Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 144

Slade

He sat in his room and thought about what Dariah had just told him, that all 12 council members were on their way to the pack…he’d only just laid eyes on Ana, barely a few minutes ago. It should have taken longer than that for Gretta to read that scroll. It was a curiosity.

He wondered now just when that scroll had activated itself. He didn’t think it was in the past 15 minutes, so it must have been either when he’d figured out Ana was Oriana, the other day at the sheriff’s station, or when he’d scented her in the breeze yesterday morning.

Both of those options would allow for Gretta to read that scroll and see all that had gone on inside the Highland Hills pack. All the details she’d not been given by his father, when requesting his extra time off from Alpha College.

Shit was about to get very real inside that pack. It wasn’t likely very often that one saw 12 council members descending on a pack. He had no idea which council member had called Roman, to alert him to their impending arrival, or what they had told him of their visit to the pack.

Though he had warned his father, he had a scroll with Alpha Gretta, and any attempts to unseat him or remove him from the pack by banishment would activate it. He was willing to bet Roman was panicking right now.

His phone rang, and it was Lindal. He answered, “Hi Lindal.”

“You found her, saw her? Dariah just messaged Art an I,” she told him.

He nearly sighed, but let it go. They would want to know and Dariah, he knew, wanted to still be close to Art. Though she kept her distance, she did message him when needed to. Neither of them had found their Goddess Gifted as of yet. Though they wanted to be together, she wouldn’t. She didn’t want that moment when one was ripped from the other, when that moment came because one of them scented out their actual mate,

“I did.” He told her. “Just now a very brief moment where she told me to go home.”

“She didn’t beat you one?” Lindal asked.

“No, but my daughter wanted to.” He sighed, that little girl didn’t want him in her life. That was very clear to him.

“Daughter?”

“Yes, she’s pretty as a picture, got Oriana’s eyes. She goes by Ana now, looks healthy, isn’t alone either, got herself a new family. From what we’ve seen, either the she wolves, or female kitsunes. They are aligned to a council member…” his words trailed off.

As he realised all 12 council members were going to Highland Hills; that Alpha Austin was one of them.

This was going to revolve around one of his own or maybe his Mate’s pack members. He wondered if Alpha Austin knew who Ana really was.

“Slade?” Lindal interrupted his thoughts.

“Sorry Lindal, something just occurred to me is all,” he stated.

“Kitsune?” she asked.

“Mm, we’re still uncertain. One of her sisters had a pack logo attached to a business. I’ve checked it. It’s an Alpha mated to a Kitsune, he’s also on the Wolfen Council.”

There was silence from Lindal, for almost a full minute. “Is that why all 12 council members are coming?”

“I don’t know, it is out of my hands. My only part in all of this was putting in the formal complaint. Everything that happens once it is read, has nothing to do with me. I do not control that. Be prepared, Lindal, you will be questioned about what you know from that day. Art maybe as well.”

“It’s fine.” She stated “Just bring her home, Slade.”

“That will be difficult. Ocean already voiced she didn’t want to go with me, told me herself to leave.”

“Ocean?”

“Mm, that’s our daughter’s name.” he smiled just a little.

“I like it,” Lindal chuckled a little.

“Me too,” he answered honestly, and wondered what the story behind it was, or had she simply liked it as a name always, but kept it to herself because of how she’d been treated inside the pack.

He ended the call and found his entire unit looking at him. “Their Alpha is a member of the Wolfen Council?” Vance asked.

“Mm, if we are correct, it’s Alpha Austin and his Mate Sloan. Austin is one of the 12 Wolfen Council members.”

“Shit is really about to get real back there. Did you expect this?” Palmer asked.

“No,” he shook his head, and who could foresee all 12 council members getting involved? Though they’d all been sitting around with him for the past 30 minutes since actually seeing Ana and Ocean, neither Palmer nor Yuri had gotten calls from their fathers and neither had he. Slade was curious about that, were they, back there inside the pack in a meeting trying to figure out what to do? Or were they rushing about setting up for the arrival of those council members? Everyone had been recalled back to the pack, even Dariah, off in Obsidian, had to go home.

Or was his father dishing out orders to the pack to say nothing of what happened that day? Was he getting rid of any and all evidence from the pack files about all that had gone down?

Though from Dariah’s words they knew the reason why the council was coming to the pack. It was curious

that Roman or Elise hadn’t contacted him, to yell and rant and rave about what he’d done. He wondered if Roman had been told by the council to leave him and the boys alone. To not contact them?

Palmer sighed. “She loves them, and they are her family, and doesn’t want to be separated from them.”

“I’ll try and book us a table at Edge, if there’s availability. If not, we could order pizza.” Vance commented, ”

I’ll check that.”

Slade nodded and watched him pull his phone out. There was a lot to think about. He also noted the way Palmer had cut his own words off, had changed them, he thought, from something he felt from Ocean to do with her Aunts. He wondered just how much those four women included Ocean in their conversations.

“Hey, what did you make of Maddie insisting on us all using that app?” he changed the subject, needed to distract himself, or he was going to find himself up on his feet and headed for that café once more.

“A distraction.” Yuri stated. “Maybe, she already knew Ana and Ocean were going to be coming into the café today, and that was to keep us away and occupied.”

“It’s possible,” Palmer commented.

“Or it was to see if we’d check it for pack affiliation, and it was her way of warning you off, maybe make you think twice and leave. They wouldn’t have known we knew about Ana’s daughter,” Vance commented.

Palmer smiled. “Or maybe it was just Maddie trying to annoy us. A game on her part. We all had to pay for that app; She just made money off the four of us.”

“Oh, I definitely see that.” Vance chuckled, “Especially with her knowing who we are, and being annoyed with our presence all the time.”

“Your presence, you mean, ‘Not for Zara’.” Yuri laughed.

“Oh, and like you can talk, ‘Not for Londyn’.” Vance chuckled right back.

Then they were both looking at Palmer. “Palmer, you’re now ‘Not for Maddie’.” They both burst out laughing and whacked each other, fully amused by this turn of events.

Slade shook his head, Vance could find the funny side of anything and everything, and he’d rubbed off on both Palmer and Yuri over the years. The man could always make Slade shake his head. Though he knew what they were all thinking a moment later about him and Ana.

When the three of them looked right at him, but he also knew not one of them would voice that out loud, because he would not in any way find it funny at all, to hear them call him ‘Not for Ana’.

They all knew better than to state things like that. He could occasionally smile and laugh, act happy out in public, but behind closed doors it was a completely different matter.

Palmer and Yuri had hoped that Vance would rub off on him, but nothing much over the years made him happy. Only seeing Ori in those advertisements had made him smile, and that was only because he could see she was healthy, living her life; that she looked happy, and he wanted that for her.