Page 21 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)
Sarge
Noel and Vil made their way to the med bay before we could curtail Merriel’s enthusiasm.
“I heard there was some space Jerry Springer happening.” Noel strolled in, holding a half-asleep Nexus in his arms. He gently put the tyke to sleep in the quarantine room while I quietly pulled up a view screen and looked up what the fuck a Jerry Springer was.
It was far less interesting than the weapon I thought it sounded like—shitty staged reality television doling out paternity news and drama. Gross.
“What’d I miss?” Gorm came jogging in and stood in the doorway, giving Doc an up and down look. Then, before speaking, he did something that actually impressed me. He looked around, lower to the ground. “Nex around?”
“Asleep in the other room.” Noel gestured toward the quarantine room.
“Sweet. We having an orgy, or is Merriel fucked up again?” Either way, he’d have fun.
“I don’t participate in orgies, and if I did so, it would be with one who bathed far more frequently than yourself.” Noel glanced Gorm up and down, sneering as he gave Noel a lewd tongue flicker.
“May want to keep your dick in your pants after you hear what’s up,” I said, giving Gorm a hard stare.
“Oh shit, do we got a disease or something?” He pulled the waistband of his pants out, staring down as if he could see whatever malady that might have spread. “I had gozmits once, but that was ages ago.”
Noel’s face screwed up and Doc leaned over, muttering, “Space crabs.”
“Ah.” Noel nodded sagely. A quiet ding emanated from somewhere and the scoreboard for space tallies went up. Nice.
Noel eyed it warily and ignored it. Probably for the best.
“No, it’s not a damn disease.” Doc sighed and crossed his legs, sitting tailor fashion on the examination table, his color paling by the moment as our bond hummed a subtle unease. “Just sit down somewhere.”
“I know what this is about. Noel’s known since the other day, so I have to ask—we going to have a fight, Sarge?” Vil stared me down.
“Not in the least. I am happy.” I offered him a toothy grin. “But not interested in a mate.”
“Whoa, okay, something heavy. Are you wanting me to like mate in your threesome here or something because like—I’m a free lizard, if you know what I mean.” Gorm held his hands up. “These scales are public property.”
“So, I am telling you this out of good conscience. I want you to know I expect nothing from you. You can ignore this situation entirely and I will not fault you.” Doc leaned into me as I approached and entwined our tails for comfort.
Gorm glanced around uneasily as if sizing up his competition and scoping out the exit.
“So. Mating is one of the things besides a season that can instigate an omega’s heat.” Doc took a calming breath and squeezed his tail. “And I had a heat, with Sarge.”
“Okay…” Gorm blinked, eyes wide and clueless.
“And a Naleucian omega needs a beta and an alpha to breed,” Doc continued, bracing himself.
Gorm did as he was advised and sat down, going for the floor rather than scrounging for a seat. “So, you want me to fuck you with him and be your sperm donor? Sounds fun. I’m in.” His tail twitched with interest behind him.
Doc eyed me, a single brow raised.
“Maybe in the future?” I cleared my throat. “But that’s good to know.”
“Naleucian omegas can hold onto sperm for a time after having sex. How long of a time, I’m uncertain, but likely longer than we went between…” Doc gestured toward his belly.
Gorm stiffened, tail slapping the floor. “Fuck yeah! I finally knocked someone up on accident!”
Vil snorted. “What?”
“Nah, that’s like…on my bucket list. I’ve got this huge document saved on my drive listing out all the sex shit I want to do before I die—preferably doing something dirty—and one was knocking someone up, so fuck yeah!
Woohoo!” He threw his hands up and kicked his feet excitedly.
“Merriel! Knock that off my list! When do I get to be a deadbeat dad?”
Doc and I exchanged uneasy glances as our bond erupted in confused chaos.
“Probably a week or so before the egg arrives.” Noel’s estimate was spot-on. “So, Sarge would be the Affa and Gorm the Bana—alpha and beta parents, respectively. The omega is Ota, but that’s what I remember from my studies.”
“Bana… Yeah. Bana Gorm! I like it. What do you want me to do?” Gorm sat up straighter, tail twitching.
