Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 206

Ana

It was going to be a long day, she thought, but had in the end fallen asleep, finally mental and physical exhaustion from not sleeping well that past few weeks had claimed her completely. She woke up at five in the afternoon, to Ocean looking at her, probably woken by her daughter.

“Hey sweetie.” She smiled at her.

“You slept all day.” Ocean told her.

“Mm.” Ana sat up. “I haven’t really been sleeping well for weeks now. Barely at all the past few days, She admitted.

”

“Aunt Maddie said to come and wake you. Dinner is in one hour,” Ocean told her.

“Alright, what did you do today?” she asked, getting out of bed.

“Grammy took me to the entertainment zone, and I got to go swimming too.” Ocean smiled. “It’s a salt water pool, like the ocean.”

Ana smiled at her. “I’m glad you got to go out, I’ll shower and change, then do your hair. Pick out something to wear, sweetie.”

Ocean smiled at her and dug into the pocket of her jeans, and pulled out a new bead. “I was good, Austin said, Sloan let me pick a bead, will you braid it in?”

“Of course I will.” Ana smiled at her “You know where you want it to go?”

“Yes, here, with this one.” Ocean touched one of her plaits, which only had two beads “at the bottom.”

Ana showered and dressed in a white off the shoulder dress, with thin spaghetti straps and a flowing cape-like overlay, it had large bunches of roses in varying shades of pink all over it, and flowed lovely down to her knees. It was distinctly feminine. Not something anyone she knew here,. would have ever seen her wear. It was a pretty summer dress.

But she would not revert back to that person who they all knew. She was a Forester and when they were all out together, they tended to dress up just a little, and all had very similar styles, bar Londyn, she prided herself on not conforming to the normal dress code of others when going on a date.

Ocean sat, and she braided that bead into her hair, she’d pulled on a dress that was covered in tiny blue flowers. She looked cute.

They strolled out into the living area, and she found her three sisters all dressed and ready to go to dinner. They were all wearing something with flowers on it, and she chuckled softly at that realisation and shook her head.

Maddie had her bell sleeve style on; that she loved the most. A dark blue knee-length dress with large white leaves and flowers on the skirt only.

Zara was in a mid-thigh white and apricot summer halter-neck dress, a bit unusual for her, due to the scars on her legs, but most of them were just fine lines now, and she could wear shorter-length dresses now. She seemed to want that. That dress was going to draw Vance’s attention right to her bare legs, she thought, and Zara had matched that dress with three-inch heels. Looked very tall when she stood up, but it suited her very well, out to torment the pack Beta it seemed,

Ana was glad that her scars had been minimised, and she had a feeling this would see Zara wear shorts and skirts, dresses more often. Londyn was dressed in her usual 50s style dress for when going out. A dark emerald green today with a sheer overlay that had embroidered vine like flowers all over it.

“Just like back home.” Maddie laughed “Do you know where we are going?”

“Yes.” Ana nodded “Ground floor, western end, we’ll take the omega stairs, so Ocean doesn’t have to see what’s going on outside.”

“I think packhouse’s shouldn’t have glass fronts to their buildings,” Zara stated as they left the suite. “Or block out blinds or maybe heavy drapes for such things.”

“I can’t wait to see Yuri. He’s been in meetings all day.” Londyn smiled at them all.

“He’s likely to be very busy over the next few days as well,” Ana nodded “I can only imagine starting a whole new pack, would take weeks, or there is a lot of paperwork to go with it.”

She saw Londyn pout, but then nodded “I suppose’s not different to opening my business, that took up a lot of my time. He’s got a job to do here, and needs to actually do it.”

“That he does.” Ana stated as they made their way to the omega stairs. She took Ocean’s hand and saw Maddie take the other one, and smiled. It was how they’d always walked when she was growing up; nothing had changed there.

She felt relaxed, had really needed that sleep and she knew it. Wasn’t tired and irritable anymore, nor had to try and hide that from everyone either. Knowing that Anders’ blood didn’t run in her veins, nor in Ocean’s, made her feel lighter somehow. Knowing she was Orlando’s daughter made her feel different about herself as well.

Ocean smiled up at her, she was happy here inside the pack, had no problems with being there like Austin and Sloan had been concerned about. All the wolves here didn’t seem to bother her, and a part of her wondered if that was because she’d never had to be concerned about them with that necklace on, none of them had known what she was and so there was no fear of them, not really. They stepped out of the stairwell on to the ground floor and Yuri was walking this way. He smiled right at Londyn, who chuckled and trotted off to hug him and plant a kiss on him, growled out how much she’d missed him today.

Zara laughed “Get a room you two.”

“I’ll be gutting and remodeling or redecorating a lot of things. The Alpha and Luna’s offices are going. This room will also be gutted. And those suites upstairs that housed those outside, getting demolished completely. I’ve just got to find the right company to come and do the demo and renovations.” Slade stated.

She nodded “What will you do with all the space you’ll create up there?” she asked, sitting down in the chair he directed her to.

She did note that they were all seated according to what she thought he and his unit thought was going to happen come the full moon.

His unit were all sitting next to who they wanted to be paired up with, he and her had Ocean between them, Vance and Zara were across from them, Palmer and Maddie were next to her and Yuri and Londyn were over next to Zara across from Maddie.

“Unknown at this time, I’ll have to look at the structure and what can be removed and can’t.” he stated “Though…” he trailed off.

“Though,” she prompted.

“Honestly, I’m tempted to demolish the entire building and build something completely new.” He told her, “So much has happened, that I think a clean packhouse is probably called for.”

“That sounds like a lot of work and years in the planning and design, building.” She nodded, though she thought it was a good idea as well, getting rid of everything that was tainted would be good for his pack members too.

“Mm, a completely new building for all here in the Forest of Light.” he smiled at her.

“You mentioned something about wanting to explain why you named the pack that,” she commented.

“I did.” He nodded “I named the pack… after, how I see Maddie,” Slade stated.

That made everyone in the room stop talking and look right at him, including his own unit. Clearly, they also had no idea of why he’d named the pack Forest of Light. She watched Slade smile right at Maddie.

“Thank you, Maddie, for being what I believe is the light that brought Ana out of the darkness that surrounded her. For giving both Ana and Ocean not only a home, but a loving family. For also taking in Zara and Londyn as well.

“I feel you are the light that shines within a forest. That you shined so brightly that you drew all of them to you. Where you have then protected and loved each one of them. Created a loving family for all those in need.

“I also played a word chain game with myself to get it down to those three words. Again your doing, I’d never played a word chain game up until I met you.” he told Maddie.