Page 7 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)

“Vil. Compression,” Noel said as he pulled the plunger and brought up pink foam. “Once he starts coughing and his pupils pin, yeet him into the quarantine.”

“Yeet?” I paused mid-pull on a syringe as Vill worked awkwardly around us to do chest compressions.

“Throw. With great intent and vivacity.” Vil pushed hard and was rewarded by a deadened pop—likely a rib snapping.

I pulled another syringe and brought up mostly air, pink foam sputtering in before I whipped the needle out and threw it into the RPC right as the male on my table took a deep, rattling breath.

Noel lifted a lid, watching as a thin ring of white in a pool of all black held stable. When the coughing started, it took only a few seconds before Noel jumped back.

As if on cue, the male’s entire body bowed, tail thrashed, and pink foam sputtered over pale lips. Through the mire, broken words sputtered free, words that made my ears buzz.

“Quarantine!” Noel whipped his tail around and grabbed me by the waist as he knocked the syringe to the ground.

It skittered across the floor, and we made it a few feet away in time for Vil to bear-wrestle the male into his arms and toss him unceremoniously into quarantine with a deafening clang of the door.

Noel’s tail slowly unwound, falling to its neutral sway behind him. The tip gave a sharp twitch. “Kaksa.”

“More Mater Terraisms?” I glanced over at Noel, who remained still and focused on the quarantine room’s door.

“My mother tongue. It means I do not like him. He smells wrong.” Noel scratched at his shoulder and rubbed his arms in a subconscious way. “I need a shower. Soon.”

“As soon as possible, pet.” Vil rotated his shoulder and stared into the window of the room with a fang-riddled sneer.

The male within thrashed and fought, slamming against the door as hissing splutters of syllables rung out.

“He’s gone mad, hasn’t he?” I opened the intercom from within the room and dialed the volume down to a respectable level.

“No. He is angry. Merriel, access database two of Naleucian prima. His dialect is different from what I know but I understand most. Translate.” Noel stepped farther away from the quarantine door as his brow furrowed.

For the most part, Merriel altered the channels of speech, the new male’s voice cracking and garbling at odd intervals. “Mostly swears, with no real translation. All of them involve whores… No, that’s not the right word. This dude really doesn’t like Revulons…”

“Crab whores.” Noel nodded sagely.

The scoreboard that Merriel had up earlier pinged, and another point went into Noel’s space column. The omega’s eyes flicked up and locked onto it with feigned indifference. The twitch of his tail gave him away. Annoyance.

Noel cleared his throat. “Merriel, transmit my voice to him, please.”

“On it.” Merriel gave a perfunctory beep as the frenzied alpha shouted and slammed between bouts of violent coughing.

“Ikkra N—” Noel spoke, his words guttural and hissed on sharp teeth, but Merriel translated almost instantly, using a sound-masking technology for us to hear his true meaning.

I’d need to update my brain implant with proper Naleucian if I could handle it.

Some languages were too alien or biologically impossible.

“Calm yourself, warrior. We have removed you from the care of the Revulon base. There is no enemy left alive.” Noel stiffened as the male inside ceased his swearing and slamming.

“Fornicating Revulon feces! It is a good thing they are dead. Praise.”

“Merriel, please transliterate for them.” Noel canted his head as if listening to what lay beneath Merriel’s words, to the Naleucian’s speaking.

“You speak like a child,” the male said as he pressed himself to the door of the unit and stared out the thickened crystal window. His pinned pupil locked onto Noel.

“No child. Omega… Gene bomb! Why are you sentient? Who has permitted you?” Rather than the rage the creature had shown before, the alpha stared in wide-eyed alarm.

“I and my patrons were the only survivors of my vessel. They returned to our Paradise when I was but elev—nine rotations.” Mater Terra solar rotations and their planet must have moved differently—it made sense. “I was left—”

“Of course you were left, it was your purpose. And all the eggs perished?” Wild eyes met his before flicking to me and then Vil.

Noel nodded.

“Your patrons did not teach you? Your lexicon, it did not state your mission?” The alpha stared as if he’d been presented with something fearsome. “And you’ve been allowed to mate! And there is only one, thank goodness you are not breeding.”

Noel slapped a hand over the mark on his neck and kept silent. His tail flicked. “There is nobody to allow or disallow me to do anything. Vil is my mate. He is both alpha and beta. We have young, and you will address us with respect.”

“Heavens and—” Whatever the male said garbled, the words a litany of swears that Merriel could only translate, but the male seemed more afraid than angered. “Gene bomb!”

“What is wrong with that?” I spoke up and earned a glance from the alpha. “You said this before. What is a gene bomb?”

“You experience it! You are afflicted with his genes, are you not? I see in that one, Tal and beta.” He glanced toward Gorm who had been peeking around the doorframe with wide eyes. “He is incomplete. To take of your blood and serum is to initiate change. He is virulent.”

