Page 41 of The Beta: Part Three
Then every drop of anger leaves her in the span of a blink and it's replaced with complete and total gut-wrenching heartbreak. Her eyes flood with tears that don't fall and her mouth turns down. “You made me leave,” she says so softly, “you left me.”
Here it is. The thing I think we've all been waiting for. Kaleb would have stayed at the hospital with her. Nathan and Trent would have never let her leave in the first place when we got those horrible pictures. It's all on me. I didn't take the obvious and not so obvious opinions of my pack into consideration. I was too worried about Jasper to see what was looking me in the face. “I know,” I fall to my knees. “It was wrong,” I fall forward into the deepest position of submission we recognize. “I should have stayed. You were my beta. I don't know how to be sorry enough,” I say with my forehead pressed to the floor at her tiny feet.
“Get up, Devon. I don't like that.” Now she's crying in earnest. “I'd rather be mad. I don't like that.” Then she hugs her arms across her stomach and lets a whine escape. “Get up,” she whispers, “I don't like that.”
“What would you have me do, Talia?” Another wave of her heat is crashing into her. Heat cycles are cruel. It doesn't matter that she is finally allowing herself to feel the things that she should have been feeling all along, her body is forcing its needs on her. I never envied omegas, but right now, at this moment, I hate that she's an omega. I hate that she has to feel the way she feels and still have to bend to her body's will. It isn't fucking fair.
She drops to her hands and knees beside me, rocking back and forth, already beginning to pant. “Be a good alpha. Take care of us the way we need you to.” A choked, pitiful sound comes out of her, then she says, “make this feel better. It hurts so much.”
I can do that. I know how to make her feel better right now.
It's still painfully quiet, but it doesn't matter. Talia asked me to help her, that's all that matters. The rest of the pack can be as quiet or as loud as they want. Grabbing hold of her hip and shoulder, I roll her onto her back. Her legs are drawn up to her ribs but they spread wide for me when I cover her body with mine. I want to hold her. I want to give her the tenderness and gentle attention that she deserves. But her need is crashing through me, battering my bond with her, and I don't think I'll get to do it. She's still only hours into the beginning of her heat. Regardless of the emotional turmoil, she doesn't need sweet or gentle.
“Ready, pretty girl?” I push her hair back off her face. She's burning up, damp with sweat, and no matter how many times Reid or Corso re-braid her hair strands and tendrils keep escaping.
Talia grips my forearms and nods. “Yes,” she groans, “please.”
“You don't ever have to beg me for anything, Talia. Never.” I touch my forehead to hers and brush the tip of my nose against hers, then I push my cock inside her. I give her long, firm, heavy strokes until she's making these short, high-pitched little cries with every impact. The red-tinged haze of rut that usually clouds my peripheral vision is starting to swirl around the edges of my consciousness, and I have to put effort into not growling at Corso when he so very gently pries Talia's hands away from my arms. I can smell the blood and feel the sting now, she must have dug her nails into me. I'll be wearing her marks down my arms and back, hopefully for days.
Talia doesn't put any effort into holding back her snarl, she puts her effort into trying to pull her hands away from Corso. “Shhh, bella,” he hushes, “we don't want blood all over this nice nest. And we don't want to send Devon away to get sewn up, do we?”
She shakes her head, but her face is still sour. “Would you like to hold my hands while he gives you what you need, tesoro?”
Talia squeezes Corso's hands and grits her teeth. “Harder, Devon. More.”
I give her more. I give her everything. The only things stopping me from fucking her across the floor to the other side of the nest are my own arms braced above her shoulders. The thick, solid slap of our bodies meeting when I bottom out might as well be the only sound in the entire world. My knot is beginning to swell but she hasn't come apart for me. She's lifting her hips, meeting me thrust for thrust, making the most desperate sounds. Somehow, I fuck her even harder and she starts struggling against Corso's hold, tossing her head from side to side, begging me over and over to make her cum.
“What do you need, baby?” I purr, but it sounds more like a growl.
“The bite,” Jasper says from somewhere. “She needs the bite.” His last word cuts off in a gasp. Someone must be taking very good care of him.
“Is that what you need, cupcake? You need me to bite you again?” Her entire body convulses under me and she throws her head back, arching her neck beautifully. This is what I wanted the first time I touched her. I wanted to drive my cock into her as hard as I could, over and over again, and sink my teeth into her when she gave me her neck. I clenched my jaw so fucking hard to stop myself from marking her that I tasted blood and my teeth hurt for days afterward. I don't need to do that now. I can take what she's offering me now, and I'm fucking going to. It doesn't matter that she's already wearing my mark, if she needs the bite I'll give it to her. Every single time she needs it.
