Chapter 06

BETA CARTER POV

After our frantic, intimate claiming and cleansing within the shower, we dressed and headed out to run the errands needed for the day.

I chuckled as I watched Lindy, rattled with nerves, the entire drive to the old Beta house. She wasn't worried about how Kim would receive the divorce paperwork. Kim was aware that these papers were coming; the farce of a marriage needed to come to an end, but Lindy was nervous about how Carissa would handle the idea of being adopted officially and her becoming a stepmother to her.

The thoughts ranged from tears of happiness to bitterness because she would be considered inadequate as a parent.

Lindy couldn't have her children, but she loved spending time with Carissa. They were like kindred spirits. Both were looked down on through no fault of their own, and this understanding bonded them quickly.

She just hoped that Carissa saw it that way and that it wasn't just for the show to catch a Beta male. She adored Carissa and thought of her as a friend and family.

"It's going to be fine, baby. Carissa loves you. I promise everything is going to be fine." I raised her hand and gently kissed her knuckles, attempting to calm her as we pulled into the driveway of my old house. I call it a house, as it wasn’t until finding Lindy that I realized it was never a home.

I looked up at the big house. I remember when I first saw it, my mind filled with happiness and the dreams of the future that it would symbolize. It was once one of the most prestigious houses in the pack. It was a house of image and status.

Kim and I weren't true mates; we were high school sweethearts. We started dating in the tenth grade, and it was clear to everyone that we were the perfect match.

Our pack was confident that we would be discovered to be true mates, but when the time came and Kim got her wolf, we realized that we weren't. I was worried that that would happen. When I got my wolf, Felix, the year prior, he didn't feel any different towards Kim, but I kept it to myself in hopes that we both needed their wolves to know. But, ultimately, we weren't anything but place fillers for our true mates.

Kim's parents were elite warriors and still pushed the young pair together, but my parents, like Kane's Alpha parents, always believed in the balance of true mates. They wanted me to step back and wait for my true mate.

As much as it hurt, that was my plan. I ended it with Kim and told her that although I loved her, I would wait for my true mate, as it would strengthen the pack if ranked members accepted only our real mates.

Kim didn't take it very well. She made my life miserable for the following month. Nothing worked, however. It was not until that day that she showed up at my parents' house, with her irate parents demanding that we marry because she was carrying my pup.

Everything changed that afternoon.

I remembered dropping to one knee right there before them all and proposing. No pup of mine would suffer the absence of a father over a stupid tradition.

My parents were disappointed with me for not waiting to confirm that the pup was mine, but they stopped their pushback and fell in love with the idea of grand pups.

When my father stepped down and handed me the title, I took my tuition savings and put them all towards a down payment on a family home instead. I would be the pack's Beta; I would be a father. I didn't need to focus on things like a business degree. My pup needed a yard to play in, and my chosen mate required a home to call her own.

Looking at it now, I can't help but laugh at the naive young man I was. I was such a fool. If I had been smarter, I would have noticed that Kim's betrayal started much earlier and that Brittany, our first-born pup, was not mine either. But that was information I was storing away for ammunition if I needed to force her hand in this divorce later on.

Brittany was a tool to trap me. It worked. I married her the moment I found out and pushed aside my own happiness.

Then Matthew came, and although he was my biological pup, there was no paternal bond. The boy was as cowardly and rotten to the core as his mother. Kim’s influence was too strong within Matthew. It left me fearful of how he would lead as a Beta, but with Brittany gunning for Luna with Ryan and Carissa pack-wide known not to be mine, there was no one else to challenge him for the title.

"You okay?" Lindy walked around the truck and wrapped her arms around my waist to pull me from my nightmare of a past.

"Yeah. I'm just thinking about the years I spent naive and blindly following the current when it only led to a suckhole of misery," I chuckled, planting a gentle kiss on the crown of her head.

My eyes caught red dust on Matthew's SUV.

We didn't have red dirt in the pack lands. That was miles away in Rogue territory.

Lindy must have followed my gaze as I noticed she had furrowed her brows just the same.

I walked over, running my finger along the red dust in curious suspicion. I went around the SUV and laid my open palm on the hood. It was still warm.

I exchanged a curious glance with Lindy, gauging if she picked up the same suspicious questioning. There was a flash of curiosity across her face. She was with me every step of the way. She would have made an incredible Beta female if this pack hadn’t thought so backward.

"That's odd. It's not something you see on a pack-registered vehicle," Lindy said, stating what we were both thinking.

"No. It's not. I don't know what he is into, but let's keep this to ourselves for now. If he gets himself in trouble, it's not our problem. Let's focus on Carissa and our happy ever after, baby."

Lindy smiled warmly at my words, and we headed to the front door after linking our hands.