Page 83 of Star-crossed Betas

“Neither did I. He must be their only listener this side of retirement.” Noah sounds utterly disgusted and I snort a laugh.

When we set off, it was a grey, drizzly day, but the closer we get to Orla's, the brighter it's beginning to look. The sun shining on the autumn leaves decorates the landscape in stunning shades of oranges and reds. I forget sometimes how beautiful it is here.

“Do you ever miss living here?” I ask. Noah lived with Orla from around the age of four, so this is very much his stomping ground.

“Not especially. I miss Orla sometimes. There's not much around here if you're not a shifter.” The loneliness leaks from his voice, and guilt settles like a pit in my stomach. I'd never for a second considered what it must be like to be surrounded by a pack but always an outsider. With the exception of Orla, his entire family is made up of wolf shifters.

We sit in silence after that. Which is common around Noah, but this silence has a weight to it.

Noah parks on the street and leads the way as we walk down the stone path through Olra’s wildly overgrown garden. He steps inside without knocking, and I follow behind.

It’s been almost seven years since I last visited Orla, and her home is as remarkable as I remember it. It always creeped me out how every step I’d take in the house would cause the floorboards to creak, yet Orla moved around the place silently. It seems Noah learned some of her tricks because he steps through the house ahead of me like a ghost.

It’s strange being here with Noah because where I’ve always been a guest, this is the home he grew up in. After our conversation on the drive over, I can't help but wonder what his life was like here. My da never really explained how Noah ended up living with Orla. Shortly after I was born, my Uncle Rowan—Noah’s da—left our pack and joined the Limerick pack. And for some reason, he didn’t take Noah with him. Nobody knows who Noah’s mother is, as far as I’m aware, so Orla took him in. I suppose it was the best place for him, given he’s a witch and not a shifter like his da. Still, I can’t imagine either of my parents letting anyone else raise me.

We find Orla grinding some herbs that smell suspiciously of weed with a pestle and mortar at her dainty wooden kitchen table. She grins mischievously when she spots us. Noah bends down to kiss her on the cheek in greeting before taking a seat next to her.

“Come over here and give me a hug, Connor,” she says, and I oblige. “Gosh, you really do have your mammy’s eyes, don’t you?” She sounds a little wistful. It’s something both Niamh and I have heard all our lives, so I nod and smile. “Go on, take a seat while I finish up with this.” I take one of the empty seats at the table.

“Why are we here?” Noah asks bluntly. It would sound rude coming from anyone else, but he just tends to cut out any preamble, and Orla must be more than used to it by now.

“Some things have been set in motion, and some other things need to come to pass in order for us all to stay on the right path,” Orla replies cryptically.

“What’s been set in motion?” I ask.

“You have, my dear.” My eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. “There were thousands of paths, but then you became an Alpha, and now there are less than a hundred paths. Outof the remaining paths, only two see you reach your thirtieth birthday.”

My mouth gapes open.

How can that possibly be?

I became an Alpha to save Phoenix; how can it lead to my almost certain untimely death? A really terrible part of me is hoping Orla’s a bit senile and doesn’t know what she’s talking about; she’s almost a hundred after all. Noah’s facial expression remains as stoic as ever, giving nothing away.

“Where doIcome into this?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I’m gonna tell ya right now, son, you’re not gonna like what I tell ya,” Orla replies, but Noah doesn’t say a word, waiting for her to go on. “You have to become the pack witch for Connor.”

There is a pregnant pause before Noah finally responds.

“Connor, can you give us a minute?” His voice is as cold as ice. I’m still shocked by what Orla said, so I just nod and numbly make my way outside for some fresh air.

When I pull my phone out to check the time, I see a text from Fee, attaching a selfie of him, Alice and Magnus sitting on the sofa eating popcorn. Even with a smug smirk on his face, he looks cute, so I save the photo into an album of pictures he’s sent me over the years.

During our time apart, I must have deleted and restored this album literally hundreds of times. Periodically, I’d get smashed and scroll through the photos just to make myself even sadder. Regardless, now things are good between us, I’m glad I kept all of these. Scrolling through the photos, looking at little pockets of our shared history, only sharpens my resolve to refuse to die before I’m thirty. We still have too much life to live together.

Noah’s voice is raised inside the house, and moments later, he storms out and stomps past me.

“Where are you going?” I call out after him, but he ignores me and keeps going.

“He’ll be back. Come inside and have a cuppa while we wait,” Orla says cheerily from the doorway, where she silently appears.

Orla moves so gracefully around her kitchen as she boils some water, you’d have no idea of her age.

“He’s always been hot-tempered, a lot like you from what I hear.” I blush because she’s not wrong. It’s odd, though, because I always thought Noah seemed quite closed off. He hardly seems to react to anything.

“Thanks,” I say, accepting the cup of tea she hands me.

“Fancy a joint while we wait?” Orla asks, waving a rolled-up spliff in the air. I let out a huff of laughter, but fuck it, how many people have the opportunity to get high with their ancient great-grandmother.

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