Most Alpha (Werewolf Romance)

by Tee Bryant

Most Alpha

  Copyright 2014 Tee Bryant

  DISCLAIMER

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  - From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

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  “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”

  -James Herriot

  CHAPTER 1

  Everyone wants to be someone in college. From the hoop dreamers clinging on their highschool careers, to the wannabe's calling themselves musicians, even down to the double majors trying to impress people with their degrees. Everyone wanted to be someone. Carter? He was a nobody. Until he met them. Omega Omega Psi Franternity Incorporated. The most pompous, arrogant, cheauvanist, most hated group of individuals on campus. Either you wanted to be them, or you wanted to beat them. And Carter? He wanted to be them.

  Omega Omega Psi was unlike any other organization on campus. They were the Alpha dogs, the pick of the litter. Unbeknownst to most students the University’s campus was filled with monsters, demons, and everything in between. Some knew the rumors but little knew the truth. There’s an entire underground society embedded deep in the culture of academia that is more powerful than any organization you’ve heard of. These fraternities are the exclusive upper echelon of manhood. To be one of them is to be one of the true wielders of power. To be one of them is to be an Alpha Dog, literally.

  They can smell it on you. They all can. Wolves have a very keen set of senses. They know who’s in simply by the smell of their perspiration, the grit of their teeth, or the gleam of their eyes. However thing they can’t tell is one’s heart, one’s mental makeup.

  Who are you when the pressure’s on? Naturally wolves are bonded by their bloodlines. Loyalty is not an option. It is mandatory. In order for wolves to co-mingle in society under secrecy they all must remain loyal to the pack. Those in the elite wolf fraternities’ pledged their lives to one another.

  Carter was different. As the son of wolves who immigrated to the East Coast of the United States from Australia, he was a stranger to the society of the elite wolf fraternities. Carter’s parents grew up in a country where wolves kept to themselves. They lived on the countryside amongst their own, hunting and fishing to get by. It wasn’t until Carter’s parents were ready to have a child that they moved to the countryside of the United States on the coast of the Carolinas. Little did they know wolves weren’t easily accepted in society.

  Carter had to live his life under the guise of being a regular child. He was a quiet child and usually kept to himself. Being a wolf never bothered him. His temper only came out occasionally but never so much more than a push or scratch would he place on another child when he knew inside he could easily kill any of his bullies with his bare hands.

  The young boy’s attitude was also kept largely in check by her. Jenni was Carter’s high school sweetheart. The freckled faced, raven-haired girl grew up a few blocks away in their quiet country suburb. Sometime around 8th or 9th grade they began interacting. First during the dark cold mornings waiting on the bus stop, slowly progressing to school lunch, weekend play dates, movies, then to full on dating. She was his first everything. She was his everything. Jenni was the one girl he truly cared about.

  Carter didn’t hide his truth from her. It was impossible. She knew the dormant beast underneath the nervous, frail framed, pale dusty brown haired boy. She knew the consequences of his temper, she knew what the hazy amber gleam in his eyes meant. She knew not to question the whereabouts of her boyfriend during a full moon.

  The two were madly in love. That small-town puppy love would continue throughout high school until college where the two, along with Jenni’s sister Adrian, decided to attend the same local University.

  Carter adjusted pretty quickly, remaining the same quiet boy from high school. The only issue was he was no longer sheltered from the others. In this new environment he would have to learn how to fend for himself. There was no family pack to hide in. There was no more small town where he could remain anonymous. Going out into the collegiate world meant that Carter would be thrown to the wolves, literally. The young boy’s only interactions with other wolves in his entire life were limited to his mother and father.

  ***

  “Welcome to the beginning of your life son,” Carter’s big burly man of a father exhaled with his hands on his hips. The proud father smiled as he gazed across the grassy pit of students scrambling to and from the dorms. Carter’s father sported a thick salt and pepper beard and had the frame of an old school prizefighter. The old man couldn’t be any more proud.

  Carter dragged his belongings, which fit in a lone cardboard moving box, across the grassy mall to the tall brick dormitory. The nervousness seeped through his pores. He would rather get inside the box and hide than go through with meeting his roommate. His father egged him on, confidently dragging his son by the shoulder to the building.

  Inside the room awaited a lone boy, Carter’s pimple-faced roommate James. He too was just as nervous as the young wolf boy. James had a gothic sense of style with a hair full of black hair and a well-placed swooping bang. “Great, a weirdo,” the wolf child ironically thought to himself. Carter’s small town way of judging people too quickly was probably the worst part of his personality.

  Sensing the awkwardness in the room, Carter’s father forced the introduction. The two boys quietly shook hands and exchanged names as Papa keenly looked on. Papa decided to make conversation as noticed the Goth’s iPod sitting in his lap.

