Page 11 of His Prodigal Alpha

I nodded. “No, I’d never even heard the terms until…”

Flashbacks of that night with Damon blinked through my mind.

Beck lifted the corner of his lip in a wry, knowing smirk. “Yeah, I’ve been there. Bought the t-shirt and everything.”

Was it my imagination, or did he dip his chin towards the kids when he said that?

“So,” he forged on, disrupting my curious thoughts, “there’s a whole old-school hierarchy that comes with the alpha thing. Not that we really follow it here. Well, except for the whole town’s insistence that an alpha should be Pack Alpha…but I’m working on trying to change their minds. Biology shouldn’t determine leadership status, you know? Even though I can do this weird thing where I can momentarily compel them to do stuff. But I don’t like to do that because it’s totally an abuse of power and…I’m rambling.”

“Okay…” I replied slowly, trying to follow his point. “So it’s just a hierarchy thing? Which doesn’t really matter unless you’re part of a pack?”

Beck shook his head and his expression turned uncomfortable. “The whole belief system when it comes to alphas being superior to betas and betas to omegas is fucked,” he said bluntly, then cringed and looked down at the babies in his lap. “Shit. Ah, damn it. I mean…ugh.Sorry. Just don’t tell your Papa I cursed, okay?”

The infants gurgled back at him, and I chuckled. “I think you’re safe for now. I don’t know much about wrangling small humans —small shifters?— but pretty sure it takes most of ’em a while longer to start repeating the stuff they’re not s’posed to. Or,” I added, cocking my head, “telling on you to their Papa.”

“Yeah, well, their Papa may look sweet and harmless, but I’d rather not find myself in his bad books, or in the doghouse, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

I arched my eyebrow at him, and he snorted. “Because I’m a wolf shifter. Not that wolves are dogs, but I’m taking creative license here.”

“Right…”

Beck cleared his throat into the stilted silence that fell between us. “So, anyway, the whole power structure is dumb. But there are other, um, differences between each secondary designation. Biological ones.”

I sat up a little straighter, all ears again. “Like the slick thing? And the knotting?”

He nodded and bit his lip. “Eric, Brandt, and Ollie can explain it better than I can, and I’m sure they will when they get here.”

“Give me the summarized version,” I demanded, not having the patience to wait. This was what I’d come here for, after all. To learn about what I was andwhyI was like this. To learn what my body was secretly capable of. The details could come later.

Beck’s expression twisted uncomfortably again, but he nodded. “Okay, well, betas are the closest to human in terms of their biology. They can shift, but…that’s about it in terms of anything special or different about them. They’re born unmarked, or so I’m told.”

“Okay…” I rolled my wrist at him, hoping he might speed it up a little.

“But omegas are born marked from birth. They get a mark in the shape of a crescent moon somewhere on their bodies.” His handsome face contorted into a scowl. “So, even though it makes no damn difference until they hit puberty, they get whacked with the label that they’re omegas and, without alphas, aren’t good for much except slave labor, and they’re usually raised without a whole lot of self-worth.”

The news wasn’t really a surprise to me, not after what I’d heard back in that bar in Mississippi, but it still got mymetaphorical hackles up. “But why?” I demanded, leaning forward to jab at my own knee with my index finger as I spoke. “Why does their value rely on the presence of alphas?”

Beck shifted the babies in his lap and couldn’t quite meet my eye. “Without alphas, they can’t help grow the pack.”

I knew I must have looked a hell of a lot confused, ‘cause I sure felt it. “I don’t follow.”

“What, um, what did Da…” He stopped himself and started again. I was beginning to wonder what people around here were trying not to say. “What did the omega you were with tell you about his slick?”

“That it helped with…” I tried to recall his words and frowned. Having gone over that night so many times in my head, I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to. However, I’d never realized that my sweet kitten hadn’t actually saidwhyhe got slick. I’d inferred it was to make having sex easier for his kind. Self-lubrication for the win. “You know, he didn’t say. He got flustered.” Despite my mixed feelings about the events that had followed, I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. “Then we, uh, got distracted.”

Beck snorted and raised a knowing eyebrow. “I know how that goes.” He looked back down at the babies, his expression softening. “Worth it.”

The logic didn’t compute.

Suspicion began to niggle at the back of my brain, willing me to make some sort of connection between my experience and what was in front of me. But, try as I might, I was at a loss.

“What do you mean?”

Steeling himself, Beck began, “So, the slick is to help with mating, for lack of a better term.”

Feeling my shoulders relax, I nodded and chuckled, “Well,yeah, I got that part.”

“No, I mean—” Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of one of the infants filling their diaper. Loudly. It was followed by a drawn-out moment of stunned silence before the baby in question began wailing. Beck sighed. “Really, dude? Ijustchanged your sister. Can you two not, like, get into sync or something?” He looked over at me, chagrined. “Would you mind holding her? I’ve gotta take care of this.”

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