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

Chapter Twenty

Noel

Fear pulsed through my heart like a hurricane. I had a million reasons to shred the doctor looming over me, though I knew it was Doc. His tied-back hair gleamed with a sheen of blue like mine, only the tiniest hint that I focused on. Ringed by the medical light above my table, it almost looked like a halo.

“You okay in there, Noel?” He rested a hand on the side of my face and smiled.

I nodded. “I will be fine once all is said and done.”

“I know you said that anesthesia doesn’t work, but I have stuff that works on Vil, remember? Let’s see how it fares.” Doc pulled out a small mask and offered it to me, not putting it on over my face. He let me do that, and a reassuring stroke to my arm told me I wasn’t restrained. Not yet anyway. He’d need to once I was out, but promised that the moment I was closed, he’d undo my restraints and clear the room. I prayed I didn’t hurt anyone.

I nodded and put the mask over my face, fastening the straps as the tinny gas made its way through. “I hope so.”

“I’m going to start your line in your foot again, is that okay?” Doc blinked, his eyes glassy. He didn’t want to do this, but I reached for his hand, my head swimming a little uneasily.

“I trust you.” Forcing those words free came with such a gravity that my body sagged. And, despite the bright light, the world faded a little, going dark as I closed my eyes and barely flinched at the prick on my foot.

Dimly, I was aware of manipulation and sound around me, pressure and something short of pain.

Cold. I can handle cold. I’ve handled it for as long as I can remember.

But today?

Today will be different.

***

I opened my eyes and blinked up, not at the medical ward’s ceiling but Vil’s, surrounded by his scent and the nest he’d made.

A soft groan escaped my lips, my throat dry and head foggy, aching with an uneven pulse that heralded the sear of pain from my chest. “Wha—” I reached for the spot from where the pain oriented and found bandages, binding, the distinct pulse of something foreign in a wound. Stitches? Staples? They’d reject soon enough.

What’d they take this time?

I took a few slow breaths and tried to sit up, feeling the resistance burn in my chest, counting the pulses in my head until things came back.

Oh. My lesser heart. Okay. I took a long, deep breath and breathed through the sensations while I searched the sound in my soul to reach for Vil and the tiny little song of my egg. Both held a note of worry that ebbed when I reached for them.

Merriel’s voice spoke softly above me. “Hey, sexy. You awake?”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, rolling my eyes as strange squirming sensations in my chest twisted about, organs reforming, flesh healing. I swallowed back a bolus of nausea inching up my raw throat.

“On a scale of one to ten, Doc wants to know how psychotic you’re feeling.” Merriel put a note of joviality in his tone that disarmed me slightly.

“Tell him I said yes . Tell Vil that I’m fine.” I eked out a shuddering breath that stung, making me choke slightly.

“Want me to include the groaning and wincing?”

I blinked a few times to rid the tic from my eye and shook my head. “Whatever suits you, Merriel.”

I lay in the dim silence of the room, fully aware that even if I didn’t hear Merriel, part of him was there with me, eavesdropping. He could be irritating like that, I’d found, but he’d endeared himself to me.

“He wants to know if he can bring Egbert.” Merriel snickered, and I wheezed, sitting up against my body’s protest.

“Egbert better be someone else, because I know my young is not being referred to as Egbert .”

“Vil is coming in. Doc, too.” Merriel gave no response to my rebuke.

“No more Egbert. And tell Doc to bring me food. I want something with salt and protein.” I took a deep breath and slumped forward, my hair spilling over my shoulders and legs as they splayed before me. Idly, I wondered who was brave enough to put me in our bed.

The loose blanket draped over me exposed much of my frame, but I was not ashamed of my body as some were. I’d lost that sense of propriety a long time ago. And for an omega whose organs were internal, it didn’t matter as much. If someone wanted to gawk at my ventral slit, they were welcome to do so, provided they didn’t touch or make comment. Either scenario was likely to earn them my claw.

I pawed my hair back into place and smiled up as Vil ushered in, our egg cradled reverently in his arms. He had his shirt open, the shell held to his bare skin, and something about that seemed right. He didn’t hesitate to hand the egg to me, though, sitting next to me as I sated my troubled mind with our young’s tiny presence.

