The Possessive Alpha
Chapter 49

ELLE POV

The show had ended, and it was everything others said it would be; too bad my mind was in searing pain the entire time. The strange man’s eyes did not leave my body for a second, his gaze oppressing like a weighted blanket too heavy for my body.

As Jonah slams the limo door close, the pressure released from my head like a balloon leaking helium. For the first time in hours, it doesn’t feel as though nails are being dragged across the inside of my mind like someone is trying to dig themselves out. It was the most uncomfortable 4 hours of my life, and I am thankful it’s over and we are back at the hotel.

The ding of the elevator opening pulls me from my thoughts as my friends shuffle in front of me. None of us say anything until we are safely locked behind closed doors. Jonah, Eli, and Brad were on a lower level, and we all had to witness Taylor practically swallow Brad’s face. They acted like they would never see each other again and weren’t sharing a room this weekend.

My feet carry me down the carpeted hallway muffling the sound of my heels; instead of breaking off and going into their rooms, the men Victor and Theo piled in behind Emma, who opened the door to the small suite reserved for Charity and me.

As soon as the door clicks behind me, the twins start asking questions rapidly, and my brain scrambles to comprehend what they’re saying. Instead of trying to decipher the riddles, I raise my hand, silencing them, as I walk towards the suitcase lying on the desk, clothes strewn about wildly.

Grabbing the sweats I packed, a shirt, and a makeup remover, I say nothing as I shrug my heels off my feet, picking them up and tossing them in the bag without care. I can feel the heat of expectant eyes demanding answers, but I ignore them and walk into the bathroom to change.

Once I step outside the small room with a freshly washed face while wearing my lounge clothes, I walk over to the small Bluetooth radio I brought, connecting my phone to play the Taylor Swift station. Now that our voices are muffled, I turn to look at the friends speaking for the first time since we got back.

“Okay,” I say, my voice soft, trying not to go above the speaker’s volume, “I’m ready now; one question at a time, please,” I say, giving a small smile. The dull ache of the earlier migraine is still behind my eyes.

“Elle,” Taylor says, the first one to speak. I should have known she would be, “who the hell was that forty-year-old creep?”

“I don’t know,” I say, but something tells me it won’t be the last time I see that leering bastard.

“Well,” Taylor responds aggressively, “he certainly knows you. His eyes didn’t leave you the entire show.” Her acknowledgment of that shocks me. “I didn’t realize you or Emma had noticed,” I tell her.

“Oh, we noticed,” Emma responds, picking up the conversation where her sister left off. “Are you sure you don’t recognize him from somewhere, maybe your old pack?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head, “I don’t remember anything from before I moved to New Moon. Plus, the Alpha and Luna told me rogues annihilated the pack I came from. No surviving members.” When I say the words, I can feel Theo freeze before his eyes land on me, the wheels turning in his mind as he stares at me intensely.

“Well, which pack was it?” Taylor demands impatiently. “I don’t know; they never told me,” I respond, shrugging my shoulders. When I first moved to New Moon, I spent months trying to recall my past, which failed, always leaving me a crying, frustrated mess.

“And you didn’t ask?” She inquires, slightly confused about why I wouldn’t ask.

“No,” I reply, my voice coming out hard and direct, “I spent months trying to remember life before living with the Ledgers, only to fail; I grew tired of crying myself to sleep every night mourning people and a life I don’t remember anyways.” I try to keep the hurt out of my voice, but I know I am failing as tears start to pool in my eyes, threatening to spill down my cheeks.

“Plus, it’s not like my past matters. I came from an omega family. What could an Alpha want with an Omega?” I ask, clearly confused about his appeal to me; we don’t know each other, so why was he so interested in me?

A peel of laughter rings among my friends like I had told the funniest joke in history. Leaving me to look at the rest of them like they’re deranged, needing a one-way ticket to the insane asylum. “What’s so funny?” Victor asks, clearly the only other person missing the joke besides me.

Once she calms her breathing and stops laughing, she finally manages to get out what’s on her mind, “Who told you that you’re an Omega?”

“The Alpha and Luna,” I respond, everyone else already understanding where Charity is going with this line of questioning. “Why?” I ask, unsure if I want to hear the answer, but Charity glances at Taylor, silently asking if she’ll take over the conversation as these three cousins tend to do for each other.

“Elle,” Taylor starts, as she licks her lips, trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject but being her, she decides to get straight to the point. “There is no way in hell you’re an Omega. You’re about as Omega as I am Alpha, meaning not at all.”

“That’s impossible,” I protest, shaking my head in defiance, refusing to believe their words, not wanting to hear the fantasies coming out of their mouths. Emma continues trying to make me see reason with Taylor’s words. “Think about it, Elle,” she says softly, “you’re stronger than any Omega I have met. You have the speed and agility of a high-ranking wolf. Other wolves do as you command like at that party we threw when the Alpha and Luna were out of town.”

“It was easy to convince those wolves to stay,” I say dismissively, waving my hand at her, “that doesn’t prove anything; there was alcohol. Any teenager would stay for that.”

“Except it was the Beta giving the command to leave,” Charity throws in, “if you were an Omega, your words wouldn’t overrule the Betas. It’d be impossible.”

“She’s right,” Taylor says, “And you can’t learn how to give an Alpha command just by living with the Alpha family; it’s a birthright or something won through battle.”

“If you could learn it,” Emma adds, “some wolf would have made a fortune teaching others how to use it. Plus, it’d destroy the pack’s hierarchy.”

“If I had to guess,” Victor adds, as he wraps Emma in his arms, “you come from a higher-ranking bloodline. At least a Beta or Alpha line. You’re too fast, strong, and agile to be any rank lower than those.”

“Well,” Taylor adds, “We can cross the Gamma and Beta bloodlines off the list. If she were one of those, her wishes would have been ignored easily at that house party because Andrew outranks her.”

“Not necessarily,” Theo interjects, “if Elle is from an older, stronger bloodline, her word does have the potential to be more powerful than Andrews.” Theo doesn’t look at me while saying this; his eyes are too busy staring at his fingers twisted around each other. A sneaking suspicion grows that he knows more than he is willing to share here.

“Shouldn’t the Pack Protection act prevent that?” Victor asks, confused why I can influence my will over others in the pack when I am not one of the direct heirs.

“Not necessarily,” Theo says, “That protection only impacts males, and their mates, but females born of a rank, not mated into it, do not have their powers diminished in territories other than their own. Even when they’re mated.”

“So what you’re telling me,” I ask, my gaze locked onto Theo’s eyes, not wanting to look away so I can gauge the truth from my eyes. “that I am the sole heir to a beta or Alpha bloodline?” my voice cracking in disbelief.

“That’s exactly what I am telling you,” Theo says, his eyes holding steady on mine, refusing to look away. His confession spins my world on its axis. I feel as if I am free-falling through space as the truth, which I subconsciously denied for the last few years, slaps me repeatedly, leaving me too stunned for words.