Page 178 of The Beta's Blind Date

“It’s not that,” Merina says, shaking her head. “She wasn’t supposed to find her mate. She wasn’t supposed to change packs. How will my son’s heir learn to lead Silver Ridge when they’re living here in Crescent Lake being raised by a beta?!”

Silence falls over our table, and everyone’s eyes land on Merina, including mine. I lick my lips and raise my brows. “I never told you I was pregnant.”

Merina’s eyes widen and her lips press together. Then she laughs, pulling her hand away from Haven’s and waving away my statement. “Of course you did!”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “The only ones I’ve told are my mate, the other ranked members of Crescent Lake, and Dominic.” My lips curl into an unfeeling smile. “But of course, since you were in his head for who knows how long, you already knew I told Dominic. Just like you already knew Reid and I marked each other.”

She swallows, and her eyes flit around the room. She lifts her napkin from her lap and rises to her feet, smoothing down the full skirt of her blue and white dress. “Thank you for the tea, Luna Haven, but I need to—”

“You will sit down,” Haven says, her voice filled with authority and her aura pulsing out of her, directed straight at Merina.

Merina returns to her seat with a plop, her mouth dropping open and then snapping shut again as she stares at Haven. “How—”

“How long have you been controlling Dominic?” Haven asks.

“I’ve been manipulating him since I killed his father and he took over the pack.” She inhales and her eyes dart between Haven and me, her hand covering her mouth.

“You killed his father?” I ask.

She drops her hand and fidgets with her napkin. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I’m responsible for his death, just like I’m responsible for the death of your parents.”

“What?” Haven asks.

I frown. “But my parents died in a drunk driving accident.”

She swallows and licks her lips. “Do you know how easy it is to find a drunk driver on the freeways in Southern California? It was only a matter of manipulating his route to match your parents’ and then having him drive them off the road into the canyon.”

My heart clenches in my chest and water lines my eyelids. Haven grabs my hand under the table and she squeezes, right as Reid’s voice rumbles in my mind.“Taryn?”

“I’m okay.”I’m not, but I push it all back, using the animosity and the pain to fuel my quest for answers. I can break later. When all this is done and I’m with my mate, I can succumb to the burning, gaping hole reopened by her confession.

“Are you sure? Do you need us? Do you need me?”

“Not yet. She’s spilling everything. I can stay strong.”

I close the mindlink, glaring at Merina. I want nothing more than to launch myself across the table at her. But I stay strong and bide my time.

“Of course, you muddled that up. You were supposed to be with them, but you decided to stay home at the last minute,” she adds.

My stomach flips and my heart skips a beat. “You wanted me dead, too?”

She laughs, her head thrown back as she slaps the table. “You don’t know anything about your gift, do you?” I swallow and glance at Haven. “You’ve been given this wonderful power, but you haven’t done a lick of research on how or why. Typical,” Merina says, shaking her head. “So very typical of this generation of shifters to take everything for granted.”

Her eyes lower to me, her gaze sharp and cold, the hesitance she displayed before nowhere in sight. “A healer’s powers will only appear when someone they care deeply for is injured in front of them. You were supposed to be in the car with your parents so your gift would manifest.”

My hand tightens around Haven’s and razors claw at my throat, a tear threatening to roll down my cheek. “I could have saved them?”

“It worked out better for me that they died, though. It was easier to get you here. I just planted the idea in Gigi’s unsuspecting mind, and she did the rest without knowing she was playing right into my hands, convincing you to move to Silver Ridge so you could still be with your family,” she says.

She ignores my teary eyes and broken heart. She’s on a roll, spilling her truth to us without qualms. And even though each word of her confession is another wound to my already injured soul, I don’t stop her. I let her give us everything we need.

“And then everything was going perfectly. I didn’t even need to manipulate Dominic to be with you. He wanted you as soon as he saw the beautiful, confident female you’d grown into. I only had to force him to keep you out of the warrior ranks, and make sure he told you that you needed to prove yourself and work your way up from the bottom so nothing would happen to you out in the field.”

I close my eyes and cover my stomach with my free hand, relief flooding me. It didn’t change what she did, but at least he’d wanted to be with me of his own volition; at least we never slept together because of her manipulation.

“But then you fucked everything up again,” she continues. “The potion worked. You were sleeping with my son, and you weren’t a warrior. But you had to push him, had to demand a bigger commitment, and had to walk away because of some… somepointyou were trying to make or some feminine independence you were trying to assert.”

“The potion didn’t work. Not completely, anyway,” I say. “Reid knew I was his mate right away.”

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