Page 54 of Manix
He sat at his huge, cluttered desk, indicating we should all find a seat where we could. “Let’s start with a brief medical history, shall we?”
Over the next forty minutes, the Doc poked and prodded, questioned and theorized, and my girl? She was gracious the whole way through it. She really did want to make it better for Packs like the Wiley-Fletcher-Reid Pack. To give them hope.
Finally, Doc had taken all the notes he could take today. “When you go into heat next, I’d like to take a blood panel to see the difference.” Finlo growled, and Doc just raised an eyebrow. “Finlo Grey, I delivered your squawling backside after thirty-six hours of labor. Do not make that noise at me. I couldn’t possibly be less interested in your Omega. If I must, I will teach Ellar here how to draw blood and he can bring it to me here in Maxton, or you can use your forebrain and stop being a Neanderthal.”
The Doc wasn’t an Alpha, but he took no shit and I respected the hell out of him for it. Plus it was really funny. When it came to having sway over the people of Maxton, Doc was right up there with the Alpha General. But he didn’t have the same stick up his ass about it.
Naja smiled at him and nodded. “Sure thing.”
We exchanged a few more pleasantries as Doc led us toward the door. I noticed his secretary was back from lunch, and he didn’t even try to hide the fact he was gawping.
Doc ignored him though; it was probably why he’d sent him away to start with. “Tell Raiden that he needs to come down and see me too. Your scans look good, but I’d like to do a few more of my own.”
Finlo hesitated, and this time I was with him. Raiden was beginning to nest hard, and soon getting him to leave the house would be nearly impossible. “I’ll try, Doc, but if not, you might have to come up and visit us.”
Doc nodded, even if he did give us a put-upon sigh. He turned back to Naja. “I can’t thank you enough for your time today. We’ve made the first steps in improving the longevity of the Manix race and that’s all down to you.”
Naja swallowed hard and gave a feeble smile. “But no pressure, right?”
He patted her on the back in a fatherly manner. “None whatsoever. Now, off you go before your Alpha has a coronary. I have no other clients today, and thought I might sit down to have a coffee and a donut. I’ll be super peeved if he shits a kitten on my floor because I’ve held you up too long.”
That was it. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I laughed so hard my abs hurt, and Finlo had to half carry both me and Naja out the door. He stuffed me into the passenger seat of the ATV, a cackling Naja beside me.
“Laugh it up, assholes. Now I need a donut,” he grumbled, but I could see the mirth in his eyes. He drove us over a couple of streets and pulled up out the front of the bakery. He hustled us both inside, and I wrapped my arm around Naja’s waist. It was a possessive move but I wanted all these bigots to know she was mine. She’d chosen me, and my Pack. Directing her toward the cake display, I watched her eyes bug out of her head when she saw the selection of pastries.
“I’ve never seen this much cake in one place.”
I wanted to buy her one of everything. Still, we settled on a couple of cream donuts, one iced pink donut for Luisa, and a small box of other pastries. We’d have them for dessert, or maybe I’d eat them off Naja’s stomach.
Finlo moved around the bakery, talking to random people. Having grown up here, he had connections with a lot of people. It was hard to walk down the street of Maxton without either Raiden, Seven or Finlo being stopped by multiple people to chat. Gatlin gave too much of afuck offvibe, which suited me fine. I usually went with Gatlin because then I could at least pretend people didn’t ignore me for my heritage, like I was somehow lesser just because my dad had gone into a human town and impregnated a college girl.
Naja was beginning to frown as we finished up our order, and I bustled her out of the bakery before she asked questions. But I should have known she wouldn’t let it go unremarked.
“What was that?”
Finlo looked at me, then away again. “What was what?”
Ah, we were going with the ignore it tactic. In the early years of our Pack, both Finlo and Gatlin used to beat the shit out of anyone who so much as made a snide comment. Add in Seven, and we were brawlers for a long while. But we’d settled down before Raiden arrived, once we realized you couldn’t beat good sense or tolerance into people. So we’d retreated to the Pack house and avoided town ever since. It had worked for us, mostly.
She gave Finlo a disapproving look. “You know what. The girl at the counter only addressed you, like Ellar didn’t even exist. No one made eye contact with him, or waved, or anything. What the hell?”
“There's a lot of history there, but in a nutshell, when Ellar arrived and his father didn’t claim him, he became—for a lack of a better word—defective. They viewed him as too different, too lesser to even associate with. We probably didn’t do him any favors taking him into our Pack; people already viewed us as some kind of abomination.”
I snorted. “I wouldn’t change you guys for a single one of those assholes.”
Finlo gave me a loving gaze. “Me either, El.”
Naja frowned, and I could sense her angry outrage simmering just beneath the surface, but she didn’t ask anymore questions.
I pulled out a small brownie and handed it to her as we bounced down the road. “Try this. It's my favorite.”
She opened her lips obediently, her small pink tongue darting out to lick the crumbs off my fingers. She moaned and her eyes went wide. “Holy shit. I was ready to write this whole town off, but that might be worth sticking around for. We’ll keep the brownies, but I’ll make these fucking people better, by force if necessary.”
I could see the cogs turning in her brain.
Something caught my eye in the woods beyond the road, and I turned my senses to it. I couldn’t see or smell anything unusual, and Finlo seemed unperturbed; he had sharper vision than I did, so it was probably just a deer.
Still, I’d tell Gatlin when we got home and see what he said. I switched my gaze back to watching Naja finish eating the brownie, and wondered if I could make her moan like that later.
