Page 37 of The Beta: Part Two
Two omegas.
In our house.
And we decided thatourofficially means way more than it did two days ago.
I wanted it to feel strange. I expected it to feel claustrophobic. But I'm shocked to find that it doesn't. It feels full, and not in a way that feels like too much. It is the feeling of a full stomach after a good meal and you're sitting around the table with your family. That is just as unexpected as Talia so easily accepting a place with us. It feels good, strong and good. And we haven't even created the physical bonds, yet.
I was right. Everyone is filing into the kitchen, and nobody is happy about anything except the coffee.
“You're going to have to call him back. We need information and he probably has a lot of it,” Nathan says, gently touching Talia's chin, “I know you don't want to, but we really do need to know anything he can tell us. You don't have to be nice to him, just get him to talk.”
Her face is in its full-sour glory when she hops up onto the island and pulls out her phone again. She sits it next to her so that everyone will be able to hear when she calls, “I'm not saving Seth. And none of you are, either. He's not worth the risk.”
The effort of speaking to Derek without telling him to eat a dick takes a toll on Talia, but she pulled enough information out of him to blow a good quarter of the council to hell. Alpha Pratchett isn't the only council member who's not satisfied with their position. Alphas Crane, Tomas, Roark, and Bishop are all working with the rogues. The rogues who took Talia are just a drop in the bucket. The rogues organizing themselves in the mountain are connected to a few organized packs in the Midwest, and possibly on the west coast too.
Apparently every territory's council has been touched by their deceit in some way. I wasn't surprised to hear about Crane and Tomas, and I don't know Bishop well enough to have an opinion, but to learn that Roark is involved is jarring. I grew up going camping with his sons. They're both dead now, and this may end up being the reason.
It seems that there are unfortunately several good plots underway to abduct the most influential omegas, whether they're claimed or not. More than we imagined. The rogues have no true pack affiliations so they don't care what severing the bonds those omegas have will do to them. As long as the omegas are physically capable of producing offspring, they can be kept alive. Talia asked him why they were still trying to take her even though she is a registered beta and the answer was every bit as awful as I expected it to be.
Spite.
Talia didn't awaken as an omega after Seth's pack tried to force it on her and it made them look and feel weak, so they wanted her to suffer for it. Pratchett saw how she and Jasper were with each other at the first dinner we went to together and decided to use Jasper to hurt her.
He offered Jasper up to the rogues and ordered Seth's pack to make it happen. He never expected Talia to sacrifice herself to save Jasper, none of them did, especially Seth because of what his pack did to her before. But she did, and now the rogues who took her are demanding her back. They are also demanding Jasper. The general plan revolving around Talia from every front is to use Jasper to make her suffer for making fools of just about every one of them.
Derek wants us to help him and the remaining members of their pack go in and get Seth out of the compound in the mountain. The rogues took his eye as punishment when he told his father that he didn't want to do anything else that would cause Talia to suffer; but after they got a taste of her and decided to go after both her and the omega she protected, Seth intervened again. He refused to run recon, and he refused to let the rogues use his pack to take Talia and Jasper, so they have him locked in a cell somewhere in the compound. They've had him for weeks.
His father and Derek have each received one of his fingers to keep them in line. If they don't find a way to deliver our omegas to the rogues they're going to kill Seth, one piece at a time. None of us give a shit about saving Seth. In fact, every one of us is perfectly happy to let him die the painful death he deserves. The only issue is fairness. Corso doesn't feel like Seth dying at the hands of the rogues is fair. He feels like we should be the ones to bring Seth to justice, and I agree wholeheartedly.
Sitting at the island in Talia's usual place, Corso is a dark presence this morning. His heavy brows are pushed down with the sinister curl of his mouth baring his teeth as he speaks, “no. We'll save him. We will rescue him from that compound because if anyone kills Seth Pratchett it will be me.”
Jasper nods at him, a vicious grin spreading across his face, “fucking finally. Bring him here. I've been dying to get my hands on him for months.”
He and Corso hold a look that seems very much like they're already working out how Seth will die, and seeing that brutal and cruel determination on my Jasper's sweet face is both unnerving and sexy as fuck.
“So, we'll go pull him out of that mess and bring him here to what? Skin him alive? Rip him apart piece by piece like the rogues are doing? Maybe string him up on some barbed wire?” Trent asks, but it sounds like he's enjoying the idea rather than finding fault. I'm sure he is, actually. Tearing a man's skin off while he's still alive enough to feel it sounds like Trent's idea of a great evening.
“Among other things,” Jasper says, moving that righteously awful look to Trent, and I roll my eyes when Trent has to reach down and adjust himself in his jeans. Of course that dark look on our beautiful Jasper made his dick hard.
“Nobody is stepping a fucking toe off this property until things are settled here. I mean it. Not an inch,” Talia declares, and every eye turns to her. She blows out a breath and takes us all in before she continues, “I cannot handle the idea of any of you taking that risk. And I cannot stand the idea of Seth being here. If we kill Seth, his pack and his father will come looking for payback. I don't want anything hanging over our heads until we are an officially solid unit.”
Devon smiles at her, a smile that is usually reserved for Jasper, “this needs to be handled quickly, cupcake. We don't need to take more time than necessary getting it done, especially since they've already had him for weeks. I agree with you, though, I don't like the idea of going on a mission without knowing you're here where you belong waiting for me to come back to you.”
“What do you mean, waiting?” her eyes are narrowed and her voice is menacingly low. She is not going to like this part of being an omega.
“You will not be walking onto a rogue compound, Talia. You simply will not,” Corso says flatly.
I wish I had popcorn.
Jasper's dark expression has morphed into one of pure amusement, “welcome to being an omega, toots. You don't get to do anything dangerous or risky. Or fun. And there will be a solid wall of alpha around you at all times.”
If Talia could set us on fire with her eyes we would all be ashes.
“Before you start this fight, consider this,” Jasper says, “would you want me to go anywhere near that compound?”
“Absolutely not,” she answers with no hesitation, and looks horrified at the very idea.
He smiles at her the way people smile at stubborn children, and she might be considering boxing his ears, but he carries on, “that feeling you have in your chest right now, that's how it feels to them, to me. The thought of you at that compound, potentially putting yourself back into the hands of those rogues, is terrifying for everyone in this room except you. You can't expect us to allow that risk to you. We only just really got you, we're not giving you up.”
