Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
“There. All ordered,” the clerk said cheerfully. “If you wait right here, I’ll have someone bring you the new unit. You can have a seat there while you wait.
Complimentary soft drinks and coffee, too.”
“Is this going to take that long?” I asked, a little concerned.
She laughed. “It shouldn’t, not unless you’re here for a repair.”
True to her word, another clerk brought me a new, boxed phone. I unwrapped it to check it out, specifically looking to see if it had the same issues as the one Goldie had given me. It all looked fine.
Nothing wrong with it.
Casually, I took out the broken one. “While I’m here, I wonder if someone can take a look at this?”
I handed it to the vampire behind the desk. She looked it over with a frown.
“There’s something wrong with this phone,” the clerk said. Her frown deepened.
“I know, that’s why I want a tech to look it over.”
She shook her head, turning the phone over and over in her palm. “No, I mean…where did you get it?”
“It was given to someone I’m working with on the leadership council as a temporary unit.” I didn’t say who or what for, and the clerk didn’t give any indications that she was trying to guess.
She shook her head and handed it back to me. “Well, all I can tell you is that we don’t carry that type of unit. Wherever they got that phone, it wasn’t from here.”
Zane–
“What happened?” I demanded at once.
The voice on the other end of the phone cleared her throat. “I think it’s best if you just come down here.”
“Is she hurt?”
“She’s not hurt, nothing like that,” Myrna assured me.
“I’m the school nurse, and I can honestly tell you she seems in perfect health. But her teachers asked me to call you to come pick her up.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”
The school nurse had said Stella was in perfect health, so that could mean she’d eaten too many snacks and had a belly ache or something. Or, more likely, she’d misbehaved in some way. The nurse hadn’t sounded too shocked, so that made me feel a little better. She probably saw kids getting up to hijinks all the time.
Bad enough to get sent home, though?
I thought about using the mind link to alert my Luna and my Alphas that Stella was in trouble at school, but then I decided against it. They were all busy, and I was her parent as much as any of them, even if I had no biological ties to her. Quickly, I cleared away my snack bo and started hunting for the boots I’d kicked off earlier.
my Da mn, this was the problem with wearing the same size as both Xander and Mason. One of them must’ve taken my favorite boots. I found an older pair instead and put those on. I grabbed my phone, too, just in case someone needed to get ahold of me while I was out.
Oops. There was a call from the school and also a text.
No wonder they’d finally called the house phone.
The voicemail and text didn’t say anything more than what Myrna had told me on the phone, so I guessed that whatever Stella had gotten into couldn’t be that serious. Still, I was worried enough that when the elevator was taking way too freaking long to arrive on our floor, I chose to take the stairs instead Popcorn and soda sloshed around in my stomach as I ran up the stairs. When I came out into another hallway, I was a little turned around. Cursing Brightsky’s labyrinth of corridors, stairwells and public spaces, I navigated as best I could toward the school. I reached a locked door, though, preventing me from accessing the corridor beyond. It didn’t have any signs saying why it was restricted or anything on it, and this was the first time I’d ever encountered something like that.
Cursing a little under my breath, I backtracked. Even though I hadn’t been too worried at first, the longer it was taking me to get to the school, the more uneasy I felt. Even if it wasn’t something serious, the idea that my little girl could be sick and waiting for her Papa made me pick up my steps.
accessible from one central point, which was great for safety but a pain in the a ss when you needed to get to your sick kid. I could see some of the different classes through the windows, but there was no way to get in there from here. I didn’t spot Stella, either.
At last, I made it all the way around to the front entrance. I didn’t recognize the three adults sitting in the vestibule. One man, two women. I gave them a nod as I passed, going to the front desk.
“I’m Zane Constantine. I got a call from the school telling me there was a problem with my daughter, Stella. I’m here to pick her up.”
The receptionist looked…scared? Startled? She stood up and cleared her throat. “Yes, well, um, thank you for coming right away.”
“What’s the problem? Is she sick?” I braced myself for bad news about her behavior.
The receptionist looked past me. She cleared her throat again. “No. Well. I mean…”
Irritated, I leaned a little closer. “I came right away because someone named Myrna called to tell me there was a problem with my daughter. I’d appreciate it if you stopped beating around the bush and told me what’s going on. Where can I pick her up to take her home?”
