The Scarred Alpha's Redemption

"Elora! Come out, come out wherever you are!"

From where she lay on her wooden bed, her eyes buried deeply into the book she was reading, Elora smiled and rolled her eyes.

She still failed to understand why her father still treated her like a baby.

She heard the heels of his boots come to a halt in front of her door.

"Goodness me! Were you studying?" He asked, widening his eyes dramatically.

With a scoff, Elora sat up, straightened the hem of her skirt and smiled.

"You're back papa." She said aloud. Smiling, but her smile was too broad to be genuine.

Douglas could tell once again that his daughter was up to mischief once again.

He plastered a smile on his face too, walking closer to her.

Elora swallowed hard. If Papa knew what she was reading, he would scold her and pull her by her ears. She didn't want that.

In reflex, she pushed the book under her pillow and pushed herself back, so that she rested on it.

However, Douglas did not fail to notice her gesture.

When he stood in front of her, Elora's green eyes rose up to meet his brown ones. In her eyes, Douglas could see the kindness of Isabelle and the mischief of himself.

Isabelle.

It didn't help that Elora inherited her mother's ginger colored locks of hair and her greenish eyes as well. As Elora grew, she continued to remind Douglas of his wife. He didn't know if that was a good thing, or if it was a bad thing.

"Move your arse away from the pillow, Elora Everest..."

Oh no! He had seen her push the book under.

Just what did her father never see?

She had to do something, anything to shift his mind away from the book under her pillow. She knew how angry he was going to be if he found out it was what she was up to.

"It is nothing Papa..." She resisted. Trying to sound as believable as she could. Maybe, just maybe if he didn't see her push the book under the pillow, he would have believed her.

"Elora."

"Papa." She pouted, drawing the last syllable of the word so much that he felt his ears cringe.

"You might want to move your arse before I move it myself. "

With that, he lowered his lean, six feet frame and began to tickle her.

Elora couldn't help it. She yelled and laughed, moving away from the pillow. As she struggled to catch her breath, she dived her pillow for the book. But it was too late, it was already in his hands. There was no going back now.

In his hands, Douglas continued to look at the book in shock. As he flipped swiftly through the pages, his gaze traveled from his daughter to the book in his hands. With every page he flipped, his eyes widened in shock and his nose twitched in disgust.

The gesture made Elora's heart sink. She should never have brought the book home to read. She should have just kept it at the bookshop.

However, the title had struck her so hard that there was nothing she could do. The moment her eyes skimmed through the label that had been on the shelf, she knew that the book owned her last penny.

"A proper woman's guide to fulfilling her man's sexual desires..." Doughlas read the title aloud. His eyes still opened, his eyeballs swam in disbelief.

His cheeks were flustered, he was embarrassed.

"Papa. I was curious, there were a lot of things that I needed to know and understand..."

"About sex? Elora, you're still such a little girl..." Douglas cut in, but Elora was faster.

"I am twenty papa! I should be married by now."

"You would get married my dear. To the right man,when the good man comes from you, you'll know."

Elora could not help the bitter laugh that escaped her throat.

"Really papa? Because for all I know, it is forbidden for a male to so much as smile at me. "

"I am worried for you Elora! Why don't you see...?"

Douglas was interrupted by the sight of something dropping down from one of the pages of the book.

Quiet, they both followed the paper down to the ground. Elora stayed quiet and watched as her father leaned towards the wooden floor to pick up the paper.

When it flipped over, what he saw caused his heart to fall.

His gaze flickered up to her frightened ones. Elora sought for words to say, but couldn't find any.

How had she forgotten to put that picture away?

Her mother's picture stared back at her father.

"Where did you get this?" He asked. His tone was unusually calm, but there was a dangerous edge to the tone that Elora didn't miss.

She fought to keep her eyes on anything in her small room, anything apart from his gaze.

"I asked you a question, Elora. Have you always had this?"

She turned to him now. Fear and pain were evident in his gaze.

Was there a need to explain herself?

"Papa, I can explain..."

"No. No you cannot because there is only one explanation to all of this. And that is you do not appreciate all that I am doing to keep you safe!" He was yelling at her now. Elora knew she couldn't blame him for it, not at all.

Tears welled up in her eyes.

"Papa..." She cried out.

But Douglas had gone far past her tears.

"I risked our lives to keep you safe after they took your mother away from us. Until this very day, I do not know where her body lies. And I can never, because we can not go back there, back home. Everytime that I try to shield you, it is not because of myself, but it's because of you."

"Papa, I under..."

"No." He flung the book on the wall. A few pages tore out as he did so, but Douglas didn't care.

"If anyone had seen this picture in your hands, you would have been on a hangman's noose. They would have taken you away from me just the way they took your mother and her kind. These people don't want us to be here, and if we are ever caught, we would lose our lives. I need you to understand that we have to be very careful Elora, please."

Sighing, Elora nodded her head affirmatively. She knew that he wasn't lying.

If anyone ever got so much as a scent of who she was, she would be dead.

Elora rose up to embrace her father. Her right cheek brushed his chest as he spread his arms around his daughter.

"If anything were to ever happen to you Elora..."

"Nothing will Papa, I promise."

~•~

Darkness bestowed upon her, as it was normal at such an hour of the day. As she lay in bed, she did so quietly.

After their argument, she heard the door open and her father stepped out. What she didn't know was if he had returned.

If he had not, it would only mean he was going to work through the night at the inn.

The thought caused her to smile sadly. He was always working too hard. If only he would let her do something to help him.

If he could hide his identity perfectly, why did he not have faith that she could do so as well?

Perhaps he was right. Her mother's blood running through her would announce itself to anyone who was smart enough to listen. Even though her human blood masked it a great deal - since her mother was a low ranking witch - it could still be picked up by a powerful wolf.

An alpha wolf.

Sighing, she turned and lay on her right side, facing the window of her room. She gazed at the bits of snow that fell to the ground. Winter was coming, and so were the wars that accompanied it.

In her range of thoughts, sleep came with the wind and blew past her. Elora's eyelids closed together in harmony, allowing the peaceful waves of sleep to wash over her.

The peace didn't last for long.

The sound of a mockingbird's chirping filled her ears.

A mockingbird was only present when wolves were on patrol!