Page 30 of His Temporary Alpha Mate
“Then I’ll be here, in whatever way I need to be. Once you have a beta picked out and an agreement in place, I’ll step back, okay?”
My determination to become an omega no matter the cost took a hit. Larken was so sweet.
“Thank you, I don’t deserve to have you in my life like this,” I said as honestly as I could without wanting to cry. Our arrangement seemed so fragile then. As if the slightest thing would break us apart.
“Dalton?” Our eyes met and held. “If you can’t find the right beta. I’ll be your alpha.”
Testing
Larken
Over the weeks that followed the announcement about the beta gene, I watched Dalton withdraw from everyone. He watched me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention just as much as his eyes followed Axel.
We spent less and less time together. Mainly because I was busy, as was Dalton. There was so much going on in the pack, we just didn’t have the chance to get together as much as I would have liked. He made excuses other times, helping him pull further away.
When news came that Tate had fathered one of Hiroshi’s twins, the ripple effects traveled further than anyone could have thought.
Dalton was so hopeful about the news. As soon as he heard it, he came to me to celebrate. A quick hook up in a closet wasn’t all I wanted from him, but it was enough.
Unfortunately, Tate’s ability wasn’t met with joy all over. Even in the pack, there were still those who denied this was possible. They eventually came around after Aldrin and James explained it better.
Everywhere else was the problem.
All over the world, shifters were looking at the Sweetwater pack, and many of them didn’t like what they saw.
In us, they saw a pack where more babies were being born compared to other packs. Fertility issues, we didn’t know her! My parents and Karina would have loved studying what was going on in the pack and would have helped us foster better relations with groups such as the Northarbor pride, like Blake was trying to do.
The pride, unlike the aviary, was open to forming an uneasy alliance. Made more difficult because their Alpha was the father of the alpha who had sexually assaulted Hiroshi. This was after the omega was forced into an arranged mating with the young man. Yeah, it was complicated.
Alpha Jason was a decent guy by all accounts, it just meant tension when he was on our lands. All the enforcers were on duty during those days, to ensure everyone’s safety. He visited with the samples of DNA of the betas who had succumbed to the beta sickness.Unlike us, the pride and most other packs and clans only had a few betas come down with the illness.
Another thing which set us apart. Every single one of our betas had slept for at least two weeks. None had escaped the sickness. In other places, it was only around half at most.
With the elves in the pack to research the sickness and now the genetic component, it meant other shifter groups wanted that expertise for themselves.
There had been shifter trafficking attempts in other places. Betas were being stolen because they could become omegas. The omegas were always at risk. Now things were just worse for them. Being a shifter, unless you were an alpha, was scary for most.
Trust was thin on the ground. The pack was dealing with too much, and something had to give.
Then the kidnapping happened. Omegas in the Sweetwater pack were sick of being kidnapped, just as much as the alphas and betas sent to rescue them were. Jared, Hiroshi’s ex betrothed, used members of our own pack to get to them. He thought Hiroshi’s bond with Roan was fake because of the bond with Tate. Turned out both were very real and fated, meaning unbreakable. When fate gave you a mate, you couldn’t give that gift back once you accepted it.
Jared’s plan had been to kill Roan, likely the twins Hiroshi carried too. Then mate the omega to get hisown cub. The plan was stupid, but no one had ever said Jared was blessed with brainpower, just a lot of alpha entitlement. Thank the goddess my mother and aunt had trained that out of me.
With the omegas returned to the pack, along with an injured Roan, the priorities of the pack shifted. Alpha Blake had to defend his people against outside interference. So there were no more packs visiting us.
The Sweetwater pack broke from the council, no longer having any faith that they were truly there to protect all shifter kind, and not just the alphas in charge.
Honestly, it was a relief to have them and the alpha enforcers who followed them gone from our lands. There were fewer people to do the protecting, sure, but there were also less to protect the others from.
Then the worst news came.
Just as the testing program was scheduled to start, Alpha Blake abruptly canceled it for the pack’s safety, which left more than one beta feeling distraught.
My first thought when I heard the news was of Dalton. Though the beta had been pulling away from me, putting up those barriers I’d previously broken down, I knew he would need me.
He wouldn’t find me in the mansion. I didn’t live there anymore. We hadn’t discussed it since we wereonly friends with occasional benefits. Yet in my heart, it felt like the right thing to do.
It was my fault the omegas had gotten taken. That Roan had been hurt trying to get them back. If I’d just listened to my gut, I would have known Carl was up to something. The alpha had joined forces with Jared, who was paying him to get the omegas. Tate they wanted for research and payback.
