Bound

Alpha

Seline woke up to the feeling that a hand had reached into her chest and was trying to rip her stem from stern. Her hair bristled at the perception of threat as she leaped out of bed to assess the danger, and stopped in confusion.

The mind it came from held the feeling of sameness unique to the pack, so she opened her mind to soothe the torment. A frisson of electricity hit Seline like a shock wave, and then the screaming started.

Realisation dawned that the pain came from Claire's mental signature around the same time Seline exploded unbidden into her wolf.

Sounds of agony wrenched from the throat of children filled the air, breaking in through the open window and shattering the silence. She reached out mentally to find that all the upright and walking kids had escaped the trap of confined spaces. The poisonous taste of threat drove them to the streets in terror.

She shifted back into her human and tore naked down the hall in a panic, to fling open the front door and find a wolf on the doorstep tearing his way out of it's useless human corpse. That made no sense. That was Sam.

Sam was only seven years old. Seline scooped the confused wolf cub to her chest as it howled with a little 'awooo' of confusion and pain.

The scene was duplicated all the way down the street, as the shrieking cry of babies morphed into tiny howls.

Tony's normie human mate Sara was screaming so loudly she should be waking the dead. Then she burst into a bat and left the carcass of her old body to splatter on the road as she flew off into the night. Tony rored her name, torn between his mate and Alphie. Alphie the screaming child clutched to his chest. Who chose that moment to rip through the seams of the body it no longer needed, howling and yowling and splattering Tony with ichor. Tony scrabbled to keep a hold of the tiny corpse, the squirming cub slippery with blood, and the hold on his sanity as he bellowed to the sky for Sara.

A were bear wearing the remnants of a human carcass tore down the middle of the street roaring in panic. Attached to a huge back paw were the vestiges of the signature attire of a forty-five year old normie hermit who lived halfway up a nearby mountain.

Pandemonium.

"Can you imagine turning for the first time with no idea what was going on?" Seline's eyes were wide with empathy and concern at the memory. She had taken charge, making sense of the chaos and calming the frantic community of were wolves, one bat...and one terrified bear.

"Actually, I can." I took prim bite of the nirvana bread and gave her a flat look. She had the decency to blush.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you do. Anyway. I know the world is still new to you, but the earlier your first shift the more power you are perceived to have. The same if it is outside the catalyst of the full moon. It may have looked like a hell scape from a horror film, but you just seriously upgraded the pack. Again. And would have done so sooner if we had not been stubborn to the point of stupidity in trying to keep you out."

I appreciated the explanation, this was news to me. It explained the reluctance of the were community as a whole to accept me as a figure of power. I was twenty five during my first shift, and it took the influence of a powerful were, a life-or-splat situation and a full moon to release my owl for the first time.

So it would look like I had slept my way into the avian Monarchy and lucked into taking over a pack as Alpha.

Moon Goddess you have a twisted sense of humor. I sent up the prayer, but received no reply. Probably a good thing. Didn't need to add prophetess to the mix.