My One and Only Alpha

Chapter 2

Louis roused to bleary consciousness in the dead of night and stretched his limbs, promptly snuggling further into the softest fur he’d ever felt in his life to get back to…sleep… Fur?
L

ouis flung his eyes open with a frightened squeak and flailed away from the giant wolf he discovered snoozing beside him. He was just about to reach for Chatan and violently defend his honour when his inner voice of logic made him stop to think. Taking a few dutiful seconds, Louis then dumbly remembered the events of earlier and clutched at his chest in relief, trying to steady his breathing as he climbed back from the brink of panic. It was only Zayn.
Louis must have slept for longer than he’d intended because night had now fallen, and the forest was alive with the ambiance of its night-dwellers. Zayn was apparently taking a little break from the traveling, but Louis considered his naptime officially over. Uncaring of the Alpha’s peaceful state, Louis scooted back to Zayn’s wolf and bravely poked it in the face.
Zayn grunted as he was abruptly drawn out of his dream, and he opened a careful eye at Louis, staring soundlessly for a few moments before huffing in exasperation and shifting back into his human form.
Louis averted his gaze and reached into his bag to retrieve his blanket, holding it out for Zayn to cover himself with when he was ready. The bare physique of an Alpha or Omega was the very opposite of inappropriate or offensive; nudity was commonplace in most of their cultures and all-around expected. Not so much Siksika, because of the freezing temperatures, but regardless, Louis needed to have a focused conversation with Zayn, and the Alpha’s naked form could potentially veer Louis’ concentration, if you catch his drift.
The Alpha was back to his human self now, cracking all the bones he could and combing his fingers through his thick and lengthy hair. He accepted Louis’ blanket as he moved into a sitting position and wrapped it around his hips. After rolling his neck one last time, he opened his eyes and met Louis’ gaze expectantly. “Yes?” he asked, voice deep and groggy from sleep.
“I’m sorry about waking you up,” Louis said, correcting his dishonest statement when Zayn raised a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow at him in evident doubt. “Okay, I’m not, but I’m sorry I’m not sorry. I just…I want company. You being asleep was a problem,” he admitted, staring at his lap and idly fiddling with his fingers.
Zayn’s features softened at once and he took the Omega’s hands in one of his as he raised his chin with the other, forcing the boy to meet his eyes. “Hey, it’s okay. Talk to me about anything you want. I’m the reason you’re in this situation in the first place,” he said with a comforting smile, thumbing at the Omega’s cheekbone until he visibly relaxed.
Louis smiled despite the knock to his independent pride, kindly removing Zayn’s hand from his face while he scooted back a smidge to get his mental bearings. “Well, I have some questions,” he began, temporarily pausing to list them all out in his head. “How long until we reach the territory? Is it a day’s long trip, or longer? Were you too tired to continue because I was on your back, because we can just walk if you need to. What’s your Pack Alpha like? If you’re the Beta, then why were you so far from your pack in the first place? What were you doing when you found me—”
“Louis, Louis, Louis. One at a time,” Zayn chuckled, holding his hand over Louis’ mouth until he grudgingly shut up. “Okay let's see...Chehalis is a three-day’s ride west from here. We’ll reach the river inside the territory by tomorrow, but we’ll have to follow the water for one extra day before arriving at the village. Also, it is because I am the Beta that I was instructed to stray this far out. The details of my mission are very much not for your ears, little one, that is between my Alpha and myself. But—to put a stopper to your inevitable prying—it involves the rogues. I was attempting to track a specific one, but I didn’t end up finding him; I found you instead. And you are far more important. End of story,” he finalized, making it clear he wouldn’t spent any more time on those details.
Just as Louis opened his mouth to respond, the Alpha quickly added another thought: “And Louis, please, your featherweight body on my wolf’s back is the furthest thing from a burden.”
Louis huffed indignantly at the term ‘featherweight,’ but committed to stay on topic. “That’s all well and good, but you failed to answer the only question I really wanted an answer for,” he muttered, cringing at how indignant he sounded to his own ears.
“And pray tell which question was that?” Zayn asked with a bemused smirk, deciding the left side of his hair was thoroughly combed and flipping it over to deal with the right.
“What’s your Alpha like?” Louis asked pointedly, catching Zayn’s understanding nod as though he’d expected that to be the unanswered question. “What’s his name? How old is he? Favourite colour? I want to know everything.”
Zayn laughed brightly at the favourite colour inquisition, but all joking was set aside as he grew stern with the presumptuously-entitled Louis. “I shouldn’t give information on my Alpha out to strangers, Louis,” he scolded with a hard-set frown, narrowing his eyes at the Omega even though he knew the boy meant no harm.
