Mated to the Alpha and His Beta

Lanie

“Back when | first started posting about my troubles, Charlotte said the word delicately, “I had a lot of people commenting. | read a lot of other blogs, too. | wasn’t the only one in a bad situation with her Alpha, but | couldn't really find anyone who had the exact issues | did. As time went on, and | got more

e answers, | stopped writing new content, but | kept the old blog up in case someone else needed to figure out what was happening to her.”

“I'm glad you did.” | snagged a fry, now cold, and chewed it carefully.

“I'm glad you found me.” She sounded sincere.

| still wasn’t sure | could trust her, but | wanted to. “I think....for the first time, | can admit how.... lonely I’ve been feeling.” Asharp bark of laughter slipped out of me, and | cut it off, embarrassed. | cut my gaze from hers. My cheeks heated.

“Lonely,” | repeated under my breath. “As if a woman with two mates can be lonely. A Luna with not one, but two Alphas. I’m being ridiculous!”

“You're not. None of this is normal. Nobody else can understand how it feels.” Charlotte seemed as though she meant to reach for me, but held herself back. “Believe me, | know what it’s like to start to suspect you are not the same as everyone else. It is lonely, Lanie.”

“How do you know so much about me?” | asked her finally.

“ALuna with three mates gets people talking,” Charlotte said simply, without adding more than that.

| hated the idea of being gossiped about, but | knew she was right. We were keeping a wasn’t like we were one hundred percent keeping our quartet a secret. “But you didn’t know contacted you?”

“No. | get queries all the time from those old posts. Most of the time, | ignore them. If I’m f a sshole that day,” she paused to chuckle, “I might send them off down a rabbit hole to some dec set up. But when you reached out to me, | could feel that you were legit. But I’m sure you can under had to be wary. Make sure.”

“Of course.” | hesitated before adding, “The Moon Goddess led me to you.”

“| know she did.”

but it

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“My mother-in-law was a powerful Luna. | admire her so much, and I’ve learned so much by watching her. But even she has never communed with the Moon Goddess the way | have.” | whispered the final words. fiercely. Charlotte might be convinced nobody here was going to pay attention to us, but | still didn’t want to

| broadcast us being shifters.

Except...we weren't wolf shifters. We were hybrids. Something entirely different. Not that it would matter if 1/2

“They don’t really carry pitchforks anymore,” Charlotte murmured when she saw my wild gaze darting.

around the bar.

“Are you reading my mind?” | demanded. It wouldn’t have shocked me.

“Oh....no. | just understand you, because I’ve been where you are. Well, except | didn’t have anyone with the answers for me. But I’ve been scared like you. Lonely, as you said.” She shrugged and gave me a sad smile. “I didn’t have three good mates. | didn’t even have one good one.”

e was nearly

| wanted to ask her what had happened to her Alpha, the one who'd been so cruel. If she two-hundred and fifty years old, had she been posting on the blog about events that had happened centuries before? Or had she been mated with someone more recently than that, the Alpha who hadn't been as strong? So many questions whirled in my head, but the clock kept ticking away the seconds. I'd just learned | was. going to live for a long, long time, but it already felt like time was running out.

“When you said nobody else was like me,” | asked, “what, exactly, did you mean?”

“Like | said, a lot of people were just asking questions out of curiosity. Some were trolling. You'd think the effort it takes to get on the dark web would mean people were genuinely in need, but...alas. You were asking the right questions, though.”

“So why did you make me go through all the rigamarole?” | waved a hand in the air.

She laughed. “I have to protect myself, obviously. You’re worried about your safety and that of your pup.

Why would you think | wouldn’t be worried for myself? Not to mention that when you're as old as | am, you end up with a lot of free time to design and code disappearing websites. Sometimes, it was more like a game. With you, even though | felt like | could trust you, | had to be sure you were willing to make the effort. And | was

right, wasn’t 1? Because here you are.”

“And you have answers for me?”

She nodded.