Page 13 of Rejected Beta

It's a little alarming how much I want to do the book club with him. But I can't. I swore no more alphas and no matter how tempting he is, I'm not going to go back on my vow. My focus needs to be my daughter, not my love life. She's who matters.

I have plenty of toys that keep me company when the need gets to be too great.

Chapter Five

Hendrix

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IHAVEN'T BEEN ABLEto get the gorgeous beta out of my head since I met her earlier in the week. Running into her at the library and discovering we have the same taste in books has only made it worse.

She smells like my favorite latte -—lavender, but with a hint of spice, like pepper. Incredibly tempting. But she's skittish as hell, eying me with suspicion and nervousness. Not that I blame her since alphas are typically real pricks, especially to betas. But it doesn't mean it didn't hurt to see the interest in her eyes shutter away, some kind of old pain haunting her gaze.

I hope she takes me up on the mini book club I suggested though, even if she doesn't want more than a friendship, something about her makes me want at least that with her.

This feeling is rare for me, I don't often meet someone I have such an instant connection with, though the times it's happened before, I only ended up heartbroken and left alone again.

I'm not alpha enough for most people. I'm not dominant enough. My scent isn't strong enough. I'm just not enough.

I've dated omegas, betas, even alphas. None of it ever worked out.

I've been taking a break from dating because of all the disappointment. It's been years since my last relationship, but Moira tempts me to try again.

Even if it ends in flames again.

Better her than the line of omegas they'll be parading in front of us soon when the next group arrives next week from the exchange program. The poor souls. They rarely get a true happy ending with the way they're dragged from city to city to town to town, shoved at the eligible alphas of each location, and expected to choose a pack or mate in the few weeks they're here before they're shipped off to the next place.

My sister is somewhere on the damn program, counting down the days until she's allowed to return home to us. So far, she hasn't found a pack or alpha that tempts her in the slightest to change her plans of studying on the move and biding her time until she ages out.

I plan to go visit her at one of the stops soon, desperate to catch up with her. We were so close growing up and I hate that she was forced into this life. It's such bullshit for omegas.

There have been a couple strides lately in omega rights, but they still have such little say over their lives and futures. The Omega Council, made up of alphas, are in charge of all the laws, and Congress isn't doing much to curtail their control.

But at least this town is different from most. Here, omegas aren't treated as chattel and our mayor fights for more choices for them. Joni has told me awful stories about some of the things she's seen as she works her way across the country. And I've seen plenty of my own when I went off to school and certainly at the protests I've attended.

My father is an omega too, and he and my beta mother and the rest of their pack raised us to view and treat omegas equally, to respect them. If more people did that, maybe our country wouldn't be so strict and divisive, our government focused on control.

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