Page 23 of Chosen Beta

I can hear Pete snorting with laughter in the background at Shadow’s joking attempt to get a rise out of the guard on the gates. They’re lucky the guards we have are reasonable.

Before Lana took over, I doubt they would have been allowed to stand out there joking about breaking into the academy. It’s more likely they would have been hauled into the building and interrogated on their intentions.

“Okay, fine,” Shadow agrees. “We’ll wait out here until this guy lets us in.”

He hangs up, and I resist the urge to call Owen.

I hesitate for a second over calling Lana.

I doubt she’d be happy to know I’m about to ask her to allow an ex-con into the academy, just because he’s part of my pack, but if I’m right about her, and she’s ours, then it can’t hurt to have them here where she might actually start to recognise us as her true mates.

I make the call to Lana’s extension.

She picks up within a few rings, and the sound of her voice short-circuits my brain for a second.

“Head of Administration Lana Cole speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hello?” she asks, when I don’t answer her first greeting. “Hello? Is someone there?”

“It’s Ez … I mean, it’s Dr. Clarke.”

“Oh, Dr. Clarke. Hi. Um, I arranged for cover for you starting at noon. Is that still okay?”

“It is,” I confirm, though I’d much rather be speaking to her in person right now. “And I’m waiting to find out the details on the security team for you, but I have another concern right now.”

“Anotherconcern?” She sounds wary, like she thinks I’m about to drop a problem in her lap.

I clear my throat. “This one is personal, I’m afraid. It seems my Omega and Beta got bored waiting for this emergency situationto clear up. They’ve come to visit me. In fact, they’re outside the academy’s gates right now.”

“Oh,” she murmurs. “Um … I can ask someone to relieve you now so you can meet them.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I reply, not willing to push my luck. “If they could be let in to wait in my room until I’m on a break, it would be appreciated. I’ll deal with getting them back home safely tonight, but for now it would be better if they weren’t wandering around the city. My Omega isn’t very aware of his effect on people. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

And considering neither of them can drive, they’ve already had more than enough fun on their way out here. I hate to think about the chaos they must have caused on whatever public transport they used to get to Cressidan City.

“Of course,” Lana says. “I’ll have to have them escorted to my office first, and they’ll need to log in and out of the guest book, but I can lead them to your suite once they get inside. Would you like to see them before they get taken up to your room?”

I think about it for a second, but I know it wouldn’t be smart to let my mates distract me while I’m trying to keep the patient in room nine safe. It’s too easy to forget the rest of the world when they’re around and considering how frequently I’ve been away from them recently, I know food will be the last thing on any of our minds once I leave my post for my lunchbreak.

“It would be better if they could be taken straight to my room to wait for me.”

“I’m on it,” she tells me, before she hangs up.

I lean back against the wall and take another glance at my sleeping patient before I check the time on the screen of my cell phone. It’s almost ten thirty, and all I can think about now is how my mates are going to react to Lana.

It feels like fate is starting to show her hand.

There’s no way Shadow will miss who she is to us.

And he never supresses his perfume.

It’s a sweet scent with a hint of spice that always reminds me of toasting marshmallows over an open fire and drinking pina colada cocktails on the beach after dark.

Just thinking about breathing it in makes my body react.

The mere memory of his perfume gets me hard in seconds.

And that’s nothing compared to how it feels when he’s right in front of me.

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