Page 60 of Manix
My Packmates had, on occasion, accused me of being pessimistic. I wasn’t a glass half empty, half full kind of guy. No, I believed that the glass was completely full. Full of piss. Life just didn’t hand you happiness. You had to work for it every fucking day.
I don’t think anyone got that the way Naja did. And sure, I was probably being a whiny bitch, considering her life before she’d come here had been one long hardship. Mine had been… okay. Until I’d met my Pack, that is, and now I was so fucking happy. But it still took work. I had to try hard to control my anger, to watch that I didn’t speak before I thought and ruined everything.
I sat with Naja outside in the sun, a large picnic blanket on the grass, and Luisa off exploring under the watchful gaze of Finlo. It was idyllic, like the kind of moment you daydreamed about.
Naja looked up from where her head was in my lap. She was reading a book from Gatlin’s library, and now she rested it on her chest as her eyes appraised my face. “I want to know more about you, Sev. All of you.”
“What do you want to know?”
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth, which made me kind of want to do the same thing. “Tell me about your life before you joined the Pack.”
Ugh. We were going straight for the scabbed over wounds then? Didn’t matter, I would tell her whatever she wanted to know if it would make us closer, and convince her to stay forever. “It was a kind of basic existence.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Really? Just run of the mill, hey?”
I snorted. “Fine. My parents didn’t have a family Pack. They were one of the monogamous couples, but they had a lot of sons. Six, to be exact—two Alphas and the rest were Betas like me. That’s a lot of cubs for a Manix Beta female. Anyway, I was the third oldest, but I was Beta. I wasn’t the heir to the family—that went to my oldest brother, or the oldest Beta, who was my second oldest brother. I was just… middle of the line. I was treated as such. My parents, despite their ability to breed well, weren’t very nurturing. They just did what good Manix couples did, bred until it was too dangerous to breed more.” I couldn’t keep the disgust out of my voice, but I shook it off and continued. “Anyway, after being basically ignored for sixteen years, I went out on my own. No, that’s not quite true. I struck out with my best friend. His name was Casey. Anyway, Casey was the perfect Beta; a little bit subservient, but with a strong Beast and a nurturing nature. I’m pretty sure that's why we became friends in the first place, because I needed the softness and he couldn’t help himself.” I smiled at the memories playing in my brain, but they were the bittersweet kind.
“Long story short, we petitioned to join a Pack, and we were accepted almost immediately, probably because Casey did most of the talking. I was just the strong, silent type. A year in, I realized that the Alphas of my new Pack didn’t want Betas. They wanted servants. Their idea of where a Beta should fit in a Pack was somewhere above paid help but miles below an Alpha. There was a fight when I refused to clean up after their dirty asses anymore. They tried to bend me to their will using their Alpha power, I resisted, and that's when we all realized that I was a strong Beta. Not a desirable quality for a Pack.” This time the bitterness leaked into my tone like acid.
Naja gripped my hand and squeezed. “Yet you’re perfect for this Pack,” she said soothingly.
“So are you.” It came out before I could stop it, and her eyes widened. I decided to ignore my little slip and pretend like it was nothing, continuing quickly with my story.
“So I got booted from the Pack. I begged Casey to come with me, but he wouldn’t.” The pain of losing my best friend was far worse than the pain of being booted from a Pack. I begged and begged, told him we were worth more than what they were offering, despite the prestige of their Pack, but Casey just shook his head over and over until I left. “We stopped being friends that day. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken again.” I cleared out the emotions that threatened to clog my throat. When we passed each other on the street now, we never made eye contact. Maxton wasn’t a big place, so avoiding someone completely was nearly impossible, but I still mourned the loss of the only person who’d known and loved the Seven I was before… everything.
“Anyway, I was aimless for a bit, until another Pack decided to drag me out of the bottom of a bottle. Their Alpha said they didn’t care that I was a strong Beta—hell, that they wanted that in their Betas. Sounded too good to be true. Itwastoo good to be true but I was too stupid it see it.” Disgust at the next part of the story made my stomach roil, but I carried on, determined to give Naja my truth. “Turns out that their Alpha did like strong Betas, because his favorite pastime was breaking them. Dominating them. Either through physical strength, Alpha power or… sexual domination.” My voice broke a bit and I cursed myself for the weakness.
“Another long story short, he tried to force me, I bit off his left testicle, and ran as far from that toxic bullshit as I could. The Alpha said I was too strong to follow Pack hierarchy, that it was my fault I was exiled from a second Pack in so many years, and that I was defective. I didn’t need to worry about being in a Pack after that, because I was a pariah. My parents were so ashamed, they ostracised me from my family. Wrote me out of their will. To them, I don’t exist.”
Naja sat up and climbed into my lap, wrapping every part of her body around mine until I was encompassed in her warmth and scent.
“I’m going to kill him,” she whispered in my ear, and I swear to god, my dick went from soft to punch-a-hole-through-drywall hard in a second.
I buried my face in her neck and inhaled deeply, drawing her into my lungs like she was nicotine and I was an addict. “No need, Princess. I have a happy ending, right here, right now, with you wrapped around me like a vice. Gatlin and Finlo were the Alphas I was meant to have; I just had to have a few false starts on the way.”
She pulled back. “What he did was not okay. It was sexual assault.”
I smiled wanly. “I know, baby. But I kept the testicle I bit off. It's in a jar in the family room downstairs.” She let out a choked laugh. “When Gatlin found out why I’d been exiled from my second pack, he tracked down the Alpha. He beat him until his front teeth fell out, then kept them too. We can heal most things, but we can’t regrow teeth. Now he looks like Gappy Joe, only has one ball and probably hasn’t eaten a good steak in years. I’ve been plenty vindicated.”
She laughed, resting her chin on my shoulder and not attempting to move out of my arms. Fuck, this was so nice. I loved our time altogether as a Pack, in one huge puppy pile, but this, wrapped in this creature that was too perfect for me or anyone else, was just more perfect than I’d ever hoped for.
“What about your brothers?”
I shrugged. “I see them from time to time, but we were never really close, you know? I’d chosen Casey as my brother, and he’d turned his back on me. My oldest brothers didn’t approve of our parents' actions, but there's little they can do when they are firmly under my father’s thumb.”
She kissed my neck, scraping her teeth down the muscle there. “You know I wouldn’t want you any other way, right? Scars and all. You had to go through all that shit to become the amazing man you are today. Fate, that fickle bitch, put you through all that so you could be the Manix this Pack needs and loves.”
I tilted her chin towards me so I could kiss her properly. So I could pour all my appreciation and my hopes and yeah, my love, into the kiss. She kissed me back and ground against my dick, making me growl. But as much as I wanted to lay her down and fuck her right here under the wide blue sky, I resisted. I didn’t want to end the perfection of this moment.
“Later on, you are in so much trouble, Princess.”
She chuckled softly against my lips. “You and your promises.”
I nipped her lips softly, making her give a little yip of surprise, and I didn’t think it was possible to love another person the way I loved her right now. I couldn’t tell her yet though. Later however, I would show her with my body just how much.
We were silent for a little bit longer, then I squeezed her tight. “I want to know everything about you too.” She tensed in my arms, and I held her closer. “But your history doesn’t need to taint this moment. Surely, there were a few good memories amongst the bad? Before Luisa, I mean.”
She was silent for a long time, and if it was taking her this long to think of one happy moment… Well, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces and was reconstructed with rage as the glue. I tried to keep my emotions in check, but I was going to have to beat the fuck out of someone and soon.
