Keon had read the letter twice, three times, five, vaguely remembering Weston, Beta to the only Alpha Keon had ever known. Questions assaulted his brain.
What had Simeon been thinking?
What had happened to his father?
Weston had prayed to the Mother—Vihaan’s version of the Dnaran Mother Earth, considered a Goddess and used similarly to the Dnaran ‘God’. Which meant he had been desperate when he wrote to Keon.
Simeon had always been an ignorant, violent bastard, but he should feel his loss. On Vihaan soil—his true home—Keon felt nothing. Nothing but anger he’d died in a fight, leading war to their land, hurting their father and breaking his heart.
Making Keon Alpha. To a pack where he had never been welcome. Something he could never have imagined.
When he’d contemplated returning home, he’d known his family’s elevated position in the social order of the pack, but they stood nowhere near the Alpha. Respected but not wealthy, beloved for the great deeds of their ancestors yet unremarkable.
As he packed, he knew his purpose. To use this position of power for the same purpose he’d hoped to use his anonymity. To return to Vihaan and save his people. To open their eyes to their backward treatment of the weak, disabled, LGBT. Anyone considered ‘other’.
He had a pack to run. People to lead. A brother to mourn. A father to heal.
Keon took a deep breath and let it out. Rylee and Drew had spent the last year opening a house for domestic abuse victims, proficiently and with purpose. Wounded, lost Vihaan’s arrived at their fraternity, seeking shelter. Gay, bi, trans, and nonbinary; a host of Vihaan’s, banished for one reason or another, had opened his eyes to what Drew and Rylee had achieved.
This was his chance. Vihaan needed a sanctuary to accept people and not hunt or force them into exile. If no one in Vihaan would do it—because those who needed the change had been banished or left willingly—Keon would need to step up to be their voice, their strength, their protector.
It started with taking a step. One more. Another.
Keon walked with purpose into the village his pack had claimed generations ago. The doorway stood on their land, tucked into the caves at the end of their territory. Anyone from Dnara would sneer at their village, the buildings quaint and cosy, like those of the pioneers or prospectors of human history. The luxury of Dnara didn’t exist, beyond imported goods that made life easier. Here, wealth and power came from family, friendship, loyalty, and status.
Natural springs provided clean water for drinking, bathing, and washing. All collected by the river running the perimeter of their village, welled and filtered through engineering, two streams trailing through the forest. Electricity was provided by water-powered generators, for cooking, minimal lighting, and utilities. Food was limited to imports, hunts, and farming, as little grew in the arid heat of their home, but Keon had seen farms flourish in Dnara from less.
As he entered the village proper, passing familiar faces, a prickle of unease tickled Keon’s spine. No smiles. No waves. No one calling in greeting. Hooded eyes of suspicion and fear lurked in every corner. A young boy playing in the centre of the village froze, eyes wide, and ran at the mere flicker of Keon’s smile.
He stopped, blood frozen like ice. Standing by the well marking the centre of the village, Keon eyed the people he’d known most of his life. A woman stood by the side of her home, washing clothes in a wooden bucket. A man chopped wood by the tree-line, casting suspicious glances. Two teenagers leaned against the corner of a house, eyeing Keon with contempt.
Having grown up unseen and unremarkable, Keon shivered at the unfamiliar open hostility. He knew these people. Had played with their children, been taught by them, been raised by some through the Vihaan concept of ‘it takes a village’.
The change was overwhelming. Unsettling.
Was this Simeon’s mark? The product of a village treated like shit by a man who trampled people under foot and forced others to his will? What happened to the happy, smiling people he’d left?
The raised platform to his right remained; the place the Alpha would stand to address his pack. A perimeter wall provided a resting place, leading to a half-dozen stairs on either side. The pole in the centre of the podium, where Alpha Grier’s crest normally flew, had been replaced by a tattered pirate flag. No doubt one of Simeon’s awful jokes.
Yes. His mark made a mockery of this place Keon had once called home.
“Alpha?”
The tentative voice made Keon look to his left, wondering who filled the temporary role of Alpha. Instead of finding a strong, strapping man, he found a tall, lanky guy his age, waving wildly as he side-stepped a ball two children kicked across the main thoroughfare between houses.
“Alpha!” the man repeated, taking Keon’s hand to pump it furiously. “Alpha Keon, it’s a relief to see you.”
He blinked once, twice, and recalled the letter. “Beta Weston?” he asked, shocked to realise this was the same Beta whom Grier had taken on at the tender age of sixteen. An old soul in a young body, Weston had served the pack faithfully. He must be twenty-five already.
“Yes.” He beamed to be recognised, joy quivering as he glanced at the faces watching them. “Alpha, I’m afraid I have news.” He briefly nibbled his lower lip, drawing to his full height and clasping Keon’s hand with the air of Beta-professionalism. “I regret to inform you…your father passed away, three hours ago.”
Keon’s knees wobbled, and his mouth dried in an instant. He took a step, tugging his hand from Weston’s, refusing to believe these lies. The Beta held on with strength and resilience, holding his gaze as pieces of Keon’s mind fractured at the very concept of his father no longer being in the world…in Vihaan…in his life.
“I’m devastated for your loss, Alpha. I’m sorry. His heart could not bear the burden of his grief any longer.”
The world spun and the last Keon knew, he was on his knees, screaming until his lungs ached.
Chapter One