“Nothing. I wanted to inform you and ask you what you wanted to be involved with.” Doc stared Gorm down, disbelief still in our bond.
“Oh. Well, I assume the same stuff I do with Nex—uncle stuff. Hmm. Sign me up for some extra babysitting duties, I guess. And if he learns swear words—you can’t be mad.
” Gorm grinned and rested his hands on his knees.
“Oh! And I want to help name him! Something cool, like the original hybreed names…”
“What was your lab number?” Noel glanced at Gorm.
“G01-81-3,” he said. “Generation 01 because I was from some of Nirem’s stock, eighty-first iteration and third in my batch. So, G0, R is the 18 th letter and M is the 13 th . Boom. Gorm. I ain’t that coordinated, so it fits.”
“Damn good mechanic, though.” Vil nodded.
“So, Doc is N03-2. I am N03-1. Sarge should be N04, I think,” Noel pondered.
“N04,” I mused and brought up a touchscreen with a gesture, drawing the character out. N04-II… I moved the dash between the two roman numerals. “Noah.”
“I like that. Noah…” Doc smiled and Gorm nodded sagely. “I approve.”
“So, this is what you want?” Vil crossed his arms and stared us all down one at a time, those endless black eyes of his scanning over us.
“I’ve wanted a child since the moment I saw Nexus.” He rubbed at his eyes and kept a hand experimentally rested on his stomach.
“And it’s a dream for me, in a strange way. There will be part of me in them, my original form—because I don’t think this body inside Shafa exists the same way.” I touched my chest, my claws raking over where the faintest lines of scars were. Noel did fantastic work on it.
“Open up the scope and look if you can stand it.” Noel shrugged before going off to grab Nexus and leave, no further words spoken. Doc would need to hunt him down later to teach him what was to come.
“I’m not going to lie. I don’t want to be nobody’s Papa, but I’ll go the extra mile.
You ever want another kid sometime down the road, we’ll talk about it.
But I won’t be a piece of shit about it.
” Gorm nodded and stood, stretching out before approaching Doc with an outstretched hand.
He laid his palm over Doc’s belly, next to his hand and twisted his lips as if in thought. “Yeah. I’ll be good to the lil guy.”
When he left, Vil followed with a polite wave.
“Aww. No Jerry Springer.” Merriel audibly sighed. “I miss television.”
“You still have the broadwave!” I shouted up at him and received a grumble of displeasure.
“Vil won’t give me the sermon-free version! Besides, the most entertaining show is Tal Gone Wild, and the video is shit this far out. And they censor the cloaca.”
“Eh.” I turned my attention back to Doc; the expression that met mine was nothing short of bliss. “So, you sure about this?”
“Are you?”
“Hell, no, but I’m not wasting a chance for a family.
” Colthraxians never had family. But I was no longer—or was I?
I glanced up at the 4D, and Doc nodded, getting me on the table for a peep.
Merriel threw up a view screen in my field of vision, and I looked away from it as Doc panned and almost closed it out before I could look.
His face was a blank, one I very much wanted to read as I turned my gaze upward and…
What little pieces of me there was left were nothing more than my skinless organs surrounded by vascular tissue, as if I were being absorbed.
My brain itself had fused to the spinal cord like a small tumor, and I hadn’t felt any of it.
I closed my eyes, wincing as Doc hurried to close the window and have Merriel quiet.
“I’m so—” Doc started.
“No. Not a word. Don’t be. We knew it was…
We—I’m not in violation of the Leminiscate Resolution.
I didn’t take over a body. One took over me.
” I pulled myself off the bench and sank to my knees in front of Doc, staring up at him with every ounce of love I could muster tight in my chest. “You’re a fucking princess, now. You know?”
“Pff. Princess? I’m not the one who wears a tiara around when I’m randy.” Doc sneered, and I tried to scrub that mental image of Gorm from my mind.
“You kissed me and turned me into a prince. There’s no more toad or frog or whatever left.” I smiled and Doc shoved at me. “Can we have a happily ever after?”
“Sure. Maybe we can spend some time on Paradise for a while, take some time off from the ship and all the madness.” Doc gave me a hopeful smile and whatever he wanted, I would give.