Page 6 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)

Doc

I sat by the coms, listening in with Merriel as I tossed tiny bits of a shista fruit peel into the trash incinerator port in the wall.

Every other one went in; the rest lay littered across the floor.

All the while, I shoved one after another of the grape-sized berries into my mouth while peeling the next.

Despite what Vil thought, I tuned into their video feed.

Long ago, I told Vil I had him on mute, but I never really did.

I chose not to answer him. After all, they needed me on standby.

Besides, he was less raunchy with me since he had Noel.

How the omega kept up with him, I couldn’t imagi—no, I could. In detail.

Merriel had loose lips when it came to Vil. Probably because Vil didn’t care.

I was no better since my percentage increased, as I’d grown increasingly aroused at times, even more so since Noel’s last visit.

It never boded well, though. My cock always seemed to shrink a little, leak too much, and my ass wept its own lubricant.

Just thinking about it made my groin tingle.

From the feel of it, I was only days away from my cock retreating inside my perineal cavity.

My testicles already had, the gentle pouch of them all that was left.

I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I was going to. I hadn’t sat on them funny once, since.

Win-win.

I wanted sex so very badly, but Sarge was the only male I trusted—and Sarge couldn’t.

Instead, he watched. Usually, it was Gorm.

We fucked like rabbits, but it was only good when Sarge was there, when he approved and watched with heated eyes full of longing to do the same.

It wasn’t cucking, exactly. That would imply that I had exclusivity.

It was more…voyeur. Having sex felt more like a display for Sarge to show off than it did performance-art interpretive-dance cheating.

With extra steps. Not to invalidate anyone with open relationships or who were into that sort of thing, but our mental gymnastics were different.

I perked up when Sarge led the group, something about the way his camera moved, focused intentionally, seemed purposeful, as if he knew where he was going. The way he studied the wall signs and maps suggested he could read it—yet another thing I’d ask about later.

As they traversed the catacombs of the immense structure, I held my breath at times, unable to imagine willingly going out in all of that. Then again, I’d yeeted myself into a nuclear reactor at one point—so such was my own cowardice.

Radiation? Yes.

Weird space alien ancient, haunted junk? Hell nah.

I listened for a while as Merriel threw up a scoreboard. “Does space suit count?”

“No, that’s literally the name of it.” I glared up at Merriel’s camera. It was subconsciously how I looked him in the eye. “Space mold?”

“I want to say it doesn’t count because it apparently has a name, but like, it’s so obscure I’d call it space mold if I didn’t know the footnote.” Merriel huffed and added another point to the score.

As we were arguing about the semantics of space station in reference to the war base, Noel’s words piped in. Not a space anything. Alpha Naleucian.

My heart stopped, and we directed our attention to the screen. I did, at least. Merriel’s focus was everywhere all at once, so I didn’t question his attention.

“Prepare the med bay,” I said, which was mostly for my own benefit. Merriel could do minimal things like run the RPC and adjust the thermostat to be more acclimating—colder.

I jumped to my feet and kept an ear to the mic.

By some miracle, the chamber had remained frozen, and the male they found was still in a full sedation.

I’ve never seen an orange before. Noel’s voice whispered over the speakers as Vil swore and worked with the rest of the team and Sarge to disconnect it.

“Merriel, patch me through!” I shouted as I cleared the quarantine chamber. I wouldn’t make the same mistake with this alpha as I did Noel.

“Line’s open, Doc.”

“Guys! When you’re disconnecting the chamber, do not interrupt the vaso-pumps.

I can desequence him here, no need to do that there.

” I wouldn’t want some unknown progenitor running rampant with them out there…

Sarge. The thought made my blood run cold, the chance that this new creature would be able to identify Sarge.

“Roger,” Vil said, and I knew he was listening, by the fact he didn’t add on some crude joke.

“I got it. It’s Naleucian tech.” I sighed in relief as Noel spoke up. For not having been with his own people since he was a hatchling, he was quite adept.

I sat in rapt attention, biting my nails—fruitlessly—as they worked. Seriously, whatever progenitor DNA that Noel had imparted onto me with his donations had done wonders for my nails. Filing and cutting them took a plasma laser. They were even getting a pearlescent hue to them.

It didn’t matter, though. They’d be a source of defense if this new progenitor was as spicy as Noel was upon waking.

