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The words are so soft I barely hear them. Before I can react, she rises to her feet and walks across the room. It’s not until she reaches the door that she turns again.
“The betas are staying in the basement, Noah,” she says firmly. “It’s for the best.”
8
Him
Hetty
Over the years, my feelings for Noah have grown increasingly complex.
Sage House is so isolated from the rest of Goldenrod that, as we were growing up, it was easy to pretend like we were all the same.
Me. Stella. Jason. Noah.
It didn’t matter whether we were betas, alphas, or omegas. It made no difference that I had to do chores and they didn’t. Or that Stella wore pretty dresses, and I wore a plain gray uniform.
It was so much simpler.
Stella was always so bossy and energetic that Jason and I were easy to rope into various hijinks. And while Wyatt was older and turned his nose up at us, Noah was at an age that he sometimes found himself desperate enough to play with us. But usually, he ended up as the target of one of Stella’s schemes.
We’d put garden snakes in his bedsheets or salt in his tea … that kind of thing.
He never got angry, though. He’d only smile indulgently and move on with his day. His nonchalance took some of the fun out of it for Stella, I’m afraid. She’d stomp her feet and yell, disappointed by his non-reaction, while he quietly rinsed the salt from his mouth or gently released the snake into the garden.
He was always so serious and quiet.
Honorable.
That’s ultimately why I decided that I loved him.
Because the truth is I’ve never been a normal beta—my ghost is evidence of that. So, while Beth and Cleo always mooned over Oli and Beck, the sweet, apple-cheeked beta boys, I only had eyes for one aloof alpha, too noble to ever lower himself to be with me.
I accepted long ago that nothing would come from my feelings, and I dreaded the day an omega called to him, taking him away from me forever.
But then the impossible happened, and he was appointed Administrator of the Order, forever doomed to be mateless.
It seemed like fate had finally stepped in on my behalf. I’d never have to see him with a mate. It would just be me and him forever. I’d bring him cups of coffee and scrub his floors, and he’d smile at me and ask me about my day.
What more could I want from my life?
Which makes today—the way I spoke to him and how he touched me—all the more mystifying.
For the first time, a dangerous thought has snaked itself into the thorns and brambles protecting my heart all these years.
Maybe there could be more.
In this world—with the new alphas and a burgeoning understanding of the outside world—who’s to say relationships between alphas and betas don’t happen? Maybe it happens all the time outside the fence. Actually, maybe it happens in Goldenrod, and I don’t know about it. I’ve spent my life here in Sage House, after all, so isolated from town.
I still feel his fingers on my neck, and his scorched scent still lingers in the room. Why would I feel that if there was nothing between us?
Closing my eyes, I envision him storming down the basement stairs and throwing open my bedroom door. I’d barely have time to register him before I was in his arms again, breathing him in and soaking up the feel and scent of him.
He’d carry me up to his bedroom and place me gently on his forest-green bedspread. That’s when he’d tell me he’s always wanted me, too, right before he—
I jump at the loud scrape of the door opening, but I don’t open my eyes or rise from the bed.
Is it him? Is he back for … more?
