The Alpha's Beautiful Thorn

My father Emilio Thorn was a monster in sheep's clothing.

I learned the truth about my parents at the age of nine. It was another night where they made love with ferocious grunts and moans.

They, being my father and his mistress.

I didn't know my father was unfaithful, until I saw my mother bound off the balcony, shifting into her wolf with a grieving howl. I realized then, that my mother and father had not been intimate for a long time. He chose to have a lover over my precious and wonderful mother.

I did not understand why he would do such a thing to his own wife and beloved Luna. They did have their fair share of fighting and arguments, but I always thought that was normal. Until one year, my mother started sporting bruises and scars out of nowhere.

The same day, my father came to my room to announce that his mistress was pregnant. He held my hands and said the words so proudly.

"You will be having a brother soon!"

I confronted my father then. I ripped my hands from his grasp. The almighty Alpha Thorn stared at me, daring to look as if it pained him.

I looked at him in the eyes when I spoke.

"Stop it. Stop hurting your Luna. She doesn't deserve this! Aren't you supposed to be mates?" I asked.

"You wouldn't understand, little Vi," He tsk-tsked.

"But I do. Mates are supposed to love each other forever! Mates are supposed to be there for each other," I exclaimed.

"That's enough!" My father roared.

"I will not have you disrespect the future mother of my children." He shouted.

"If you stop disrespecting the current mother of your child, I'll listen to you." I said coldly, crossing my arms.

He slapped me then, his palm landing across my cheek. He confirmed his easily worked up anger.

I clutched my stinging cheek, tears filling my eyes.

"What happened to you?" I asked, feeling betrayed.

He never raised a hand against me and my mother before this. Before this mistress came into the picture.

My father refused to say anything else, keeping everything hidden inside. He left my room and from that day our relationship shattered, like pieces of glass being broken up into millions of irreversible pieces.

She-who-must-not-be-named gave birth to my half-brother Amos not long after.

Then the secret could not be hidden anymore, and the identity of my father's lover came out. My father's mistress was a vampire, and the daughter of one of the strongest families in the vampire realm.

My mother's wolf could not handle the fact that her mate had chosen to reject her and birth a pup with another person, let alone a vampire. Vampires were our enemies, and yet some kind of sick truce had formed between the Thorn pack and the vampires. But nobody reported this, and nobody breathed a word because my father's lover disguised herself as a normal wolf.

My poor mother went insane, stopped speaking coherently. She would claw and spew nonsense at anyone who tried to talk to her. When my father ordered for my mother to be imprisoned and chained, that enraged me.

"You didn't allow her to break free, you didn't reject the bond but kept her at arm's length. You forced her to watch as you fucked and knocked up our enemy! And now you're chaining my mother up?" I shouted.

I struggled against the warrior wolves, my dad's protectors. They held me back from hurting my father and he punished me with lashes. It took me a long time to recover from my wounds. I promised to myself I would never forgive my father.

Since my brother's birth and my mother's imprisonment, I had to act like everything was fine. But I stewed with poisonous thoughts and how I myself could save my mother and be free from this pack. It would be near to impossible. Once wolves broke from packs and became rogues, they were literally anyone's game. But I tried to make a plan nevertheless.

I wanted to hate my half-vampire brother, but he was so adorable from the moment he and I made eye contact even when he was a baby. I just wanted to protect him all the time. The first time he cried, my heart thumped so loud, and I tried to console him. The only reminder that stabbed me every time was that my brother's eyes were slightly red in color around the irises. Being half werewolf and half vampire, we weren't sure whether he would have his first shift or not, or if he would inherit vampire powers.

The other reminder to me of the cruel situation was Amos' mother herself, who treated him like he was a prince and yet did not care for him like a real mother. She only doted on him in his good, well-behaved times and got "tired" when he was acting out and moody.

On my eighteenth birthday and when my brother Amos was eight, vampires came onto our territory and attacked our pack.

It was chaos.

I grabbed my brother and started running back inside the alpha pack house. My intention was to leave with him in the secret tunnel leading out of the pack territory. I chose to look back to check if anyone was looking.

Everyone except for one vampire focused on fighting each other and shedding blood everywhere. This one vampire, with lightning speed, came towards us. Just as he was about to reach us, I heard a whisper behind me, so soft I almost didn't hear it. It was the first time I'd heard my mother speak in two years.

"Live. Avenge me."

With a blur, she landed on top of the vampire, one last shift for her. She probably had been so weak before in chains. How my mother broke from her chains and sacrificed her life to save me and my brother, I did not know. But she fought so bravely even though the years of malnourishment and mistreatment showed on her pale face and emaciated body. The next moment, she and the vampire were in intense combat. She was fighting to save lives, knowing the result.

I wept, knowing I could not be selfish to stay behind and fight for my mother. I had to do what she said. I shifted, carrying my brother far away to protect him.

I had to live. I had to avenge her.