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

Chapter Twelve

Noel

Rare were the times I got to choose who could harvest from me, to benefit from me. This Roan Canthem gentleman was a pivotal financial figurehead in the hybreed community, I’d been told, in addition to the man being rather hostile with Vil. It was of no matter though. When Doc had brought the offer up, I accepted, if Vil accepted me.

Vil had asked me half a dozen times to be absolutely sure I consented to the process, but I’d not change my mind for anything if it meant I could keep my bond and experience something most omegas would never.

As much as Vil wanted to carry me back to bed right there on the spot, to claim me out of pure frustration, he couldn’t. Sarge thumped his pointed ear and gestured for him to get back to work.

Later, he had promised. Later sounded wonderful because it meant I still had him to look forward to.

I followed Doc back to the med bay where I’d spent the past few days lounging in bed and napping my way back into some semblance of consciousness.

“Things are looking good. I’m sending off the consent form. I just have to make sure your foremost heart is harvestable.” Doc slid into a seat before his desk and threw up the viewscreen while windows scrolled by. Medical documentation forms cropped up, and he filled in a few spots, promising me that there would be some semblance of anonymity in the whole affair. After all, spreading word of what I was would be dangerous.

“Bleh. They need imaging.” Doc sighed and spun in his chair before staring me down. I began pulling off my shirt before he waved me off. “On the table. I’ll just have Merriel do a 4D on you.”

I wasn’t sure what it was, but if I got to keep my clothes on, it couldn’t be too invasive.

He hummed along and arranged me face up on the table, arms straight at my sides. The white ceiling sent painful memories through me and I held my breath, trying to push those ill thoughts away. Closing my eyes helped.

The warmth of powerful light grazed my body, Merriel’s voice vague and distant as Doc isolated the images needed. “There we go. Sending your heart imaging off to Roan. Consent form…” He pulled away from the desk and tossed the images up on the screen to the side, a vulnerable image of me, my insides on full display. I signed without hesitation.

It was interesting and somewhat violating, how intimately people could know my insides even more than I. I scanned the portrait as Doc sent off his message with a flick of his wrist and grinned.

As I studied the image, I drew my gaze from my hearts to my stomach, to my relatively empty digestive tract, reminding me I needed food. It was when my gaze hovered about where my bladder was that I locked onto something that gave me a flutter of hope. A note of utter joy bristled in my chest and my breath hitched. The sight seemed to catch Doc’s view as well, as he choked. “Noel…”

I didn’t answer. An ovoid shape sat in my uterus, nothing but a fertilized yolk building itself to size. The dark squiggle shone plain as day against the contrast of three-dimensional images that Doc trembled as he twisted to zoom in and view.

“Progenitors…” Doc’s breath whispered over his lips and he swallowed hard. “What is… I know what this is, Noel.”

Still, I remained stricken by what I saw. A dark yolk occupied my space, a bare fist-sized mass, zoomed into a thin red vein, telling me an appropriately joined haploid nuclei had implanted. A thin layer around it had formed clear fluid that would become part of the egg before my body proceeded with calcification. “I bear an egg. The first Naleucian born here.”

“Hybreed,” Doc said, and I shook my head.

“Vil’s Tal percentage comes from his mRNA. His chromosomes are all Naleucian.” My fingertips reached for the hologram of my body.

“I am so very glad I only sent imaging of your chest to Roan.” Doc rubbed a hand over his face. “What is gestational length for a Naleucian?”

“The egg needs several months to hatch, but oogenesis only takes a week or ten days.” As if not realizing the image I saw was my own, I pulled my hand away and pressed that same hand into my belly. “If I am with egg… Can I donate a heart?”

“We have five days until we reach port. We’ll have to stall Roan. I don’t like it, not so soon after laying, but we cannot back out…” Doc swore under his breath and sighed. “You don’t do anything half-assed, do you?”

