Runt [ManxMan]

Chapter Four

Dax sat at his desk, working his way through the endless stacks of paperwork surrounding him. His back twinged in protest of the amount of time he'd spent in this chair, hunched over his desk, but he ignored it. He had work to do.

There had been two births, a marriage, and three deaths in the last month, and he had to send a report to the Council about them by the end of the week, plus all the paperwork accompanying the pack merger he was in the middle of, not to mention the two decades worth of paperwork the other pack's alpha hadn't done and Dax needed to catch up on before the merger could be finalized.

It was all giving Dax a headache. His gaze strayed to the window across the room, letting in the mid-afternoon light. He itched to be outside, running in his wolf form or training with the warriors. He could hear them from here, shouting and laughing as they worked.

His muscles begged to be out there working instead of stuck inside doing paperwork, but Dax had a job to do. There was no one else he could trust with this, so he turned his attention back to his paperwork.

It was quiet, the only sound the faint cheers from the training ground and the scratching of his pen across the paper. Peaceful. He enjoyed that aspect of doing paperwork, and honestly wouldn't have minded how boring the job was if he only didn't have to devote so much of his time to it. He could only hope things would be better after the merger was finalized.

His peace was broken when the cheers from the training ground turned to shouting, followed by footsteps pounding through the pack house. Dax had already dropped his pen and stood before the door to his office was thrown open.

A young warrior stood in the doorway in drawstring shorts too large for his slim form, with tousled blonde hair and bare feet, dirt smudging his bare skin. "Alpha!" he said when he saw Dax standing behind his desk. "Beta Maverick sent for you."

Dax was not surprised by this news and was already pulling his leather jacket off the back of his chair and heading toward the door before the kid could finish his sentence. "Report," he commanded, following the kid back down the hallway and toward the stairs.

"Oh! Um... so Beta and another warrior were out on patrol, out past the borders, checking for rogues like you said, driving them away early and all that, so they don't have the chance to get within our borders and cause havoc like they did last month, which was terrible, by the way, it's why I decided to start training, today was only my first day on the border, sir, so I don't--"

"Never mind," Dax cut him off, pinching the bridge of his nose to try to assuage the growing headache. The kid talked to much, and he already felt like he was getting too old for this, even at twenty-five.

It didn't help that he knew whatever Mav had gotten himself in to this time would be ridiculous, and Dax would have to get him out of it again. He loved the guy, he was his beta and best friend, but he was sick and tired of his reckless behavior that always seemed to end in another headache for the alpha.

To his relief, the kid shut up and the rest of the walk through the pack house and out into the yard was silent. He had the urge to ask where they were going, but quickly quashed it when he imagined the kid's rambling again and resigned himself to following blindly.

He regretted this choice as they approached the infirmary, a small, squat building tucked into the center of the compound. Dax's brow furrowed, but he bit back his questions, resolving to interrogate Mav as soon as he saw the beta.

Dax hadn't stepped foot in the infirmary in years, and Mav knew better than to ask him to come here without good reason. He resolutely kept his gaze on the young warrior, not allowing it to stray to the room on the end of the hall, but even being in this building he felt his chest tighten and he gritted his teeth, fighting to keep his face neutral.