Alpha Queen

Chapter 2

Tyler Pov

“Did you hear about Josie?” I cringed, feeling a shudder race through my body just from the mention of that crazy girl’s name.

I sighed loudly, contemplating throwing the weight in my right hand at Eliot, but then realized if I did, I’d have to get a new Beta and that would be time-consuming. I didn’t have time for that. I already had to replace Aaron with Zack as it was a little bit ago. I mean there’s always Wesley too. I guess he could replace Eliot if I killed him, but, nah, I wouldn’t do that. While our group of four has been tight all of our lives practically, Eliot and I were best friends, just like Zack and Wesley were best friends. I couldn’t be without Eliot, he’s the other half of me, as they say. Best bros for life, I wouldn’t know what to do without him. I try to remind myself that from time to time, especially when he goes around mentioning my archenemy’s name. “What did I tell you about talking about unpleasant things so early in the morning?” I grumbled, frowning.

Zack let out a surprised snort, quickly replacing the sound with a cough as our coach walked towards our group, his eyebrows threaded together into a thick look of disapproval. We all smiled brightly at him as Wesley and I started to lift our weights faster, Eliot lifting the bar faster as Wesley, who was supposed to be spotting Eliot, pressed his hand against Eliot’s mouth. Eliot was known for not giving a shit and just blurting out whatever the hell he wanted. It didn’t help that I was the only one who was supposed to be here, since the other three were still in high school. They didn’t care as much about getting in trouble, the worst that could happen to them is they get kicked out, but I could get in trouble for letting them in. The sucky part of being older than your best friends is when you go to college and they’re all still stuck back in high school. At least it won’t be forever. I miss playing basketball with them, but they’ll be in college soon enough. Plus, it wasn’t like we didn’t all go to the same pack, after all. As the coach walked away to yell at someone else, Zack turned to look at me, wagging his eyebrows at me. “Did you just call the princess an unpleasant thing?” Zack wondered, his voice not as much of a whisper as it should be.

I hissed under my breath, frowning. “Plus, let’s add in the fact that it’s after school for all of us, like five in the afternoon, it’s not even morning anymore bro, just saying,” Eliot added in, making me reconsider throwing the weight at him.

“Look, if you guys are going to come to work out in our weight lifting room or play on our court, you’re going to have to be quiet otherwise my coach is going to kick you out.” I reminded them. They all nodded their heads as I sighed, running my fingers through my sweaty hair as I put my weights down. I had my stupid stubborn strand of hair that hung in my right eye pulled back with a set of clips to keep it out of my face, and I had to reclip it since I messed it up. Shaking out my sore arms, I ignored the numbing feeling and nudged my foot probably harder than I needed to into Eliot’s ribs, making him grumble under his breath as he put the weight down and moved off of the bench for me to take his place. It felt fucking nasty since it was covered in his sweat, but after a few reps, I didn’t even notice anymore. The weight room was always filled with everyone’s sweat until someone cleaned it all off, so as gross as it was, we were all used to it. It’s not like we don’t all just go shower afterward. Everyone settled into a relatively normal silence as we continued working out. Eliot and Zack were still seventeen, and Wesley was sixteen. It was hard being older than all of them, being in college all by myself without them, but they didn’t let me feel lonely for long. Thankfully, our college was next to the high school, so when the bell rang they always just walked over here and either started playing on the court with me or working out in the weight lifting room, whichever I was doing. While I had to keep up with the coach's schedule and his routine, they just went and floated along wherever. Their high school had practice before school since their coach always left after school, so they were free to come over here with me. College basketball was a lot more strict than high school was, probably since this college actually had a decent track of winning games and a lot of those that graduated here ended up getting careers on teams. That wasn’t my dream, and I was fine with that, knowing that when I graduated college I was going to be taking over the pack. I love basketball, but as long as I got my boys by my side, I was going to be fine. We could always play basketball whenever, but we knew our duties to the pack. I was going to be the next Alpha, Eliot was going to be the next Beta, Zack was going to be the next Gamma, and Wesley was the next king of vampires. However, that was going to work out for them. This whole king of vampires thing was new for them, most all of this was new for all of us, and we were all just going along figuring it all out along the way.