“If that was my purpose, am I not doing my duty?” Noel’s voice sounded strange coming forth in two ways at once.

“Your duty was to be alskikta nagar…” The last words from the alpha garbled. For the Naleucian words, Merriel didn’t have a translation. After the foreigner spoke, he went pale as a ghost and stepped back. “What happened to the eggs brought with you?”

“The incubation chamber had a catastrophic failure and hull breech. Raziel and Nirem tried to save them but could only reach my egg in time.” Noel’s tone hardened.

“The reason your egg wasn’t destroyed wasn’t because they saved your egg. It was because your egg was never in the incubator! You were not special or wanted. You are materials.” The male slammed his hands against the door and snarled.

“What was that word?” I leaned over, whispering to Noel.

“Craniotomy and life support,” he murmured back. A grim fate to have his brain disconnected, removed from its host and disposed, so his body lay there nothing more than a rapidly regenerating vessel of organs.

“Your genes will match and morph to whatever they’re in if continually replenished.

In Paradise, we use what you are as organ donors.

I cannot imagine why they were cruel enough to let a gene bomb live, let alone to not be ablated.

” The male pulled away from the door, but his face never wavered in intensity.

“Friend, we mean you no disrespect. We do not know much about Noel or where he came from. Noel, himself, has never been to this Paradise you keep mentioning. I am Vil. This is Noel, my mate.” Vil gestured toward me. “Will you please respect my mate?”

The bitter look on the male’s face softened, and he nodded once. “The scouts that went out with your mate and their eggs failed their mission and should have never left it—him, behind.”

“Now, what is your name?” Vil approached the door with a cautious step, his posture rising to his full height, a few inches more than the alpha in their chamber.

“Shafa,” the male said, his posture slowly relaxing, the anger and vitriol almost melting from him.

“And I apologize. It is rare to see what your Noel is. It is even more rare for him to have a name, or to be alive in the classic sense. And your compatriots are a strange group; your blood is very badly warped. What planet were you designed on?”

“D-11A0B,” Noel said, his voice weak and soft.

“How long… What is the year?”

“2893,” I said, but Noel said something else that didn’t translate. Of course, dates would have been different between the planets.

“A thousand cycles, I’ve been gone. That explains it. And the Revulons?”

“All gone,” Vil confirmed.

“And did we finally wipe out the Colthraxians?” I seized up, my heart seizing in my chest.

“What is a Colthraxian?” Noel tilted his head to the side as Vil shrugged.

“You have never heard of this?” The alpha, Shafa, raised a deep, green brow.

“No, who are they?” Noel canted his head, still wary, but I prayed that male never met Sarge.

“They are a parasite. They take your brain and eat it and cripple your body and ride your sentient body while they devour you and speak through you. They are vermin. But if you do not know them—we may have succeeded.” The vicious grin that spread across Shafa’s face made that cold tendril of fear coil in my belly.

As if he sensed something wrong, Noel’s tail swished to the side and curled around my ankle for a gentle squeeze. I’d seen him engage in such things with Nexus but never saw him as the nurturing or caring sort. It did comfort me in a small way.

“I have no knowledge of this creature. But I am curious. How would one get to go to our homeworld? To where we belong.” Noel’s tail squeezed my ankle once more.

“You do not belong. Perhaps Vil. Maybe even Doc.” The way he said my name and how it curled over his tongue made my skin crawl. “Though, you will need to be rectified.”

“I don’t—I’m not omega. I don’t have—” I stammered and swallowed hard. The way I reacted to him made my skin crawl.

“Not now you don’t. I’m not sure how you’re administering your dosages—but it will be so. You are a beautiful male, and I’d offer much for your ovum—provided I had an acceptable beta partner.” I pursed my lips and tensed, every muscle in my body cinching tight.

“I have to go.” I turned and rushed from the room, heat climbing in my cheeks as fast as nausea rose. I wanted no part of that male’s advances. “You handle it. I—”

“I understand. Vil will protect me.” Noel leaned in and whispered, “Go find your mate.”

“My mate?” I frowned.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that there is a bond between you and Sarge. If that is not what you are, I apologize. But seek comfort and stay with him. I don’t like this male, either.”

For a brief moment, I wanted to jerk my hand back and shout. I couldn’t, because Noel was right. Frozen, like a Zelenian starkbeast in an ion beam, I said nothing.

Noel leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine in a strange sort of gesture that brought comfort to me. He took a few deep breaths and smiled—a small thing. “If you can change, so can Sarge. If what this male says is true.”

“Sarge doesn’t want it.” I pulled away and flinched at Noel’s expression. I didn’t know he could be hurt emotionally, at least.

“But he wants you. That can be enough, too.”

I nodded once and retreated.