“She’s…” the receptionist tipped her chin behind me to the vestibule.
I turned and saw the same three adults who’d been there when I came in. Two women, one man. I frowned, scanning the area for any sign of Stella, but the three strangers were the only ones waiting.
“Hello, Papa,” said one of the women as she stepped forward. She had a clear, warm voice and looked like she was at least twenty years old.
“What the…” I began but couldn’t say more than that.
I was too shocked.
The adult woman was Stella.
Zane–
I stared at this young adult woman but snapped my jaw shut to hide my surprise. She looked like Xander–
more than ever, but I could see Lanie in her, too.
She’d gone off to school today in a blue and white dress with white tights and black shoes. Now she wore a long skirt in a floral pattern. It was too long for her and dragged on the floor. Her shirt was of a different pattern that didn’t match. The sleeves were too short.
“We…hrmmm,” the male teacher said. “Anita gave her some clothes from the lost and found.”
The woman, who must have been Anita, added, “I’m sorry, but we didn’t have any shoes or socks to fit her.
We did the best we could.”
Stella chuckled softly as she lifted the hem of her borrowed skirt to show off what looked like paper booties on her feet. They were the sort meant to go over shoes to keep them from dirtying a carpet.
There was some duct tape holding them on.
“It was quite an unexpected event,” said Anita.
The world swam a little bit as I tried to take it all in.
“Did you know?” the male teacher asked. “Because I have to say, Mr. Constantine, if you did, it would’ve been nice if you’d informed the school. Perhaps kept her home today?”
“She’s not contagious,” I said sharply.
Anita cleared her throat. “Of course not. Herb wasn’t implying any such thing. We’re just all a little taken aback, that’s all.” “Papa,” Stella said quietly with a sideways glance at the man on one side of her, and the woman on the other. “I’m dismissed from the school. I think we ought to go home now, don’t you?”
Herb stepped up and said quickly and apologetically “Stella’s always been a star student here, but I think you can see why she’s no longer able to attend.”
“Of course,” I said automatically. “Thanks for taking such good care of her.”
I’d been wondering if they were used to this sort of thing, but it was now clear this was out of the ordinary even among a bunch of supernaturals.
“My other pups. Alaina and Isaac. Are they being dismissed, too?”
I braced myself for word that the twins had somehow hurtled into adulthood, too, or maybe just adolescence. A stage Stella had sk ipped, I thought a little wildly and pressed my lips together to hold back a spurt of inappropriate laughter. The less of a big deal I made out of this, the easier it would be, or so I hoped..
Anita shook her head. “The twins are in preschool art class right now. They’re not…rather…ahem.”
“Allie and Izzy are fine, Papa.” Stella’s eyes shone as she smiled and took my hand. She looked back at her former teachers. “Thank you both for everything. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
Anita smiled. “You come back and see us anytime, Stella.”
I had to trust my daughter that her siblings were, in fact, fine. She didn’t say anything else as we left the school and started toward home. Her paper booties made a shushing noise with every step she took.
I couldn’t stop myself from staring down at them peeking out from under her skirt. Something about the fact that they’d had to dress her in cast-off clothes and give her makeshift shoes really struck all of this home for me.
Stella was truly no longer a child. When we got around the corner and almost to the elevator, Stella finally spoke.
“I’m sorry to have shocked you this way, Papa. It was unavoidable.”
I stopped walking and turned to put my hands on her shoulders. I looked down into her face, which was so familiar but also so strange at the same time. This was more than the usual rapid growth young wolves. went through. She looked like an adult and spoke like one, too. She’d been acting older than her age for a while now, but this wa s…something else altogether.
I didn’t know what to think about it. “Stella, how did this happen? What’s going on?”
Her smile did not falter or fade, but her eyes did cut around the corridor. She let them flick upward toward the spot where the ceiling met the wall. I glanced there, too, but didn’t see anything other than a small, dark spot. It was one of those spiders that watched everything. Now that I knew about them, I could spot them everywhere.
“I think we should get home first, before we talk about anything. I’m starving,” she said cheerfully, rubbing her stomach. “I missed snack time at school today.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?