As we were all quiet, I started to think about what Eliot said, even if the simple thought of that preppy perfect princess annoyed me to all ends. I had heard about Josie, and I knew what it was he was talking about, even if he didn’t elaborate. Both of my dads pulled me aside and told me what had happened with her last night. They didn’t want word to get out but I knew it was just a matter of time. She freaking shifted on the platform in front of every one of the Snow Moon pack, after all. A small part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she was upset, scared, or something. But then I remembered she’s an uppity bitch and I couldn’t stand her, so I shoved the concern aside and tried to think about something else. Unfortunately, my boys weren’t going to let me forget that easily. “She shifted into a wolf in front of everyone. My aunt said one minute she and her parents were on the platform watching the new wolves for the ceremony, and the next Josie was screaming and shifting into a large black wolf. An Alpha wolf, how strange is that?” Eliot added in with a soft whisper.

His parents ended up moving to the Blood Moon pack from the Snow Moon pack when he was still a baby, since his parents were really close with Lexi, Zain, Grayson, and Jaiden, but Cammie’s older sister stayed at the Snow Moon pack with her family. Eliot’s parents wanted Eliot to grow up as friends with their best friends' kids, which was funny since Rhys never really seemed to hang around any of us. Rhys grew up hanging out with the older kids, Cain and Aaron. Not that I had any problems with them. Aaron used to be one of my friends too, before he left. As for Lexi and Jaiden’s other kid, Jules just hung out with Evelyn, the emo girl. “I wonder if she still has her magic? It’s not possible to be both, right?” Wesley asked softly.

I tried to block them all out, my teeth clenched in frustration as I pushed through rep after rep of the bar, my arms groaning in protest. She wasn’t supposed to get a wolf at all, so why was this bothering me so much? Like…did she find her mate? Why did that even matter to me? I highly doubt she was even getting a mate. Someone like her was too strong to have a mate, too stuck up to let someone help her run a pack. I knew all this time her parents were worried about it, since she’d need to marry some Alpha to pass on the heritage to, hence why my dad and her mom tried pushing us together over the years. But I wouldn’t be caught dead marrying her if she was the last girl on earth, and now that she was a wolf too, she was probably going to marry herself. She reminded me of those human girls that went around talking about how much they didn’t need men for anything and the world would be better off without them, so now that she didn’t need to find an Alpha she was probably going to become some weirdo who married herself and lived alone with both titles, the Queen of the witches and the Alpha of the Snow Moon pack. “Are we still going to a birthday party then? Did they cancel it?” Eliot asked absently. He sounded out of breath as I sat up, cracking my neck as I looked at the time on the wall.

I turned to look at him, noticing he was on the bike now, and noticed the coach was watching us from the corner of his eye. As long as they didn’t bug anyone, he didn’t care if they showed up every day. In his opinion, they were going to be on his team once they started college and if he was giving them extra training now, it worked out for him in the long run. “Yeah, my dads said that the party was still on, eight o’clock. We need to get showered and out of here. The coach knows I have to leave early today anyway,” I said with a growl of annoyance.

A waste of time, that’s what it was. Why I had to go to some prissy princess’ birthday was beyond me. Sure, I was the next Alpha and she was the next…whatever the hell she was now. Alpha and Queen? Leave it to her to be so conceited, she got an extra title slapped onto her just by existing, as if she wasn’t perfect enough as it was. “I don’t know why you hate her so much. She’s best friends with your little sister, you know.” Eliot said with a sigh. “And my girlfriend,” he added as an afterthought as we grabbed our towels and shirts, wiping our sweaty faces as we said bye to the coach before heading into the changing room.

I wanted nothing more than to tell Eliot just how much I cared about his girlfriend, but the fact that she was Isobel, Zack’s twin sister, made me bite my tongue. Even though the four of us were best friends, Eliot was closer than any other to me, and I was going to keep his secrets to the grave, even if he refused to acknowledge them himself. Like how no matter how much he claimed to love Isobel, he and I both knew deep down that his heart had always belonged to someone else, even if he’s too much of an asshole to acknowledge it. “Tess is just confused, one day she’ll see how much of a blood-sucking harpy Josie is and she’ll never want to talk to her again,” I grumbled, not bothering to mention anything about Isobel. I don’t think anyone really liked her, to be honest, and Eliot was probably only still with her because she was hot and she put out.