  “What are you listening to?” the old man asked.

  “Cradle of Filth. Have you heard of them?” James answered.

  “Can’t say I have. Do you know what he’s talking about Carter?” Papa asked his son.

  “Nope. I don’t listen to that stuff,” Carter snipped.

  “I’m more of a Doors man myself,” Papa said with his chest puffed out as his thumbs hooked inside his belt.

  “That’s a little before my time,” the roommate dismissed. Carter hesitantly glanced at his father and his new roommate.

  RING! RING! Carter�
��s cell phone rang furiously. It was Jenni. He quietly picked it up.

  “Hello? Yes Jenni, I’m here. Come see me. My dorm is the one up on the hill,” the boy instructed. James slipped his headphones in his ear and fell back on his bed. His music was his solitary. Carter and his father didn’t exist over the sounds of heavy metal.

  Papa nudged his son to join him outdoors. They slipped out and waited in front of the building for Jenni. The old man leaned into his son as random students mobbed left and right, moving their belongings in.

  “I need you to remember you have a responsibility because of who you are Carter. You must protect those that cannot protect themselves, you must remain loyal to your own, and you must never place the desires of the human flesh before your soul. Do I make myself clear son?”

  “Yes Sir,” the boy answered.

  “Good. Because there are humans in this world that will not know how to react once they learn who you are. Jenni’s a sweet girl and all, but no one is going to love you the way your own blood will. You’re an alpha. The human heart is a flimsy thing. Your human flesh has its own desires. You must always go with your blood instinct. Always,” Papa scolded.

  “I understand Pop,” Carter squeaked. He knew his compassion for his lover was something his father would never quite understand. Papa looked across the grassy mall as Jenni approached up the hill.

  “Now give me a hug before you forget who I am,” the father instructed.

  “I won’t forget who you are,” Carter teased as he embraced his father.

  “I don’t care if you forget about me, just don’t forget who you are,” Papa whispered in his son’s ear. Jenni paced to the two with a big familiar smile. Papa greeted his son’s girlfriend with an embrace before he made his way back to his truck. It was back off to the simple country life for the old man. Carter wished he could be so lucky.

  “Are you happy to see me?” the human girl smiled underneath her straw summer hat and sunglasses that accentuated the chic of her country summer dress. Carter gave his girl a quick peck on the lips with a grin.

  “Of course I’m happy to see you. It sucks we can’t live in the same dorm this year,” he answered. School rules did not allow underclassmen to live in mixed gender buildings.

  SNIFF. SNIFF. Carter’s nose picked up a stiff, starch, scent. The scent was one he only ever smelled around his family. Papa was long gone. There was another one here.

  He looked around the pack of students filing in and out of the building. There was no telling who it could be. Everyone looked so plain, so generic, but underneath one of them was different. One of them was like Carter.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenni asked.

  “Nothing, nothing. I just thought I saw something,” Carter dismissed.

  Jenni brushed his sandy brown hair back and placed another peck on his lips. “Are you ready for college?”

  “I’m ready as I think I can be,” the boy answered.

  Little did he know it was here that everything would change… forever.

  CHAPTER 2

  Carter put out his cigarette on the sidewalk and continued his stroll across the grounds. Campus seemed unusually busy, even for a Tuesday afternoon. He kept bumping shoulders with other students and narrowly avoided three head-on collisions. He quickly gave up on the sidewalk and decided to walk in the grass. All of the promoters for the different campus organizations were set up on the lawn, anyway. He waved away several excited students trying to hand him brochures for volunteer groups, one for a writers' guild, and another for a theater troupe before he spotted the one he was really after.

  SNIFF. SNIFF. That familiar scent permeated Carter’s nostrils. They were here. He’d found them. His father’s lecture played on repeat in his head. Remain loyal to your own. Cater figured he’d found the best route to fulfill those wishes.

  The table was set up in front of the university's large stone fountain. It was plainly decorated with a purple table cloth and a yellow banner with the letters “O O P” embroidered in shimmering purple thread. There were no poster boards or pictures, only some fold-up chairs and a stack of brochures on the corner of the table.

  The brochures displayed the usual stereotypes of fraternity life. The glossy pamphlets featured shirtless males smiling with young women looking on in awe. If one looked too quickly, the fraternity’s media could be easily confused with an advertisement for Abercrombie and Fitch. Cater squinted as the sun’s reflection off the brochures blinded him.

  As he got closer, Carter noticed that the guy manning the station was more interested in the girls around him than he was in recruiting for his fraternity. The blonde, broad-shouldered guy looked more like the school’s starting quarterback than a frat jockey. An air of arrogance surrounded the upperclassman as he entertained the random girls at the booth.

