Page 102 of Chosen Beta

He didn’t deserve it.

“That’s so fucking awful.” Lana shakes her head, her jaw clenching.

I can see how mad it’s made her to hear the full story. As someone who’s fighting against some powerful forces herself, she needs to know how dangerous rich men can be.

“The worse part is, Shadow didn’t learn his lesson.”

She raises an eyebrow at me. “That’sthe worst part?”

“All I do is worry about him,” I admit.

I ignore the wave of bitterness that washes over me at being back here, in the city where I was raised by obscenely rich parents who wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to pull the same shit on anyone they decided had wronged them.

“He brought Pete along this time, but Shadow doesn’t always sneak out with a partner in crime. It’s not safe out in this world for Omegas. If that attempted kidnapping didn’t make him see that, I’m not sure what will.”

“Well, if we want the world to be a safer place for Omegas, it’s up to us to start making it safer for them, in whatever ways we can.” Lana gives me a wry smile.

“That’s what you’re doing here,” I murmur.

She shrugs. “It’s not a bad place to start.”

Fucking hell.

She’s meant to be mated to us, and she’s basically admitted that she’s right where she needs to be. Here, in this messed up city, in this academy.

The world needs to change, that much is true.

She wants to be one of the people helping to make those changes happen.

That’s the most dangerous position to be in, and she’s chosen it.

No. It chose her.

She’s needed here.

That means … It means something I don’t even want to think about.

Her attention goes back to her computer when I’m silent for a while, pondering. I hear her softly click-clacking away at her keyboard. I try to imagine myself being here day after day, and the thought makes my whole body go tense.

“This place is why I left the city,” I confess, capturing her attention with that one sentence.

Her typing slows to a stop, and she lifts her gaze curiously.

“This place?” she asks.

“Goldcrest Academy. My parents were donors. They had my name added to the guest list for the first social the year I turned eighteen. When I refused to go, they gave me an ultimatum.”

Her eyes widen when I drop that last word.

She waits patiently for me to go on.

It takes me a minute to gather my thoughts, because every single time I think of that night, I get angry at my parents for turning into the monsters I always knew they were, underneath their polished exteriors.

Some small part of me hoped they were just bad at showing how they felt, and that part died when they revealed their true natures.

They never cared about me. Not one little bit.

I clear my throat. “If I came out here and went to that party, the expectation was that I was going to eventually choose an Omega to marry. That’s what would earn me access to my inheritance, in their words. If I didn’t want to do that, then as far as they were concerned, I wasn’t good enough to be their son.”

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