Page 13 of Frenzy
I flushed bright red. “I’m Bonnie.”
He grinned, and it made a dimple appear in one cheek. “I know, Radic just said so.”
A low rumbling sound from Courtland had me whipping my eyes toward him and resisting the urge to submit. “You smell of Alpha. Are you mated?”
Woah, hold the fuck up. “Uh, I don’t see how that’s your business, Mister Tall, Dark and Scary as Fuck.”
Radic looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but he didn’t really understand that I’d been dealing with Alphas who saw me as a commodity for way too fucking long. But instead of getting angry, Courtland just laughed.
“You’re right. Apologies, Bonnie.”
The way he said my name was like foreplay, and I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks, and also somewhere significantly lower. Radic turned toward me, hiding his face from the other men in the room and raising an eyebrow at me. Yeah, he could scent my arousal, which meant they all could.
Fuck being a female sometimes.
I cleared my throat. “I, uh, better give Doc a hand. Excuse me.”
I rushed into the treatment room, and straight into the back of another huge man. No, a huge Manix. I bounced off his back and he spun to grab me, wrapping his fingers around my upper arms. I looked up into deep blue eyes, and my heart thudded against my ribs. “Omega,” I whispered softly, and his lips curled in a smile.
He was so fucking beautiful. “Beta,” he said, in a voice that was nearly too soft.
“Well, if we are done with the introductions…” Doc said dryly from the other side of the room. I pulled away from the Omega—even though I really wanted to rub myself all over him—and stepped toward Doc.
I cleared my throat. trying to calm my racing heart. “You called for me, Doc?”
The old Manix gave me an amused look. “Yes.” He moved aside, and lying unwrapped on the examination bed were two of the tiniest babies I’d ever seen. One look at them told me they were woefully underweight. I glared at the Omega over my shoulder. Who could let their young get to this state?
Doc gave him a sympathetic look, and speared me with a more chastising expression. “Bonnie Flexland, I taught you better than to jump to conclusions.”
“Sorry, Doc.”
You see, that was the other reason I was almost considered ineligible, why I had always been on the outside looking in. I was a full-blooded Manix, but I’d been rejected by my parents from birth. They’d been teenagers, and freaked out about accidentally conceiving without a Pack. Later, they’d gone on to join a Pack and raise a whole family. They still lived in town, though we had little to do with each other. Doc had raised me. It was why I’d felt so passionately about the Sanctum.
But that stain, the drama of my birth? It had stayed with me forever. That rejection had colored my perceptions, colored other people's perceptions of me. I’d always been a factory reject, and the Alphas who had approached me to join their Pack had merely seen me as a vessel. A way to carry on their family genes, or a way to appease their Omegas. Never for me. Except if I came with Radic too.
I leaned down and looked at the babies. There was definitely something wrong, but other than the lack of weight, there weren’t any physical signs. They were not as active as you’d want babies to be either. I inhaled their scent and frowned.
“They are half-shifter? Why would that make them sick?” Naja, Courtland’s sister was part tigress and she was fine.
Doc shrugged. “Pryce thinks it’s their Beasts battling for control. They don’t have the strength to withstand the toll that takes on the body.”
I mean, philosophically that made sense. I’d never read any studies about this kind of thing though. I wasn’t sure any had been done. “What’s the treatment?”
Doc scratched his chin. “I’m not sure, but I think perhaps having an Alpha will help the Manix side of them to overcome the other beast. What was their mother, Pryce?”
The Omega looked so incredibly sad, it broke my heart. “She was a cougar shifter.” His voice was rough and it was too much for me. I walked over, my body language gentle, and wrapped my arms around this big, sad Omega. My Beast howled to make him better, to soothe his pain and to help him heal. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and give him boob snuggles. Radic always said my boob snuggles could cure a broken arm, they were that healing.
He was stiff for a moment, his hands out from his body like he didn’t know what to do. Eventually, he wrapped his arms around my back and dipped his nose into my hair, inhaling deeply. I felt his body relax slightly.
When I was sure he was feeling better, I stepped away and gave him a soft smile. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He shook his head. “We barely knew each other; she was just a voice down the hall. These two were created in a lab.”
I pulled back in shock. “What?”
8
Dominic
