Not just, the Beta

CH 10

Oriana

She smiled at Lindal as she watched her once again run from her Mate a week later. They were marked and mated, and he was still having to chase her around the pack. The girl was all into him, but had told Ori he was too much sometimes, completely insatiable and just couldn’t bloody keep his hands to himself. She was naked within minutes of him getting back from training.

Ori had laughed at her, was currently laughing at her, as were Palmer and Yuri, for that matter. “She’ll be knocked up before the next full moon is even here.” Yuri chuckled.

“I hear he wants a full litter of little elite warriors.” Palmer snorted.

“No wonder she’s running the hell away.” Yuri laughed now.

“Mate bonds are crazy weird.” She’d shaken her head and both of them had just looked at her with a raised eyebrow “What?” she asked.

“Come on, Ori, you don’t think any mate of yours isn’t going to be just like that?”

“I’ll out muscle him whoever he is.” She smiled, “He’ll do as he’s told, and I ain’t popping out a freaking litter for no wolf.”

They were all laughing and laughed even more when they saw Beckham strolling back through the pack with Lindal tossed over his shoulder headed back to their house. “Thanks for the help.” She yelled at them “What’s the good of being friends with the Alpha’s unit if you aren’t gonna help me.”

“He’s your Mate, tell him no.” Ori yelled back as they continued on. She wasn’t worried, knew Lindal was actually happy and her parents both liked Beckham too. He was a good mate. It was just a new bond, nothing she didn’t see every time there was a happily mated pair around the pack. Sometimes it was the she-wolf hunting her man, which was also funny.

It was only a matter of time before Lindal went into heat and Beckham would have all he wanted of her and calm down after a week of hot demanding s*x from his Mate; likely he’d be all worn out and the problem solved. She’d seen it many times before over the years, they all had, it was nothing unusual to wolfen eyes.

She was sparing in the gym a day later; it was bucketing down outside and training had been moved indoors. She didn’t mind, it was a nice change of pace. Though she still had Hayden training with them, and he’d now been pulled into line by Alpha Roman and her father, because Palmer himself had snarled at the boy to pull his head in. Told him that he wasn’t the future Beta, and actually put in a full formal complaint about the boys' constant disrespect towards the future Alpha Units leadership.

Now the boy was just sulking, and had actually refused to train at all today, so she’d dismissed him on the grounds of being a petulant little boy, who couldn’t take his licks, and that had set him off into a rage.

They were now fighting it out, the two of them in the gym, Beta-blood to Beta-blood, her verse’s her little brother and actual full on fist fight. Hayden was taller and bigger than her, had those Beta muscles coming in, but he lacked restraint and control, was all emotional in this fight. She put that boy down face first on the ground and rolled her aura right at him to force him to submit. She was fully realised, unlike him, he was still under 18, and her aura was stronger than his was.

Her father and Alpha Roman hauled her up off of him, yelling about what the hell was going on, and all four of them got hauled into the Alpha’s office. She didn’t say anything other than “He didn’t want to train. I dismissed him for sulking about getting in trouble, and he attacked me.”

The boy couldn’t even deny it, she had both Palmer and Yuri as witnesses and the boy got put in the cells for the rest of the day for his behaviour.

“Ori, this has to stop.” Alpha Roman stated flatly, “you and Hayden need to sort this s**t between you out, and get over it.”

“Please Alpha tell him that I am the rightful Beta Heir. Slade has told everyone that, including Hayden himself, that I will be next to him, not Hayden.”

She watched Alpha Roman sigh and just nod, “I’ll speak to the boy...but.” he looked right at her “He still needs Alpha unit training.”

“What for?” she asked.

“Because Ori, with every full moon there’s a risk of you being mated off out of this pack.”

“My Mate can come here.” she told him.

“And what if he’s an Alpha wolf?” Roman asked right back.

“He won’t be,” She stated simply.

“You’re a pure-blooded Beta line female, it’s actually quite possible, plausible even. So he needs training to replace you when it happens.”

“Then why can’t you and father put him through training?”

He sighed and looked right at her, looked exasperated, she thought. “He needs to bond with Palmer and Yuri, like you have, so he can slot in easily.”

She was frowning now. “I’m still here.”

