Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 31

Slade

He could see that Anders was not at all happy with him wanting to let her go and fuck some random wolf. But if that was what she needed right this minute, then they had no right to interfere. They were the ones that had hurt her, and set this into motion.

“Do you even like Oriana?” He heard Anders ask him as he turned to go up the stairs, “or was it just a drunken fuck for you? And nothing more.”

Slade stopped walking and huffed a little, turned and looked at the man, “Yes, I, more than like Ori, would love for her to be my Mate, wake up to those amazing eyes every day for the rest of my life.” He admitted honestly to the man, “I’m actually disappointed in myself right now, and not just for how this all fell apart. But because I don’t recall being with her, the girl I really want for myself.”

“Then go down there and stop what she’s about to do.” Anders implored him.

“No, I have no right to intervene in her life on a hunch, or a guess, on your and father’s part. I cannot do anything about it. You all set this off, not me. You’re all responsible for her current state and behaviour. Yes, I added to it,” he nodded, “but if you’d let me do it my way, this shit show likely wouldn’t be happening at all.

“I might have actually been able to manage it; her pain, the hurt and betrayal she felt, if I’d been allowed to do this my way. Sit her down and talk to her, privately the way I wanted to, calmly, logically. Explain my side of it to her.”

“You can still do that,” Anders stated. “You just have to make her talk to you.”

He waved a hand at his shirt, “No, she smashed a bottle into me and told me where to go, do you want to hear what she said about Hayden or yourself? She’s not ready to talk, likely to just get angrier if we corner her, try to force her to talk to any one of us. She needs space.”

“Slade…”

“No, I could have avoided it. I know her, what would make her understand. You don’t actually know your daughter at all, because she never truly shows you who she is. Doesn’t think you love her, because she is a girl.

“If you’d let me do it my way, explain to her, I had to release her as my Beta and take Hayden, to stop father from banishing your family after that fight that broke out in his office, all wolfed out. Ori, I believe, would have actually understood that. Accepted it even. Maybe even thanked me, for saving her family, your family. Then, if I’d scented her on the full moon, things would likely have gone well between us. But now!” He sighed.

“Oriana, your little girl, as you call her. Is just that, a girl inside the Beta that she presents to you. She is very insecure, and you all just hammered her, disrespected her, and tossed her aside like garbage in her eyes. You all forget one very important thing, that she is actually just an 18-year-old girl full of emotions, fear of you never accepting that she can be a Beta,

“Feels rejected by you, her own mother, and her brother, because she was born first, as a girl. All you see is the Beta, because that’s all she ever shows you, because inside she’s terrified, you’ll never love the girl she is, and that girl, she craves approval and love from you.”

He could see Anders standing there just staring at him, likely realising just how bad they had truly fucked things up with Ori, maybe for the both of them even. “Now Anders, she believes she has never had it. That her own family doesn’t love her, doesn’t approve of who she is, and Hayden, laughing at her, “She’s such a girl.” He’s very lucky to be alive right now. Because she’s gone now, the Oriana you know, is likely no more. You broke her, we all just broke her.”

“It’s not what we meant to do.” Anders shook his head.

“No, I get what you were trying to do. But you were wrong. Father was wrong. She is broken right at this minute and needs us to just stay away from her, give her the space she actually needs right now, so don’t keep tabs on her. Don’t track her with your tether. Especially don’t mind-link to her and try to talk to her. Just leave her alone.”

Hayden actually believed he was entitled to be the pack Beta, but that boy had done nothing to actually deserve it at all. Not been pushed hard like she had, not made to jump through all the hoops Ori had been made to. No, he was simply entitled to it in their eyes because he was the firstborn son in the Beta line.

Slade stepped into his shower and stood under the running water, if Ori was his Mate and he could get her to accept him after this shit show. He also knew he would not be keeping Hayden as his Beta. No, he could find a new one, a Beta-blooded wolf from another pack, a second or third heir from an allied pack. There were actually a few of them that he knew, that he could approach. He would even let Ori put that man through the Beta paces and help to make the decision.

Involve her in the creation of a new Beta bloodline for their pack, show her that he did actually care and value her opinion, respected her choice and believed in her judgment and leadership skills. If she opted for a female Beta, he would accept one, if she demanded a female Beta to prove to their fathers and this pack that it was not something to be dismissed, he would let her do so, help her pick one, and would not do what the council said; not to bring in one that wasn’t already mated yet.

To prove a bloody point to them all, that any mate they had, could bloody well move here to be with her, look after the pups once they had them, and stay here inside this pack while pregnant, run the pack with Ori herself, while he was off pack territory defending other allied packs.

Have her and his Beta build a good strong bond and show everyone here they were wrong. He would tell that Beta he’d love for her firstborn to be a daughter, to follow in her footsteps even.

Sleep was not going to come easy tonight, and he knew it, likely wasn’t going to be easy for a long time, especially after the full moon, regardless of if he did or didn’t scent her out.

Because if he didn’t, all of this was for naught, and he was going to beat everyone in the Alpha Unit, with Hale behind every hit. Because doing this, what they had done, and he and Ori not scenting each other out, would only compound on Ori’s pain and feelings of betrayal, when she found out why they had done this, and he was going to tell her.

He would delay going back to Alpha College himself, in the hope that he could get her alone to talk to her. Tell her why he’d let her go; to stop her family being banished. He did want to sort that out before he went back. He knew that much.