Page 101 of The Beta's Heart

A quick glance and quicker sniff told me that the ‘something’ was Landry, and my eyebrows puckered as I tried to work out what had happened here and where everyone else had gone.

I mean, I know Lan hasn’t been himself since Nia, but surely he didn’t do something to luna!

As soon as I had the thought, I rejected it. Landry Benson wasn’t that kind of person, even if he was going through a dark time. For a gamma, he was remarkably gentle in his interactions with others off the training field and more sensitive than most realized.

“Tyler! I’m so glad you’re here!” A tiny little she-wolf barrelled into me, wrapping her arms around my waist in a tight hug.

“What happened, luna?” I asked as I patted her back and met Angelo’s eyes. “And what’s up with Landry?”

Luna usually tried to downplay someone’s mistakes or skim over too much, but I knew the Angel of Death would give me the absolute truth, no matter how harsh or ugly it was.

“Well, Wyatt brought me here to have my first self-defense lesson with the gammas, which I did,” luna began, dropping her arms and taking a step back to stare up at me. “And then I tried a palm strike on Landry—”

“I wish I could have seen that! Did you let him have it good?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood since her red-rimmed eyes were welling up with tears again.

“It was in slow-motion, Ty, and lightly for practice,” she replied seriously. “Like this. Hold still.”

Holding still, I watched as she stretched up on her tippy toes, then bopped the heel of her hand on my nose, then the base of my throat, and finally my solar plexus.

“Okay. Sounds like a normal self-defense lesson.” I nodded.

“Yes, it was, but when my hand touched Landry’s chest, he had a violent reaction. It hurt him for some reason.”

I cut my eyes to Angelo, who nodded.

“Em was with her the whole time,” he said, his Italian accent making the words hum like a song. “She barely touched him, and he fell on the floor, screaming and convulsing. Luna, I’ll link him what happened if you don’t mind?”

She only nodded as she hugged herself, and I slipped my arm around her shoulders to draw her against my side while I watched Angelo’s memory. In it, Landry lay on his back on the mats, one hand gripping his chest and his other digging into the mat, his wolf’s claws extending and tearing up the thick foam.

Rio tried to pull Landry’s hand away from his chest, but it wasn’t budging. Then Alpha Wyatt was there, and together they pried Landry’s hand away to reveal a round reddish-purple bruise that grew bigger and darker. Purple veins suddenly popped out of the center and spread across his chest, and the bruise seemed to push oily ink into the veins, each of which pulsed and twisted like snakes.

“What in the world?” I breathed.

“A curse. Warm Hands, Cold Heart,” Angelo supplied. “Have you ever heard of it?”

I shook my head, my eyes wide as I watched the rest of the scene play out. Tris arrived with Ariel first, and she scattered the other gammas and Alpha Wyatt out of her way while she investigated. She and luna experimented and eventually realized that luna’s touch was drawing the curse out of Landry’s heart.

Ariel was supervising luna when the rest of the alphas showed up, followed by Crew with Sara and Matthew with Maria. The alphas, of course, were less than happy that luna was risking herself, so Angelo and his witches formed a circle around luna as she worked, and my beta brothers and the gammas ran interference with the alphas until it was done. Almost instantly, Landry looked better, his body relaxing and color coming back into his face.

“You did great, luna!” I tightened my arm around her in a gentle hug. “You saved him from a curse that no one, not even he himself, knew he had! I’m so proud of you!”

“Why couldn’tallof my mates have reacted like that?” she murmured with a little sobby hiccup, then the tears began to fall. “Jayden praised me like you just did, but Quartz growled at me, and the others were so mean! They yelled at me, Ty! Even Mason! And Ash called me stupid!”

“He did not!” I gasped.

“He asked how could I have done something so stupid, but it’s the same thing!” she cried, the side of my t-shirt growing wetter and wetter.

Is that why I’m here?I linked Angelo.All of the alphas were so mad, they ditched her? But where are the other betas and gammas?

With a dark smirk, he played the rest of the memory for me, and I watched with a mix of shock and amusement as little Luna Posy lost her temper and told those alphas just how the cow ate the cabbage!

Then, her voice changed into one of power, pure power like I’d only ever heard from the king himself. She ordered her mates to shift and go for a run until both man and wolf were calm and sensible.

A couple of ’em will be running forever then,I linked Angelo, who snorted.

Alpha Jay, of course, had to go along because of Quartz. Otherwise, he’d still be here.

Did everyone else go along on the run?

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