Claiming the Alpha: Book 1 The Driscoll Pack, page 1
Claiming the Alpha
Book 1 - The Driscoll Pack Series
Sandra Antoni
Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Other books
Prologue
Argus slammed the phone back down on its base, surprised the thing didn’t end up in a thousand pieces from the force. He was sick and tired of hearing excuses from people who should be giving him answers. He knew that they were on the brink of war, and he had expected his people to already be on high alert.
The fact that the perimeter of their pack grounds had been breached, and two wolves were dead, two of his pack, had him hanging his head in frustration and misery. Another two deaths to add to the death he’d already had to endure. He didn’t know if he could handle much more.
These were his people. His pack. They were his to protect. His father had made sure that Argus was trained and ready to take on the responsibilities as alpha when he was gone.
Argus had just never thought that he would be taking on those responsibilities so soon. He’d expected his father to have that role for a much longer time. His father should still be here with them.
He was only twenty-eight years old, and his father should have led their pack for many more years. He had been in his prime, and he had been a great alpha. The pack respected his leadership and authority. But his father was gone now, and the responsibility had fallen on him. Now it was up to him to protect his people.
Argus leaned back in his chair, taking a few moments to reflect on his life and the time he’d had with his father before picking up the phone and scheduling a meeting with the elders. They would have to be the ones who declared war, but after today’s events, he didn’t see how they would not.
They had lived for years in peace with the neighboring packs, most of who were part of the Alliance of Packs, and Argus had no idea what had started the confrontation now, but whatever it was, it had cost his father his life and now two more wolves were dead. That wasn’t something that Argus could ignore. The elders wouldn’t be able to either.
If war was what the other packs wanted, then war was what they would get. The only problem was, he had no idea which pack was responsible. The packs had lived in peace for so long, but he had no idea why things had suddenly changed or why they had attacked now. It just didn’t make any sense to him. They’d received no threats and no demands. No challenges to him as alpha.
Once a meeting with the elders was scheduled, Argus stood from the desk in his office and paced the room. He had more questions than he had answers, but he had no idea how to get the answers he needed. He had no idea where to even begin looking.
With the shifter deaths from his pack, he knew the elders would declare war, but he didn’t know on whom. He had no idea who was responsible for his father’s death or which pack was responsible for today’s attack.
He pulled out his cellphone and called his best friend and pack beta, Randolph. “Rand, the elders are meeting tonight. Can you be there?” he asked.
“Yeah, man. Of course. I heard about the attack this morning, so I figured it was coming. You think they’ll declare war?” Rand asked.
Argus dropped his head and closed his eyes. No one in his pack wanted war, but it was obvious that another pack did. It would be more loss of life, and Argus was frustrated that he didn’t even know why. He would have preferred a peaceful arbitration talk, but obviously, whoever was responsible for this didn’t.
“Yeah, I think they will. I don’t think they’ll have a choice. I just wish I knew the reason behind it. Whoever is doing this must want a war, and now they’ll have it. I just don’t see an end in sight any time soon.”
His wolf was just as agitated as he was, and Argus could feel him close to the surface. He hadn’t let him out for a few days, and Argus knew that his wolf was itching to run, especially now that he’d heard of the deaths of two of his pack.
Argus determined that after the meeting tonight, he would go for a run, and that seemed to settle his wolf. For now, he had other work that needed to get done in the office before he could leave. He would have to push all of this from his mind for a while longer and try and focus. His pack needed him in more ways than one.
After letting Rand know the time and place for the meeting, Argus sat back down behind his desk. Hitting the intercom button on the phone on his desk, he called his secretary into his office, then he turned his attention back to business.
He hoped the elders might have some ideas. How exactly did you declare war when you had no idea who it was you were even declaring war on? Two of his pack were dead from today’s attack, and several others were injured, but there had been no scent to determine which pack the wolves who had attacked were from.
It had been the same with his father when he had been killed. There had been no scent coming from the wolves, as if they had masked it somehow. There had been no trail to follow.
There was no way to tell which direction they had come from or where they had gone. Argus had never heard of something like that being possible. Wolves relied on their sense of smell for everything.
They could smell fear, anger, lust… even the changes in a she-wolf when she was pregnant. They could also smell when danger was near. It was how they had survived for so long in the human world.
For a wolf to be able to change or hide their scent, it meant blending in with the humans would be easier, but it also meant those wolves could attack and his pack had no idea who they were or where they had come from. They needed to figure out what pack the wolves were from, but without scent, it could be any of them.