I run my nose across her shoulder and up her neck, taking in her spicy scent, then I slowly, deliberately, set my teeth right over the mark I already put on her, biting deep, then I push my knot past her tight entrance and groan when I feel it lock us together. I rock my hips, giving her small thrusts as her orgasm finally takes her. She's almost screaming with it, and it's so damned wonderful to hear.
When my cock stops jerking inside of her with my own release, I carefully relax my jaws and lick at the bite I've left and lick at the wound. It isn't another claiming mark, and she isn't bleeding much at all, but it was so fucking satisfying to be able to give her the bite the way I wanted to. Corso let go of her hands right before I bit her, I have newly dug furrows down my sides from where she raked her nails into me when I bit her. I'm glad for that, too. It feels better to have my own taste of pain, Corso must understand that. Talia is right. I already knew it, but even in the middle of a heat like this Corso is a good alpha.
Talia's already asleep, her body loose and warm when I maneuver us into a better position for rest. She doesn't like going into heat, I understand that and I understand why, but I love her like this. Her guard is completely down, she's the truest version of herself. She doesn't hold anything back or separate.
Outside of heat, her focus is fully centered on how she can best care for her pack. She keeps herself held so deep in check that we'd never know how she's feeling or what she might need without having a bond with her. I've only had a bond with her for a few days and it's like the entire world is a different color. I've been trying so hard to not compare anything between her and Jasper, but they feel so different, and their bonds touch completely different parts of me. Everything about having a bond with both of them is so, so good. Even if Talia had never switched over to being an omega, she and Jasper would have still been a mated pair and it was a total dick move on my part to try to keep her separate. We were going to bond her into the pack eventually, I just needed to pull my head out of my ass. We would have been a pack of alphas centered by an omega and his beta mate and it would be just like it is now, just without the double heat factor.
“I don't think you're any worse off than the rest of us, but I'll help you get cleaned up, anyway. You handled her well, Devon.” Corso touches Talia's cheek, then my shoulder, and gets up to get a cloth. My blood is all over this section of the nest. I don't think Talia will mind, I actually think she might enjoy it; Jasper, however, will not. He likes his nest neat and tidy. Talia seems to need it mostly unwrinkled and full of the scents she likes. I'm sure she and Jasper will rearrange and straighten everything when they rise to the surface of this wave of their heats in a little while, and I'm more than sure we'll be helping them.
Corso brings more than a damp cloth. He puts two bottles of water and a small bowl of sliced cucumbers beside me and begins wiping off my arms. “She will remember what you did, fratello. That was the best thing that you could have done. She didn't like seeing you do it, she needs you to be her alpha right now, strong and dominant. But when she comes out of heat, she will remember what you did and she knows how important that is.”
“It isn't enough.”
“Some things I know about our Talia, without any fraction of doubt, is that she doesn't partake in risks if she doesn't understand the potential outcome, she doesn't do things without knowing exactly what she's doing, and she is more strong-willed than all of us together. And one thing I already know about our Jasper is that he will scorch the earth for her, and this pack. I am very happy to be under their care, you should be, too.” Then he goes over to take water and crackers to Nathan and Jasper. Corso just says things like that, just drops huge epiphanies on you, then goes off to deliver snacks.
He's right, though. We will need to change our thinking about our pack, and likely society as a whole. When you think of packs and omegas, you think of the omega or omegas being cared for and under the care of the alphas, but that's completely inaccurate. Talia and Jasper are the center of this pack, and she is very quickly becoming our sun.
That's the best way I can think to describe it, but I feel it in every bond I have with my pack. I feel it inside of Jasper, and in every other alpha. Jasper will be our omega, always; but he has a new position in this new pack. While he is our omega, and an omega in this pack,sheishisomega.
And that changes up the hierarchy. She is now our ultimate priority, and he loves it that way. I can already feel him thriving in this new life in a way that he never has before. I can feel the tide turning inside of Talia in very small increments as well, after just a few days. I don't even think she realizes it's happening. She is very slowly starting to think differently about herself. She becomes less rigid every day. I don't think she will ever be a soft, gooey omega, but she might eventually get to a point where she will let herself be cared for the way omegas should be. I hope she will, anyway.
Chapter seventeen
Kaleb
