Page 1 of Omega's Heart

C H A P T E R 1

A low hiss of words drifted over the dust-dry landscape to Kaden’s ears. “Hey, Fang, you sniff anything?”

Kaden let the slur roll off his back—by this point in his career, most of his fellow soldiers didn’t even realize how offensive the name was anymore and treated it like a nickname. “Nothing yet.”

“This is some fucked up shit,” one of the other soldiers said, inching his way along a battered rock wall.

They’d been out on patrol three days now, deep in territory currently claimed by local insurgents. Kaden didn’t have a clue about the rights or wrongs of it all, but that wasn’t his job—he was nothing more than a grunt. Maybe a slightly better-paid grunt than most of the squad, but still not worthy of an explanation of why they were even there.

Three of their squad were shifters. Honisloonz was in wolf form now, ranging ahead of the group to scout for trouble. Then a couple of humans, then Kaden, the other three humans and Montana Border bringing up the rear.

“Shut it, Turner,” the Staff Sergeant snapped in a low voice. “Unless you want to take point.”

“Sorry, Staff Sergeant,” Turner said quietly.

They crept down the narrow alley, snuck around a corner one by one, then began advancing again.

And then it all went to shit.

A momentary shift of moving air brought a whiff of foreign human to Kaden’s nose. He only had time to shout, “Sarge…” before the bullets began peppering the ground around them. He heard Honisloonz go down with a yelp, and they were all scrambling for cover while they desperately scanned the buildings around them for the shooters.

“Who sees them?” Sarge bellowed. “WHO SEES THEM?”

Kaden leaned around a corner, ducking back as the bullets ricocheted against the rock. “North north-west, Sarge! One of them, anyway.”

“Anyone else?” Sarge yelled.

Kaden borrowed from his wolf, straining for the sound of footsteps or cloth brushing against stone. He heard something… Quickly, he ducked through an empty doorway and slid through a window on the far side of the ruined house, into a space barely wide enough for him to walk along. He considered changing shape for a moment, but the thought of leaving his gun behind made his gut curl with anxiety.

There.

A hint of a breeze with that same unfamiliar human scent teased him again. He crouched and ducked out of the alleyway, his back to the wall in front of him.

Behind him, he heard footsteps and the air brought him Turner’s scent and that of two more soldiers, one from his team and one from the other. He signaled them into the empty building beside him, watching the floor closely for signs that it had been mined.

“Where the fuck are they?” Turner complained. “LaRoche is down, got hit in the leg. Montana took him back to the last rally point.”

“I got a whiff of something up ahead, but the air currents here are all over the place.” Kaden blew his nose and sniffed, then opened his mouth to huff the air, scenting it the way he’d scent a beta in heat. The rest of them watched him intently.

Later, he’d be proud that they trusted him enough to take his little forays in scent seriously. Then again, Turner had been there the last time, when he’d shot a loose donkey before it could wander into their camp and it had exploded with enough force that they’d all been knocked to the ground despite the distance. Turner had reason to respect Kaden’s nose.

But for now, he had nothing. Except for that occasional drift of scent, too weak and mixed up with other smells to really pinpoint. His heart beat in his ears almost loud enough to drown out the heartbeats of his squadmates as he slipped out through the door, crouching as low to the ground as he could. Occasional shots rang out, but they sounded more exploratory, meant to frighten them out into the open. He ignored them the way a soldier ignored things that weren’t an immediate threat— pinpointed where they were, memorized it, then put it aside in favor of the immediate goal. Which was getting them out of there.

He tracked the smell around a corner, then around another one, closing in on it, but slowly. Too slowly. There were just too many things that smelled kind of the same, and too much wind and dust to plug his nose and coat the inside of his mouth. The smell of blood—rich, hot and metallic—began to grow and the back of his neck started to tingle as if his ruff was standing on end despite not being in wolf form. Who the fuck is that? Kaden peered around a corner, heard the echoing crack of a shot being fired just a fraction of a second before the whine-and-ping of the slug hitting the wall above his head.

But that look, even if only for a briefest of seconds, had told him all he needed to know. His ears told him the rest, bringing him the sound of labored breathing and barely suppressed sobs of rage and fear.

Turner was right behind him.

“Get the rest. It’s Polinski, he’s hit.”

“You’ll never get him out of there!” Turner hissed. “We need to call for help!”

“And they’ll tell us to clear out and send in an air team. Maybe.” Kaden considered another quick peek, then decided against it. “You guys can give me some covering fire. I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but something isn’t right.” If he had his whiskers right now, they’d be quivering.

“You’re fucking nuts, you know that?” Turner said, but there was a weird respect in his voice that Kaden recognized. He’d never really be one of them, but they still trusted him.

To a point.