Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 23

Oriana

“Don’t you dare.” Ori grated out, she didn’t want to hear those words come out of him. All this time, on the drive home, she thought he was being blindsided like she was, that he was on her side, but he wasn’t. She yanked the car to a full stop, right where she was supposed to, and got out, all her anger on the surface.

Her best friend, the father of her pup, had just stabbed her in the back like everyone else. He knew, and for ‘a while’, that just meant he’d known for days in all likelihood, and had not even bothered to tell her, he was no different to those up there on the packhouse steps.

Ori’s eyes moved from the Alpha Unit to her brother, that bastard was standing there in her place, and had the hide to smirk right at her, so very smugly that he had gotten her position here, and easily so.

Had been chosen by the future Alpha himself, his hand hadn’t even been forced, and she knew it because if it had been, he would have told her, he’d not told her because he knew how she actually felt, about all of them up there on those steps, trying to get rid of her from her position.

He was no different to any of them, she now realised, he could bloody well go up there and stand alongside all those that thought she was not good enough, because she was female. She’d never really expected him to side with them, she realised. Deep down inside, she truly had believed he wanted her for his Beta. Would fight for her position here within the pack.

But he was no different in the end to every one of them up there.

“It’s been officially announced already,” Alpha Roman told her. He knew she was not stupid, what it meant for Hayden to be all dressed up and standing there like that. She was out and Hayden was in. He didn’t actually need to verbalise it, that was just pack protocol for the Alpha to voice a demotion.

“Moved into my suite yet!” She snarled at Hayden, and she nearly shot off the mark to kill him. when he nodded right at her, and stated “yes, your things are in mum and dad’s suite now.” She could actually hear it, he was enjoying this moment, he’d won the game and was rubbing it in right here, at the moment she felt the most betrayed she’d ever felt in her entire life.

Rage filled her as she realised not only had they announced it, when she wasn’t here, they’d already packed her up and moved her out of the Beta suite as well, putting her right back inside her family’s suite.

She’d had nothing to do with her father or mother for weeks now, yet that was where she was supposed to go, back to the people that had birthed her, only to be disappointed in the fact that she was a girl. So disappointed that they’d had a boy in short order, and let it be known, all her life they wanted him to be the Beta heir, not her.

Two people that had stabbed her in the back from the day she was born, now they had gotten. what they wanted, as much as her brother had. No one here actually cared about how she would feel, about what they had just done either. Not her parents, not the Alpha and likely not the Luna, not her own friend. Was he really her friend?

Would a friend allow this to happen? To let it play out this way, blindsided was one thing, but full-blown disrespect and everything happening while she was not even inside the pack to hear about it. No, a friend would not do that to you, he was not her friend. Was just the future Alpha to the pack, he was exactly like his backstabbing father.

Ori saw both Palmer and his father Charlton move towards her, as she hurled her car keys at her brother and yelled, “why don’t you just take everything that is mine.” And then turned and stalked the hell away from all of them. He was damn lucky she couldn’t fight right this minute, couldn’t actually shift to her wolf. They all were, because China would be out of her for the backstabbing and betrayal from all of them if she wasn’t, nothing would contain their rage.

She turned and stalked furiously away, did not want to look at any of them anymore.

She knew Palmer was going to lay hands on her, it was just him chasing her, she’d actually heard his dad state, “Son, don’t touch her.” At one point, and knew that man himself, the actual pack Gamma, had come to a halt and wasn’t going to touch her, he was a very wise man.

She didn’t want either of them touching her right that minute, those Gamma-charmed hands would not be sensing her out, not that she was thinking at all about her pup, she was blindingly mad, and it wasn’t just her. China was ticked off as much as she was, for the way they’d done this to them.

She and her wolf were bloody angry and the only thing right this minute keeping that brother of hers alive, likely her own father as well, for not holding that boy to the same standards she’d been held to all her life. Was the fact that she was with pup. If she wasn’t, she’d be on a full rampage to kill that brother of hers, and she knew it, nothing would stop her and China from wiping that smug look off his face.

She also didn’t want to calm down. She had a right to be angry. This she knew was not how things were done. Behind closed doors, in private with full explanation, though she didn’t need that, it was because she was a fucking girl. His hand landed on her shoulder. “Ori, we didn’t know. Please…” she didn’t really care that he or Yuri didn’t know right this minute, was too consumed by her own anger, turned and punched that boy with all she had, and saw him stagger about and kind of turn and hurry away from her. Both his hands to his face.

She continued on down the road, uncaring of the time or even where she was going. Most of the pack members were in their homes already. She was just stalking away because she had nowhere to go, not really. She had lived her whole life inside the packhouse up in the Beta’s suite, she had spent the majority of her life with Slade, Palmer and Yuri even.

Well, that was no more, she thought bitterly, as she felt hot tears burn her eyes, she walked blindly keeping them at bay, for who knew how long before she just stopped in the middle of a pack road.

She felt a very light hand touch her arm, and turned to see who it was, felt her whole body stiffen and knew it was because if it was one of them back there, anyone from either of those Alpha Units, she was going to just explode into a complete rage, that they had the hide to touch her.

Ori found herself looking at Lindal, and those tears that she was desperately keeping at bay, brimming in her eyes, had been blurring her vision now for who knew how long, but had refused to let out in full, were suddenly rolling down her face as she looked at the pity she saw on the woman’s face; it was how everyone here was going to look at her now, and she knew it.

Heard the words “I’m sorry, Ori,” an apology and not even from any of the ones that had stabbed her in the back, hurt her, “I wasn’t allowed to even tell you after the announcement was made, we were told that Slade was going to tell you, he wanted to do it himself, on the drive back.”

“Well, he didn’t,” she stated, “slept like a baby in the passenger seat. Got himself a Goddess Gifted and fucked her stupid for hours in his dorm. I had to wait for him, knowing that was what he was doing. Then he just slept, didn’t care to tell me about it.” She grated out.

Lindal was frowning at her now, she was part of their social group, and likely didn’t think he would do that to her, any more than she herself had done, “So, you didn’t know at all coming home?”

“No, not until I saw them all lined up on the packhouse steps, my brother all dressed formally, standing right where I would be…He chose Hayden himself, over me, told me himself, as we pulled up.”

“I’m sorry.” She heard Lindal sigh.

So was Ori. He was all happy and getting everything he wanted, and she was getting nothing, had even not told him about that pup she was carrying, because she’d wanted him, her loyal friend, who she’d thought was getting screwed over like she was, to be happy. To not complicate his life with that pup, while he was so happy, she had opted herself, to let him go back to Audrey and see her on the full moon, scent her, Mark and Mate her without anything to ruin that.

To let the two of them, her future Alpha and his Luna, stay in that happy love bubble for as long as it took for her to give birth. A couple of months of blissful happy loved up Mate Bond goodness. So that they could really bond with each other.