Page 24 of The Beta: Part One

Chapter 10

Talia

Jasper is having an increasing number of heat spikes.

I’ve unintentionally walked in on him sucking off or getting fucked by one of his alphas more times than my pussy can tolerate. The closer he gets to going into heat the stronger his pheromone drenched scent becomes and it is beginning to affect me nearly as much as his alphas.

That really shouldn’t be happening. I’ve never felt anything sexual for any of the omegas I’ve ever spent any time with, and I’d really rather not have any sexual feelings for any of these alphas, but my GOD. This morning I was so distracted by the sound of Kaleb fucking Jasper into his mattress that I burned breakfast.

I’ve heard couples having sex before, but imagining Jasper naked and spread out under Kaleb is a special type of torture. And when I walked out onto the porch to see Jasper on his knees in front of Nathan, panting and groaning around his cock I almost died; then Nathan caught my eyes and held them for a moment and I quite literally ran away. I ran all the way upstairs to shove my hand down the front of my pants.

I’ve always thought Jasper was beautiful, but it didn’t occur to me until this week that the other men in this house might be gorgeous, too. Nathan’s muscular thrusting hips and lips snarled in pleasure while he held Jasper’s head steady are going to be burned into my mind for the rest of my life. I caught a glimpse of Jasper’s back as he was riding Devon when I was carrying laundry to their rooms the other day and it was all I could do to stop myself from sneaking to watch them finish. I don’t know how I’m going to manage Jasper’s heat.

What makes it all so much worse is that he’s being so much more affectionate with me, too. At first I was trying to gently discourage it because I didn’t want it to be an issue with his alphas, especially Devon. But that must have upset Jasper because Devon barged into the attic in the middle of the night to inform me that Jasper wants to be affectionate with me and he didn’t understand why I had a problem with it.

He told me he would rather deal with Jasper wanting to cuddle with me than deal with Jasper’s feelings being hurt, and I told him that the only reason I wasn’t already cuddling Jasper is because I didn’t want to offend him or the other alphas. It was a shock to him that I was actively trying to avoid making him uncomfortable, and then he said that it didn’t matter how much of a dick he is about anything else, if I was okay with the affection then he was okay with the affection. So…I’ve been snuggling Jasper at every given opportunity.

Jasper is a very needy omega when he’s about to go into heat. He needs all the dick he can get from his alphas, but he is cuddling me within an inch of my life. I’ve never held a man on my lap before, but Jasper isn’t huge so it wasn’t too awkward. I even enjoyed it until he turned to straddle me and it started to turn into grinding.

I called for Nathan to come save me, since I’m most comfortable with him. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the sight of Nathan, with his shaggy hair and backwards ball cap, carrying a laughing Jasper over his shoulder down the hallway, smacking and squeezing his ass the whole way. I had to put in my ear buds and crank up my music when the sound of flesh slapping against flesh became too much of a distraction.

It’s a very funny thing to me because most of the time Jasper is all masculinity and hard angles, but for the past week and a half he’s been a cuddly, needy, soft, blanket burrito. Watching his alphas fawn over his every need and desire has been swoon-worthy. The bunch of hard-asses practically trip over themselves and each other to spoil him worse than rotten. It is incredibly entertaining, and what I’m seeing now is putting a completely different spin on this pack. Too bad it’s only temporary.

I told my mother that we would attend the auction and she immediately started planning everything that didn’t have to do with weapons or actual information gathering. I tried to shut it down, but she’s fantasized about my talents being showcased at an event since I was a little girl. She had a long list of suggestions, but I finally made her understand that it would be best for us if Jasper decides what the act will be.

I hate disappointing her, but she needs to come to terms with the fact that I’m not ever going to be what she wishes I was. I will never have packs of alphas competing for my attention. I will never be the center of anyone’s universe. I’ve accepted it. I can’t help what my body looks like and I can’t help that it doesn’t matter.

I spent years in classes learning how to dance, how to sing, how to play piano, how to paint, learning archery, learning chess and every other boring game that has rules. I learned how to dress and do my make up to be the most beautiful version of myself possible. I had a voice coach who tried to help me train my voice to hold the most pleasant timbre. I did all that so that I would become the most desirable omega I could possibly be.

My mother insisted that I go through all that because she knew I was going to follow in her footsteps like my siblings did; and I do look the part. Because I looked so much like she did at the same age, she was convinced that I would grow into the same beauty, which I did. But I never had a heat cycle, puberty came and went and still no heat. The older I got without it happening the more combat training I received. I thrived, and the more I trained, the more I wanted to train.

It was problematic at first, because all of my previous training was meant for omegas. It was designed to help an omega defend themselves until their alphas came to help them, or to escape danger in general; but it started to become obvious that I wasn’t an omega no matter what my mother said. So I started beta training.

The problem with that was my size, I had to work harder to meet challenges and avoid having my ass kicked every day of my life on the mats. I learned how to distribute my weight to my advantage in a fight and many other things my mother would be horrified by. She’s never actually seen me fight or go through circuits or trials, but she’s heard enough about it to be scandalized every time it comes up.

When I came home after my first successful simulation Marcus, my biological father, and my brothers threw me a party, but Thaddeus had to take my mother on a weekend trip to Paris to distract her from the horror of what she called her youngest daughter's violent hobby. Her favorite thing to lament is that omegas shouldn’t be in situations to need those skills, but those skills have kept me alive and mostly out of real trouble so often that she can’t complain too much about all of it.

She offered to foot the bill for a new dress, and I was tempted to let her, but then I remembered how shitty Devon still is most of the time and decided I’d let him pay for it. Besides, if she pays for it she’ll want to help pick it out and I’m fairly confident Jasper would rather choose something that will compliment us as a whole instead of trying to make me look like the prettiest flower in the garden. I think he’s going for a darker color scheme for this event; and he won’t agree to any variation of a suit for me.

Kaleb comes down to the laundry room and finds me surrounded by a mountain of socks waiting to be paired. He has the decency to offer to help find matches, but I decline because I know he’d stretch out the elastic when he would inevitably ball them up. “Everything alright?” I ask him.

His answer would floor me if I wasn’t already sitting on the floor, “Devon doesn’t hate you.”

What?

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“He doesn’t hate you. Jasper thinks you’re under the impression that Devon hates you. He doesn’t.”

What am I supposed to say to that?

I don’t think Devon hates me, but I also don’t think he likes me very much. “Um, okay. Thank you? For telling me? I’m sorry, Kaleb, I don’t really know what to say.”

He shrugs, “Don’t say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

Then he marches back upstairs.

Well, that’s certainly information, I think with an eye roll.

I don’t spend much time thinking about whether or not Devon hates me. He hasn’t made me leave yet, and he invited me to be affectionate with Jasper, so he can’t dislike me too much. I know Kaleb and Nathan don’t hate me, Kaleb might actually like me; and who knows with Trent. One minute he’s a sarcastic asshole and the next minute he’s a different sort of sarcastic asshole that’s likable. Jasper loves them all endlessly, and that’s all that matters to me.

I don’t allow myself to think about being permanently accepted into this pack, I don’t want to break my own heart. I’ve thought out how I think it might go exactly once, and I just can’t imagine standing still and letting one of them bite me to bond me into the pack. It doesn’t exactly make my skin crawl, but it doesn’t fill me with joy, either.

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