Wounded [The Angel Pack 9] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove)

by Maggie Walsh

  “But Father―”

  “No ‘but,’ Xander! You will do as I say. Take the omega to your bedchamber and let her make a man of you.” He turned his attention to Elvira. “And don’t release him until he knows exactly what he is doing in bed. Even if it takes a month. He is my son after all and he will be the next Alpha of this pack. He needs to learn how to be the best at everything. Teach him well, my beauty.” His father lifted Elvira’s hand and kissed the back of it as he gave her a hungry look.

  Elvira gently pulled her hand from his father and slowly walked to stand before Xander. He stared at her as she approached, not knowing what to do. There was no way he could get out of this. Maybe if he talked to her when they were alone, she would understand and cover for him? She had been with the pack for about a year, but he never spent any real time with her. Hell, he had never even spoken to her. He didn’t know what she would say or how she would react to his pleas. He knew he didn’t like women, but he also knew that no one could ever find out that he only desired the touch of a man.

  Elvira took him by the hand and pulled him from the room, leading him to his bedchamber. As they walked, he stared at the woman, studying her features, trying to find something there that he found attractive, but there was nothing. He guessed for a woman she was attractive. She had seafoam green eyes, long white hair, and her skin was as pale as milk. Her nose was slim and pointed at the end and her lips were small and light pink. Her body was slim and she had ample breasts, but she did absolutely nothing for him.

  Maybe because he was only eighteen and she was over a hundred? Maybe the age difference made him not find her appealing? No, it couldn’t be that. In their world, age meant nothing. It was because she was a she, that’s why.

  Elvira led him into his bedchamber and began to undress him. His stomach twisted and turned with the loss of each layer of clothing. Finally, when he stood before her naked, he covered his groin with his hands. The small female began to laugh at him.

  “You’re a wolf, you pathetic little twit,” she spat the words at him with venom. “You have spent your life nude in front of the whole pack without embarrassment, so why do you hide yourself from me? Is it because this is your first time being sexual? Or maybe because it is your first time being alone with a woman? Or maybe...it is because I do not have a cock between my legs.” She said the last part with a knowing smirk.

  Xander's eyes went wide in fear that the omega knew his secret and would inform his father. He began to deny her claims, but she used her power to shut him up. His mouth was stuck shut. He stared at her in horror as she circled him, dragging one long, sharp claw against his skin. “You will not speak unless I give you permission. You will do whatever I say, when I say it. You will be my good little slave boy or I will tell your father exactly who his precious boy is, and who his boy spends his time with out behind the apple grove.” Xander’s eyes got even wider at her declaration. She knew. She had seen him with Christopher. That was their secret spot.

  “So, this is how it will be, or I tell Daddy. What is your choice?”

  Xander mumbled behind his lips, trying hard to get the words out, but he couldn’t. Elvira laughed at his dilemma and then slapped him across the face as hard as she could. His head snapped to the side and he stumbled a bit before he caught himself. Once he regained his footing, he looked to the evil woman before him. “What do you want?”

  “I have already told you. You will be my little slave. You will be my fuck toy. Do you know how revolting it is to have to be fucked by all these disgusting men day after day? Having to submit to all their foul needs? My whole life, I have had to bow down and take orders from others. I have had to submit to all who demand it. Well, I am tired of having to submit and I want to control. I want someone to submit to me for once, and you, sweet Xander, next Alpha of the pack, with a huge secret to hide, will submit to my wants and needs, or suffer greatly at my hands.”

  Xander was shocked by her words and the amount of hatred and venom within them. He thought omegas were born submissive, that they were sweet and gentle. The whole pack including his father believed her to be the perfect submissive omega, but this woman was none of that. Was this the reason the other Alpha gave her away so easily? Did he know who and what she truly was, and this was his way to defeat his father’s pack?

  But he had no choice. He had to do what she wished or suffer the consequences of his father's wrath at finding out his only son preferred men. Xander’s shoulders slumped in defeat as he dropped his chin to his chest.

  Elvira began to laugh evilly. “Good boy. Now, get down on your knees and kiss my feet. Whenever we are alone, this is how you will greet me.”

  After he was commanded to stand, that’s when his life spun into a whirlwind of pain and submission. What was today considered as BDSM, Domination/submission, became his life for the next fifteen years. Elvira was his Domme and he her slave. The things she had forced him to do and the things she had done to him were what nightmares were made of, but he did everything she demanded.

  Back then there was no safe word, but even if there was a safe word, Elvira would never allow one. She was truly evil of biblical proportions, but in all those years and all that pain and suffering, Xander never gave her the satisfaction of seeing a weakness. She did everything she could to break him, but he never gave her what she sought above all.

  On the day his father came to him to bring him before the pack and announce that he was stepping down and Xander was to be Alpha, Elvira informed him that they would be married and mated before the pack that night. It was a deal his father made with her years ago so that Xander could gain extreme powers from his omega mate and ruin the neighboring pack.

  His father instructed him to go get ready and Xander left, but he needed to talk with his father alone before the gathering. He wanted to tell him that he didn’t believe that mating Elvira was the right thing to do for the pack. He would use the excuse that if he mated her then she would not be able to lay with the other pack males again.