“My consent was hardly requested, so do not blame me. I am merely happy.” I could barely feel the fullness in my tract, my womb nestled around the swollen yolk. Nothing would be visible yet, but in no time, it would come. My eyes burned and tears pricked at them. I would do what no omega had been permitted to do in so long. I would bear young.

“I mean. We’re keeping him, right? They’ll be a him?” The hopeful peak in Doc’s voice rose before he cleared his throat and gave me a serious look.

“I’d ask you didn’t make me get rid of them. Please.” Holding my hand in that sacred spot, I could only imagine what Vil and I had done. What he had allowed me to do.

Doc shook his head. “We may have to cordon off polite areas of the ship not to scar them too badly, mentally, but that egg is as good as mine if you or Vil don’t want it.”

“It’s mine.” I tensed as I said it, my mind reacting with a snap. The egg was mine. No other would take it from me. Only my mate and I would brood them. They needed care.

“Honey. Everything on this ship is shared, and you already took one of the biggest bonuses to this place all for yourself. Don’t deny them uncles.” Doc nudged me with his elbow and I stepped away, staggering on my weak feet. “Now get back on that table and let’s document things. Not going to have a heartbeat quite yet, but we can make sure an albumen is forming, and look at that. The chalaza is already forming.” He gestured toward thickening white strands that had bonded to the bottom and top of the yolk in preparation to adhere to the shell and membranes when they came along.

Every part of the structure seemed sacred, and I treasured the few days prior when I’d felt the beginnings of twinges when my tract responded to Vil. He’d bitten me, stimulated me, mated me, and ensured that I carried new Naleucian life.

“Interesting how your cock just fits right in there alongside your primary reproductive tract, and how it joins the isthmus perfectly… And then you’ve a channel in the back as well, another isthmus…” He zoomed in and I resisted all urge to cover the image and push it away. It was almost pornographic, but I looked away while getting onto the bed once more for Doc to continue imaging while my mind reeled.

Not too much longer, an announcement over the ship’s intercom from Sarge declared the ship set course into light speed for port—Starbase Delta. This meant exactly nothing to me, but the ship shuddered as the air grew more metallic. The pressure in my ears changed, and Doc braced himself as the changes happened, something inconsequential to him that made my stomach turn.

I clutched to the table, tail winding around a rail as things hummed and gravity gave its squeeze of disapproval to my organs. I hated this worse than transitioning from space to atmosphere, and barely held my bile down, eyes closed tight.

In the commotion, I didn’t hear the door to the med bay open or Vil’s footsteps, but I heard his muttered words as he stared up at the imaging of my body. “Progenitors have mercy…”

I chanced an eye open, glanced his way, and caught the most befuddled and disbelieving stare I’d ever seen. His eyes, glazed, flicked from the screen to me before dipping toward my belly, as if something could be seen from that angle.

“We were not known to have that. Raziel, if I recall, was quite merciless.” I offered him a flat smile before he took a step toward the bed and sank to a knee.

“When did—” Vil’s voice shook. “Who?”

“Just found out by accident. Yours, looks like.” Doc turned the screen his way, zoomed in on the itty-bitty red squiggle, and gave him a beaming thumbs-up. “I don’t think he wants to terminate, and I have to say, that little runt is mine if you don’t want it.”

“Runt? Mine.” Vil swallowed hard, and I slid from the bed on jellied legs from the hyperspeed jump. With graceless effort, he bundled me in his arms, pulling me to the floor with him, caging me in with wide-eyed disbelief.

“Impressive, right?” Doc gave Vil a nudge that made him choke.

I didn’t know what else to do besides pat over Vil’s shoulder as his tail found mine. Despite being in a state of mild shock and bliss—I wanted him. I glanced at Doc with a curious stare that he immediately interpreted.

“Should be safe…” He pulled up my diagram and tilted things around before nodding. “Yeah. Safe enough. You’re meant for worse, I say.”

And like that, Vil needed no more permission to carry me away, his gait uneven from the jump. I had nothing else left to add, and nothing I could verbalize with Vil’s face over mine. Our lips twined into a soft, lingering kiss.