Page 83 of The Beta: Part One

Chapter 29

Trent

Talia has been home for a week and Jasper looks so much better. The dark circles have disappeared and his green eyes are as clear and bright as they ever were. His skin is almost back to its natural glowing state, and even his cheeks look a little fuller because he's actually eating and keeping down enough food to maintain himself. His smile is back and the weight I've been carrying like stone in my chest has lifted with each one he gifts me.

Jasper isn't the only one who looks better. When Talia walked back through the kitchen door she looked like a macabre ghost of the woman who left and broke her own heart to keep my omega safe. She looked as much like a corpse as Jasper, her long dark hair falling around her like a mourning veil as she walked soundlessly to the only person in the world who truly matters to me, or any of us for that matter.

Listening to their wrenching sobs as they drifted through the closed door and down the hallway was a torture. Talia may not be mine, but Jasper is and she belongs to him. Any idiot can see that. I thought all that true, fated mate shit was just a load of shit people say to be romantic or whatever, but witnessing the steep decline that happened to both of them when they were separated and the almost instant rectification when they were reunited has me wandering. In the stories and rumors, alphas can find a true mate in a beta, can an omega? As much as I want Jasper to be our true mate, or even for just one of us, I think it's Talia.

Talia as Jasper's mate will cause a definite shift in pack dynamic, but I can't see how it could do anything but strengthen us in the long run. Another thing to consider is kids. We have never wanted kids, never really thought much about it; but our parents certainly have. I don't personally want to father any brats, but I would spoil the absolute shit out of a miniature Jasper, and Talia could give him that, give us that. Eventually. If we want it.

She doesn't seem inclined to have any babies anytime soon, so if she is his actual mate that's something we'll have to talk about. We'll have to talk about a lot of things. Regardless of the filthy things I fantasize about in relation to her, it would be up to Jasper whether or not he shares her with us and it will be up to her to decide if she'll be shared. Although, after that interaction between her and me and Nathan when we were helping Jasper through a spike I get the feeling she'd do anything he asked her to do because she loves him that much. She hasn't said it, hasn't even hinted at it, but you'd have to be stupid not to see it.

She loves him the way I do, the way we all do, and he loves her right back. I keep waiting to be hurt or angry about it, but I'm just not. The contented happiness that flows through Jasper's bond when she's near him or if she texts him or calls is addictive. It's a much softer thing than the intensely masculine joy that thrums through it for me and the other alphas. She'll have to be made pack, I'll offer to bond her in. After Jasper's heat, one overwhelming thing at a time. I can't think of a reason anyone should object.

The thing about Talia being here that I find the most amazing and curious is that there is no jealousy. Any experience I've had with trying to bring a female into the fold has always, fucking always, resulted in a huge jealousy fueled tantrum, and not always from the female. A couple years ago when we were feeling the pressure pretty hard from our parents we tried to allow ourselves to become involved with a few females; tried to date them as a pack. But Jasper couldn't tolerate most of them, he couldn't stand the women touching us, he hated when we touched the women or if there was even vague flirting.

Other times, the women couldn't stand for our attention to be on Jasper, they wouldn't say it, but they didn't want to be considered second choice especially to a male omega. It's different with Talia. She honestly feels like extra glue. She bows out or calls to us when she knows he needs us, but she never refuses him herself. She allows us to touch her and suggest things to her in relation to him, and isn't at all bothered when his attention flows freely from her to one of us. If she were an omega that might be different, but I don't know. She really doesn't seem the type to need everything for herself.

That brings me to another thing I've been mulling over. Talia's scent is different since she's been back. It's very, very subtle, and I don't know if it's something to do with her being somewhere else for a few weeks, or if she's just going through something internally. All I know is that it's different, and when she bolted out of the bed after she shared Jasper's cum with me, which was one of the most pleasurable things I've experienced outside of rut, I could have sworn I caught a tiny whiff of female heat. But it was pretty hot, so she was probably just extremely aroused.

It isn't just her scent, though. She's been off. Off in a way that seems to not be getting better after being with Jasper again. She's very finicky about things, more so than before, and she's fucking hateful. Not all the time, of course, and never toward Jasper; but god help anybody who leaves a cup on the fucking counter or touches the laundry. I left my towel on the bathroom floor after a shower, and she was snappy and cold toward me until the next morning when I pointedly did not leave my towel on the floor. I think she might be extra emotional right now because Jasper is very hormonal and maybe some of that is rubbing off on her. She's usually very level, so hopefully after Jasper's heat things will line back out.