“I’m hardly a stranger if you’re calling me by my name,” Louis argued reasonably, grabbing Zayn’s hands with a fearlessly strong and familiar grip. “Please, Zayn? I’m nervous. What angers him, what should I not do, please, I don’t want to mess this up, and I probably will anyway, but if I know more about him, maybe I have a better chance,” he rambled, having not stopped to breathe that entire time.
Louis had previously been innocently curious, but the more he thought on it, the more he realized a very real fear was seeping through the cracks of his confidence. He feared another rejection. He didn’t think he could handle it a second time when the first had been so traumatic, despite how much he tried to pretend it hadn’t been. He never wants to see so many backs at one time ever again for as long as he lives, and a whimper escaped his mouth as his emotional stability slowly and precariously began crumbling down around him.
Zayn cooed empathetically and pulled the distressed Omega into his lap, wrapping his arms around his smaller frame and pushing the dominantly submissive’s face into his neck to try and hormonally sedate him. The Beta knew his mate, Niall, was likely going to tear him to pieces when he smelled this Omega on his neck, but Zayn would deal with that unfortunate circumstance when it happened. Right now, he had a duty as an Alpha to do. “Hey, hey, Louis, no, it’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’ll tell you, okay? Do you want to know about Harry?” he murmured, nosing at the Omega’s forehead and planting kisses to his fluffy brown hair.
Louis didn’t fully submit while scenting the Alpha’s neck like other Omegas would, but he had to admit the personalized aroma of this Pack Beta was rather soothing, and he made no move to break away from his lulling embrace. He closed his eyes and nodded his head against the Alpha’s warm chest, taking deep breaths and bathing himself in the Alpha’s pungent pheromones while he could. An aroma that, come to think of it, had the hint of being a mated one, but Louis would ask about that later. For once, he permitted himself to just be held.
Zayn had to bite back a chuckle when the Omega in his lap began to release contented purrs; these were actions Louis probably didn’t realize he was doing, so Zayn held all reactions in, merely yelling in his head about how adorable it was. He pressed another light kiss to the top of the Omega’s head and tightened his arms around him, pondering where he could start on the Harry facts.
“Okay, Louis,” he said engagingly, smiling when Louis’ purring stopped at once to listen. “Harry Styles, full name, is twenty-two years old, he stands at around six feet high…thin, but stronger and faster than any wolf I’ve ever seen. He has brown curly hair almost as long as mine. Has, uh, a particular distaste for clothing, and he only ever wears bottoms if he has to. I don’t think I’ve seen him cover his chest once, and we’ve been friends since birth. Not a fan of shoes, either. He’s got one green eye, and one brown, but he hates it when people stare, so try not to. What else...he’s unmated, and he puts his pack before anything else. I would gladly die for him, and I have never faltered in that commitment because I am well aware he would do the same for me. He is my best friend. What else do you wanna know, Omega?” Zayn asked, rubbing his hands up and down Louis’ back.
Louis didn’t even blink at the term used to address him—too deep in his gender’s headspace to be fully aware of it—and adjusted his position so he could look up at Zayn’s face. “Sorry, but did you say he was twenty-two?” he asked, eyes widening when Zayn nodded his assent. “How is that possible? That’s far too young; Rixon was forty-seven.”
“Rixon...Rixon Bahe? You’re from the Siksika?” Zayn gasped with an incredulity that startled Louis’ calm—he flinched at the mention of his old pack, but nodded his head to confirm all the same. “Siksika is probably a thousand miles from here. You said you’ve been on your own for three years. Three years is a long time for a mere thousand miles. How are you still this close? Where have you been staying?” he inquired.
“That’s right, you’re of Chehalis. That is pretty close. Apparently, I made a huge circle. I really just went all over the place, I guess. Just kept going. I figured I’d run into someone eventually...however, truth to be told, I stopped caring whether that ever happened or not. But look at you, there you were, huh? Right when I least expected it. Only took three years,” Louis laughed emotionlessly.
Zayn shook his head in amazement of the Omega’s fierce independence and held him even closer. This Omega had traveled for so long whilst being completely alone, and still miraculously managed to fight off every rogue he’d encountered to get where he was now. This was a phenomenal feat indeed, but Omegas required special care and attention to keep them happy, and Zayn mourned how lonely Louis must have been. The Beta remembered the topic at hand, though, and promptly redirected the focus of the conversation.
“To answer your question, Louis, Harry’s parents were murdered by rogues when he was sixteen. This meant he was obligated to assume his father’s place as Pack Alpha because he was the only heir—the Chaska by default. Obviously with Harry being of the same bloodline, our pack never needed a new bonding ceremony,” Zayn informed, presenting his wrist to Louis and showing him the bond mark that was etched into it. “This is technically Desmond’s mark of acceptance, Harry’s father, but its power was directly transferred to his next of kin on the day of his death, and Harry has performed every other mark for us since then,” Zayn informed, pausing a moment as he lost himself in the void of memories.
