Page 26 of The Beta's Heart

“No, you’re not,” Alpha Mase commanded with a little wolf in his voice. “Noneof you are. Ash is with her, of course, and the gammas are stationed around the perimeter until we get back.”

“The gammaslearned about her beforeus?” Tristan said in a hard, sharp tone I’d never heard from him before

“Thegammas?!” Em, Matthew, and I echoed his outrage.

And rightly so.Weshould have been at the front of the line for introductions. After all, she’d be our one and only priority for the rest of our days as betas. Not even the alphas could override that.

“They didn’t meet her, and they won’t until much later,” Alpha Wyatt pointed out. “She’s too fragile to interact with a lot of people, especially men, right now.”

That froze us all, and we exchanged worried looks.

Doesn’t sound good, Crew muttered in the beta link.

“Her past is her story to tell,” Alpha Wyatt went on, “but wehaveto let you know a little of it so you don’t do something dumb and get yourselves killed.”

“Get ourselves killed?” Tris questioned, his head tilted to one side.

“Yes,killed!” Alpha Cole growled. “We’ll kill you if you hurt her feelings or insult her or scare her, so listen up!”

Needless to say, we were all ears after that, and Alpha Jay picked up where Alpha Wyatt left off.

“Her father, Alpha Kendall Briggs, held her hostage in the alpha house for six years and used her as a servant. He also drugged her wolf, Lark, with wolfsbane every time she tried to escape. And he abused her badly.”

Oh, we did not like to hear that. Not at all.

“The fuckerisdead, right?” Em’s dark eyes glinted with Cove.

“Language!” Alpha Cole barked. “But, yes, he’s dead. Garnet and Quartz made sure of that even if we were too late to keep him from hurting her.”

Crew closed his eyes and seemed to be counting under his breath, his usual easy smile long gone. Tristan’s jaw tightened as he paced around, and Matthew’s eyes widened in shock, a glint of tears shimmering in them. Then there was Emerson, who looked like hewanted to go down to Green River, dig Briggs out of his grave, and pay a necromancer to revive him just so he could kill him all over again.

Since my own heart was filled with both anger and sorrow, I could completely understand that sentiment.

Our upset wolves were howling their outrage, and Alpha Mase had to command them to settle down while Alpha Cole remindedusthat this was not the time to lose our tempers.

“We have more to tell you, and we can’t do that if you’re behaving like this!” he snapped.

It took a while for us to all calm down a bit, and I had to keep telling myself and my wolf that there was no one here to kill.

“She has a lot of scars,” Alpha Wyatt said once we’d all stopped growling. “Do not, and I meando not, comment on them if you happen to see one. If you do, I will end you myself.”

“We shared this with you so you can do your job better,” Alpha Mase added in his no-nonsense, business tone. “Posy’s reactions might not always make sense at first. She’s learning to trust again, to feel safe. Protecting her is our responsibility, but so is providing her with the best environment for her to do that. That’s on us and also on each of you. Am I understood?”

“Understood, alpha!” we all shouted in sync.

The alphas left soon after, eager to return to their mate, and the betas and I lingered as we processed the news.

“Man, I was not expectingthattonight!” Tristan looked a bit dazed. “This is going to be a whole new level of challenge.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but we’re ready for it.”

“We sure we are.” Em clapped his hands together and rubbed them.

“I just hope she’s not a bitch,” Matthew grumbled.

“I can’t see the Moon Goddess pairing our alphas with a mean girl,” I argued, “but whether she is or not, she’ll still be our luna.”

“I’ll tell you what, kid, you’d better tone down that high and mighty attitude!”

---