“Doc, shouldn’t you prep the cocktail that Vil had you use on Noel?” Merriel’s voice echoed in my ear from two different places—having a totally different convo with the team.

“And who is going to give this angry berserker alien lizard the orgasm of his life to finish that off?” I marched my way toward the storage cabinet to get fresh linens for the quarantine chamber. Besides, this creature hadn’t been half awake.

By the time I finished my preparations, the alarm for the bay doors went off, and the men dragging in the chamber took the warning for decontamination seriously. As my ears muffled and gained an odd sort of pressure, the ship shuddered, telling me the airlock had engaged.

I had limited time. “Merriel, what’s decontam looking like?”

“Twenty-five percent.”

“Good.” I opened the med bay doors and rushed through the ship, making sure all doors between there and my offices were wide open and ready to receive.

“Thirty-six,” Merriel said as I retreated and glanced around the room.

“Pull up progenitor files database.” I sat on my stool by the door, fidgeting as Merriel counted down and my ears settled, finally popping as things normalized. I scratched at my arm and fidgeted. The scales itched fiercely.

When the countdown ended, a boom and clatter heralded the bay doors opening. Unlike when they’d found Noel, they called the others in for this one, and the rest of the crew showed up.

“Doc, we clear to pull the lines?” Vil shouted down the hall.

“We’re good to go.”

Within a minute, Noel and Vil hauled the limp body of an orange-scaled male into my office, slumping him onto the examination table.

I wordlessly went to work taking samples, throwing in an IV with nutrients and electrolytes to stimulate him. “Merriel, photostereoscope.”

“On it.” Merriel threw a new window up as the lens above the table whirred, the iris of it adjusting.

“About like any other N0 series.” I glanced his body over and focused on the hearts. They didn’t beat, which boded ill for waking him. “Noel— Nevermind. Vil, chest compression.”

Vil pushed ahead and braced his palms, strategically lining them up over each of the male’s hearts.

I watched the screen for a long few seconds as Vil pumped his chest until the two hearts sputtered to life.

Noel stepped back, his face full of more expression than I’d seen in a long time.

It was as if he was a child again, a distinctly chastened look.

I needed his help, but that pitiable expression combined with my uncertainty as to how Vil would react to Noel touching an alpha was all the motivation I needed to not test it.

As Vil retreated, I got my first real study of the male—strong jaw and fierce build.

He could have gone toe-to-toe with Vil in size, but his face had a certain sharpness to it.

Pale skin that transitioned to earthy orange scales pinkened as he took his first breath, a braying sort of thing that exposed too-sharp teeth.

And underneath the chemical odor of him lay the faintest scent of raw male that made something in my body react.

“Merriel, ventilation tier two.” I focused on the creature, limp and cold. Danger radiated off of him, but I couldn’t shake that sense of submission.

Noel, for his part, frowned and stepped back, uncertainty in his eyes. A scent caught my nostrils—no, not a scent. It was an undetectable odor, something in the air that spoke of fear and discomfort. How I caught it, I wasn’t certain, but I was with Noel. I don’t like it.

I gathered my composure as soon as the ventilation kicked on and pulled a fifty-cc syringe from the RPC, the needle that metallic colorfully-sheened titanium hybrid I could easily penetrate hybreed skin with.

I snapped a pair of gloves in place and prayed my nails didn’t break the tips. I’d need to find a solution if they kept sharpening.

“If you’re squeamish, look away. Noel wasn’t this deep under.

” I sterilized the patient’s chest and, when confident everyone had turned their heads that needed to—I slammed the needle down into one of his lungs.

I drew the plunger and grimaced as blood and fluids filled the barrel of my syringe, translucent magenta with a golden swirling hue.

I emptied the syringe and chucked the barrel and needle into the RPC before gathering another, working in succession as Noel joined in, washing up and gloving. At the tips of each of his glove, he twisted the end into a knot and double gloved as if he’d done it before.

I watched with curiosity as he studied the photostereoscope’s image and frowned, pushing a needle into the alpha’s chest and mimicking my actions on another lung lobe.

He had such a gentle and precise touch that it was hard to rebut any attempt he made to step into my sphere of specialty.

Med school was no comparison to an eidetic memory and hyperfocus from a perpetual lab rat allowed unending access to medical documentation and self-experimentation.