The girl that she actually was, not the Beta she’d always been trying to be. That girl part of her, she always denied because she never felt would get her family’s approval, a part of her that was in desperate need of love and attention, craved it in all likelihood and right now she didn’t care how she got it, or who from.
That included a man wanting to touch her, have sex with her, making her feel wanted and desirable for however long a time it took her to get up and walk away from him. She was not in any state of mind to talk to him, to talk to anyone at all.
He walked back to the packhouse, picked the glass from his skin and flicked it away, found her father pacing around in there, and looked right at him as he stepped through the front doors. Anders frowned at the blood on his shirt instantly.
“Remove everyone on her, she’ll likely put them all in the hospital or worse.” He stated.
“I need to know…”
Slade cut him off, “No, just stop it, she’s in so much pain and doesn’t want to be spied on. It will only make it worse, Anders. I barely got out. Can I talk to you?” he sighed “I’ve not seen her like this before. She’s also not going home alone.”
“Slade?” he saw the man’s horrified look, understood it even, considering what they thought she was to him.
“What can I do about it? I can’t scent her, and I did just try to. I got nothing, she doesn’t scent me. I can’t, no one can tell her not to have sex with anyone. She’s 18 and legally allowed. We don’t even know if she is my actual Mate, it could still be Audrey.” He murmured.
“If she is your Luna, you’re just letting some wolf have sex with your Luna.” Anders was staring at him more than shocked.
“Just stop it, Anders, there is no proof of what you and father think. There can’t be until the full moon. Leave her be, let her have this moment, do whatever she needs to, to get that anger and pain out. The way she needs to.”
Slade
He could see that Anders was not at all happy with him wanting to let her go and fuck some random wolf. But if that was what she needed right this minute, then they had no right to interfere. They were the ones that had hurt her, and set this into motion.
“Do you even like Oriana?” He heard Anders ask him as he turned to go up the stairs, “or was it just a drunken fuck for you? And nothing more.”
Slade stopped walking and huffed a little, turned and looked at the man, “Yes, I, more than like Ori, would love for her to be my Mate, wake up to those amazing eyes every day for the rest of my life.” He admitted honestly to the man, “I’m actually disappointed in myself right now, and not just for how this all fell apart. But because I don’t recall being with her, the girl I really want for myself.”
“Then go down there and stop what she’s about to do.” Anders implored him.
“No, I have no right to intervene in her life on a hunch, or a guess, on your and father’s part. I cannot do anything about it. You all set this off, not me. You’re all responsible for her current state and behaviour. Yes, I added to it,” he nodded, “but if you’d let me do it my way, this shit show likely wouldn’t be happening at all.
“I might have actually been able to manage it; her pain, the hurt and betrayal she felt, if I’d been allowed to do this my way. Sit her down and talk to her, privately the way I wanted to, calmly, logically. Explain my side of it to her.”
“You can still do that,” Anders stated. “You just have to make her talk to you.”
He waved a hand at his shirt, “No, she smashed a bottle into me and told me where to go, do you want to hear what she said about Hayden or yourself? She’s not ready to talk, likely to just get angrier if we corner her, try to force her to talk to any one of us. She needs space.”
“Slade…”
“No, I could have avoided it. I know her, what would make her understand. You don’t actually know your daughter at all, because she never truly shows you who she is. Doesn’t think you love her, because she is a girl.
“If you’d let me do it my way, explain to her, I had to release her as my Beta and take Hayden, to stop father from banishing your family after that fight that broke out in his office, all wolfed out. Ori, I believe, would have actually understood that. Accepted it even. Maybe even thanked me, for saving her family, your family. Then, if I’d scented her on the full moon, things would likely have gone well between us. But now!” He sighed.
“Oriana, your little girl, as you call her. Is just that, a girl inside the Beta that she presents to you. She is very insecure, and you all just hammered her, disrespected her, and tossed her aside like garbage in her eyes. You all forget one very important thing, that she is actually just an 18-year-old girl full of emotions, fear of you never accepting that she can be a Beta,
“Feels rejected by you, her own mother, and her brother, because she was born first, as a girl. All you see is the Beta, because that’s all she ever shows you, because inside she’s terrified, you’ll never love the girl she is, and that girl, she craves approval and love from you.”
He could see Anders standing there just staring at him, likely realising just how bad they had truly fucked things up with Ori, maybe for the both of them even. “Now Anders, she believes she has never had it. That her own family doesn’t love her, doesn’t approve of who she is, and Hayden, laughing at her, “She’s such a girl.” He’s very lucky to be alive right now. Because she’s gone now, the Oriana you know, is likely no more. You broke her, we all just broke her.”
“It’s not what we meant to do.” Anders shook his head.
“No, I get what you were trying to do. But you were wrong. Father was wrong. She is broken right at this minute and needs us to just stay away from her, give her the space she actually needs right now, so don’t keep tabs on her. Don’t track her with your tether. Especially don’t mind-link to her and try to talk to her. Just leave her alone.”
“The full moon?”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he stated simply “I’ll not reject her, try and talk to her, bring her around if we are Mates. It’s all I can do. But everyone here, needs to just leave her alone for now. Don’t smother the girl, and don’t even think about calling her actions for the night irresp onsible.
“If I hear that word come out of your mouth, your son’s mouth or your Mates even.” He looked right at Anders, the packs actual Beta and verbalised a full threat to him and his family. “I’ll lash you or whichever one of you says it, myself, with the Cat of five tails and leave you scarred for the rest of your life, as a reminder never to use that word against her, ever again.
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