  He turned back to his father's office and stepped through the door to find his father on his knees before Elvira, his face buried between her legs. Elvira’s head was thrown back on her shoulders, her eyes closed and her nails gripping his father's shoulders. “Such a good slave you are,” she praised him. “Don’t worry, my pet. Once I mate your useless son, I will not leave you. You will always be my favorite slave.”

  Xander was sickened by what he was seeing. He ran from the room. He needed air. He breathed heavily, trying to get his lungs to fill, but his stomach protested. He bent forward and vomited. The vision wouldn’t leave his mind as the words echoed through his ears. Then a thought hit him. She had planned all of this. She must have used her omega powers to control his father, and she used his fear of discovery to control him. How long would she keep controlling them? Or was this all a carefully crafted plan by her former Alpha? Xander needed to find out.

  He shifted into his wolf and made his way to the neighboring pack. He hid among the trees and bushes as he observed the pack members. He spotted the Alpha going into a shack and carefully made his way around the compound, and came up behind the shack. Xander slowly slid up to a window and lifted his snout to peer inside. The alpha and his two betas were there and they were laughing.

  “Tonight’s the night. Elvira will mate the stupid cub after he becomes Alpha. Then she will lead him here to me.”

  “Once he’s here and we kill him, how will we convince the packs that he came here to challenge you and lost?”

  “My lovely Elvira has Alpha Bradley under her spell, as well as all the males. She will convince him that she was witness to it all and that the weak cub was taken down. Then we will go in and claim their lands and their pack.” The Alpha laughed.

  Xander had heard enough. He knew something was off about this whole thing since that first night with the omega on his eighteenth birthday. He needed to stop this. He needed to warn his father, but would the man even believe him? That A
lpha said his father was under a spell, and from what he had witnessed earlier, he felt it to be true. There was no way his father, the big, strong Alpha, would ever kneel before anyone, forget submit to them.

  He needed a plan. He needed to stop this. Xander ran as fast as he could back to his lands. As he approached the compound, he spotted Elvira making her way through all the men, touching and flirting with them. He could see their glazed, lust-filled eyes, and knew they, too, were under her spell and would be of no use.

  Xander slowly walked into the compound and looked amongst the pack members milling about. The men were useless, but he noticed something about the women. They all threw daggers from their eyes toward Elvira. That was it. The women. He needed the women.

  Xander cautiously strolled to a small group of women who were doing laundry in the creek as they whispered to each other and kept looking over their shoulders in Elvira’s direction. He walked up to them and motioned with his head for the women to follow him. They looked at him in confusion, but followed Xander into the woods when he turned away from them.

  He led the women a safe distance from the compound and any spying eyes, then shifted. He told them he noticed their disdain for Elvira and wanted to know why. He needed them to tell him exactly what they thought of her and what they knew. They didn’t want to trust him at first and were afraid of speaking, but when Xander told them that he had learned of a plan by the other Alpha to take over their pack and that Elvira may be involved, the women sang like birds.

  They explained to him that Elvira only spoke to the women of the pack to give them orders or put them down. She would show up at their doors once a month, take their husband and mates’ hand, and pull them into their bedchamber and have sex with them. She wouldn’t even acknowledge the women's presence, and they weren’t allowed to say anything about it. They were told by the Alpha that this is how an omega was used for a pack and their job was to keep quiet and look the other way when their men were to be with the omega. None of the women liked Elvira and all wished her dead.

  Xander explained to them what he knew and asked for their help. He told what was supposed to happen at the gathering that night and how he didn’t want anything to do with Elvira. The women were shocked because even they could see that all the men of the pack seemed to be under some kind of spell, but Xander was not. They agreed to help him and save their pack. They came up with a plan. The women would go to all the other females of the pack and inform them of what was to come.

  Later that night as the pack gathered in the ceremonial grounds, Xander stood in the center of the circle beside his father as Elvira stood on the Alpha’s other side. Xander carefully met the eyes of some of the females and they gave him a slight nod.

  Once the pack was all gathered, his father began to speak. “Welcome to you all. Tonight is a special night, for tonight is the night that I step down as your Alpha and turn this pack over to my son, Xander,” his father announced and turned to him with a big smile. “After the ceremony and Xander is crowned the new Alpha, he will be wed to Elvira and they will mate before all to see so that you may all know that Xander and his mate are now in charge of this pack.”

  A few grumblings came from the men in the gathering, but the women all stayed quiet as they slowly began to move away from the men and circle around the outside of the clearing. Xander turned to his father, pulling the man's attention to him, as well as Elvira and the other men of the pack.

  “Father, I appreciate your faith in me to take over this pack and to be its next Alpha, but I must decline.” Xander kept his eyes focused on his father’s face, but he could see the women moving into position from his peripheral.

