Page 17 of The Beta: Part One

Chapter 8

Trent

It’s a fucking shit show and it will be a circus to clean up, but fuck if I’m not going to do it with a smile. Talia killed six men.

Men who were trying to take Jasper.

He’s only had time to tell us that they were there for him and that she saved him. I’m both proud of him and ashamed. Ashamed because he and Talia had to deal with this on their own, and he had to kill one guy himself. Ashamed that I didn't get here in time to protect him.

Me and Nathan are checking the bodies to see if we know who any of them are. They’re a pack of betas, unbonded, who were stupid enough to try to take our omega.

What were they even going to do with him?

After Devon and Kaleb handled the asshole still holding Jasper, we left Talia in the entryway to finish beating one of them to death. She seemed to be enjoying it so, why not?

Devon has gone full alpha, complete with the gruff purr that goes straight into Jasper’s brain to calm him down. Devon's pupils are dilated and he looks a little bit deranged. Kaleb isn’t much better, but he’s growling more than purring. Protective rage is rolling off of both of them, and Jasper is slowly calming.

I’m peering down into the dead face of a beta who I trained myself when Talia steps lightly into the room looking like she’s in a daze. Her eyes meet Jasper’s and she stops moving for a moment, then she’s stalking up to him.

I hop and trip over bodies and glass to stop her, if she walks toward him as aggressively as she is Devon will rip her apart. Kaleb might help him. She doesn’t deserve that after fighting so hard to protect Jasper.

She looks like hell. The side of her face is swollen and she’s got blood smeared across her mouth and chin. One of her eyes is bloodshot and maybe split at the corner. She’s got cuts all over her hands and arms, and it looks like she may have been grazed by a bullet. Her shirt is ripped off her shoulder and I can see bruises already forming around her neck, she’s probably got some bruised ribs, too. And her feet are cut all to shit from fighting and walking on the broken glass all over the floor. None of this apparently matters, and she doesn’t care that she might be slaughtered where she stands, because she stomps up to Jasper and I can smell the anger snaking around her like thick smoke.

She starts combing over Jasper, not caring about the enraged alphas on either side of him; I’m honestly shocked that they’re allowing her to touch him. She’s lifting his arms and inspecting his fingers, hissing at the cut she finds on one knuckle, then she grabs his chin and searches his face for damage.

She asks him if his feet are cut, and he says no, but she tells him to show her, anyway. Devon and Kaleb are still allowing it. Maybe they don’t consider her a threat because she did her job so well. That is, of course, until she starts screaming at Jasper.

“Never again! Do you hear me! Never! Ever! Again!” and she shakes him once by his shoulders.

“They were killing you!” he shouts back.

She starts shaking her head like an insane person and shakes him again, while Devon’s and Kaleb’s growls hitch to a dangerous level that she obviously can’t hear or doesn’t care about.

“No, Jasper! No!” she yells, then takes a shaky breath to try to calm herself.

I’m behind her now, praying I'm quick enough to snatch her back from death.

“No, don’t ever risk yourself for me. Not ever.” she lowers to an urgent whisper, holding his face between her bloody hands. “Don’t you dare. Do you understand? Never.”

“I couldn’t let them kill you,” he says quietly.

She puts her hand over his mouth, “Yes, you could, and you will. You will let anybody kill me and you will run for safety while they do it. I’m nothing, Jasper, nothing. My life doesn’t matter,” he tries talking around her hand but she shushes him, “There are a thousand me’s, Jasper, there’s only one you.”

I could accept her into the pack right now, this very moment, but it’s too late. She was too angry and too rough in her handling of Jasper. I see the moment he registers the deadly frequency of Devon’s deep growl. His eyes grow wide above the hand covering his mouth, his eyebrows pinching together in urgency.

“Take a step back, Talia. Toward me. Move slowly. Stop touching Jasper. Stop talking to him,” I say softly.

And for once in her stubborn life she listens. She takes one single step backwards. But it isn’t enough. Devon’s hand flies out to grip her hair and hauls her directly in front of him.

“Submit to him, Talia. Right now. Give him your neck. Do it,” I hiss.

Devon is snarling right into her face, so it’s only natural that she’s snarling right back.

Of course she’s not going to submit to him, why would she? Why wouldn’t she challenge his patience further and create a much worse situation? Why would she do a single fucking thing that makes any sense now, when nearly everything else she does is the opposite of rational?

“Do it, Talia, or he’s going to kill you. He’s too angry to register you as anything but a threat to Jasper,” I whisper.

She does the best and worst thing she can. She looks away from Devon and into Jasper’s horrified eyes and says very clearly, “For you. Only for you.”

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