The morning after Damien subjected me to an embarrassing beatdown started the first day of my 'real' education. I wasn't sure what learning about being a werewolf entailed, but I hadn't expected to start with a geography lesson.
And Elena's serious.
"Now... There are five territories in our country." Elena laid out a large book, shoved a map spread across two pages in front of me, and fanned it flatter with her hand on the binding. "Each territory is owned, controlled, and run by a different werewolf pack."
Her other hand's finger tapped the landlocked territory, etched in a thicker border of black ink. "Your father is Alpha Cassius over the Central territory, with controlled alliances between the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western territories."
Her finger moved across each marked territory as she spoke, paired with a quiet tap. All four of the directional territories surrounded my father's area, with White Moon written over the center of the map.
"My father controls all of this?" I frowned down at the map. "Like... a king?"
"Werewolves don't have kings." Her lips twitched up at the corners and eyes sparkled behind her lenses.
"Then why am I called Princess?" My eyes lifted as I questioned her teasing.
Her smile faded into a firm line, and voice shifted back into a bossy teacher mode, "I don't know. There's not much history on you in this library."
"What?" My eyes traveled down the poorly lit, dusty row of bookshelves behind her head. They led into the dark, musty corner of the restricted section, where Elena had pulled all our reading material from. "There's stuff on me in here?"
She snorted and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Of course, it's within your family history books. Every pack has a book, although your family is a bit sparse."
I wiggled my eyebrows. "What do they say?"
Stunningly beautiful, witty but lonely girl kept in isolation?
I've been drinking the fairy tale Kool-Aid too long.
In my defense, as weak as my ability to punch Damien's smug face, the princess' disillusion was hard to let go of, harder than the mafia conspiracy theory.
Equally as embarrassing though.
"Not much." She shifted in her seat and frown lines creased between her eyebrows, like she bore weighted information. Her lips parted, which she wet with the tip of her tongue. "Your mother died in childbirth, along with your brother, and you survived."
My eyes averted down to my hands, which I unclasped in my lap and flattened on my thighs under the table.
Survived.
The corners of my mouth curled down at the word, yet it described my life perfectly. I existed, took up space, and converted oxygen into carbon dioxide. I'd never accomplished anything of significance in my life and hadn't lived at all.
Maybe not yet?
My father's words 'everything will change...' echoed through my mind. I didn't have a chance to dwell on the thought though.
"So, back to this." She tapped her index finger on the map, redirecting my attention back with her 'direct track to Snoozeville' geography lesson. "Each territory is controlled by a separate pack, but yes, your father controls those packs. He controls everything and everyone."
No surprise there.
Bitterness bubbled in my stomach as her words 'he controls everything' filtered through my ears and settled on my consciousness. I hoped other girls in this country didn't have their bodies manipulated like in my pleasurable injection experiences.
Don't get me started on the werewolf part. Still wrapping my brain around that mind fuck.
The only observable werewolf benefit, so far, was that my injection bruises were gone within twenty-four hours. Previously, they faded in a few days, but I wasn't about to break into a song and dance to encourage myself to sprout fur out my skin.
My eyes traced the edges of my father's territory. Being surrounded on all sides, it looked the hardest defensible position.
"How does he do that?" The country seemed like such an expansive space, the country stretched from sea to sea and included plains, mountains, and wetlands.
How can my father, in her words, control everyone?
"He controls the alphas," she replied in a monotone voice, as if that was common knowledge. In Elena's defense, I assumed it was but unknown to me.
"Alphas..." I repeated slowly. My father required me to learn the Greek alphabet, so I knew Alpha was A, the first letter. But I knew nothing of its importance within this context.
"The strongest male within each pack. Alphas are the male leaders in charge. Betas and gammas are tertiary leaders. Your father's pack is here in the Central territory, but he also has warriors ensuring his... interests..." Elena's voice trailed with her finger's path around the map. "Within each of the other ones."
"Warriors?" My eyes widened.
This now sounds like an army.
"You know them better as security personnel." She nodded at one of the guards positioned at the library's entrance doorway.
Surrounded by old, smelly books, we were seated at a large table and poured over dozens of the oldest and smelliest ones that Elena had pulled. Some of their pages were so fragile, they looked as if they'd disintegrate upon touch, but she carried them with such delicacy, they were in better hands than mine.
I didn't spend a lot of time in the library. The books I found of interest, like romance novels, had nothing to do with this subject... Or any other sense of reality.
Warriors though...
I stared at the security guy who stood at the library entrance on my detail. My heart thumped faster as I studied his muscular arms bracketing his tall, fitted frame. He shifted under my gaze, but remained silent.
From across the library, he looked like a normal, ordinary human dressed in all black with a Glock-19 holstered on his hip.
How did I not know?
My eyes closed because I knew that answer.
Because I wasn't looking close enough.
"What are my father's 'interests'?" As I echoed Elena's word, I wondered if they had nothing to do with his pharmaceutical company.
"Whatever he determines to be best for his pack. It's called the White Moon." Her index finger tapped right on in the center of the map, emphasizing its importance, before she pulled her hand back to her lap.
"Wait.." I interrupted as my eyebrows creased together. "My father is the Alpha?"
"Yes. Of the White Moon pack." Her tone slipped into a condescending one, as if she was explaining this to a five-year-old. I sure felt like a five-year-old hearing the information all for the first time. "Within each pack, there is a hierarchy of command and respect. Each is led by an Alpha male, second in command is the Beta, third the Gamma. The Alpha's mate is a Luna."
And there's more of the alphabet.
"What does the Luna do?" I interrupted.
Elena slid her glasses up her nose, her eyes studying mine before she answered, "She is the pack matriarch. In particular, she supports the Alpha, running whatever responsibilities he needs and mating to preserve the bloodlines."
My heart sank at her words.
A den mother?
The position sounded worse than a death sentence. At least in the imaginary drug cartel I had a gun, an identity that didn't involve being a wife and offspring factory.
"How is the Alpha chosen?"
"Either by birth order within a family, the eldest son has first priority, or... other means." Elena looked away, her eyes gazing out the library entrance.
"Other means... like an election?" The words 'werewolf democracy' had a nice ring to them.
"One pack conquering another, using slaughtering out any form of resistance."
Oh.