“We’re aware of that Ori, but a plan has to be put in place for the future. For what not only your father thinks but so do I, that you’ll end up mated to an Alpha. You are very controlling and like being in charge, are good at it even. Then there’s your looks...that in itself will attract Alpha males for alliance mating’s.”

“Yay!” She rolled her eyes “If they aren’t my Mate, I don’t care how many Alphas are attracted to me, it will be a no.” she stated and looked at her father pointedly. He simply nodded. “May I go?” she asked.

Roman nodded and waved her away, and she stalked from that man’s office. That brother of hers was getting what he wanted, it seemed. Regardless that she was still here and un-mated. He’d somehow managed to push his own agenda and sway not only her father, not hard to do actually, but also it now seemed Alpha Roman himself, to his way of thinking.

If they wanted to train him, they could do it themselves, it was likely to come to blows between them every day. Not that she wanted it to, she would much rather have a brother she got along with, than one she fought with all the time.

She found her mother Bronnie at her Beta suite door later that night. She smiled right down at her; they were all taller than Ori. She was carrying a tray loaded with what Ori could see were all her favourite snacks. “Great.” She muttered as she stepped aside.

This was only ever done when her parents were trying to sweet talk her into something, a way they thought of lessening the blow, of whatever it was, which ever one of them came to talk to her about.

She watched as her mother put the tray on the coffee table and then handed her the strawberry milkshake that was already made for her on it. She stared at it and then her mother, “The bad news would be?” she asked, getting right to the point.

“Now, why would you think there’s bad news? Can’t I just pop by and visit?”

Ori stared at her, waved a hand at the tray of snacks, “You’re here to bribe me with that, this is how you and father always do that.”

She watched her mother chuckle and sit down, “not much gets past my girl. Come sit sweetie.”

She sat, even took the offered milkshake, even though she knew whatever it was she wasn’t going to like it.

“Alpha Roman has decided that for this coming week, you should let Hayden train with Palmer and Yuri.”

“Right and what will I be doing while they train?” she asked.

“You can still train on your own, or with the regular warriors.”

“A week? Or till Slade comes home in a year and makes his final choice?”

“Of course not that, sweetie. Just a week is my understanding. It's to see if Hayden’s attitude is different without you, that’s all this is about.”

“Right.” She nodded, and was more than unhappy about it.

“One week, Palmer and Yuri are going to be tough on him. He has to train Alpha type training every morning at 5am for seven solid days and a few afternoons, as well as hand to hand, agility and wolfen training. Pull his weight, two border patrol shifts as well, not be late and don’t complain.”

Nothing he couldn’t actually do, she thought. If he was willing, “Fine, I’ll have a week off, take the time to sort out my uni degree then.” There was nothing she could do about it, if it was an order from Alpha Roman himself.

It had taken all of a week of Slade not being here for her to start to get shunted aside. She’d insulted him the last time she’d seen him. This could well be it. She saw her mother out, and just sat and stared at that tray of snack foods.

A female Beta? Was there even actually such a thing? All the units she’d seen were male. She really did want to show everyone there could be women in the Alpha unit, that it didn’t always have to be men that held the packs leadership.

She did know there were female Alphas out there, quite a few of them, but even they had male units. The wolfen world really sucked sometimes. It was male-dominated and things needed to change.

A week, she thought, seven days. She wondered if that seven days would turn into 14 and then 21 and then a full month. If she’d be relegated to standard warrior training. Not much of a challenge for her there. She was used to bringing down Gamma and Delta-ranked wolves, and could even, on the odd occasion, bring Slade down as well, though he had to be off his game for her to do that.

It didn’t happen often though, but it annoyed him a lot when she actually won and laughed about it. He didn’t like his Beta putting him down. She didn’t know if it was because she was half his size or if it was because she was a girl?

He usually called training quits when she won, didn’t like all her smiling and taunting, or the ribbing he got from Palmer and Yuri. Though she did wonder what it was that distracted him and put him off his game at times. It just kind of seemed to come out of nowhere, and he never stated what it was.

She just figured it was girl trouble with his latest fling. She did always find him with a girl later on, on those days. Likely she thought he was distracted by thoughts about that girl she found him with; he was technically a horny 18-year-old, not just the future Alpha.