Not just the Beta (Oriana and Slade) novel Chapter 37

Oriana

It was a long two-hour drive to Phoenix and she half expected pack cars to be racing after her, but they did not. No one came for her, and she chastised herself for even thinking that. Why? She thought they would. It was beyond her. After all that had gone on, all they’d done to her, they didn’t care, wanted to get rid of her, and she had just given them what they wanted. The easy way.

She’d felt the moon set halfway to Phoenix, and knew they were all now fully distracted by Dariah’s first shift and would soon be out running in the woods, for several happy filled hours. That party they were having was now in full swing, as they celebrated Alpha’s daughter.

She was unlikely to ever do that again herself; celebrate inside a pack. Ori understood it was dangerous out here as a rogue female, but she was going to settle herself in some quiet small town that was well out of the way of everyone. Make human friends and pretend to be human for the most part.

A place where there were lots of trees and forests for China to run in, once their daughter was old enough to ride on her and play with her. She could attend school in the human world, and just be a normal child with no stress or pressure of what her bloodline should mean to her. She was going to give her daughter the life she should have had, a carefree life with a loving mother, away from the world of wolves, she hoped.

Ori arrived at the airport and found an ATM, withdrew out as much cash as she possibly could; her cash limit for the day, put it all inside her suitcase and then went and looked at the departing flight board, skimmed over it. Where she was going, it wasn’t going to be in a state that surrounded this one. No, she was going to go as far away as she could.

She saw a flight to Boston, Massachusetts, and it was leaving in 49 minutes. She booked herself on it. Took the ticket from the lady and walked away from the counter. Stopped not far away and took a long breath in to prepare herself for the next part of her life to start. She had to sever ties with the pack, she did not belong there, didn’t actually want to be there, to have to look at any of them anymore.

No one inside that pack knew of her pup. Maybe Lindal had guessed, but she wouldn’t say anything, didn’t even know whose it was. So she was actually good to go. Was going to be safe out there until her daughter was 16, and got her wolf. Only then would Slade’s wolf Hail sense anything to do with the girl; that he had an unknown child out there somewhere in the world.

He wouldn’t even know whose it was. Slade nor his wolf remembered anything about that night. That was 16 and a half years away. So, not an issue right at this minute, was her future self’s problem, and by then she might have found a way to hide her daughter’s kin bond. She didn’t know, but anything was possible.

He would also be mated to Audrey, and they would have had pups of their own by then, so he might not even care at all. Just let it go because he had his Goddess Gifted and a family of his own. He certainly wouldn’t know whose it was. Or where it was, wouldn’t even know where to start looking at all.

This pack was on the west side of the country, and she was headed as far east as she could get, so Hail might not even sense it at all after all those years. That would be the best-case scenario.

She stood there in the airport and murmured quietly to herself, with a sound resolve, “I, Oriana Vale, reject the Highland Hills Pack and Alpha Roman as my Alpha, I am a rogue now.”

She felt the pack tether break with a harsh snap inside her mind, and held in the hiss of pain, bit down on it and breathed through the sensation of becoming a rogue. Not something she’d ever thought she would be.

She breathed deeply a few times and then walked from the ticketing area to the gates and strolled along, in, out and around the gates. She understood that if they did decide to come after her, and if they could track her here to this airport. They could track the rogue scent right to the very gate her plane would take off from. Know where she went, from that.

But strolling in and out of all of them. That would confuse them, she also no longer looked like the Oriana she had been inside that pack, her luggage was checked and they, if they could access the camera’s, likely would be able to, the pack had a tech department, they would be looking for a girl with long dark hair, but she had a new hairstyle for a new life, a short blonde and purple pixie cut.

She stood with all the other humans lined up to board her flight when it was called, still hadn’t seen a single wolf, recognised no one here in the airport. She kept her eyes open, had to, she no longer had that pack tether to feel for anyone looking for her. Though now neither did they, they could be 10 feet away and not feel her if she was scent masked. Probably should have pilfered some of that before she left. She thought a moment later.

Hadn’t really been in the right frame of mind to think about an actual proper strategy to get herself out of that pack and away from all those deceitful wolves. The only thing she’d known, was she was going and when to go, what moment would be the best and how to exit the state, without them being easily able to track her.

Why she’d not driven! Her car was trackable, why she’d left her phone there for them to find in the woods. It was also trackable. Their Alpha and his unit, had that live tracking app for everyone in the pack and all pack cars were lo-jacked, considered a safety feature to protect his wolves. Her phone and car were things she could not take with her. Not that she would want the car anymore, seeing who it had belonged to, before it was hers.

Finally, she got on that flight, was gone, off to Boston, clear across to the other side of the country away from this place. So far away, they would never find her.

She got off the plane and onto a bus headed for Maine, to find a nice quiet, quaint country town to live in. She knew that Maine was a pretty State, full of beautiful, forested areas. It took her two full days of public travel to get to a place called Augusta, and she stopped for the night in a hotel.

She bought a new phone and used it to start looking at all the towns around the state, looking at the pictures of the towns as well, all the seasons of the State. It snowed here; she’d never seen the snow before, and smiled at the thought of one day she could build a snowman with her daughter.

She was changing everything about her life. Arizona and Maine were nothing alike. She found a nice little town away from all the major highways, with plenty of forest on a lake, Greenville, and made her way there, the place she thought was perfect.

“You’re…” how did she put this while sitting here in a human world café? She knew she wasn’t on pack territory, she would have felt that gotten attacked by the border patrol and her ass hauled into see the Alpha.

“Yes, I was homeless like you are now.” Maddie answered her question. “I have been for three years now, I’m 20. I ran away like you did, I’d say. Got me a nice quiet life, just like what I imagine you’re looking for right this minute.”

“And you own this café?” the girl was just 20.

“Yes, actually own it.” she nodded. “Let’s just say, I’m not exactly uneducated, a bit of a child prodigy. Why don’t you come and stay with me? I could use the company to be honest. Been alone three years, it gets lonely out here by myself.”

“Any others?”

“No.” she shook her head.

“Why can’t I…you know, tell that about you.” and she couldn’t, for all intensive purposes this woman across from her was human to her wolfen senses. She couldn’t even tell what rank she was. Nothing at all, just human.

“I’ll clock out at four today, take you to see the house I live in, and you can let me know if you want to stay. I don’t bite, just like you, left something I didn’t want to be a part of anymore.”

She looked at Maddie, actually recalled the first time she’d bought coffee from her, the way she had looked at her, stared at her for a long moment before clearing her voice, stated an apology and murmured your eyes are amazing. She had given Maddie her actual name that first time, and then stated afterward “Ana is fine.”

Maddie had actually chuckled a little and nodded, stated “That saves me asking how to spell Ana with one N or two?”

That reaction she now realised could have simply been shock at seeing a female rogue standing before her, in her coffee shop, could well have been worried herself that Ana would recognise her as a she-wolf as well.