The Alpha's Exchanged Mate
The Alpha’s Exchanged Mate – Chapter 39

Ben’s POV…

“Welcome to the sizzlers community, it is good to finally get you to join us,” Alpha Bethel said, extending arms of a warm, gratifying hug. It’s been a while since I got such a warm, reserved welcome.

“Thank you, Alpha Bethel,” I replied, with only a smile on my face.

I was a free man, I wasn’t free at heart, but I was free from those shackles and thorns in my flesh.

I have been bottling a whole up for years, and it has made me become an unhappy man. But this time, I wanted to do things differently.

I believe a lot of stories have been told about me, and many people get to represent me in the version of events they are comfortable with, but for you to truly say you understand or know me, you need to have been able to work in my shoes.

I have never been one who has had any interest in what people had to say about me; truly, I don’t care.

It has always been filled with lies or some sort of half-truth, and that was their own case scenario.

I sometimes get to wonder how foolish they could be just to formulate some story in their head and tell it so often, to think they had cracked some sort of code about that person.

“Humans are predictable,” I keep telling anyone who tends to listen, and knowing that truth and accepting that truth, not just for others but also for myself, has helped me navigate through life. When I feel I am about to act humanely or give room to my emotions, I tend to remind myself I was acting in some sort of f****d up, predictable manner which will fit with the script they have given me, and I f**k the script to get to write my own script. You know, one that isn’t designed by some false narrative and held by the truth of who we are. And so you want to know who we are.

“We are all bad people,” you might shrug in disapproval and get to tell yourself likewise. You might sing different affirmations of who you believe you are. But that doesn’t change the fact that “There are no good people.” It is the sad, uncomfortable truth about reality and people. It is who we are.

What do we measure the lens of good and bad with?

A so-called “bad man” kills people to justify a course that only he believes in, and maybe others don’t get to see things in his light and then ultimately tag him as a bad person. Then a so-called “good person” gets angry at the bad person’s deeds, kills the bad person, and gets revenge. The good person is praised as justice is served but who f*****g gave him the right to carry out justice? People both condemn the bad person and praise the good person, but there is one uncomfortable truth we are forgetting, and that is the fact that they are both murderers.

It is just that one is presumed, in a general perspective, to be doing the right thing, and the other person is presumed to be doing the wrong thing.

This is what the story of my life has been. I have been misunderstood and misrepresented to be who I am not by a narrative pushed by self-aggrandizing and false propaganda.

I grew up knowing I would always be number two. It wasn’t like I wasn’t comfortable with being number two, but when people want you to assume the role of number two, they also want you to be subjugated to their every whim and whimsical. But I always knew I was born for more. I wasn’t just born to live in the shadow of the Alpha and always be at his beck and call.

I knew there was something about me that was different, something that wouldn’t settle for less. Whatever that thing might be, it didn’t let me settle for mediocrity or complacency.

Growing up with Alexander, I trained side by side with him, and I could see what a weak leader he was. Once during one of our combat training, we were asked to go head-on, one on one with each other, and we were asked not to stop until one of us had drawn the b***d of the other opponent. At that would victory be declared, and that was the first time I was facing the Alpha. It was a heated battle that lasted over an hour. I must give it out to him. He is a fierce fighter and would have won that day if he wasn’t weak and foolish; if he didn’t have compassion for someone he nearly knew and wasn’t even his friend.

He had already gotten me down on both knees, and I was at his mercy and couldn’t draw b***d. I remember our instructor shouting at him.

“Take the shot, Alex,” the old sensei who had been in charge of training us had screamed out to him.

“I said take the shot, Alex,” he yelled at him again. I could see his hands trembling and his eyes filled with so much fear at the split of the moment. I knew it was my chance to do what the Alpha was too weak to do. I kicked him and immediately drew b***d from him without even thinking about it. The sensei was both proud and disappointed, and he made a statement that day. That was the statement that changed my life and how I viewed myself in the light of all that was happening, and he said.

