Lahat ng Kabanata ng Her Beta's Heart: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

Seeing Johnny as he lay still with his eyes closed in the bed was the most unexpected thing, not even when he planned to kill him. He still carried his angelic looks with his face carrying the most peaceful expression, as though he was not dead but quietly asleep.Alisa had been crying, and he held her tight to himself, her head cradled on his chest. He was not comfortable himself— to laugh and have fun with a kid in the evening only to find out they had died the very next morning.His eyes were wet and he blinked the tears off.Since Avana, no death had hit harder. He had watched Avana grow weak and die and had had the time to prepare himself mentally for her death, but Johnny had been lively and happy the previous evening as the clouds gathered, and Jayden guessed that he would have been the same when Alisa was with him.Jayden remembered himself listening to the drumming of the rain on his window. How was he to know Johnny was transitioning into the afterlife in that same rain?Sta

Jayden turned away from Alisa again, but this time he made no effort to hold back his tears.“I slowly built myself. I told myself I would never live as my father did, and I saw it as a promise to my father. I accumulated wealth and owned enough to be myself. By twenty I owned a comfortable house and a small car, but I knew stopping there would slow me down. I wanted to be bigger. And that was when I chose to achieve respect from my clan.”“What is this clan you keep talking about?” Alisa queried.Jayden paused, thinking of how best to satisfy her curiosity.“It is a family tie bound by secrecy. I don’t have to tell you.”“So what happened next?”“I distinguished myself during a festival, and that was where I met my wife.”Alisa inhaled sharply, and Jayden turned to look at her. His eyes were back to being cold and grey.“You were married?”“Yes. I was, Alisa.”She said nothing in reply, but it hurt. She did not know why exactly, but it hurt. Her mouth had no words to utter until she

The memory came alive in his headHe remembered his black paws in front of him as he watched through the bushes at the girl who had just come out of the water, naked and wet. He remembered watching because a kind of desire had come into his wolf body when he saw her.The kind of desire that had enveloped him the first time he saw Avana.Now, they were in the very same spots. He was where he stood in his wolf form that day, and she was standing just by the pond.He raised his eyes and looked at her, and in her, he saw Avana.A human Avana. Alisa’s white skin and Avana’s white fur.Alisa’s blue eyes and Avana’s blue before they mated.What he did not know was that Alisa could also recall the last time she had been here, standing face to face with a larger-than-life wolf that looked at her intensely. Somehow, she felt that Jayden was like that wolf. Both were bold and strong and powerful and...He went back to her, his body feeling weaker with every step, drawn to her and held in place

Johnny spent two more weeks recovering, and during this time he became quite popular in the hospital. The story of him going from being taken to the mortuary to coming back alive and slowly getting strong became popular among the patients, and he brought some sort of hope to some.He received flowers and cards everyday, and even meals too, which kept him distracted, but not so distracted to not notice that Stacy and Alisa were fighting a cold war. They did not come so close to each other anymore, almost like they were avoiding each other.In the meantime, his sister drew closer to Jayden, talking to him and laughing like a silly schoolgirl. Leaning into him all the time, so much so that his sister was practically beginning to live in the man’s arms.As to the bruises on his sister’s skin, Johnny had a pretty good guess.They were not there the night before he fell into his deep sleep, a sleep that he had desperately sought to wake up from because he hated how dark and black everything

The problem with jealousy is that it is like a piece of hot coal. You may forget about it and ignore it, but if you unknowingly add fuel to it, it births a fire that could burn you.While Alisa thought she and Stacy were over everything, her friend did not feel the same. The love Alisa and Jayden shared was becoming stronger by the day, and anyone looking at him could tell he loved Alisa and adored Johnny. There was no question about it. Stacy had now been relegated to feeling like she was a little more than a friend by everyone, and even though she paid regular visits, Alisa never stopped speaking about Jayden in her presence. Little by little, her jealousy that had gone from a burning fire to hot ash was now slowly burning again.She had helped Alisa secure the contract but now she was losing her friend, and a man she would have had if she had applied for the contract she gave away was slipping through her fingers. It was even hard to not think about him because Alisa was always