Zilas
The insistent beeping worms its way into my sleeping brain. As I reluctantly wake, I realize it’s my handheld. I stand, rolling out of my small bed, and stretch. I rub my horn as I blearily pad across the room, passing my neatly ordered, but tiny, kitchenette.
I have to re-read the message three times before it really hits me.
A pack wants to meet with me.
My tail curls around my leg nervously.
A pack wants to meet with me.
Holy stars, a pack wants tomeetwithme!
I frantically type a response even as I pace my room at the Beta House. “Anytime. Whenever they would like,” I send to the Concord office.
The response is near immediate. “They would like to meet you today. Directly after lunch.”
“Of course,” I respond, tapping out a message to my co-owner at the bakery, letting them know I’d need a long lunch break.
Celnoe doesn’t have a true monetary system. However, as a beta, I was expected to take up a trade. The father I was closest with was a charax, so I learned to cook and bakeas a small kit. I loved it. Proper training in baking, followed by opening a bakery—since I made it all the way through schooling without being chosen for a pack—were the logical steps.
Sure, I had met with many packs over my years at the Beta House. But we had never meshed. Something was always wrong. One pack had been very close to accepting me, but their charax—at the last moment—changed their mind.Worried about me taking his place, I suppose. Another, the three alphas and I had gotten on swimmingly, but their female beta and I immediately butted heads.
Most betas, by my age, if not chosen by a pack, had either found a beta to partner with, or had settled into a solitary life.
But not me.
I am determined. A packwillchoose me. I’ll wait at the Beta House as long as it takes. Staying in shape, and up to date on fashion and trends, keeping my hair long and stylish with shaved sides, my horns capped in precious metals, to show a pack I was ready and willing to be chosen. I also made sure my skills in the kitchen were incredible and learned a bit of everything related to keeping a home. And read many books on pack and interspecies relationships.
After the Red Paralysis that took our omegas, it was discovered that female betas were able to produce kits for alphas, and not just male betas. So female betas became valuable, scooped up by packs hoping to have younglings. But male betas... well. I’m still waiting for my pack.
I enjoyed my work and my play—though never with an alpha, lest a pack that might want me learn about it and be jealous—but I longed for a pack. A family. Ahome.
I throw on clothes, excited.
This is it. This is my pack. I can feel it.
THE MORNING PASSEDquickly as the shop was busy, our cases empty in only a few spans.
I’m back at the Beta House, waiting in one of the social rooms. Pacing again, as I cannot sit still. Before the arranged time, I had shined up my horn caps and put on a drapey shirt, allowing my pecs to be on obvious display.
I can’t wait to meet them. I’m already envisioning four huge alpha males and what we might do together.Oh, Zatura, it would be incredible to wake in a warm pile of bodies, sated and safe.
The door opens. I spin, smiling and ready to meet my pack.
Females.
Pack Traex are female alphas. And onlytwo.
I blink and come forward, tipping my head in polite greeting.
A quick nod back and their eyes rove over me. I discreetly look over them as well.
They are slightly taller than me. Both are slender and muscular with the small breasts common of Celnoe women.
The aleron—her position in the pack obvious given her bearing—steps close to me, sniffing. I stand still, allowing the blatant inspection for compatibility. Her skin is a pretty purply blue, hair long and wavy, horns thick and curved back around her head. She is a bit shorter than the ebondenn.
I look over to the second alpha. Some emotion fills her eyes, but I can’t pin what. Given that I want them to choose me, I had better learn to read these alphas as soon as possible.But she gives off an aura of command, not surprising since an ebondenn is intended to keep pack members in line.
