Page 15 of The Beta's Heart

As soon as he said the man’s name, I regretted asking.

David’s mate and little girl had died in the sickness six years ago, and the loss had devastated him to the point where he couldn’t even function. Not even his two sons could bring him out of it, and he’d been lying in a bed at the pack’s care facility ever since.

The alphas would have offered him mercy long ago, but they couldn’t do it so long as there was a sliver of a chance that he might recover. His surviving children, Zack, now nine, and Austin, seven,deserved to have that hope preserved, no matter how poor the odds were.

“Just pick someone from another pack, then,” I said as I dropped my arms to scrub my hands over my face. “You set the precedent when you appointed Beta Emerson Jones as Alpha Cole’s beta.”

“That was because there was no one of the right age from Great Rocks,” Alpha Cole said in his slow, deep voice. “As much as possible, we’ve filled the ranked positions with people from our original packs, and we’re not going to make an exception for Dark Woods whenyou’restanding right here and perfectly fit to do the job!”

It was highly unusual for a pack to have five alphas, five betas, five gammas, and five deltas, but this wasn’t a typical pack. Five Fangs was, as the name suggested, five packs put together.

After Dark Woods was invaded and decimated nearly sixteen years ago, the survivors were taken in by the Moonset pack. It only made sense since they shared a border, and the alpha, Jay Carson, was the brother of our luna, Kristy Mitchell. He and his luna, Denise, even adopted his nephew, Alpha Ash, to raise with his son, Alpha Jayden.

Ten years later, a sickness swept through supernatural communities and claimed thousands of lives, leaving many packs vulnerable to shifters who were unscrupulous enough to claim any territory with disorganized leadership. The king at the time, Magnus, put a stop to most of it, but it was clear that something drastic had to be done in our neck of the woods.

Nathan Barlow at Great Rocks had lost his luna, Kelly, in the very first wave of the sickness. He couldn’t hold his pack together without a luna to hold him together, plus raise three kids.

Royal and Julia Price, alpha and luna of Earthshine at the time, stepped in to help with Moonset after the Carsons died, but running three packs, grieving for their daughter—Willow, Alpha Mason’s fraternal twin—and taking in alphas Ash and Jayden started to take a toll very quickly.

Then, right as the sickness seemed to have run its course, Alpha Shawn Black of River Rapids passed. In her anguish, his widowed mate, Genevieve, miscarried their fifth pup and nearly died herself. She was hospitalized for nigh on a month before returning home to take charge of her four boys, and everyone knew that there was no way she could run a pack on her own.

As raiding bands of rogues and power-hungry alphas made the situation worse, the surviving alphas and lunas made the brave decision to merge their packs. The Moon Goddess recognized and accepted it during the same full moon run that Nathan and Evie declaredthemselves as chosen mates, and the rest was history. As soon as the current alphas had their first pup with the mate and luna they would share, the five individual packs would dissolve and leave only Five Fangs in the eyes of the Goddess.

Of course, they had to find their special girl first.

“Well, Ty, what do you say?” Alpha Wyatt clamped a hand on my shoulder, bringing me out of my thoughts. “You in?”

“But you know River!” I protested. “And I’m not even eighteen yet. I don’t know how to be a beta. I... I’m sorry, alphas, but I… I don’t think I’m the right person.”

“Tyler James,” Alpha Cole said, his deep voice firm but kind, “everyone has their struggles. Yeah, we know about River, but we see how you work with him and control him. That alone speaks volumes about what you are capable of. As for learning the job, that part’s easy. You have four other betas to help you, plus us.”

“And weknowyou, Ty. We knowyou,” Alpha Jay spoke up next. “We would never offer this position to someone we couldn’t trust or believe in. You’ll be guarding our luna, after all. We need someone with unshakeable loyalty, and we don’t doubt yours for a second.”

“Like Cole said, you can learn the mechanics of the job,” Alpha Mase pointed out as he ran a hand through his dark brown hair, “but there are some things that can’t be taught or learned, qualities that can only come from inside you, and you have all the ones we’re looking for.”

“Yeah, Ty,” Alpha Wyatt said, his serious face and tone once again surprising me because he was the most irreverent of the bunch. “We have absolute trust in you to guard our special girl whenever we aren’t around.”

I understood what he meant. If you were born with beta blood, you and your wolf felt a compulsion to protect others. If you were elevated to an official beta position in a pack, all that energy, all that drive, shifted into one mandate: Protect luna. I didn’t doubt that it had been the same for Beta Ev, but I had also heard all the stories about him and the many, many beds he’d rolled through, both male and female, both wolf and human.

“Did you trust Beta Everett the same way?” My brain heard what my mouth said seconds after I asked the question, and I flushed bright red with shame. “Sorry, alphas! I had no business asking that! I didn’t mean any disrespect!”

“We trusted him to know what would happen if he didn’t,” Alpha Mase replied, interrupting my frantic apology.

Looking at each of my alphas, I saw their wolves glittering in their eyes and knew exactly what would have happened toanyone—regardless of rank or blood—who ever dared to hurt their luna, and they hadn’t even found her yet!

“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would never do anything inappropriate with our girl,” Alpha Wyatt clarified. “There may be a few rare shifters who need to have a threat hanging over their heads, but you’ll protect and guard her with your life because that’s who Tyler Quinn James is. You don’t need telling or watching or warning because you are, have always been, and always will be, a true beta at heart.”

Blushing a bit at the praise, I thought about what to do, then decided to ask the other involved party for his thoughts.

River? Can we do this? Can we be a beta for the pack?

Yep-yep! Me guard luna! Where luna? She like me?

Well, we don’t have a luna yet, but when we do, yes, we’ll be her guard. You will have to be a very good boy.I worried my bottom lip with my teeth as I addressed the biggest issue.You’ll have to work very hard not to lose your temper.

Me promise, Ty-Ty! Me work hard! Me good boy!

Yeah, you’re a good boy.With a sigh, I shook my head, admitting that the conversation had gone about as well as could be expected.

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