Claimed by the Wrong Alphas
Chapter 41: The real mission...

Chapter 41: The real mission...

Kael

I knelt on the cold, cracked tiles of the warehouse floor, hands resting on my thighs, my breathing steady despite the storm churning inside me. The door opened and then slammed shut as the sound of hurrying footsteps approached me.

I didn’t look up; I didn’t need to.

Without warning, a heavy slap landed across my cheek. My head tilted with the force of the hit, my skin stinging, and my ears ringing.

The man standing over me, holding up his phone with his eyes red with fury, was my Master. No one knew his real name; we all called him Master.

He had given me a life when no one else wanted me.

I didn’t know my parents; I had no recollection except for fragments of a dream about my childhood. However, at 7, I was moving from one pack to another, fighting in rings for the entertainment of Alphas and high-ranking werewolves.

I barely ate, I was beaten and stripped naked several times, the only thing that saved me and kept me alive until I met my Master was my natural ability to fight.

My wolf was unique. It wasn’t an Alpha or a Beta or even a Gamma wolf, the strongest wolves in our world. No one knew what it was, but whatever it was, I was born with a fighting flair.

I could single-handedly take down five Alpha wolves charging at me at the same time; that was how I survived until one day, wearied from days of fighting with little or no food, I was defeated in the ring and by default, that would have meant death for me.

I lay on the sand, my vision filled with blood as I stared at the smirks on the faces of the Alphas around, sipping their golden drink in glasses and staring at me in satisfaction. I felt myself weakening, until keeping my eyes open became a struggle.

No one told me, but I knew something was wrong. I’d fought a mere Gamma wolf and felt dizzy at some point. Before I could recover from that dizziness, the Gamma wolf had floored me.

I tried to cry out, to complain that something was wrong, but the words wouldn’t form. I didn’t want to die. Not yet!

I had no purpose of living, true. I had no parents, no pack affiliation to my name, but I loved life, and I loved fighting.

The cage opened, and I knew the executioner was coming to kill me. Desperately, my eyes hovered through the crowd, searching for a saviour, until they met the eyes of a man standing at the far edge of the hall, staring intently at me.

I didn’t know if I had called out to him for help, but by the time I woke up, I was lying on the softest bed I’d ever seen, in a beautiful room with fans and clean drinking water.

For 33 days, my Master nurtured me with the help of a healer who came three times a day to force a bitter liquid down my throat. By the 35th day, I sat up in bed by myself, waiting for the healer to come.

When he and my Master entered, they were surprised to see me sitting up. Later, my Master would tell me I’d been poisoned with wolfsbane mixed with pure silver, a wolf’s bane that could have led to instant death, but I’d held out for 35 days.

That was the last time we talked about that part of my life. My Master taught me many things, including how to fight properly, with reasoning, of course, and not with the fight-to-survive tactics I’d learned.

Like me, he didn’t come from any pack. His mother had been a lowly Omega who had a one-night stand with an Alpha and had abandoned him. So, he collected boys like him — boys like me.

He travelled all over the places, to fighting rings, illegal auction sites and to prisons setting boys like me free. He was the only father I knew and respected.

Our source of livelihood was simple: We kill without question.

Our clients come to us, provide us with the name and picture of their target, and we handle the task in the simplest way possible, without leaving any traces back to them. It fetched us large sums of money, and I loved the thrill.

Until one morning, Alpha Henry Winters from Silvermere Pack arrived at our settlement with tears in his eyes—I’ve never seen an Alpha cry. Barely able to say the words. When he finally got the words out, he told us his son, whom he spoke with three nights ago, had supposedly gone missing.

He wanted vengeance on Ravenshore, and he said it wasn’t just him that lots of Alphas had a similar fate, that he didn’t understand what that meant until it happened to him. The school refused and stopped them from carrying out an investigation. So, there was literally no hope for his son, even if he was alive somewhere.

The job was different from what we were used to, but I’d agreed to take the job even before my Master could decide.

Alpha Winters had once clothed and fed me. One time, when we were travelling to the west and got stuck, he invited us into his pack, clothed and fed us for three days. That was the only time someone had ever been kind to us, and like my Master would always teach us, pay back your dues.

So, we took the job, and that’s how I became Kael Winters, the second son of Alpha Henry Winters of the Silvermere Pack.

And oh, before then, I had no name. Our Master just called me boy.

~~~

"What the fuck is this?" Master snarled. "Is this why you’re in Ravenshore? To kiss boys?"

I remained silent.

Master grabbed me by the collar and shook me violently. "Answer me, damn it! Do you have any idea what this video is doing to our operation? Why aren’t you talking? Fucking talk to me..."

Before it could escalate any further, two men—the Master’s messengers came forward. They pulled my agitated Master from me, restraining him from hitting me again as they dragged him to one corner of the warehouse.

He shrugged them off moments later, breathless, with his chest heaving as he raised his hands in surrender.

"I’m calm," he gritted out. "I’m calm, let me go."

The messengers let him go, and he walked back to me, trying to maintain his composure. "Stand up."

I rose to my feet, maintaining a blank expression despite the stinging in my cheek.

"Explain yourself," Master demanded. "Alpha Winters has been freaking out since he saw this video. You’re supposed to be investigating his son’s disappearance, not making out with other students."