Page 106 of Defiant Beta

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

He snorts. “And have social workers ship me to another estranged relative in some other part of the country to fuck me over again?” He shakes his head. “I learned my lesson. I rely only on myself.”

My mind flashes back to the house and the way Levi dragged Vincent out of the kitchen and into his office, to warn him about him telling me his real name.

“But things changed. You have Xavier and Vincent now.”

He nods. “I do. It wasn’t easy to let them in, but they’re family. They fight harder for me than I do for myself, and I know how to fight.”

“Is that how you learned how to fence?”

He shakes his head. “I learned anything that meant no one could use me as a human ashtray ever again. The fencing was just a way to get inside the school. I really am sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“The fencing lesson. You were getting in the way of us finding Aly’s killer. We were trying to get rid of you.”

“And teaching me how to fence after?”

“I realized I didn’t want to get rid of you after all.” His voice is soft.

“But you did,” I remind him.

He looks away, and I’m not sure why until he says, “And look what happened to you.”

“I don’t blame you for that.”

“You should.”

“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been Mercy, and I don’t want to imagine what they would have done to an actual omega. Better it was me.” I shrug as if the experience didn’t nearly break me. “We betas are a dime a dozen.”

“Betas might be a dime a dozen, but you’re not.” He slides his arm around my shoulder and draws me close, surprising me.

“What are you doing?”

“Side-hug. Tell me to fuck off or elbow me in the kidney if you want it to end.”

I do neither of those things.

We return to staring at the bed for the next couple of minutes.

“I thought about giving up,” he says so quietly I have to strain to catch his next words. “That was the thought that didn’t feellike me. I pulled myself out of the grief of losing my parents, then my uncle fucked me over when I was running on empty.”

“I didn’t care.”

I feel him looking at me, but I keep talking, my voice small. “Back in the house, I wasn’t okay after the hospital. They…” I swallow hard as the back of my eyelids burn. “I woke up and one of the alphas was doing up his pants. They did things to me that I will never forget, and I wasn’t okay.”

“Youwillheal.”

I blink back tears. “I saw a little bird on my balcony, and I had one leg over the railing to look for it before I realized what I was doing. A part of me didn’t care if I fell. I didn’t care about anything. That’s why I was sleeping behind the couch. In case I stopped caring again.”

“Come here.” He moves me into his lap and kisses the top of my hair. He tucks me so close to his heart that I never want to move again. “We’ll get them.”

I’ve never cared about being a beta before. It’s just a part of who I am. For the first time, I wonder what it would be like to have a pack that adores me the way Pack Ashe adores my sister.

It’s stupid.

Sure, betas have packs, but the center—the heart—of the pack is always the omega.

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