When his secretary had finished taking down the message Argus had given her, he stood again and walked over to the window in his office. “Katrina, type that up and send it out to everyone. Have it posted as well so everyone has a chance to read it even if they don’t have a computer,” he told her.
Everyone who worked in the building was a shifter. The organization had been started years ago just for that purpose. It helped the shifters in his pack blend in with the humans and gave them a source of income while also funding the pack.
The shifters who worked here were all part of his pack, the Driscoll pack, and he wanted everyone to hear about the wolves’ deaths from him. There were too many employees to call a meeting and tell everyone at once, but Katrina would make sure that everyone received a copy of the message.
The families had already been notified, and Driscoll Industries would make sure the families were taken care of for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, spouses of a shifter who had died would take another mate, but it was never mandated. They would be free to choose the path of their future. Luckily, neither wolf had any children who would be raised without fathers.
By the time the day was over, Argus was still no closer to having any answers to the questions running through his mind. He made his way out of the building, luckily not running into too many people. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He just wanted to get home and get this meeting with the elders over with.
War was coming, whether they wanted it or not. A pack out there somewhere wanted his pack gone, at least, that’s what he assumed they wanted since they seemed to be attacking small groups. His father had only been gone for a few weeks, but no one had stepped forward to challenge Argus’s position as pack alpha.
It would have been their right to challenge him, and Argus had been expecting it, but no one had stepped forward yet. His father had been a great leader and a great alpha. He had loved his pack and treated them all as family.
Argus couldn’t help wondering if it was the deep respect the shifters in his pack had for his father that kept them from challenging him. He loved the pack the same as his father had before him, and he wanted them to prosper, but he wanted their survival more. He needed to protect them.
He got in his car and headed out of the parking lot, wishing he could have just let his wolf run home. He knew better. The humans would definitely find it odd to see a large wolf, easily three to four times the size of a natural wolf, running down the road of the town, but he could still wish.
The alpha house was only about a twenty minute drive from the building that was home to Driscoll Industries. It was secluded, surrounded by forest on all sides. The drive that led up to the house was almost a mile long, hidden by the trees from the main road. It had been planned that way.
The pack owned almost fifteen thousand acres that bordered a national park. That gave the pack ample room to run with no risk of anyone seeing them. Hunting wasn’t allowed in the national park, but there were signs along the border of the pack property announcing it was privately owned.
It had happened a few times over the years that someone would come onto their property, but being chased by snarling wolves was usually a good deterrent to keep them from coming back. There hadn’t been any human lives lost to wolves in decades, and as alpha, Argus intended to keep it that way.
There had been no scent of any wolves around his father’s wolf’s body when he had been found, even though it was obvious that a wolf had attacked him. His body had been left mangled, with teeth marks in his neck and claw marks along his torso.
The attack this morning had been the same way, even though there had been witnesses who had seen the wolves attack. It had definitely been shifters, and not any that Argus’s people had recognized from neighboring packs.
It was possible they were rogue wolves, and didn’t belong to any of the known packs, but they would have known if rogue wolves were around, wouldn’t they? And it still didn’t explain the lack of scent.
As he pulled up to the house, he saw Rand’s car already in the driveway. Rand had been his best friend since they were just pups, and Argus had always known that he would have him as his beta when it was his turn to become alpha. Neither of them had expected it to happen so soon, but they had both stepped up to the responsibility, just as had been expected of them.
Argus had wanted to speak with Rand before the elders showed up. Rand was responsible for pack security, so maybe he would have some more information about the attack that Argus hadn’t already been given. He could only hope. Right now, they knew nothing.
As he stepped inside the house, he could hear voices carrying to him from the other end of the hallway. The entryway was large enough for at least thirty people to be in at once, and he often met with pack members there, but the rest of the home was for his family.
He walked down the hallway and into the family room, immediately seeing his two brothers on the couch. The twins had always been a handful, and he was surprised that his poor mother wasn’t gray already because of them.
They were playing video games, which wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t so competitive. They were complete opposites of each other, except for the fact that they were identical in looks.
Both of them had the same dark hair and eyes as their father with their mother’s smile, but Barry had their father’s temperament, complete with short fuse, and Ander had their mother’s, soft spoken and compassionate.
The two of them did everything together, even though they always seemed to be at odds with each other, but that was just the way they were. They were closer than any two people Argus had seen before, but you’d never know it if you didn’t know the two of them well.
