Page 13 of Impregnated By the Alpha

The others agreed and they started back home. Moira felt the lighthouse behind her, long after it had slipped from view.

Chapter 5 - Jonah

It was a fine day for a funeral. Jonah combed his hair in the diner bathroom and splashed cold water over his face. He could’ve gotten a hotel, should’ve, probably, but it would have made the whole thing feel too real. So, he’d spent another night in his tent, camping at the edge of the woods.

“Coffee, dear?” The waitress was old enough to be his grandmother, her face wrinkled with years of smiles. She gave him one now and lifted the coffee pot.

“Please,” he said.

“Long night?” She asked, filling his mug. It was chipped and scratched, shabby as the rest of the diner.

“You could say that,” Jonah replied. He lifted his coffee. “But this will help., thank you.”

He ordered a full breakfast, eggs, sausages, pancakes, and sat back in the booth to wait. The vinyl creaked beneath him. From the diner window, he had a view of the town he’d grown up in and grown out of. It was a sad sight, slipping into disrepair.

“Here you are, dear.” The waitress returned, setting the plate down in front of him with a sticky bottle of pancake syrup. She followed his gaze out the window. “Not much, I know, but it’s home. It had its glory days once, believe it or not, maybe back around the time when I was having mine.”

She laughed, warm and raspy.

“I believe it,” Jonah said earnestly.

“Sweet boy,’ she said, tapping him on the shoulder with her pad of paper. “Give a shout if you need anything.”

She walked off, leaving him alone with his food and his thoughts. If only “anything” included some instructions on what to do with his life. He counted the empty storefronts surrounding the diner and cursed his father again for his negligence. The people had suffered because of him.

Spencer’s words came back. Could Jonah have done something if he’d stayed? Found some way to pick up his father’s slack? But his father had never listened to Jonah, not even about simple things like not filling the house up with junk. He never would have listened to Jonah when it came to pack matters.

Too soon, the clock on the wall pointed to half past nine. His plate was cleared, his stomach full, and too many cups of bitter, strong coffee consumed. There was no more reason to delay. He smoothed his black shirt, wiped crumbs from his black pants, left a generous tip, and walked out into the overcast day.

The funeral was planned for ten o’clock at the hillside cemetery. Jonah knew the spot well. As teenagers, they’d dared each other to touch the gravestones in the middle of the night, seeing ghosts and phantoms behind every tree. He knew now it wasn’t haunted by anything but memories. But that was enough.

He couldn’t bring himself to join the small procession, laying his father to rest. The faces of the mourners were familiar. Calling them mourners was, perhaps, a stretch. There were no tears. No one wept for the old man. Even Jonah’s face was dry; his tears had been cried the night before, and now the living had drawn his attention. He wondered what they would make of him, if he let himself be seen.

The ceremony was brief; at the end, handfuls of sand from the nearby beach were scattered over the freshly turned dirt. Jonah’s pocket was full of the silver grains, waiting for his turn. When the crowd departed the cemetery, and only Jonah remained, he stepped out.

His father’s grave sat slightly apart from the others, in a line of alphas that stretched back nearly to the start of the pack. Seeing his own last name repeated over and over, etched into the cold, grey stone, filled Jonah with unease. He could picture his own in the spot beside his father’s, just another link of a chain.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there at the end,” he said, scattering sand over his father’s grave. “Or for the rest of it. I don’t know what we would have been if I’d stayed. Maybe it would’ve been better. Maybe I shouldn’t have run.”

His voice thickened. He cleared his throat and went on, a vision of his father before him. Jonah could almost smell the tobacco that clung to the old man, and could see the faded, rumpled hat pulled low over his brow.

“Maybe we’re just not fit for this role,” he said, dropping the last grain of sand. “Maybe it would be better for this place if you were the last Broadhorn to call himself alpha.”

Or are you just looking for another excuse to run? Jonah couldn’t tell if it was his father’s voice or his own that he was hearing. Turning from the grave, he started down the sandy hill back into town.

Halfway down, a wolf stepped out from behind a boulder. Its face was scarred, leaving only one good, golden eye, and its fur was patchy over its thin, bony body. Jonah took a step backward. The wolf was no threat, no matter what it tried, but he didn’t want to have to hurt anyone.

“Hello?” He called, cautiously. “Are you here for the funeral? I’m afraid it’s just finished, but I can show you to the grave if you’d like to visit it. It’s just up the hill here.”

The wolf took a step closer, then shifted into an old man. He was as scarred and bony as his wolf form, and his good eye glowed golden and brilliant in the grey. He pointed knotted finger at Jonah.

Jonah knew him now, a half-forgotten memory dredged from the past. The oracle. The Silversand’s soothsayer. As far he knew, they were the only pack to boast the power, though some considered it more of a curse, depending on the fortune told. There was always a soothsayer, one born each time one died, known by their glowing, golden eyes and their white fur.

Suddenly cold, Jonah shivered. Whatever the man in front of him was about to say, he knew it wasn’t going to be anything he wanted to hear. That was just Jonah’s lot in life.

“Look, I know—“ Jonah began, hoping to head the soothsayer off before he could deliver whatever future he saw for him.

But the old man spoke up in a surprisingly strong, steady voice that commanded attention and respect. “I see your fate, Jonah Broadhorn.”

---