Wesley let out a soft laugh, already pulling his sweaty shirt over his head and fumbling with his pants as the four of us walked through the empty changing room to the showers. My changing room was really nice, surprisingly. Some colleges were poor and had just a row of showers without any sort of privacy set up, but ours had little squares with curtains we could pull over ourselves for privacy, along with towels already set up clean and waiting for us. There was a guy hired to check and clean inside the changing room every few hours, making sure everything was set up and ready for us so we didn’t have to waste what my coach would call ‘precious time we could be working out’. Actually, he was probably the same person who took care of the sweat on the machines in the training room too, and as covered in sweat as I was, I kind of felt bad for the guy. Like, I hope he got decent pay, we were fucking disgusting. Zack was busy wiping Wesley with his towel while I went into the shower stall next to Eliot. They were tall enough to cover all of our bodies, but I could see his hair peeking out, and knew he could see mine as well. It’s not that we were giants or anything, but the concrete stalls weren’t exactly as tall as we’d like. “It’s bugging you, isn’t it?” Eliot’s deep voice rumbled from near me. I sighed, pressing my back against the concrete wall, knowing he was doing the same so we could talk without the others hearing us. Absently, I scrubbed shampoo into my hair, the hot water a blessing on my muscles after everything I’ve done today. “Be straight with me bro, you know I got you,” he added after a few minutes.

I let out a soft growl, but he knew I wasn’t mad at him. Eliot knew me like the back of his hand. “I don’t fucking know why it’s bugging me, but it is. I don’t know what’s wrong with me bro,” I said after a few minutes.

He let out a soft laugh as I moved to rinse out my hair. “I’ve been telling you that you’re in love with her, no one just hates someone for no reason, and hate is just the other side of the coin from love,” he said.

“Hate is the other half of love,” I mocked, moving from the stream of water I was standing under. I turned it to icy cold as he laughed at me, filled the cup in the corner up with the icy cold water, and poured it over the side of the stall. He squealed in a very unmanly way as I cackled at him, filling my cup up once more, knowing he was going to retaliate. For the next half hour, we poured cup after cup of cold water onto each other over our concrete wall in between us, to the point where, when Wesley and Zack started to call out to us from the other side of the curtain, we quit our childish fight and finished showering fast, grabbing our towels and getting out. “I have absolutely no feelings for that preppy princess,” I said, shoving my shoulder into Eliot’s as we started to get dressed. They didn’t have a locker since this wasn’t their school, but all of their crap was shoved into mine, so it didn’t really matter. Wesley and Zack had already gotten dressed, standing out in the hall talking while waiting for us.

Eliot flashed a bright smile at me, doing a little shimmy in his boxers before dancing away from me with a yelp as I went to slap his ass. “I don’t know, it’s fitting, don’t you think? You’re the prince, after all. The prince always gets with the princess.” He said with a laugh.

I pointed my finger at him, my shoe clasped tightly in my hand as I considered throwing it at him. “Don’t make me get more water, I’ll flood your ass,” I warned him.

He pulled up his pants and grabbed his shoes and his shirt, flashing me another smile. “I knew you just wanted my ass,” he said with a laugh, wiggling it as I flung my shoe at the back of his head.

He ran out of the locker room laughing as I huffed, shaking my head at his retreating figure, before putting my shoes on. I stared at my locker with a frown on my face, not because of how messy it was, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about Josie, and that pissed me off to no end. I let out a deep growl, slamming my locker and running my fingers through my hair, before turning around and walking away. “Fuck her and her perfect preppiness. It has nothing to do with me.” I said to the empty room, gripping my hands tightly at my side. I stepped out into the hallway to see Zack and Wesley sitting on top of a half-naked Eliot with sharpies in their hands, Eliot squirming and shrieking underneath them as they drew random words and shapes on his chest. “Come on guys, let’s go crash a party,” I mumbled, already wishing it was over.

“Sweet, I got a shit ton of alcohol, I’m gonna spike it,” Eliot said as I helped him off the ground.

I snickered, pointing at a female name with a heart on it. “Isobel is gonna kick your ass,” It was the lunch lady’s in high school’s name, which I found hilarious since she was like seventy.

Eliot sighed dramatically, pressing his fingers to his lips and kissing them, before pressing them against his chest. “What can I say? I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Mrs. Dublin,” he said as Wesley and Zack snickered.

I smacked Eliot on the back of the head, before draping my arm around his shoulders. “I don’t even know why I’m friends with y'all immature assholes,” I muttered with a sigh as they all started to laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Because of reasons I can't explain on here, I'm giving a warning of removal. I will be continuing to update this book daily right here until Friday. Friday, this book will be taken down. I'll be leaving the first five chapters on here so the book itself won't be getting deleted.

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Mallory Grant-DImages Writer

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