Page 12 of Wanted Beta

“None of us have ever met an Alpha before, okay? Maybe this is just what they’re like.”

“I’ve heard about Alphas,” Carla says. “They’re usually not super nice.”

“Dude!” Annie exclaims. “If there’s anything weird about it, we’ll leave. You don’t need to worry so much.”

“Dude?” I ask, raising an eyebrow when she looks back at me.

She smiles. “I don’t know. It’s usually my brother I’m talking to when someone’s worrying too much, I guess.”

Her kid brother is an anxious little guy, but he’s six years old and his worries usually include checking under the bed for monsters and going into the occasional meltdown if he can’t find one of his favorite toys.

Carla’s not usually this paranoid, but it is an unusual situation.

It’s the first time we’ve met an Alpha, and it’s our first high school party.

I have my fingers crossed that it’s the first of many.

She’s probably just hoping we make it through this one alive.

This time, when she starts the car, it doesn’t stall.

“Everyone quiet,” Carla says. “I’m trying to drive.”

I make a lip-zipping motion when Annie looks at me.

She shakes her head, but she doesn’t do anything that might distract Carla this time.

A few seconds later, we’re on the road to Rourke Mariner’s house.

I can’t help but smile out into the darkness as we leave my neighborhood behind.

This next year is going to be awesome.

I can just feel it.

Chapter Five

Beth

Two Years Ago

The Alpha’s house is a mansion, because of course it is. Sapphire Valley is the latest Beta town to have caught a property developer’s eye. Luxurious estates are starting to pop up around the previously undeveloped areas. This was one of the first to be built, and I can’t even believe we’re going to get to see what it looks like.

Carla slows to a crawl on approach, and it looks like she’s about to find a place to park outside of the property, in the muddy, completely undeveloped land close to the forest.

“What are you doing? Park inside the gates,” Annie tells her, motioning toward the open gates of the well-lit driveway.

“Uh, are you sure?” Carla asks, clearly still nervous about this whole thing.

“Of course, I’m sure!” Annie says, “I don’t want to get axe-murdered on the way home just because you were too scared to park in a rich guy’s well-lit driveway.”

“The gates are open,” I add. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

Carla sighs before she reverses back slightly and gets on course for the gates.

The driveway is more than big enough for several dozen cars, and I don’t think there are even that many drivers invited. Carla parks as far away from the front entrance of the house as possible, while I check out the cars that are already parked.

One of them belongs to the stoner who sells test paper answers that he steals from his mom’s home office. He’s probably brought the guys he hangs out with at school. The other car I think belongs to a friend of a friend of the most popular cheerleader in school. She’s a little geeky, and so are her friends, but she has just enough popular connections to avoid becoming a real target for bullies.

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