Sugar-Free Beta by Angelique Voisen Page A

on the large bed,
great head turned towards him. Jack sat up slowly. The wolf flicked its tail to
and fro. Hesitantly, Jack reached out to stroke the fur on its back.
    The big red let out a satisfied rumble. Why wasn’t he changing form? Was
he more comfortable in his second form than his human one? Jack was uncertain.
Most dominant wolves usually asserted their rights over their lesser wolves,
but this wolf was acting more like a dog than a wolf.
    Most dominant wolves usually asserted their
rights over their lesser wolves. Jack licked his lips. Did Jack belong to this wolf now? Strangely, he
didn’t dread the thought. In fact, a thrill of excitement shot through him at
the prospect of finally belonging to someone who could treat him right. Would
the wolf take him though? That was another question worth pondering, but Jack
found he was eager to convince the other wolf of the benefits of keeping him.
    A nudge on his injured leg parted Jack from his thoughts. Catching sight
of those large jaws close on his calf, he yelped. Fear stabbed through him
again, reminding him that a wolf would never be a dog.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Jack tried to push the red wolf back, but
it continued nudging at his wound. His fear receded when he realized the wolf
wasn’t planning on biting him.
    “All right. I get it.” Jack let out a huff and began to unwrap the bandage. Once the wound was exposed, the wolf
leaned its great head and began to lick at the bite. Admittedly, the bite
looked horrible. Like the world’s biggest dog bite in
fact. Pain stung Jack briefly as the wolf’s tongue touched the open wound.
    “Look, this isn’t helping—” Jack stopped short. Was it his imagination,
or did the wound hurt less? He could only stare as the wolf continued to lap at
the blood. No. It wasn’t his imagination. By some miracle, the wound was
closing.
    When only a pink scar remained, the red wolf took its place beside him
once again.
    “Aren’t you going to change, you big dog?” Jack had a sneaking suspicion
he knew the human form this particular wolf wore, but he wasn’t a hundred
percent certain. Was it possible that the man beneath the wolf was shy? It was
just like him.
    “You saved me last night, didn’t you?” Jack asked. The red wolf looked
at him with what he suspected were sleepy eyes.
    It opened its large jaws again and let out a yawn. Seeing it close its
eyes, Jack sighed. There was no helping it. He’d have to wait for the wolf to
fully wake up. Maybe then he could confront the man behind the fur, and show
him just how much he was worth keeping.
    ****
    24 hours earlier
    Derrick Starr stared at the caramel frosted cupcake behind its shiny
glass casing, and it mutely stared back at him. The brown cake looked moist and
dense. The caramel frosting on top of it looked rich and equally tempting.
Sheathed under his oversized shirt, his stomach grumbled unhappily. His upper
lip trembled. Derrick wanted that cupcake so badly, even more badly than he
wanted a new mate.
    It was just too bad that he wasn’t getting either the cupcake or a mate
anytime soon.
    Despite being just in his mid-twenties, Derrick had just found out he
had type two diabetes. He knew he should really just avoid coffee shops,
bakeries, cafes, and candy stories altogether so he didn’t have to look at
anything sweet. As for finding a mate, being a somewhat porky and hairy
diabetic Beta werewolf wasn’t exactly honey in anyone’s pot.
    Jared, his previous Gamma partner, had told Derrick that if his human
self wasn’t horrible enough, his wolf was practically a “brown sausage on
stumpy legs”. A brown sausage that ran on sugar rather than fresh meat, and
fresh meat was the only thing real werewolves ate.
    That last comment had stung. Stung even more than the verbal abuse he’d
had to endure from the lesser wolf.
    He was a Beta, damn it, and if he were a real, dominant Beta, he would
have smacked the cocky and attractive Gamma around to remind