Kaleb is sitting in his usual place at the kitchen table when I walk through. Kaleb is the most solid, fair, and good man I know. He and Devon are older than me and Nathan by a couple years. They grew up together, went to school together, trained together. Nathan and I didn't form our own bond until we were teenagers, and the second we smashed into Kaleb and Devon on the soccer field we instinctively knew we were going to be together as a pack. It was instantaneous knowledge and it didn't matter that they were seniors on the opposing team; we were a pack from that moment on.

When Nathan and I were officially of age, the first thing we did after registering with the council as alphas is form the pack bond with Kaleb and Devon. We've been inseparable ever since. We very quickly climbed pack ranks, earning a reputation for being pretty rough around the edges, and once we claimed Jasper we just became stronger and more ruthless. He holds us together and holds us to a higher standard than we already expected of ourselves. There were females for me and Nathan before him, we almost always shared; but after a single introduction no other potential partner mattered. We were his from that first meeting. And now Talia will be his, too.

“Hey,” I say, and park myself in the chair to his left.

He doesn't look up, his tawny brows knitted together in what might end up being concern, “Hey.”

I tap my fingers on the table and blow out a breath. “So, hear me out. What if Talia is Jasper's mate? Like, his actual mate.”

He rolls those baby blues over to me, “If. What do you mean if? I think it's perfectly obvious that she is. I, however, do not think that either of them realize it, and I don't think Devon is ready to accept it. I'm glad you do. Would that bother you?”

I shake my head, “You know, I keep waiting for it to bother me, but it doesn't. I might even like the idea. I've never heard of an omega having a beta for a mate, though. I didn't know that could happen. Did you?”

He looks back to his laptop and is quiet for a moment, squinting his eyes suspiciously and ticking his jaw at whatever he sees on the screen, then says, “Honestly, no. I didn't think true mates, fated mates if you want to use that term, happened anymore. Or if they do, it happens so infrequently that it might as well be little more than rumor. Have you spoken to Nathan about this?”

I have. Nathan loves the idea of Jasper having Talia. Watching Jasper decline without her was so difficult for him. So difficult that he actually pulled the alpha card and forced Jasper to eat and purred him to sleep almost every night. “We talked about it a little, I don't think it bothers him at all. He might even like the idea.”

Kaleb hums at me and taps on the keyboard a couple times before he suddenly lifts his head and he scents the air. I follow suit and then a wicked grin slowly spreads across my face, “Jasper is going into heat. A week early.”

Kaleb returns my smile with a much less exaggerated one of his own.

I hear Talia call out for Kaleb from the direction of Jasper's bedroom. She almost always calls for Kaleb first, then Nathan, then me, and lastly Devon; but that's his own fault.

“It's time,” she says breathlessly from the middle of Jasper's bed where she is sitting beside our panting omega, “He's only just starting. Where are the others? Neither answered their phones.”

I don't fucking know where they are, and I am already zoning in on Jasper's delicious scent. Jasper whines and I climb onto the bed on the side opposite Talia, my cock already hard and leaking. I undo my jeans and pull out my erection, watching Jasper's mouth instinctively search it out and relishing his moan of relief as he laps at the sticky precum seeping from the tip. I don't have time to enjoy it, though, because Nathan and Devon burst through the doorway with horrified looks on their sweat-damp flushed faces.

“The rogues. They're coming. Now. They're coming now,” Nathan barks out breathlessly. Then he catches Jasper's scent and he starts cursing.

Devon bellows the word fuck like that will help anything.

Talia pulls us out of our shocked silence. She hops off the bed and starts stripping. Once she's naked she pulls Jasper's shorts and boxers off and puts them on herself. Then she searches the floor for the shirt Jasper was wearing earlier, when she finds it she wipes all the slick she can gather from between his legs and milks some of the fluid weeping from his swollen cock, and then she puts that on.

Lastly, she tucks her long braid into the shirt collar and pins Devon with a sorrowful, devastated look, “Carry him down to the freezer, put him in. They won't smell him in there. I'm going to lead them away. They'll chase me. I'll smell just like an omega in heat running away from alphas. They'll chase me. But take him to the freezer until you know. Keep him safe.”

---