The Beta's Second Chance

Success and Failure

Ivy

It took everything in my power not to sprint from the room. It was torture being in there with him, granted, about as far from him as I could possibly position myself, but still too close. Far too close. His whisky and vanilla scent filled the room, clouded my senses. I was sure I had missed half of what was said in that meeting, drunk on just the scent of him.

I took the stairs two at a time, trying to clear my mind of the way he smelled, the warmth of him as I’d brushed past. The way he looked at me…like he could devour me with his eyes alone. And, Mother help me, his body…

I’d resented my father sending me to fetch the Blood Moon Beta, like a common omega. I was his daughter, not his errand runner. But you learned very quickly in Summer Hunt, that my father’s commands were not questioned. They were simply obeyed. So, although I had stood outside the door to his room, mustering the confidence to knock for a solid five minutes, although I had made him late for the meeting, simply by wasting time, I had knocked.

And then he’d opened that door…dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his hips. A towel that did nothing to hide the prominent bulge underneath. His body was…perfect. He was perfect. Every freckle. Every cocky grin. Those mesmerizing silver eyes. His tattoos…I was so curious, but I’d never ask. His body rippled with muscle, and I’d wanted to lick every drop of water from his skin. His scent had been made even more potent from him being wet…my underwear had been soaked immediately.

I growled in frustration, kicking open my bedroom door. Well, not so much a bedroom as a loft. Once, it had been a private training center on the roof of the pack house. But I had taken it over as my bedroom when I was a teenager, loving that the room was half open to the sky above, and I had enough room for all of my training equipment.

I wandered over to my couch, sinking down and pressing my hands to my face. I couldn’t continue on like this.

You need to reject him. I told myself. Just reject him, and move on with your life.

But…I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I wanted him. Right now, in this moment, I wanted to launch myself from the couch and go find my mate. Mark him and claim him as my own.

Mate. Since I had turned sixteen, every year on my birthday my father had paraded every male of Summer Hunt that had reached maturity in front of me, hoping I’d find my mate. Every year I looked into every pair of eager eyes and felt nothing. When I turned twenty-one, he’d given up, and I’d begun to hope.

I am my father’s eldest child. Eldest of two daughters. My mother had suffered difficult pregnancies, and though she had tried long after doctors had told her to stop, she could never bear my father a son. I think when she stopped trying, my father had lost all respect for her. They slept in different rooms and barely saw each other anymore. And my mother was nothing but a broken husk of a female, constantly longing for her mate.

He made it look easy. To stay away from one’s mate. To feign indifference. It sure as hell wasn’t. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done.

And now he was making me train the puppies. Six hours a day with Khason Vargas. Under him.

Sweet Mother, the thought of being under him had my pulse racing. Assisting him, I corrected in my head. Taking command from him? How humiliating.

“Bullshit.” I hissed under my breath, pushing to my feet and heading for my punching dummy. I stripped off my sweater and lined myself up to my target, landing two quick jabs in succession and bouncing on the balls of my feet.

Me? Assistant to him? I had been training in combat since I was four years old. I was the best female fighter in Summer Hunt, if not the best fighter at all. I had worked and fought and given everything my entire life to win my father’s favor. And what did it get me? Assistant to the arrogant Beta of Blood Moon.

He was set in his ways, my father. He was as stubborn as a bull, unwaveringly sure that he was always right. But there was one matter in which he could not exert his unending control.

He had no sons. No cousins or nephews. Without a male heir, once he passed or retired, the Alpha rank would fall out of our bloodline. A thought which he found as abhorrent as I did. Of course, we had different plans to remedy the situation.

My father wanted me to marry. He, of course, had no requirement that it actually be to my mate, but my mother had insisted that I would not be forced to marry unless I wanted to, unless I found my mate. So my father found more and more opportunities to throw me at every male that passed, hoping I would choose one of them, and marry them, granting them the title of Alpha once he ceded it.

But I had a much better idea. When I refused to find a mate, I would convince my father that the right wolf to lead Summer Hunt, the right wolf to be Alpha, was me. The idea that only a male could be Alpha was archaic. As were most of the ideals that my father had brought with him when he had immigrated from across the ocean as a child. Honour, duty and sacrifice were all noble concepts, but denying me, the best wolf for the job, the rank of Alpha just because I happened to be born female, was simply stupid. No one knew this pack better than me. No one would lead it better than me.

Especially not the Beta of Blood Moon.

I shuddered to think of what my father would do if he realized that the Beta was my mate. I landed a kick to the head of the dummy, which wobbled violently from side to side. Father was already doing all he could to throw the two of us together. If he found out Khason was my mate, he’d force me to accept him and make him Alpha of Summer Hunt. I would lose everything.

I had no idea what kind of male he was. I knew he was handsome. I’d even say sexy…dangerously so. I knew he was mischievous. I knew he thought he was funny. Thought far too much of himself, if you ask me. I knew he had something to prove. I’d seen how he bit his tongue around my father, a skill he’d had to learn over the past weeks, as silence was definitely not a strong suit of his. Nevertheless, he didn’t complain when my father’s demands of him grew more and more insistent. He only clenched that strong, square jaw of his, his silver eyes taking on the glint of anger and determination that made my heart race. He worked hard, I had to admit. He took everything my father threw at him, and exceeded expectations.