“If not that the lineage of the Alpha was already preserved deep into your roots, I would have said you are not fit to be the Alpha, an alpha doesn’t hesitate and put the life of his people first before anything. Ben showed that quality today and you didn’t.”

He sighed and glared at me, “good work today Ben,” he reached out to me and patted me on the back, “you showed the quality of a true leader,” he said, and that was the statement that changed my life. I knew right then and there that I wasn’t birthed to be the number two but rather number one, and Alpha Alex was never fit to lead the night howlers into the place we wanted to be.

But I still gave him multiple chances to prove to himself that he deserved to be Alpha, and he kept failing. Sometimes we would go to some of the rival soldiers who swore some battles, and he would spare temporal allegiance to the night howlers. At the end of the day, even if it goes against my better judgment, he would welcome them into the pack, and we mostly end up regretting such actions.

There was a man named Lucas, he was spared from death on a battlefield when we had conquered his territory, and he then immediately, in fear of death, went on his knee and swore allegiance to the night howlers. I took Alex to the corner to talk to him.

“I think we should kill him, ” I muttered to him, with sweat and b***d dripping down my face and hand. It was a heated battle, and even at that, I could see what he couldn’t see.

“But the law says that if anyone swears his allegiance to night howlers, he automatically becomes one of us,” he replied, and I let out a frustrated gasp.

“This man right here isn’t swearing his allegiance to the night howlers, he only wants his life to be spared and at the end of the day, he will do what they always do, stab us at the back.”

Alex glared at me and then at the man who was still on his knee, pleading and begging for mercy. I knew he didn’t have the ball to make the right call.

“I will put him under six months of careful watch and probation,” he said, and I sighed. He was too weak to be the leader, and we all knew it. And then this man who they had spared his life and placed under probation for months went around raping our women in disguise, and then there was an anonymous serial rapist amongst us, all because of the Alpha.

At the end of the day, when he was caught and revealed to be that same man who had been given a second chance to live, I immediately knew what had to be done, I drew out my sword, and that man called Lucas paid with his head.

That was only one of many instances in which Alex had proved to be a weak leader and not one suited and capable of ruling our people. And so when the sizzlers came with the proposal to dethrone Alpha Alex, I knew what had to be done.

Some people might think and assume I did it because I was having an affair with Sonia. Well, I can’t really deny the fact that it was one of the factors that had informed my decision, but that wasn’t it, it wasn’t just about all the glamorous things I wanted for myself, no matter how tempting it was, but it was for the collective good of the night howlers territory.

I had had a lot of people tell me that I would make a better leader than Alex, and to me, that was something I had never doubted. I could challenge him, but I wasn’t a bad person. I couldn’t just kill Alpha Alex because I wanted the best for the realm. At one point, I could almost even say that he was my friend and that we had grown some sort of mutual respect for each other, we had fought side by side over the years, and more than a lot of times, he had to save my a*s as much I had to save his, and that alone had helped us maintain the respect we had for each other.

Yes, I was f*****g his wife, and he didn’t know that aspect then, but when it comes to being a fighter, I can very much say that he wasn’t bad at all, and he was great at being a fighter.

So that was why it was hard for me to make that decision and betray him, but I asked myself, is this for the greater good of the night howlers? I got an affirmative answer and immediately went for it.

That was how things like that, for me, informed my decision.

“Are you ready to start planning?” Alpha Bethel said to me, and I smiled.

“This time we won’t get it wrong again,” I replied with a modest grin that could be interpreted as evil on my face.

But then again, people only see the bad in people, and that is their f*****g problem.

But there is one thing I know: I had let him take a lot from me. Starting from the fact that I was the rightful ruler of the night howlers because I deserved to be and not because I was entitled for the sake of some f*****g b***d heritage lineage. And then, there was also the fact that I don’t get to see my child being formed in his mother’s womb. He is depriving me of the right to be a father. And finally, he married Edwina, my wife, just to get back at me. What type of f****d up leader does something of that nature? I promised myself something then: I am going to get my wife back and everything that bastard had stolen from me. Even if his head goes with it. I do not f*****g care.

I’m coming for you, Alexander.