  “What do you mean you decline?” his father spat out angrily. “You cannot decline. This is the way of our pack. This is the way of our people. You will do your duty and accept this title or you will be banished from this pack and I will disown you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Father, but I will not become Alpha. I don’t want it. I never have, and you will never force me to mate this evil woman. She has fooled you, Father. She has fooled all of you men. She has used her omega powers to control you so that you wouldn’t see what she was really up to. She and Alpha Stern have done this so that he can kill me tonight and take over this pack and its lands.” Xander could see over Elvira’s shoulder that some of the women were in place.

  “How dare you make such accusations against our Omega! She has done nothing but provide strength to this pack.”

  “You’re wrong, Father. She has used her gifts to control all of you and to take what powers you have away from you. If you don’t believe me, then try them. Any one of you who have been blessed with your powers, use them now,” Xander yelled out to the gathering.

  Xander looked to Elvira and saw her lips begin to move. He signaled to the women standing behind her to go. Seven of the females shifted into their wolves while six others stayed in their human form, but they all advanced on Elvira. The snarling wolves circled at her feet and Elvira froze and began to shake in fear.

  Xander’s father spun around to see what was happening. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Bradley, make them stop,” Elvira screeched.

  “I command you to stop and move away from the omega.”

  The females didn’t move away. The ones in human form grabbed Elvira from behind and tied her hands behind her back. Then they shoved a piece of cloth in her mouth and a rag over her eyes, tying it behind her head. The females in wolf form remained circled around Elvira, but they turned their attention toward Xander, the Alpha, and the rest of the pack as they continued to snarl.

  “How dare you not obey your Alpah!”

  “They don’t obey you father because what I said is true. Elvira has taken your powers from you. They no longer feel the connection to their Alpha, but they know what I say to be true. Ladies!” Xander called out to the other females surrounding the gathering, and they all shifted into their wolf forms and began snarling and snapping at the male members.

  Xander turned back to face his father. “You see, Father, I hadn’t even realized until today that Elvira had also taken away your ability to shift. She had taken all the males abilities to shift, except for mine, but I suppose she would have done that tonight once we were mated. That way, it would have made it easier for Alpha Stern to kill me. He gave her to you as a peace offering, or so he led you to believe. Elvira is his omega. She belongs to him and will do whatever he wishes. He sent her here to make this pack weak and to keep me from training to take over for you.”

  “No, you have had your training. I have trained you myself.”

  “No, Father. On my eighteenth birthday you told me my training would start, but it never did. She only made you believe that it had. She kept me locked away in her chambers most of the time, abusing me. She kept me tied down as she beat me. Some days it was so bad she couldn’t let me go until I healed. Even shifting into my wolf was sometimes not enough. For fifteen years she has tortured your son, Father.”

  “No, it can’t be,” the Alpha whispered in horror.

  “Even now, you are all starting to come back from her spell. Now that she has been bound and gagged, as well as her eyes covered, she cannot control you anymore. The veil she has cast over all the men in this pack is lifting. See what I tell you as true, Father. Shift. All of you men, shift.”

  Xander looked around at all the males of the pack and could see that they were all trying to shift, but none could. Xander looked back to his father. The man's eyes were open wide in horror as he, too, realized he could not shift into his massive wolf. “How?” he asked in confusion.

  “She focused all her powers on the men of this pack, but she forgot that the women were just as fierce. They will do whatever their Alpha wishes, like looking the other way as the omega bed their men, but it was only today, because of these women, that I realized that none of you could shift. They informed me that none of their men had shifted in years. Only the women of thi
s pack went on runs anymore. Elvira was syphoning all of your powers and making you weak every time she bedded one of you.”

  “But what about you, Xander? She bedded you as well.”

  “Yes, but not in the same way, Father. She used fear against me to get me to do what she wanted. That was her mistake. Because she used my fear against me to control me, she failed to use her powers against me. I did whatever she wanted willingly because I was afraid. She didn’t have to use her powers to get me to do her bidding, and these wonderful women here have never had to bed her, so their powers have stayed intact.”

  “She did this to us?”

  “Yes, Father, and Alpha Stern is expecting Elvira to bring me to him tonight after we marry and mate. His betas will kill me the moment I step onto their lands, and then they were to come to you to tell you that I challenged him and lost. With all of your males having no powers, his pack would spring from the forest and take you all down, taking over your pack.”

  His father’s face became red with rage. He swung around to face the woman who had almost destroyed him and his pack. His father approached the she-wolves and they began to snarl. “I only wish to punish her,” he informed them, but the females refused to back down. They snapped and snarled more ferociously. The six who were still in human form shifted into their wolves and joined the others. The alpha took a step back and Xander placed his hand on his father’s shoulder.

  “It is their right, Father. She dirtied their men, their matings,” Xander whispered. He looked to the females and nodded. As one, they each stood and faced Elvira. Her body stiffened and began to shake in fear. The eleven females all pounced at once and Elvira was dragged to the ground as she screamed behind her gag. The she-wolves bit and clawed, ripping Elvira apart as they dragged her into the forest.

  His father turned back toward him with sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry, my son.”

  “It’s not your fault, Father. They tricked you.”

  “But not you. Which only proves that I am no longer fit to be Alpha and you are,” his father said in defeat.