Despite myself, I had been watching him. I knew he got up at dawn every morning to run, ten miles up and down the beach. Then he would go straight to the morning training session, staying there for two hours straight, without a complaint, trying to raise the children into fighters- an impossible task. Then he would meet with his second from Blood Moon, before debriefing with my father. Around noon, when the anxiety was almost about to kill me, he would finally eat something, typically in his room, or on the terrace with his wolves. By one, he was returning to the training facility to run the afternoon session. He would typically stay an extra hour to train by himself before returning to the pack house. Twice a week, he would run evening patrols. The other days he would strategize with my father’s Beta, study maps and literature, engross himself so completely in a pack that wasn’t even his to defend. It was admirable. It was noble. It was downright hot.

But it was infuriating. He had no idea, not knowing my father as I did, but I could tell my dad was beginning to like the unwavering Beta. His dedication, his perseverance, his strength…traits he’d always wanted in a son. No doubt it was why he was finding every opportunity now to push us together.

But no. I refused. It would never happen. I would never accept Khason Vargas as my mate, because to do so would mean handing him my pack. And they meant more to me. Wasn’t that what an Alpha did? Sacrificed for the benefit of the pack? Sure…I wanted him…but my pack came first, and I would be the Alpha they needed, not him.

So then, why can’t I just reject him? Furious with myself, I drop kicked the dummy, sending it crashing to the ground. I paced to my bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I went. My heart ached at the idea of letting him go. Eventually, I’d have to. His Alpha would call him home and we’d be separated…potentially forever. I had no idea how I’d live knowing my mate was just over the boarder, in another pack. Would he find someone else?

I stepped into an icy shower, hoping the cold water would calm the heat burning under my skin. Mother above, I wanted him…more than I’d ever wanted a male before, and I certainly hadn’t deprived myself of male company over the years. But this was different.

Well, I figured it was supposed to be…when you found your mate.

I leaned back against the tiles of the shower, finding my hand sliding between my legs, unbidden. I couldn’t help it. Just thinking about him made my blood boil, made me so wet that I’d taken to changing my underwear several times a day. I couldn’t risk anyone scenting my arousal, figuring out that my mate was living under the same roof.

Nevertheless…my brain conjured an image of him, standing in his doorway, naked save for his towel, dripping and hard and looking at me like…

Like he wanted to grab me. Haul me into his room and slam the door. Rip my clothes from my body, and hold me up against that door, dropping his towel. Slide his thick, hot hardness against my core until he slipped inside, inch by delicious inch, stretching me, filling me in ways I’d never experienced. Like he wanted to touch every inch of my body, feasting on my breasts, squeezing my ass as he slammed himself into me, over and over. Work my body perfectly, already knowing exactly what I like, how to get me closer and closer to the edge, whispering sweet, filthy, perfect things in my ear, until…

I gasped as my orgasm hit me, hard and unexpected. My legs shook as I rubbed myself through the wave of pleasure.

“Khason…” I moaned quietly, his name reverberating off the tiles of the room. It would be the only way I’d ever moan out his name. When I was alone, and he couldn’t hear it. It was all I could allow.

I got dressed quickly in some leather pants and a loose black tank and went down to the courtyard. It was the main hangout for wolves in the pack, and definitely offered the solution I needed.

I spotted Halloway, an old friend, just coming off of the beach volleyball area, her bare, sweaty skin glistening and coated in sand, the majority of her body exposed by her skimpy red bikini. She tossed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder, high fiving her teammates and pouting tauntingly at the team of males they had no doubt just kicked the asses of.

“Hal!” I called, waving her over.

She looked up, her expression surprised, then said something to her teammates and jogged over.

“Ivy. What’s up girl?”

“I…have an odd favor to ask you.” I nodded towards the path to the gardens. Looking intrigued, she followed, walking beside me. I waited until we were out of earshot of the others. “Halloway, do you know the Blood Moon Beta?”

She giggled. “Not nearly as well as I’ve been trying to. He’s a flirt, but never seems to want to take it any further.”

He was a flirt? The thought made my teeth grind. I paused on the path, between two hedges and turned to face her. She was taller than me, but thinner. Her clear blue eyes blinked down at me.

“I want you to try harder,” I stated.

“What?” She laughed awkwardly.

“I want you to…seduce…the Beta.” Why did I want to strangle her? It was my idea...

“You want…” Halloway shifted in discomfort. “Why, exactly?”

“Because.” Because the more focused he was on her, the less he would focus on me, and the better the chance of him staying away from me. Perhaps I’d even be able to muster the strength to reject him…I shivered at the thought. “Because he looks like he needs to relax. A bit of a break.”

“Hmm. Very considerate of you. But like I said, I’ve been trying, Ivy. He’s not interested. What do you want me to do, sneak into his room in the dead of night and climb into bed with him?”

“Yeah! Do that! Could you do it tonight?”

She gaped at me. “Are you serious?”

I exhaled sharply. “Come on, Halloway, you know you want to anyway. It’s for the good of Summer Hunt! Our pack…needs him at his best.” We don’t need him at all! “Will you do this? For me…for us?”

She sighed heavily and then rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll try. But I’m telling you, he’s not interested.”

“You have to have more faith in your skills than that.” I patted her sandy shoulder and walked off down the path, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. This would work. He hadn’t slept with anyone since he got to Blood Moon, that I knew. And with his constant scent of arousal…he would never turn down a naked, attractive female in his bed, right?

Was it possible to hope for success and failure at the same time?