MATED TO THE ALPHA AND HIS BETA - Season 4 Episode 83

Lanie

By the time we all got to the school, the other parents were lining up, too. Nobody seemed bent out of

shape about the lights flickering. Some even joked about it.

The only concerned faces I saw belonged to my mates.

We got the pups back to our quarters. We settled all three with snacks and some games, and then they

played sweetly together. I watched Stella carefully.

Now that I knew she had to be capable of reading my thoughts, I wanted to see if she’d reveal that

talent.

Stella.

She didn’t look up or even seem to blink. That didn’t mean she couldn’t hear me. Just that she didn’t.

Maybe she hadn’t discovered yet that she could, or she’d sensed that I was upset at the idea of her

telling

the teachers to make fa rt jokes.

She was just a little girl, after all. One who’d grown faster than was to be expected…I was trying really

hard not to think of her in terms of “normal” or not.

She’d grown faster. Matured more quickly. She could do things other wolf children couldn’t, even things.

other hybrid children weren’t able to.

And for Stella, all of that was exactly as it was meant to be.

“Love?” Xander put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re ordering dinner in tonight. What do you want?”

“Whatever you all decide will be fine with me.

Something good for the kids that isn’t nuggets or pizza,” I added absently.

I wasn’t hungry. That in and of itself seemed like a big change, considering how intense my appetite ha

been lately. I pretended to be folding some clothes that had come back from the laundry, but I was

really watching Stella interact with Alaina and Isaac.

None of our three pups had ever been a disciplinary problem. Nothing more than the general fussing. I

couldn’t even recall if any of them had ever had a tantrum. Wolves might be impassioned and full of

emotions, but wolf pups were generally well-behaved, and ours were terrific examples of that.

But what if…what if Stella did rebel? Even something as simple as telling her to go to bed, to brush her

teeth…there was no way for me to enforce that. Not if she truly was as powerful as that book had said.

I had thought Stella didn’t fully understand what she was doing to those teachers and why it was

wrong.

She was just a little girl. But now I had to rethink that.

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I had to actually hope that she did, in fact, understand and chose to anyway, even knowing that it was



wrong.

Her childlike morals might need improvement, but that was better than thinking she could use that

talent

without understanding it.

I had to believe she could choose it. Could control it. Because if she couldn’t, that would mean an

out-of-control child had more power than anyone else alive.

***

Xander

I thought the knock at the door was our food being delivered, but it turned out to be Malachi. He

entered

our quarters without so much as a nod at me. He strode in and turned around with a triumphant gaze,

hands

on his hips.

“Ha!”

“Ha, what?” I demanded:

Lanie looked nervous. “Grandfather?”

Malachi barely looked at her. He focused on me and Mason. “You two will be interested to know that

my gut feeling-and yes, by the sun’s belligerent rays, it was totally in my gut-”



“Get to the point,” Mason said.

“My gut was correct in telling me something was wrong,” the Ancient vampire said.

Lanie let out a small noise. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

I could sense her anxiety rolling off her in strong waves. Zane could, too, and I sensed him sending out

a few pulses of Beta energy. They didn’t seem to be working.

“There is a town not far from here. Very remote. So remote,” Malachi said, “that everyone in it single

building. The entire town is in one building, can you imagine? Nothing like Brightsky.”

Us.

“The point,” Lanie snapped.

The vampire looked strangely giddy and didn’t even take offense. “We have sources there who

And they’ve said that multiple new faces have arrived there over the past few days. That’s not at

typical.

Not this far out in the middle of nowhere. Certainly not without a reason. It’s not a tourist spot.”

Lanie nodded toward a light fixture. “What happened earlier today with the lights?”

Her grandfather turned to face her. “Power surge, I suppose.”

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“Is that common?” Mason asked.

Malachi frowned. “No. But it’s not impossible. Even technology as advanced as we use here in the

enclave

can be strained from time to time when there’s a big draw on the power source.”

“Was there?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.

No wonder Charlotte wanted our input into the security here. Clearly, they’d all gotten too used to being