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Prologue
A Beta’s Rules for Maintaining Good Standing Within the Order of Goldenrod:
Children
Betas may bear children. The children are only permitted to live with and work alongside their parents until they’re fifteen years old.
Work
At fifteen, a beta will present before the alpha council to receive his or her work assignment. At that time, the beta will be separated from his or her family to perform the duties required by his or her work assignment.
Clothing
Betas must all wear a uniform of sturdy gray fabric. Coriander’s Department Store will provide a beta with no more than one new uniform and related underthings a year. The uniform must be worn by betas of all ages at all times.
Behavior
Betas must never disobey the order of an alpha.
Betas must never question an alpha or omega.
Betas must never speak unless spoken to.
Betas must submit when confronted by an alpha or an omega.
Mating
Betas may choose their own mates within the beta community, but betas must never mate with alpha or omega. To do so is an abomination to the Order.
If a beta disobeys the Order, he or she will be released from the confines of Goldenrod.
1
The Ghost
Hetty
A beta’s life in Goldenrod can be summed up with one word: deceptive.
The alphas and omegas think us docile and bland—essentially carbon copies of one another. So, they don’t pay us much attention. In fact, as long as we dust their furniture, tend to their fields, and cook their food, they barely notice us at all.
Honestly, that’s the way we prefer it.
I’ve always thought there must be some sort of primitive ancestral instinct inside each Goldenrod beta that understands the less attention we get, the more likely we are to stay alive. If they think we’re harmless and stupid, then they won’t have any reason to kill us, right?
I know better than anyone how much we’ve fooled them. I’ve been close to them—within the belly of the beast—and can confidently say that most alphas or omegas would never assume a beta had an individual thought or idea, let alone the capacity to love or hate.
But there’s more than just love and hate simmering below the surface of our compliant natures.
Or at least there’s more simmering below mine.
Walking the crowded sidewalk that lines Dogwood Street, my breath quickens at the thought.
I should know better than to venture into the heart of town at this time of day—especially in the summer. It’s still relatively cool in the late morning, so many people are taking advantage of the weather, wandering around town before it gets too hot.
But it already feels unbearable to me. The sun is bright and stifling, and sweat trickles down my back as I dodge the crowd, my eyes glued to the sidewalk.
But I still manage to catch glimpses of omegas’ fluttering dress hems and alphas’ shiny shoes, as well as my fellow betas’ sturdy black boots.
