The Last Alpha

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Phoenix

“Alpha, the news is worse than we imagined. We’ve had no new shifters born to any packs for at least fourteen years.” Horrified silence greeted the gamma’s words, and I shot a stunned look at my father to see his reaction.

The gamma continued, “And what’s worse, Alpha, we think the problem affected the alphas first before it spread through the packs.”

Draven Colton glanced in my direction, and I nodded in sickening comprehension because if the shifters weren’t here to protect the humans, they would be enslaved and thousands slaughtered.

I knew it, my father knew it, the packs knew it, and unless something drastic happened soon, the world would know it, too.

But by then, it would be too late.

“What do you mean by the alphas being affected first?” Simeon, my dad’s beta commander, asked.

“There are definitely no alphas that we know of younger than twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and the actual number of functioning shifter packs is down by more than seventy percent.”

Which explained why they were back early.

The gammas had been gone three months, but they weren’t expected back for another two.

I listened while they explained it would soon become apparent there weren’t as many packs to speak to as there should have been.

Of the three main shifter species, the wolves had volunteered to send scouts farther south to find out if what they hoped was a local problem was more widespread.

Wolves, especially the smaller ones, could get to so many places, while a mountain lion would cause panic or a bear would find it impossible to get to.

Add in that a lot of the packs—despite modern communication—would only trust another shifter if they showed their animal form.

“Lack of cubs, Alpha, as you know, obviously means the statistical chance of fewer alphas,” the gamma continued.

“There are many packs that have dwindled because an alpha hasn’t been there to keep the pack functioning.

We found a lot of shifters living permanently as humans.

One beta wolf moved to the city after his alpha died.

He hasn’t shifted in more than five years and has no intention of doing so because his wife is human, and he isn’t telling her something that would likely get him a divorce and a one-way ticket to the nearest psychiatric facility. ”

And he wanted a family, I acknowledged. The lure of family—so important for a pack animal—had sent the shifters seeking out human mates when the shifter females had stopped going into heat. They were obviously capable of having babies, but human babies, not shifter ones.

“It can’t possibly be a natural phenomenon despite what some traditionalists have always maintained,” Nicholas murmured. Some of the elders insisted that it was the contact with humans that would eventually condemn the shifters to obscurity.

“We know damn well what the problem is,” Simeon thundered in reply. “It’s those bastard silver-skins.”

I watched as some of the pack started muttering their agreement, but then my father held up his hand for silence.

“We have no proof,” he reiterated as he’d been doing for months, and it was true.

There were no obvious attacks, no dead bodies, no disappearances affecting the shifters.

But I’d still heard a few whispers about curses and magic, but they were a last desperate guess. We needed to know.

I watched as the meeting broke up after deciding that they needed to present this information to the other shifter species and call a Gathering, and there hadn’t been one of those in at least twenty years.

“Phoenix?” Dad called me over to him as the others walked to the tables to help themselves to a drink. “I’m sorry this should happen today.”

“There’s hardly a good time to deliver this sort of news, Dad.”

My dad’s eyes crinkled in an approximation of a smile, but I had more important things to worry about this year. I’d had twenty-nine other birthday celebrations.

Dad leaned forward and whispered to me so that no one else could hear.

“At least forget about it tonight, because there’s nothing else we can do until we talk to the other packs tomorrow.

” He paused, and his nostrils flared slightly.

“I believe your friends have arrived to take you out. Happy birthday, Son.” He chuckled and walked away.

“Good night for a party,” a low voice whispered at my side, but I didn’t jump.

I’d caught the scent of Kaylan’s cat a few seconds ago. After a moment, when I didn’t respond with a sarcastic comment, I felt a touch on my shoulder, and I finally turned around to look at my best friend. “Sorry, I’m not exactly in the mood.”

Kaylan looked toward the rapidly emptying pack circle. “It didn’t look like it.”

We both heard the rather large footfall of someone making no attempt to be quiet, and Kaylan glanced back. “Baloo,” he whispered in mock outrage. “What are you doing? I’ve never heard someone make so much damn noise.”

