up hot guy. He had depth and dimensions. Dax was a full person.

Although this was just her first impression, it felt like Gully was a full person, as well. Saki found it hard to immediately dislike Gully. Even more so than Dax, Gully had a vulnerability that seemed to invite her in. Her impression of him wasn’t enough for Saki to abandon her plan, but it did make her pause.