The Last Omega in the Galaxy (Scales and Tails of Fate #1)

Chapter Nine

Vil

I wasn’t sure if he realized it or not, but charging into a kanoik nest the way he’d done had left him pocked up and riddled with oozing holes that had to have been sending every hair on his body waves of pain like fire. I’d been bedridden from a kanoik sting before, forced to sleep it off until Doc could pump me full of antivenom.

Noel didn’t break stride once, to his credit. He strolled through the halls at my side, clearly interested in my offer of sucking his cock, the scent of arousal strong on him. I couldn’t even work up a boner a day after a kanoik sting, let alone while suffering. His pain tolerance was unreal, but if my affection could ease his pain, I wouldn’t deny him.

Doc flinched when we approached the door, eying Noel warily. “You again.”

Noel watched him silently, eyes trained on him in that predatory way, getting that expression like he was facing off with another kanoik. Muscles in his back tensed up, and I rubbed down his spine with gentle circles through the thin material. My fingertips brushed bloody spots where the vacuum had isolated and saturated the liquid through the cloth during the pressure change. It looked far worse than what it was, but I stripped his shirt as he settled into the med bay and Doc swept through, eyes narrowed.

“Anyone whips a dick or a claw out, it’s gonna be sucked or cut off and I’m not sure what mood I’m in.” Doc glared and Noel narrowed his gaze, brow furrowed.

“It won’t be my penis whipped out.” Noel crossed his arms but hissed when Doc rolled his eyes and lumbered over, pulling his arms away to inspect the puncture wounds dotting his side and back.

“I’d be a pissy little bitch, too, if I had this many kanoik stings… No, I’d be dead. I’m not this resilient.” He stuck a gloved finger into one of the leaking holes, making Noel sit up straight. His ordinarily large pupils constricted to thin slits, but he showed no other reaction.

Doc jerked his hand back and fought his glove off, swearing as he went to a nearby sink and ran water over his reddening hand. “Holy shit. That’s inside him!”

“Yeah. I know. Can he get some antivenom please ?” I sighed and rubbed my forehead while Doc nursed his own pathetic wound before rattling around a dozen cabinets.

Bottles bounced around as he fidgeted, fingers shaking as the reddened one spidered up to his wrist with veins rising to the surface. Noel watched impassively before sliding off the table with a short huff of effort, reaching for Doc’s hand. “Here. And only because Vil appears to like you.”

Doc froze as Noel snatched him by the wrist and lifted his hand introspectively. His mouth opened, pointed tongue extended, and with a lingering lick and suckle, he coated Doc’s finger in a generous layer of saliva.

Doc jerked his hand back with a shout and noise of disgust before wiping his hand down the side of his coat. “What in the unsanitary hells are you—” Doc glanced at his fingers. The one he’d shoved into Noel’s weeping wound had ceased to spread with risen veins, the redness settling.

“Progenitors… Your saliva is so—this is.” Doc stared at his rapidly normalizing hand.

“I can’t do it to myself, but I’ll heal much faster if you rinse the wounds out.” Noel gave Doc a withering stare before he nodded and rushed off to grab some towels and saline in an irrigation bottle, prepping him for the flushes.

“Do you not feel pain?” Doc washed his hands and put on new gloves before returning to tend Noel’s wounds with gentle daubs of a dampened gauze pad.

“I feel pain like any other creature.” Noel sat on the table and lifted an arm, letting Doc get the wounds into better lighting. “I’ve had MRIs to confirm. My brain lights up and everything. I’m just not reactionary.”

“Not reactionary! When you first woke—”

“I was in a greater amount of pain than this.” Noel’s stern correction made my heart run cold and Doc’s fingers shake. With nothing else he could really say, he lifted a towel to just below the wound, aimed the irrigation tube toward the wound, and squeezed. “I think my implant malfunctioned. I normally cannot react that way.”

Pink shimmering blood flowed freely onto the towel, earning Doc’s scrutinizing gaze as the edges of the towel turned black. He tossed the towel into the trash and repeated the process, moving on to each wound, even the small ones until the blood ran the bright pink with yellow shimmer once more. Still, Noel didn’t blink.

“Implant?” Doc mouthed and frowned, prodding his fingers loosely up the back of Noel’s neck. “Not for long. Fuck this.”

I only had but a second to gasp before Doc had a device poised at Noel’s neck. A sharp crack made Noel jerk and hiss, blinking away something like relief. I’d seen him nip a few of those stupid sensory implants before, but never that quickly.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Doc’s broken voice drew my attention.

“For what? You’re being perfectly gentle.” Noel turned a little to give Doc better access.

Even though Doc had done nothing, he still held a guilty expression. His lips pursed and head lowered. “All… For all the things that they did. For—” Doc took a deep breath. “I apologize that you and your brethren were made to… Just for what it’s worth, I’m grateful for all you provided.”

It hit me, then. Doc was a hybreed, for certain, but he’d been born human, aided by technology all built on the back of the horrific things they’d done to Noel. Things that his patrons had let them do to him. Things that he’d been abandoned for.

I thought Doc might cry for a moment, but he shook his head and startled when Noel rested a hand over his, the wounds already sealing. “I sense it. And I’m not angry.”

Doc was young compared to all of us. His incessant carnal thoughts and intimate urgency were an attestation to that. As for what gene therapy had been used, I wasn’t sure, but it changed him from the promising young human to the isolated poor kid straight out of medical school that I’d nabbed, lamenting his newfound differences. “You’re my Progenitor. I was made from your harvest. I feel you,” Doc whispered, head bowed.

