The Beta’s Ugly Daughter

Chapter 13

We catalogued the past while something irreversible stirred in the present.

The afternoon light streaming through the archive windows had begun to fade by the time we finished cataloguing the last of the ceremonial records. Our work had slowed to a comfortable rhythm, neither of us rushing to complete the task that had brought us together every day for weeks.

"That's the last of the mating ceremonies from the 1900s," I said, setting the final scroll aside. "Tomorrow we can start on the territorial agreements."

"Good." Wyatt leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. "Though I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to being done with this project."

"Why not?"

"Because then I won't have an excuse to spend all day here with you." The words were casual, but they made my chest flutter. I busied myself with organizing the completed stacks, trying to hide my reaction.

"You know," I said, not looking at him, "sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just... leave."

"Leave where?"

"Here. This pack. This life." I shrugged, trying to make it sound like an idle thought rather than something I'd dreamed about for years. "Just walk away from everything. Start over somewhere no one knows your name or your family or what you're supposed to be." Wyatt was quiet for so long that I finally looked up at him. He was staring at the scroll in his hands, but his eyes weren't focused on the text.

"You've thought about that too," I said, reading his expression.

"When I was younger, yeah. All the time, actually."

"What changed?"

He set down the scroll carefully, like it was made of glass. "Nothing changed. I just learned to stop thinking about it."

"That's not the same thing."

"No, it's not." He was quiet for another moment, then said, "My mother left the pack when I was six." The admission hit like a thunderbolt. No one ever talked about Wyatt's mother. I'd always assumed she'd died when he was young, the way people spoke around the subject with careful silence.

"She didn't die?" I asked gently.

"No. She chose to leave." His voice was carefully controlled, but I could hear the old pain underneath. "One day she was there, and the next morning she was gone. Left a letter for my father, but it was... brief."

"Do you remember what it said?"

"One line. 'Freedom feels like finally being able to breathe.'" He looked up at me then, and I saw something raw and vulnerable in his expression. "I used to hate her for that. For choosing her freedom over staying with me."

"And now?"

"Now I understand it better. The weight of always being what other people need you to be, never having a choice in your own life." He gestured around the archive, at the records of countless arranged marriages and political alliances. "Sometimes I think she was braver than all of us."

The honesty in his voice made my throat tight. "I'm sorry you lost her."

"I'm sorry you understand what it feels like to want to disappear."

We went back to our sorting after that, but the conversation lingered between us like smoke. The idea that neither of us felt as tied to this place as everyone assumed we should be. Maybe we both understood the appeal of escape, of choosing something different.

I found myself imagining what it would be like. Leaving together, finding some small pack where no one knew we were the Beta's disappointment and the Alpha's heir. Where I could be just Gail, and he could be just Wyatt, and we could choose each other without duty or politics or family expectations getting in the way. The fantasy was so vivid, so appealing, that it made my chest ache with longing.

But then I remembered Laila's words, the curse could only be broken if someone fell in love with me in my twisted form. Even if Wyatt and I ran away together, even if we somehow built a life in some distant territory, I'd still be living a lie. He'd never know that the woman he'd fallen for in the moonlight and the woman he worked beside every day were the same person. How could he ever love me when he didn't even know who I was?

The thought was so depressing that I tried to push it away, focusing instead on the scroll I was reviewing. Some treaty negotiation from the 1880s that had prevented a war through strategic marriage alliances. But then something changed.

It happened so fast I barely had time to process it. One second I was reading about boundary disputes, and the next, my chest seized with a sharp, breathtaking pull. Like something inside me had snapped forward without warning, reaching toward...

I looked up to find Wyatt staring at me with wide eyes, his hand frozen mid-motion over the document he'd been examining. The same shocked recognition was written across his features, the same sudden awareness of something fundamental shifting between us.

Neither of us spoke or moved, but something passed between us in that moment, thick, heavy, impossible to explain or ignore. The air itself felt different, charged with an energy that made my skin tingle and my heart race. It was like recognition, but of what, I couldn't say. Like two pieces of something clicking into place, though I had no idea what we were supposed to form together.

What was this feeling? This overwhelming sense of rightness mixed with complete confusion? I’d never experienced anything like it before, this pull that seemed to originate from my very soul. My throat went dry, and my heartbeat stumbled and raced. I tore my gaze away from his and stood so quickly that my chair scraped against the stone floor.

“I have to go,” I mumbled, the words barely coherent as I grabbed my things and headed for the door. I was fleeing, my hands shaking at my sides as I rushed through the corridors. Behind me, I could feel Wyatt unmoving from his position.

Whatever had just happened between us, whatever strange, powerful connection was, I had no idea how to process it.