Page 4 of Frenzy
I fucking hated men sometimes.
Radic pushed my hair back from my face. “I’ll bring ice cream tonight and we’ll talk about it,” he said softly, his eyes flicking between me and the closed door of the Alpha General’s office.
I nodded, straightening my shoulders. I knew Radic could hear what they were saying as well as I did. He was my age, but because he was a Beta male, there was no pressure on him to reproduce, to join a Pack. There were too few Omegas to go around anyway, so another bachelor was just that.
He kissed my cheek. “I’ll get you what you need, Baby Girl.”
I gave my best friend, and part-time lover, a half smile. That was another thing of which the Legion wouldn’t approve. Radic and I had been friends since… well, forever. In our teens, we’d naturally fallen into bed together after a night of way too much peach schnapps, and he’d never really climbed back out. But he wanted a Pack, and I didn’t. Well, not one that wanted me anyway.
I sometimes wondered if that was why he was still a bachelor—because he couldn’t find a Pack that wanted us both. Heaven knew that Radic was an excellent choice. A job as high up as you could go as a Beta in the Legion. And so fucking handsome.
Me? I was too curvy for a Manix, my lips too full, my eyes too wide. My mouth was too opinionated. My subservience was nearly non-existent. The only person who appreciated me was Rad, and I was holding him back.
I sighed heavily. “Thanks, Rad.” Kissing his cheek once more, I turned and strode out of the Legion building. I should have known better than to ask for more resources for the bastard children of our people, because even the Alpha General had fathered a kid accidentally with a human. I wouldn’t be surprised if they all hadn’t ‘accidentally’ knocked up a human once or twice. Quite frankly, Alphas were the fucking worst. Always putting their biological desires above the good of everyone else.
I remembered that I needed to stop by the commissary to pick up the special order of nut-free food, because Taylor had a peanut allergy. He was just one of the kids I cared for over at the Sanctum, the place the Manix put their cast-offs until they were old enough to be of use to the town.
But I loved every single one of those kids, no matter how short a time they were with me. Some, like Duncan, had been with me from toddlerhood. He was as much my child as anyone born from my body. No one had claimed him, and he’d grown up in the Sanctum. Taylor had only come in this year—a moody teenager who didn’t understand why he was being abandoned by his mother, and why his body was basically his enemy. He grew too fast, and couldn't control his emotions. Everything was just too much. If he’d had a father around, maybe he would have adjusted. But all he’d had was an unaware human, who’d been left with a vague idea that if she had a child that didn’t seem quite right, it should be dropped off here.
Funny that the Alphas never failed to mention that until after they’d finished getting their rocks off.
When I pushed open the door to the commissary, all my packages were already on the counter, ready for me to collect. Trevor, an aging Beta, stood smiling behind the counter. “Saw you coming down the street through the front window. Looks like you’ve worked up quite a respectable head of steam, and I’m a smart man. Don’t want to get in the way of a Beta on a mission.”
I worked up a smile for the hunched old man. He’d run the commissary for the better part of a century, as weathered as the countertop that my packages sat on. I grabbed the invoice that sat on top of one of the boxes. Two hundred bucks. Fuck. I pulled out my purse, and swallowed hard.
“Can I pay the other half when the new month rolls over, Trevor? The food budget is looking tight.” God, it burned to say that, but I had to tell myself that it wasn’t a failing of my own making. It was a failing of a fucked up system.
Trevor waved a hand. “Consider the other half a donation.”
Trevor had been donating ‘the other half’ of my invoices for months now. I knew the commissary was one of the busier businesses in town, but Trevor would want to retire eventually, and he couldn’t do that if he was giving me handouts.
On the other hand, I wasn’t actually in a position to say no. So I gave him one more tight smile. “I’ll pay it on the first of next month, Trevor. You’ve donated enough to me.”
Trevor shook his head. “Not to you, Bonnie. To the Sanctum. And I know that is where all your pay goes too, so it looks like we both donate beyond our means.”
Gah, I needed to get out of here before I did something stupid, like burst into frustrated tears. “I’ll see you on the first of the month.”
He nodded his gray head. “See you next month.”
I juggled the multitude of boxes and bags back through the door and over to my car. I was one of the few in town with a car, a perk of the job. Mashing the packages between my torso and the side of the van, I opened the passenger door and threw them in. I really wanted a donut or a cookie or some shit, but if my kids couldn’t have treats because money was tight, neither could I.
Maybe I’d make cookies with the little ones. Nut-free so Taylor didn’t go into anaphylactic shock.
I slid into the driver's seat and rested my head on the steering wheel. I would figure it out, of course. And the Alpha General was right—I had help. Three times the kids, compared to when the last Den Mother retired nearly six years ago, but at least I had Darius to help me. And his Alphas, on occasion. None of whom had gone out and produced any illegitimate children, despite their urges.
When Darius had first offered to help, I’d been overjoyed. His Alphas managed to fix all the little problems that had been pushed to the wayside so I could just cope with fixing the institutional problems plaguing the Sanctum, like the discrimination and bullying amongst the children.
The previous Den Mother had had a dog-eat-dog view of survival, and had decided that letting them figure out the pecking order with little to no interference had been good for their character.
To say I disagreed would be an understatement. I wanted them to feel loved, supported. Then maybe we wouldn’t end up with so many parentless by-blows because they’d struggled to find their place in our world.
The only problem with Darius and his Pack helping out had actually been Rad. My amazing best friend had decided that they were trying to steal me away. They’d always been quite vocal about not wanting any others in their Pack, but female Omegas had been a myth until recently. A female Beta could help satisfy some of those urges.
Rad had thought they were going to steal me, and he’d challenged the goddamn Alphas. I had to make it really clear—to both the Wiley-Fletcher-Reid Pack and to Radic—that I had no interest in being a consolation prize. A band-aid solution to a biological problem.
Once that had been all figured out, it had worked beautifully, really. Everyone got support, the kids had good role models, and I got a break once every couple of days.
I drove to the huge mansion that doubled as the Sanctum. I had to give the Legion points for that. We weren’t cramped, and it was right beside the school, so that was one less hurdle. There was an empty house on the other side that had once housed dorms for the older kids, before I’d insisted they were still children and needed love and support too. Sure, they were moody and kinda mean at times, but they still needed to know that there were people who cared whether they lived or died in a town that already saw them as less.
