I'm An Alpha's Daughter

I'm An Alpha's Daughter
GINGER

My heart was thudding in my chest as I hid in the hall bathroom of the East Wing. It was right next door to the dining room, the first door on the right before you met the open archway. At first I’d been ecstatic that there hadn’t been anyone in the hall to spy me creeping around and had settled in close to an abnormally bushy palm, but when footsteps echoed somewhere nearby me clearly heading this way, I’d ducked into the restroom and locked the door.

“Chicken shit!” I cursed myself. “What the fuck are you hiding for?”

It was my chance to force Lincoln to show his hand once and for all. My chance to see if everything he’d been telling me held any truth to it. I needed to march out of the bathroom and into the dining room to confront Lincoln. To make him answer for his lies in front of that Timberwolf bitch.

In front of Zelda.

Besides, all I was doing in the bathroom was wasting time. I could hear that everyone was arguing, I could tell that Giselle was crying, but try as I might, I could not decipher anyone’s words. The walls were much too thick.

Damn it!

This was a stupid idea!

Maybe I should just head back upstairs and wait for him.

I could confront him then.

See if he still lied to me.

And if he did? I could leave.

No. I would leave.

With a sigh of disappointment for my failed mission, I carefully unlocked the door and stepped past the threshold. The hall was mostly dark, only lit by a few dim sconces along the wall, and with no one else in sight I’d be able to make it back to my room pretty easily.

Scooting along the wall, I stepped carefully away from the open archway, but that was when I heard Lincoln’s voice and I froze.

“How long have you known?” he asked somebody.

“Wh-What?” Someone replied. Someone with a particularly familiar voice. A voice I was just realizing I hadn’t really heard much of in a long time. Alpha Mario’s voice. “Known…known what?”

Lincoln’s reply was cold and deadly, causing gooseflesh to erupt all about my arms and my scalp to tingle with awareness. “That Ginger was not your daughter. How. Long. Have. You. Known?”

What the hell?

What are they talking about in there?

Alpha Mario’s voice was chillier than I’d ever heard it. “Are you accusing me of something, son? Because if you are, just come right out and say it.”

Zelda’s voice sounded next. Exasperated. Worried. “He’s known as long as I have, Lincoln! Three years. As long as any of us has known.”

Lincoln snorted. “Then you’re idiots. Because I have always known. How it wasn’t obvious to the both of you is beyond me.”

“Ginger…” a deep voice cooed. The same voice that I’d met just tonight outside the front entrance. “I met her tonight. She claimed to be an Omega, although it was obvious to me that she was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Zelda chuckled darkly. “How in the hell do you figure she was wrong?”

“Good Goddess, mother,” Lincoln snapped. “Haven’t you been keeping up? Ginger is the daughter of the former Alpha and Luna of the Thunder Wolf Pack. Giselle lied when she said she was mistreated. That she was raised by Omegas. She lied and you’ve been punishing Ginger for it for the last three years.”

“That’s impossible!” Zelda snapped.

“Punishing Ginger?” Alpha Rafael hissed, his voice dangerously cold. “Punishing her how?”

Zelda’s voice sounded soft and contrite, “It hardly matters now, does it?”

Lincoln’s laugh cracked the air, mingling with Rafael’s next words, “Of course it does. What the devil was she punished for? What were her crimes?”

“She’s insolent! And rude! Extremely disobedient and-”

“No. She is not,” Lincoln said flatly. “And even if she were, those are hardly crimes that befit the punishments you and your daughter carried out in my absence. You beat her regularly. Fed her wolfsbane to keep her in pain. To keep her weak. The very same girl you once protected with your whole heart and I would like to know why mother? Why was she suddenly s undeserving of your love? Or is it that you haven’t any? Not for her and not for me.”

“Of course I love you! You are my son. Sh-she-I-I thought she was an Omega!” Zelda half shouted.

“As if that is reason enough to turn a heart as cold as yours has been,” Lincoln snarled.

“Excuse me!” A feminine voice shouted and I knew without a doubt that it was the Timberwolf Alpha’s daughter. “This is supposed to be a betrothal dinner.”

Rage burned in me and I rose to my full height, wanting nothing more than to step inside of the dining room and make myself known, but what Rafael said next stopped me.

“If all of this is true,” he said. “And I believe that it is. That means that this…Ginger…is my long lost niece, a ward of the Thunder Wolf Pack. My ward. My responsibility. So tell me…why in the fuck was she kept here after Giselle was returned to you? Why was she not sent home the very moment it was discovered that she did not belong to you? Just because you thought her an Omega? Because if that is the case, I assure you madame, that it is not good enough.”

“I kept her here,” came Lincoln’s flat reply. “The Thunder Wolf Pack had no Alpha, it wouldn’t have been safe for her there. I had no reason to send her home.”

“It was not safe for her here!” Rafael snarled accusingly. “And in accordance with Pack Law she is still my ward until she bears the mark of her mate and as I saw no mark upon her flesh when we met, I will be taking her home.” 

Blood rushed through every part of me, drowning out Lincoln’s next words. Alpha Rafael’s too.

Home?

I have a home? 

I hit my knees, the air having been somehow robbed from me as my head began to spin and my chest grew tighter and tighter.

Tears clouded my vision, pouring down onto the tile floor until I felt them surround my fingers. I didn't even feel it when I was suddenly lifted from the ground and cradled against someone’s chest. Didn’t even know who was holding me as they charged up the stairs of the packhouse until he whispered in my ear.

“Breathe Red,” Ghost commanded me softly. “Just breathe. Nice and slow. In and out. Inhale…exhale. That’s it. There you go.”

I peered up at him as he stepped onto the third floor landing and said weakly, “I’m an Alpha’s daughter.”

He sighed, “I know, Red, I know.”