"Alright." Kyle smiled at me. "We're alone, we're comfortable, and I am in a position to cuddle you if you need me to. Now, you can tell me everything."
"Are you really sure you want to know all of this about me?" I was giving him a chance to back out. I really hoped that he would take it. Even though I knew he needed to hear it, that didn't mean that I wanted to say it at all.
"Yeah, I'm sure." He nodded and smiled at me, urging me to start talking. "I'm all ears babe."
"Really? You look pretty normal for someone made completely of ears." It was a weak joke but it was my reflexive sarcasm that I used as both offense and defense. He just raised an eyebrow at me with a look that said he wasn't going to let me get out of this. "Damn tough crowd."
"I am just determined to keep you on track, sweetheart. I need to know this stuff, and who knows it might help you if you tell it to me."
"I doubt that." I sighed again.
I shook out my arms and shoulders, doing what I could to settle my body so that I could get more comfortable and relax the tension in my body. The movement caused me to settle against Kyle's chest just a little more. When I was fully in position he wrapped his arms around me again and held me tight. Finally, it was time for me to begin my story.
"I guess to make you fully understand I need to go back pretty far. You see, my dad was an Alpha as well, but he wasn't a born Alpha. My pack hadn't had a born Alpha in a long time. There were plenty of men who ascended to the Alpha rank because of their strength and diplomacy. My father was born a Beta, but he became an Alpha at a relatively young age. He was determined to be the strongest and when the former Alpha stepped down he named my father as his successor."
"That sounds typical. If a family has an Alpha line then the role usually passes down to their children, but if they don't then the strongest is named the next Alpha. That is how my pack was as well. I was named the Alpha because I too was born an Alpha."
"Then you know the pressure that puts on a kid when they're found out."
"Yeah, I do. It's a lifetime of training and preparing."
"Mmhmm." I nodded my head in agreement with him.
It seemed Kyle understood my situation more than I thought he would. That was good. We had that in common at least.
"Well, I assure you it's harder for a female Alpha. You know that our people are highly misogynistic. Which by the way I find completely stupid and of course sexist. How the hell can a society that worships a goddess, a woman, be so against women leading a pack?"
"A lot of men think that a woman is not strong enough to lead. They think that women are not as strong as them. They, obviously, have never met you." He grinned at me and made it clear that he didn't think that way at all.
"Yeah, well, daughter of the previous Alpha or not, there were several people in my pack that showed opposition to me becoming the next Alpha. My cousin Victor was one of them. He was one of those strong men that ascended into the rank of an Alpha. However, just being strong enough to be an Alpha doesn't mean that you get the position. The only way for him to run the pack was to marry me or kill me and my father."
"You're not serious?" Kyle looked disgusted when heard what Victor had schemed for so long.
"My only saving grace during those times was that he wasn't a cousin by blood. His family married into mine and that made him non biologically related to me. Still, it was enough to cause me to have nightmares as a teenager. Victor is a few years older than me so he thought he was going to be able to manipulate things to his advantage."
I took a breath to settle my thoughts and nerves again then continued. I noticed that Kyle was staring at me intently, listening and taking in all the information I was providing him.
"My father never trusted Victor. Not when he was a conniving little brat. He didn't trust him when he became a teenager that liked to start fights and watch people weaker than him suffer. And he definitely didn't trust him when he became an adult and thought he was the best of the best."
"What did Victor try to do?" Kyle had guessed that Victor was a pivotal part of my story. I knew he was a smart man, so that was good.
"When he couldn't get enough of the pack to turn against my father and support him he took matters into his own hands. It was a week after my eighteenth birthday and my parents were heading home from a dinner in town. Victor always spent a lot of time in the garage at the estate because he still lived there with family. Victor was a self proclaimed car enthusiast but that doesn't mean that he knew what he was doing. Still, no one said anything about him being there that day so no one but me suspected that it was him that tampered with the brakes on my parents car."
"So he killed them?"
"Yes. Our pack house was away from town, hidden away in the mountains. Victor tampered with the breaks so that they went out completely when my parents were driving home. I was never able to get anyone to believe that he was the one who killed them. No one wanted to think that he was capable of doing that even though they all knew he was a horrible person."
"So, how is it that he became the Alpha instead of you?"