“What was it like? Losing a Pack Alpha?” Louis asked meekly, overcome with grief for a pack he hadn’t even met yet. To lose a member so significant was a harrowing concept—even with Louis’ skewed perception of Pack Alphas through Rixon, thinking of him dead somehow didn’t feel too great either. Poor Harry, he mentally whined, feeling so much for the sixteen-year-old Chaska of Chehalis and not understanding why.
“Awful. Just awful. It was such a tragic day, and many were lost. Words can’t describe the pain our pack endured, but we needed to move on, and Harry needed to govern us to that point. We were more than trusting of Harry’s ability to lead us all in the right direction, even with his young age at the time,” Zayn explained, remembering how big a role their last-remaining Pack Elder had played in that decision as well.
“He was that good? Can’t imagine what he’s like now,” Louis commented, picturing a fiercely warrior-type Alpha that foamed at the mouth and drank from skulls.
“He’s a beast, no doubt about that, but he’s a kind one. The years of experience from his teendom has made his adulthood leadership unparalleled. He speaks with the wisdom and sophistication of an Alpha Elder these days. The responsibility of Pack Alpha entrusted to Harry so young robbed him of any normally-paced upbringing, and he had to mature faster than anyone would have chosen for him, but we would have been lost without him. Besides, you can still catch him being a total goofball when he sheds the air of ‘invincible ruler’ that he wears all the time. He’s still a softie at heart,” Zayn confessed, smiling fondly as he thought of Harry’s often ridiculous antics.
Louis was calming down more and more with each new detail about Harry he received. The Alpha didn’t sound like the brutish and unforgiving Alpha at all he’d imagined at all. At the very least, definitely not another Rixon. The same age range would prove to be interesting as well. The Omega had to promise himself he wouldn’t go starting shit just because the Pack Alpha was one of Louis’ generation. That probably made him even more powerful and dangerous, anyway.
A sudden thought struck the Omega and he crawled off Zayn’s lap, feeling good enough about the situation now to separate from the dominant. “Zayn...you said rogues killed Harry’s parents. You also said you were out here looking for specific rogues. Those two things are related, aren’t they?”
Louis had said that through the guise of a question, but to Zayn, it sounded much more like an accusatory statement—too much for Zayn’s comfort. Shooting his eyebrows into his hairline, the Beta gently but firmly grabbed Louis by the chin and brought their faces maddeningly close together, donning an uncommonly serious expression to get through to the ever-so-curious Louis. “Please don’t ask me that,” he implored.
Louis blinked in surprise at the sure knowledge that he was definitely onto something, but he let it go, intelligent enough to know how to bide time and bring things up at opportune moments. “Alright. I know nothing, I swear. I won’t ask, but I hope you find them.... Harry doesn’t sound too frightening, I think I’ll be okay. Thanks for talking with me, Zaynie, I feel a lot better. I’m actually pretty tired again,” he said with an emphasized stretch and a yawn.
“It wasn’t a problem, Louis. Do you want me to change back so you can have some warmth? We have about three hours until sunrise,” he offered, controlling his urge to snicker when the Omega visibly fought the impulse to accept.
Louis, for all his mental struggles, sheepishly nodded in the end. “It was rather warm,” he admitted with a defeated sigh. Why have I been acting like an Omega?
“Alright, Lou. I’ll wake you when daylight breaks, and we’ll go find food and continue the journey. If you need me for anything, though, feel free to wake me up again,” Zayn allotted, already taking deep breaths as he prepared to let his inner wolf take control.
“Thank you. Goodnight, Zayn,” Louis whispered, stealing the blanket as Zayn’s uncomfortable shifting process began, and wrapping it around himself instead. When the giant black wolf was back, it lay on its side and lifted a paw in a beckoning gesture.
Louis felt a smile melt his lips, and he thanked the stars that Zayn had ended up finding him so randomly in the middle of this vast forest. The Omega had been getting depressingly lonely, as much as he’d tried to ignore it, and maybe this right here was his destiny. Maybe he would be accepted by Harry and finally belong somewhere.
Maybe he’s been so fervidly running from his past because all this time, he’s been simultaneously running toward a different future. Maybe this was that future.
For now, he could only take it one day at a time, and he had a particularly important one in a few short hours, so the Omega cuddled up into the wolf’s soft front and let the rise and fall from its huge breaths lull him to sleep. Is this what it’s like to be mated? Because I fully approve.