Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 200

Ana

She’d had a lot to absorb after hearing Ember tell her the story of how she’d come to be born. She also knew the Highland Hills pack laws around such things happening. No one was to be blamed for it, if something like that occurred.

The she-wolf couldn’t be held responsible for going into heat. The un-mated male couldn’t be blamed because of a heat starting with him right there, it was just a wolfen compulsion to mate due to the scent of a heat.

The poor Mate of the she-wolf, though he got hit with the pains of betrayal, was expected to try and understand and move on past it. No one was at fault technically. She also knew that there would have been meetings between the three or more involved, depending on how many un-mated males smelled the heat and managed to get to mate with the she-wolf in question. All of those involved had to attend the meetings and express their feelings over it, to try and help get them all past it.

She also knew that if a child came from the heat, and it wasn’t the she-wolf’s Mate’s child. Then it was actually up to the she-wolf herself as to what to do with the unborn pup; keep it, abort it, or give it up at birth, severing her kin bond to it or not, so that the father of the pup could raise it, or someone in his family.

Her conception and birth had torn the Vale family apart, and although she understood it was no one’s fault. A part of her knew now that growing up like that, inside that Beta Family Suite, was now simply because every time Anders had to look at her. He had to live with not only that his Mate had been mated by another, but that she, Oriana, had come from that union, and Anders, had killed his own cousin over it.

She didn’t need to be told he’d only accepted her as his child out of guilt. She could read between the lines, because Ember wasn’t mad at Anders over it. She had stated it was an unfortunate incident that had led to the death of her only son.

So that meant Ember could understand it, accept it even. That’s how Ana knew Anders had felt guilty over Orlando’s death. Ember had seen it, heard it. There was no formal punishment dished out to those involved in a situation like that occurring within a pack.

It was, as Ember had stated, no one’s fault.

She watched as those out there on the shaming post were branded as traitors and wondered if her birth, no, her conception, had started all the terrible things that had happened inside of Highland Hills.

Her life had been one long line of betrayal after another, and it still continued right to this minute. As she looked at Bronnie, the woman had suffered in her own way, nearly had her mate bond torn apart and all because she’d wanted to keep the child she’d been carrying. But even doing that, had seen the death of her child’s father, she wondered if Bronnie herself had guilt about Orlando’s death. It was possible.

A part of her wanted to go over there and ask her a lot of questions, but at the very same time she also. There was a pack law around that as well, that the male had to release his kin bond to the child and allow the she-wolf to raise it as her and her Mates. This was done in order to show the child’s father was truly sorry for what happened.

Had Bronnie made the choice to keep her to hurt Orlando? Or had she just wanted her own child? Ana didn’t know and didn’t think she would find out the truth about it either.

Her entire life had been a lie. Right from the day she was born, nothing about who she believed she was or had to be, was true. Leaving Highland Hills and finding Maddie, had been the one thing that was true to herself. She’d been able to find who she was, live the happy life, that she should have gotten to start with. Would likely have gotten if Ember had been allowed to raise her.

Though even that she knew would have held untruths about her life growing up and who she was. There would still have been somethings fabricated around her so that she would never have known Bronnie was her mother. Likely been told her mother died in childbirth or something like that.

That Orlando had been killed in a battle when she was little or maybe before she was born even, and that was why she was raised by her grandmother. But that, she thought, would have been better than the life she lived.

“It’s not your father Ocean, he did nothing wrong.” she would not lump Slade in the same category as them, and would not let Ocean think that either. “I left here feeling betrayed by all those that ran Highland Hills. The leadership, I now know I was right to do that. Your very eyes, so like mine, would have seen you being treated as I was, that is all.”

“Mum?” she questioned again, not understanding and of course she couldn’t.

“I am not the Beta’s child, not his kin, never was. I was bled to him only, and not something he wanted, not really, I don’t think.”

She let Ocean climb into her lap and hug her, hugged her back. “You, my precious child, I’m glad were raised by myself and your aunts.” She smiled at her and then at her sisters. “I will never want to take it back.”

“Ana.” Maddie sighed a little.

“I’m alright, but no more will I feel guilty about leaving, regardless of the consequences. Ocean and I were much better off away from those down on the shaming posts. I’m glad I left.”

She looked at Ocean. “I’m sorry you and your father didn’t know each other, couldn’t have that father/daughter bond. But I don’t think the leadership of that pack would have allowed it anyway. From what I know, they always intended for me to leave, just made it as though it was my choice not theirs.”