“You were aided by samples harvested hundreds of years ago. You are a symptom, not a cause.” Noel stretched out as the last of the holes on his side puckered. “I’m not bothered. You shouldn’t be, either. That’s why the licking thing worked.” Noel flickered his too-pink tongue, but the joviality of his lips didn’t match his eyes. The sentiment was hollow.

Doc removed all the waste of what they did and gave Noel a half smile. “Any chance we could fool around a little because I’m kinda into ince—”

Even though things had gone in a sweet direction, Doc couldn’t help himself and I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Mine.”

“You’ve had your turn. Let the man decide. We don’t pick favorites.” Doc glared at me, but Noel laid a hand on my wrist, his too-black eyes soaking into me as they dilated once more, pain fading fast. “Oh?”

“Naleucians are monogamous and mate for life in triads. Vil mistakenly claimed me and is being territorial. Please, give him time to adjust until we might find a fix.” Noel’s flat smile did my heart no favors. Fuck my biology, my fraternization. I wanted forever and one nest, an egg. I wanted my mate. I—was seriously fucked in the head.

“Does that mean if I—” Doc gave me a lingering stare, grin widening. Noel’s upper lip twitched, exposing a peek of fang.

“Yes.” The word ended in a hiss over Noel’s bared fangs.

“Alright. Is this going to be like that time Gorm accidentally got married?” Doc stared at me and I shrugged.

“Separation is potentially an option.”

Noel nodded at my words, and I swore that a profound sort of sadness reflected off of them, like body warmth. The closer I stood, the more I could sense it. Despite their reclaimed posture and impassive stare, I knew they were hurting. It shouldn’t have been me who claimed him. I didn’t deserve something so beautiful.

As if noticing my stare, Noel turned his head and blinked up at me, locking eyes. Their lips turned into a soft smile. “Even if we are to separate, I am grateful to know what it was like to be claimed.”

“Or you can just have your pheromone glands—” He made a sound like a bug zapper. “I might be able to do it here. Should be enough to break your hold over Vil. I think Cursiai 3 has a mating system like that. You Naleucians really got around.” Doc rummaged around in a few drawers. “Could do it tonight if you like. If I cauterize them and pack enough cesium into the incision, they should stay damaged for a few years.”

Noel froze and went stiff. He nodded very slowly, resignation clear in his posture as Doc prattled on about the need for hybreeds to be able to fornicate freely, or moods go south. “I heard the same of alpha and beta from my homeworld. This is why omegas were ablated.”

“Ablated how?” Doc’s brow furrowed as he held some sort of cauterization laser, placing it on an open metal tray ready for sterilization. His fingers stayed lightly clasped over it.

“They effectively tie the oviducts and burn them so they heal in a compromised state. Since that will halt breeding cycles, they burn the uterine lining to destroy the shell glands and they won’t regenerate. They would do something similar with the blood supply to the pheromone gland in my tail and neck. Cut the blood flow and sear the organ.” Noel gestured toward his neck, and the casualness with which he said it made my heart absolutely break. I wondered why a just creator would create such a precious and selfless creature and make them so disposable.

“Is that what you want?” Doc glanced at the laser under his hand as if it were something disgusting. As if envisioning the procedure, he placed the tool back into a drawer without saying another word.

“Doesn’t matter what I want. I was made to—” He hesitated, voice trembling before he cleared it. “I was made for a purpose, and I have served my purpose. I barely know Vil, nor does he know me.”

I cut him off, my heart pounding from hurt and hormones I didn’t understand. “I’ll learn. I’ll know you better. We can—” I stuttered as Noel held up a hand.

“We can separate for a few days and see if my scent clears from you. Then you can decide. Doc? Is there someplace I can isolate with a separate or heavily filtered air supply?”

Doc tapped his chin for a few minutes and nodded. “I have a quarantine room. I’ll have Merriel set up internet access so you can read or watch programming.”

Noel nodded and turned his head to smile at me. “It’ll be fine, Vil. You made me feel very good, and I apologize for the mistake.”

Doc ushered me out as Noel looked away from me, his face impassive but polite, bearing a half smile. Despite that, my eyes watered profusely, tears streaking my cheeks. I’d done something horrible, and to undo it would punish him. It’d punish me, too, but I’d be able to walk away freely. “Fuck!”

Doc patted my back and stroked at the bare skin between the thick shirt and shorts I wore. His nails scratched in a somewhat soothing way as the door to the med bay shut and I hung my head. “What do I do?”

“He told you what to do.” Doc shrugged. “Give it a few days of head-clearing space. How was it? Different?”

“Two mating channels. He’s absolutely feral in the sack—” I said and Merriel cut us off.

“I can show you the footage I got.” Merriel sounded far too pleased with this.

“No!” I said at the same time as Doc opened his mouth and from the shape of it alone, I knew he was going to say yes. “No.”

“It’s bad enough Gorm saw it.” I sighed and Doc brightened.

“Ah! I’ll just ask him for the play-by-play.” Doc brushed me off and sent me sulking back toward the bay. “And hurry up this harvest. I need supplies.”

“Lube isn’t a supply!” I snarled and turned, glaring at him.

He glared back.

“Fine.” I stormed down the hall, taloned feet clacking the entire way.

I really wanted to have Noel back in my bed. But he was right. With all the things I’d learned, I was better off putting distance between us. “Merriel. Have my chambers sanitized.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Merriel’s metallic tones echoed for a moment before the halls went silent, all save for the skittering of an unseen lyret. Time to face Sarge.