Lynch shoots a look to Kash that says help me out here, but Kash just holds his hands up and shrugs. “Don’t look at me, man. If Pepper wants a beta, Pepper gets a beta.”

“Damn right!” Talia agrees. “Nobody puts Romy in the corner.”

“And lastly,” I say, stepping forward to look both men in the eyes, “in case you hadn’t noticed, Talia has been my beta since the moment I first met her. That’s not gonna change when I have four legs. Got it, Scruffs?”

– The Girl Who Cried War (Of Fates & Fables 3) by Bam Shepherd & Heather Hildenbrand