Page 62 of Star-crossed Betas

“You can help him inside, but then you have to leave,” she retorts in a tone brokering no room for negotiation.

“We can’t just leave him in there. We don’t know you. At least one of us needs to stay,” I try to reason with her.

“You said you don’t know him, said he’s not pack, what’s it to you?”

“He’s not pack, but he came to us for help, and we promised to keep him safe.” She briefly seems to evaluate my response and then sniffs the air.

“Fine. The beta can stay inside and wait. Alpha-beta waits outside.” She’s making no sense.

“Who are you talking about? We’re all betas,” I say, getting impatient with her, considering we’re carrying the weight of a very heavy and injured wolf right now.

“You’re an Alpha-beta,” she says, pointing a finger at me. “You can help bring him inside, but then you leave. The beta can wait inside.” I still have no idea what she’s talking about, but we don’t have time to argue over semantics, so I agree and help Fee carry the wolf inside.

The stone path to her front door is narrow, with a wild, overgrown garden on either side. We’re too wide for the space, and by the time we make it inside, I’ve got nettle stings all down my left leg and scratches covering my arm from the brambles.

The moment we’re over the threshold, she steers us into a small room with a treatment bed in the centre. As soon as we place the wolf down, I’m ushered quickly back out of the house, and Fee is left to sit on a bench in the hallway outside.

Filled with adrenaline and worry, I spend the next hour pacing up and down the long driveway. When the rain begins to really pelt it down, though, I go and sit in the car. I’m restless, and my brain is firing off hundreds of questions I can’t possibly get the answers to. Unable to concentrate on the book I stuffed in the glove compartment last week, I resort to playing sudoku on my phone. I try texting Fee, asking for updates, but I think he must have left his phone back at the house—we did leave in a hurry.

What feels like hours later, Fee finally re-appears. His eyes are wide, and his skin is drip white with beads of sweat along his brow. Judging by the awful sounds that came from the cottage, I dread to think of how bad it was inside. The entire time, my brain was screaming at me to go inside, to make sure they were both okay when they clearly weren’t. I step out of the car to meet him.

“He’s shifted back, but she’s given him a heavy sedative, so he’s still out cold,” Fee tells me as he approaches.

He opens the boot of the car and starts rummaging through a duffel bag. Before I can open my mouth to ask what the witch did, Fee’s low whisper interrupts me.

“I don’t think our conversation is private. Let’s talk when we get home.” I raise my eyebrows in confusion and look back towards the cottage where Natasha is lurking in the doorway, obviously keeping an eye on us. Fee pulls out some gym shorts and a t-shirt and heads back towards the cottage.

“Can I come and help carry him back out?” I shout to Natasha.

“If you must,” she replies before heading back inside.

Fee gets to work dressing the man on the table with his spare clothes. He looks quite tall, around six foot, with shoulder-length wavy red hair and a full beard. His skin is pale and freckled. Judging from looks alone, I’d guess he came to us from a pack in Scotland. I can’t help but speculate over what must have happened to him and how he ended up onourdoorstep, of all places. Seeing him shifted back and no longer in pain eases some of my nerves.

“Did you find out anything about him?” I ask Fee.

“Nope. He was still screaming when he shifted back, so she put him to sleep. Don’t even know his name.” His soft brown eyes are sad and filled with concern and empathy for this strange wolf we appear to be taking under our wing.

“Okay. Let’s get him home then.”

With him safely strapped into the back of the car, I head back to the cottage to settle up with Natasha. Her home is not aswitchyinside as I expected. I’ve only ever been inside one witch’s house before, my great grandma Orla’s place in Northern Ireland. She’s ninety-eight now, and she’s been our pack witch for almost seventy years. Her house is old and creaky, filled with trinkets and the sides are covered in jars of suspicious-looking substances. I always loved visiting her as a kid; I still carry my keys on a rabbit's foot keyring she gave to me for good luck when I was twelve.

Natasha’s cottage is shockingly minimalist in comparison. Everything is… sterile, cleaned within an inch of its life, judging by the pungent smell of bleach lingering in the air. If it weren’t for some scattered photo frames on the walls, you’d think it was a show home. I scan the pictures as I wait for her to finish writing out the invoice. One, in particular, stands out to me; Natasha must be only around five years old in the photo, but you can still tell it’s her. She’s standing between two women, who I’m guessing are her mother and grandmother, considering the resemblance.

I wonder briefly if they used to be pack witches for the Yorkshire territory. It’s unusual to have a coven like this that’s completely separate from a wolf pack.

“What made you think I’m an Alpha-beta?” I ask her, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Because youareanAlpha-beta,” she replies, as though I’m wasting her time with asinine questions.

“I’m not, though. I’m just a beta with a dormant Alpha gene.”

“Yeah, well, these lands have an annoying habit of waking things up that should be left well alone.” I’m not sure what to do with her response. I stillfeelcompletely beta. I think I’d notice if I’d suddenly become an Alpha-beta; after all, my brother Sam is one.

“What does that even mean?”

“Here’s your bill,” she says, ignoring my question and handing me the piece of paper. Seven hundred quid—ouch. I quickly pull out my phone to do a bank transfer; once it’s gone through, I show her the screen as proof and say goodbye. She doesn’t respond, and I hear her locking her front door the second I’m outside.

On the drive back home, I mull over everything Natasha said, which was somehow both a lot, and not quite enough. Maybe I should speak to Sammy when I get home; he might know more about this. Fee and I barely exchange a word on the drive home. The ginger wolf shifter is still unconscious in the back, and Fee seems a bit shell-shocked by the whole ordeal.

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