Page 23 of The Beta's Heart

“You sure are, buddy. Isn’t he, Jay?” Alpha Ash aimed the stare of death at Alpha Jay, who rolled his eyes.

“I don’t need to be threatened to tell the truth,” he sneered, then in a kinder voice, told River, “You are sweet and precious.”

That made him happy, and his tail wagged as he bounced around in my head.

“Ty, do you remember what triggered your dad to attack your mom in the first place?” Alpha Ash asked me after a moment.

“You’re assuming it was a one-time thing,” Alpha Jay growled as they both looked at me, their eyes asking the question.

“My memories from before that night are hazy,” I admitted, “but I remember him hitting her. For some reason, it happened more often as I got older, or else I just noticed it more. I don’t know.”

“Did he hit you, too?” Alpha Jay asked.

“Sometimes.” I lifted my chin, determined to finish this now. “As for what set him off, Mom and I had been packing our essentials. She’d had enough and was ready to run. She said there was someone in the Blue Rock pack who would help us, but Dad came home from work too early. You know the rest.”

“I have a question,” Dr. Myers said. “How was Seymour able to hurt his mate and pup? Our wolves won’t allow that. They punish us and take control if we even think about it.”

“Maybe your mom wasn’t his Goddess-given mate,” Alpha Ash suggested. “Or maybe you weren’t his biological son.”

“What?” I’d never even considered either of those scenarios.

“Or maybe his wolf went insane or feral or faded back to the Goddess and no one knew it,” Alpha Jay theorized. “Quartz says he only sensed River there that night. Ty? Do you remember his wolf or your mom’s?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t really remember anything about either of their wolves, not even their names, to be honest. Like I said, my earlier memories are murky at best.”

“We’ll do some digging at the alpha library.” Alpha Jay nudged my arm with his elbow, and I nodded.

The two of us spent a good chunk of our free time there; after the Busted Knuckle, it was like another home for me.

“It’d be nice if someone would go over to the old Dark Woods medical clinic and see if there were any surviving records,” Dr. Myers said in a tone that told me it wasn’t the first time he was making the suggestion.

“Hell, doc, you got legs, same as us!” Alpha Ash snorted. “Carry your ass over there and have a look-see all you want!”

“I’d rather not take my life in my hands by entering a dilapidated building infested with mice and snakes, all with the threat of the roof falling on my head, thank you very much.”

“Well, I can’t imagine anyone else fucking wants to, either!”

“Watch your language, Ash,” Alpha Jay chided him. “Mase and Cole would put you on laundry duty for a month if they heard how you were talking to a medical professional right now.”

“Sorry, doc,” Alpha Ash muttered.

“Thank you. Now as I was saying—”

“Emerson wanted to be here, too, Ty, but we talked him out of it,” he cut Dr. Myers off and turned to me. “We thought it would be too much to have four people staring at you. I know you may be upset that he snitched on you, but he really does care about you. We all do.”

“That’s right. We do,” Alpha Jay said. “We want you to take the treatment with Dr. Myers. You deserve to feel whole again. We’re going to see about getting a therapist to work with you, too.”

“River especially would benefit from that, Beta Ty,” Dr. Myers added. “As I said, such incomprehensible violence left an emotional and psychological impact on him, too.”

“Riv? What do you think?” I asked him.

Scar, no scar, still Ty-Ty, but scar make Ty-Ty sad. Me want Ty-Ty happy.

“But what about you, baby? Dr. Myers said it would help you, too.” I wasn’t sure he was processing everything, but at least his fear had faded. “Is that all right?”

Yep-yep! If Ty-Ty do it, me do it!

“All right, then. We’ll try it.” I looked at Dr. Myers, then the alphas. “I appreciate this.”

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