Rand was standing at the side of the room, leaning against the wall like he was holding it up. His smirk said he was amused by the twins bickering, or what seemed like bickering. Argus figured it must be the way they showed affection for each other because they were always doing it and neither seemed bothered by it.
His little sister was around somewhere. Argus had seen her car in the driveway when he had pulled in. She was the youngest of the four siblings, and she had been away at college and had just returned from her second year and was home for the summer holidays. She was probably on her phone in her room. It was hard to get her away from that thing.
Rand looked over at him when Argus entered the room, and Argus tilted his head towards the hallway on the other side of the room that would lead to his office. Rand followed him and they entered the office together.
His office had been soundproofed, and it was the one place in the house that Argus knew they could talk freely without anyone else hearing them. He sat down behind the large wooden desk and Rand sat in a chair across from him.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Argus asked him, hoping to hear some new information.
“We just didn’t see it coming, Argus,” his friend replied. “There were no scents of any wolves, and they just attacked at the perimeter when the patrol went by. It would have been a massacre if there hadn’t been so many of us there.”
“I had just gone out to check on the patrols, and I took Henry and Sasha along with me. Otherwise, we would have lost more,” Rand said, gripping the arms of the chair as he remembered what had happened earlier that morning.
“Where did they breach?” Argus asked next.
“The north side. Up by the cliffs. It’s like they knew where to hit us. They somehow knew that area was less protected. Without any scent, I guess it’s possible that they staked out the area first,” Rand replied, running his hand through his hair in frustration.
“Argus, how are we supposed to defend ourselves against a threat that we can’t see or scent coming?” he asked anxiously, but Argus didn’t have an answer for him.
They were blind, and even their wolves couldn’t help them. The only way to know an attack was coming was by scenting the enemy, but they could no longer do that. He would have to make sure that patrols were doubled until he could come up with a plan. He didn’t want to risk losing anyone else.
Chapter 1
Argus
This meeting was so frustrating. The five elders had shown up, but with a description of what had happened this morning, no one had any ideas on how to better protect the pack. We just had no idea who this enemy was or what they were even attacking us for.
This was unheard of in the shifter community. Before declaring war, there were always demands first. Whoever was doing this had to want something. They couldn’t seriously be considering just trying to pick off our pack members one at a time. That would take years.
The elders had all agreed that we were at war, but with whom? The only thing we could do was double our patrols and try and come up with some way to better guard the north side. The cliffs were dangerous, and our pups knew to stay away from there, but somehow, shifters had discovered that it was less guarded than the rest of the property.
We would all have to be on high alert. We could be under attack and never know it until it was too late. Everyone would have to be ready, prepared for an attack at any time. The whole thing left me unsettled, and I couldn’t wait for the elders to leave so I could let my wolf out to run.
I was the alpha of this pack, and it was my job to make sure my pack was safe, but how was I supposed to do that? Walking the elders to the door, I could sense their frustration as well. I told them all goodnight and shut the door behind them. Turning, I saw my mother standing at the edge of the hallway.
There was a haunted look in her eyes, and I hated seeing it. Losing my father had taken a toll on her. They hadn’t been true bonded mates, and for that I was grateful. I couldn’t imagine having lost both of them at the same time, but that’s how it was with my kind.
Finding one’s true mate was something that didn’t happen very often. When my father became alpha, it was his duty to take a mate. Several compatible mates had been brought before him, and he’d had no choice but to choose one.
It was required of the alpha to have a mate, and it had to be a shifter from a good bloodline to ensure strong alpha male children, and the elders had been the ones to choose the she-wolves who were eligible. My mother had been one of the chosen candidates.
My parents had fallen in love before I was ever born. My mother had such a caring heart, but she was a strong shifter. Her wolf could be vicious, and she had been the only one who had ever beat my father’s wolf in a race, although, I have a feeling that he let her win that one, even though he never would have admitted it.
A race was just one of the challenges that the elders had chosen to find a compatible mate for my father. Five she-wolves had been chosen, and they’d all had to prove their worthiness to be the mate of the alpha. My mother had won all the challenges.
I walked towards her and wrapped my arms around her. She hadn’t been able to hide her tears from me, and over the last few weeks since my father had died, I could hear her crying each night in her bed. It broke my heart to hear, but I would never say anything to her about it.
When I leaned back, I looked down at her. Her eyes were hollow. The vibrance and spark that she’d always had was gone, and it pained me to see her this way. However, there was also a determination that I saw there.