  At a glance it was obvious something was different. Other students avoided the booth like the plague as they went about their business, patronizing the other organizations. Carter figured that not many people were interested in joining, anyway; he knew what their reputation was. Most students would have preferred death to joining them.

  “Excuse me,” Carter said to the man, but received no reply. “Hey, man,” he said a little louder. “Is there any way I could get some information from you real quick?”

  Without taking his attention away from the girls he was talking to, the guy pointed to the brochures, making sure he flexed his biceps for the ladies. As Carter reached for a brochure, another man approached the table and sat down.

  SNIFF. He was surrounded. They were both like him. The blonde guy was in his own world, he didn’t notice. The other one, a calm black haired guy, knew. He locked eyes with Carter as he slowly nodded while scrunching his face up and showing his front teeth. Wolf’s teeth were normal in human state; this was just a way of communicating who they were to one another.

  “Way to watch the table, bro,” he said. He then flashed a normal smile at Carter and motioned for him to sit down. “How you doing, man? Sorry about Nick. He's all about the ladies. Is there anything I can help you with?” Out of the corner of his eye, Carter saw Nick's rude hand gesture but decided to ignore it.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I just wanted some more information on the rush, the frat, and all that stuff. I’m in the right place right?”

  “Sure, man. No problem. Well, the fraternity, as I'm sure you know, has been around since 1920. We were the second branch of Omega Omega Psi, Inc. established in the United States. As you can tell, membership is very exclusive.”

  “Cool,” Carter said with strained enthusiasm. He never met another so close to his age, and the guy seemed so cool Carter wanted to stay and bombard him with questions. Alas, he restrained and played it safe.

  “The rush is this Thursday at seven,” the guy said, handing Carter a brochure. “It's going to be at the frat house up on 5th Street. Do you have any questions or anything? The brochure should cover just about everything.”

  “No, man. I think I'm good.”

  “Alright, then. Hope to see you there! I'm Bartley, by the way,” he said, reaching out to shake Carter's hand.

  “Carter,” Carter replied, accepting the handshake. “And I will definitely be there.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Bartley said. “See you there.”

  Carter put the brochure in his back pocket and started for class. As soon as he turned, Nick called out to a girl talking on her phone. She was a tiny girl with long brown hair that had a hint of red. Her style was modern and attention grabbing, featuring a tiny pink shirt that showed her stomach and short white shorts. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  “Hey, Adrian!” Nick shouted. The blonde frat boy ditched the groupies from the booth to catch up with Adrian. She was the type of girl that every frat boy wanted on their arm: stylish, beautiful, with just enough attitude to keep them entertained. Nick knew what he wanted and would not be stopped.

  “Ugh. Hold on,” Adrian said into the phone. “
What do you want?” she directed at Nick.

  “Don't you walk by and act like you don't know me, girl!” Nick exclaimed, putting his arm around her shoulder.

  “Okay? And who do you think you're putting your arm around? I've told you I'm not interested. Not now. Not ever.”

  “Come on, babe. You know that I know that you know you want me.”

  “Alright,” Adrian said, slowly removing Nick's hand from her shoulder as if she was removing a rotten banana peel. “How about you go back to your little hoe squad over there. I think they're missing you.” She put her phone back up to her ear and walked off, continuing her conversation.

  “Ouch man,” Bartley said to his frat brother as he returned to the booth. “That was brutal.”

  “I’m not worried about it. She wants to play hard to get, I’ll play ball,” Nick replied with an air of arrogance. His narcissism was so deeply rooted he didn’t even care that the other girls witnessed the entire episode. They weren’t going anywhere and he knew that.

  “I don’t think she’s playing. That girl’s a freshman anyways. Just leave it alone,” Bartley added. The words fell on deaf ears. Nick couldn’t be convinced.

  “I’m about to get out of here but keep your eyes out for any good candidates. This year is important, we really need to push our numbers this class,” the levelheaded Bartley continued.

  “Sure, whatever,” Nick dismissed. “That’ll be easy. None of these dweebs are cut from a pedigree like us.”

  “Keep looking. I have high hopes,” Bartley said as he packed some brochures to take with him.

  “I’m looking. Other than that I can’t help you,” Nick said to his frat brother.

  “You’re good. Besides, I think I just might have found one.”

  ***

  After class, Carter went back to his dorm room. He walked in to see James, his roommate, sitting on a bean bag chair listening to his iPod. James snapped out of whatever world he was in at the moment and acknowledged Carter's presence by removing one of his ear buds.

  “What's up, man?” Carter said as he shut the door behind him and slung his bag down on the floor.