Lycan Alpha Claim (#1): (BBW Shifter Romance) (Brief-Bites Novelette) by Tamara Rose Blodgett

1
     
    Call me old-fashioned .
But I'm probably the last counselor in the world who uses a pad and
pen.
    Everything is Brain Impulse Technology
now—thought-to-device driven.
    Any other counselor would have their
pulsepad out, ready to record their thoughts and insights
directly.
    But that method feels so detached to me. So
my pen sits poised in my left hand above recycled ecru-colored
notepaper.
    I'm fighting a lot of urges today. The urge
to swing my foot as I listen to the hundredth same line out of a
different mouth.
    I can't take my life .
    Counseling is unfortunately
only rewarding when a client comes along who really wants to be happy. Who's willing to be
dragged through the muck of their dysfunction sufficiently long
enough to find themselves coming up for air on the other side—and
discovering it to be fresh.
    Of course, it's a case
of physician, heal thyself . Talyn
Phisher isn't happy.
    I'm content .
    And that's a big-ass difference.
    “ Dr. Phisher?”
    Oops . I jerk my head
up, caught. “Yes, Beatrice?”
    “ Bea,” she replies
sullenly.
    God, where is my head ? Clearly—up my ass , is my
mind's immediate response.
    “ Yes, Bea,” I duck my head in
shame, take a deep calming breath then meet her eyes.
    They're large and dark, one of the unusual
people where the black dot almost blends with the brown iris
swimming around the island of their pupil.
    “ I was discussing my argument
with my foster dad.”
    I nod, dredging sympathy when
what I really want to say is, pull up your big-girl panties
and deal , for fuck's
sake.
    But that's entirely un-counselor-like of
me.
    I shut my mouth and purse my lips for a
moment, desperately wishing for some lip gloss. Instead I say,
“Well, let's address things in order of priority.”
    “ Okay.” Bea crosses her skinny
arms below fifteen-year-old breasts. Gaged ears wink at me like two
additional mouths. A tattoo climbs the delicate column of her neck,
the tail of a snake appearing to strangle her.
    I'm unmarked.
    Tattoos are the height of
popularity. They lost their stigma in the beginning of the
21 st century. It's actually more rare that someone doesn't have
ink than those who do.
    I tamp down on my sudden compulsion to crack
my knuckles.
    “ This is what we have,
Bea.”
    Her eyes dart around my office as though
looking to escape another dry lecture.
    But I'm never dry. That's part of my
problem. Sometimes, my unorthodox methods get results. “You have to
make marked progress, or the courts will toss your ass straight
back to juvie.”
    Her head whips back to me, shocked by my
frankness—my use of language, I'm sure.
    Her black lipsticked mouth pulls into a
smile. “You're cursing, doctor.”
    I smile back at her, old enough to be her
mother, though God knows that'll never happen.
    “ And you're listening,” I
point out.
    She flops back against the couch. “Okay, lay
it on me.” Bea's slim arms rest on the back of the sofa, her face
carefully schooled into neutrality.
    Also a defense mechanism.
    “ This is your tenth session,
and you spew the same crap every time. Child Protective Enforcement
suspects there's something wrong, and they have ordered counseling.
I will get to the bottom of it, no matter how many layers you
erect.”
    Bea doesn't look especially surprised at the
gauntlet I've thrown down between us.
    My teeth begin their normal, midday throb
and I apply pressure by clamping down. They don't hurt so bad that
I'm ready to go in and get them checked, but the muted pain is a
distraction I don't need.
    “ You're asking me to get along
with a guy who's not my dad.”
    I lean back, forcing a casual disinterest
that is the opposite of what I feel. My limbs begin to tingle.
    I get that special feeling.
    Breakthrough, baby.
    Jesus, I thought it'd never happen.
    “ Tell me a reason you can't get along. Besides him making you
eat food from a certain shelf. Or a curfew of eleven at
night.”
    Many foster families have
assigned food shelves for