Tatum's Tears | On Hold

Chapter 1 - ❝I Want You To Become My Beta.❞

Chapter 1 - "I Want You To Become My Beta."

Tatum Karas was lonely.

She was surrounded by close to a hundred people in this room, but she couldn't help but feel like there was not a single person for her.

She forced downed the lump in her throat.

This bitter, shitty feeling that has been eating at her chest since that fateful night, that night when everything she'd hoped for had been ripped brutally from her eight years ago was still an ever-persistent tug at her heart.

She knew she was supposed to be over it now.

After all, she didn't even know her Mate, right?

No.

After Tatum had begged her father to do so, he'd called every Pack he knew to get the list of people who'd died on that night, hopefully narrowing the possibilities of who might've been her other half.

And from what she'd discovered, she thought even if she couldn't be sure, she had a pretty good idea of who her Mate was.

Because, on that dark night, as far as they'd researched, only three people had taken their last breath; A warrior in his early twenties (unmated), a girl around ten, and a boy her own age.

With further prodding from Tatum, old Alpha Kyler had revealed that the boy had taken his own life, because he couldn't take the bullying anymore.

Tatum had never been so angry in her life when she'd heard that, and whether that feeling was because he was her Mate, or it was simply because she couldn't stand bullying, she had no idea. But to appease herself, Tatum liked to think that the boy was her Mate.

Llewellyn Carter was his name.

That was enough for her.

She would live knowing it, and she would make it a mission in her life to ensure that nothing like that happened in her Pack.

"Whoa! Tatum, it's you!" Angier exclaimed loudly, squinting his drunk eyes at first, when he caught sight of her. Then they widened in recognition from across the packed room, making him grin as he shouldered his way through the people unapologetically, using his muscle as he uncaringly hurt them on his hurry to reach her.

She was wrong. She had one person.

All to her greedy self until he found his Mate.

Once he escaped the throbbing mass of people, Angier threw his arms around her neck — one hand still clutching the lean neck of a beer bottle — and swayed her from side to side, hugging her heartily.

Tatum stiffened instantly, her spine going straighter than a ramrod as her mind, having rejected touch so long, struggled to cope up with the sudden onslaught of sensational overload. She dared not hug him back, simply standing and letting him hug her, long enough for him to get the message that she wasn't moving a muscle.

"I'm so glad you made it." Angier whispered sluggishly as he pulled back, taking a swig of his beer. For his hulking 6'2, all-muscle, wolf body to get so drunk, he must've consumed copious amount of alcohol this evening.

Tatum felt a tiny niggle of an emotion in the corner of her heart.

The feeling was so foreign she had to process it for a moment to realize it for what it was.

Worry.

"Enough for you." Tatum swiped the bottle from her best-friend's hand, making him stagger in surprise as he reached for it, almost stumbling forward into her, before Tatum reached out and arm and steeled it against his bicep to steady him. She took a swig of the drink, making him pop his mouth in surprise.