Our friend stepped over a log as he approached, scowling. “I swear, Tigger,” Bayer said sarcastically. “If you call me that one more time—”

My lips twitched despite the worry. “You have to admit you’re not exactly stealthy.”

“I don’t need to be.” Bayer flexed his huge arms proudly. “No one would dare take me on anyway.”

I agreed, but I turned back around, still at a loss as to whether to go and try to be sociable, and I felt expectations settle on my shoulders.

The weight was more unbearable every day.

Not because I wasn’t ready to become the alpha, but because I seemed helpless to stop a fate that was careening out of control ever faster.

Of course, traditionally, I should already be mated and a father before I took on the alpha role that was due to happen in another ten days, but I seemed to have managed to screw that one up, as well.

Not that there weren’t plenty of she-wolves I could have chosen to become my alpha-mate, but as none of them had gone through a heat since their maturity at twenty-five, an arranged mating would’ve been pointless. Why make someone else miserable?

Bayer came to stand shoulder to shoulder beside me and Kaylan as food and drink were put out for the wolves that were left. We watched them try and act normally when they were all worried, angry, and frustrated in equal measure.

“Does your dad want you to stay?” Kaylan asked. Born barely weeks apart, it was only as we got older that we could no longer celebrate together. Not that any of us felt like a party tonight.

“Mine will look just the same next month,” Bayer said glumly. “Except they were even suggesting a parade of pack females while I sat and watched.”

Kaylan winced. “Apart from how miserable that would be for everyone, what would be the point?”

“They’re still not listening to you?” I asked quietly.

Bayer shook his head. “I stopped trying to explain after my dad told me in no uncertain terms that the future of my species rested on me.” He paused. “My stepmom just told me to suck it up. Well, not exactly,” Bayer allowed. “But she might as well have.”

My heart constricted for my friend. While at one point, it wouldn’t have mattered that Bayer preferred to mate a male, as he would’ve had plenty of brothers ready to produce cubs, but since the threat to our existence had been acknowledged, none of us had any choice, and I had no brothers.

None of us did. The ridiculous fact that Isla, his older sister, would make a perfect alpha, except she was prevented because she was a girl, wasn’t lost on any of us.

“Has anyone talked to Esther lately?” Kaylan asked.

“Yesterday,” I confirmed. I’d met with the seer last night to receive her blessing to become the alpha. “She thinks it’s the silver-skins, but she doesn’t know how.”

“You have to hand it to them, I guess,” Bayer said after another minute.

Kaylan rounded on him. “Hand it to them?” he said, his outrage making him louder than he should be for shifter hearing, although my father’s gammas would know by now my friends were here, and it being tonight, they were obviously leaving them unchallenged.

The old traditionalists in the pack had been very suspicious at first when Esther suggested our friendship.

As pack seer, she was granted a lot of respect, and as cubs, we’d looked cute and harmless running around together.

It had only been when Kaylan had grown into his fur, and as a two-hundred-pound mountain lion was more than capable of ripping any of our wolves to shreds, that the elders had started complaining.

Then Bayer had matured, and even though he wouldn’t ever be as fast as Kaylan or me, heaven help the shifter that ever got caught by the twelve-hundred-pound brown bear.

The packs all agreed that as we grew—because we were all born the alpha-heirs—we were to stick to our individual territories from that point onwards.

Bayer, myself, and Kaylan had no choice but to obey our alphas in public and then continue to meet in private whenever we could, even as we all became increasingly burdened by pack business.

And the problem that became more urgent with every passing moon.

“I mean, it’s clever,” Bayer carried on. “No direct attack. No proof they’ve broken the truce.”

“And all they have to do is wait another fifty years or so until the last shifters are so old they couldn’t raise a claw, never mind an army,” Kaylan pronounced.

“Actually, it’s worse than that,” I admitted.

“Worse than just waiting to die?” But Kaylan wasn’t being sarcastic.

“The gammas came back this morning. That’s what the pack meeting was for. My dad is calling for a Gathering.”

Kaylan and Bayer immediately turned to stare at me, and I repeated what the gammas had told us.

“I couldn’t imagine living without my bear,” Bayer said.