It wasn’t long before the scent of food lured my attention away and with it came the scent of an unfamiliar person half slumped in a wheelchair, his breathing shuddering in small pants. Roan. He held my food in his lap as Doc pushed him, and I did my best not to lash out.

“So, Vil shared with me how he found you, Noel.” Roan’s whisper of a voice drew my attention as much as the beatings in his chest drew my ear. He bore a sliver of my blood for compatibility and my missing heart beat strong in his chest, pushing life through him.

“We were destined to meet, it appears.” I kept my tone clipped as Doc parked the chair and handed over a metal tin of rations. “I trust he made good on his end.”

Vil and Doc nodded in tandem, and I stared the male down. It hit me that when I’d first seen him, he appeared very old. Seeing him then, color rising to his cheeks, I could sense what it was—illness. Illness that seemed to be tamed if what I could sense in our weak bond was correct.

“You know they worship you as a god, right? That you can hold immense power?” Roan’s whispered words came from stubbled lips, the odd hair graying and rough. Dark eyes focused in on me, their pupils mildly ovoid as they focused.

“Raziel and Nirem were far more godlike than I. I am omega—”

“And in the testament of Nirem, he spoke of the lifebringer. Will you meet with one of their priests?” He sat up a little straighter as I tore into the box given to me. There, I found much better fare than I’d been eating, the contents at least vaguely meat-like this time, but not any creature I’d eaten before.

“I dunno anything about Nirem’s writings,” I spoke around a mouthful of food, keeping my posture such that I didn’t drip food onto my egg. I was more starved then, than I was after waking from cryogenic stasis and fucking for days straight. “But Raziel was a dick.”

I’d never said it out loud, but it felt good.

“Be that as it may, please refrain from saying so around anyone important. I’d really like you to meet a few of them. And to see you with N01-5-2—Vil—will do wonders for hybreeds. They think purity means worth. And worth is power to them.”

“Purity means whatever we want it to mean. If I contradict so many hundreds of years of thought, they will reject me. That is not how this type of bias works. If you want me to bring the hybreeds into favor, make it fit their rhetoric.” I leaned my head against the shell of my egg and relished the life within. “What do they say of hybreeds?”

“That they are abomination. That the reason so many humans died was because our Progenitor’s blood went sour. Punishment for using you. I suffer from the curse, too, you see. I’m stable, mostly, but things can fail.” He pursed his lips, and I nodded.

“And what has Nirem said of the lifebringers?” He’d called me a little lifebringer before, but it’d never been a fond term.

“That you are chosen to bear the fruit of the future. That your wisdom will be that of mankind, as you’ll have known nothing else. And what we did to you would be our judgment.” Roan’s face hardened at the last part, as if daring me to become angry.

“I am nowhere near as powerful as Raziel or Nirem. But I hold power. Great power. And so does Vil.” I reached toward my mate and stroked his arm. “Our child is pure Naleucian because the only part of him that bears the blood of mortal and Tal is his mitochondria, which only comes from an omega.”

Roan’s mouth opened in a soft O of surprise before closing sharply.

“They perfected it long before they realized. He is Naleucian. He may differ in some small ways, but I feel him. His blood is good with mine.” I stroked Vil’s arm once more. “If Vil approves, I will meet.”

“They’ll ask for a blood sample to be sure,” Roan said, leaning his head from side to side as strength came back to him.

I took another bite and shrugged. “Put me on another operating table and someone dies. No facilities. No prisons, no lockup, or freezing.”

Roan nodded fervently, and Vil gave a curt nod of agreement.

“Figure out what you’re comfortable with, but I will not leave my egg unattended.” I tugged at the bandages on my chest and shuddered, watching staples fall free of my flesh as the bloodied gauze fell away to reveal almost-fully healed flesh. Only deep, pink lines remained.

“Absolutely.” Roan messed with something in front of him as his eyes glowed.

I tilted my head and Vil nudged me. “Implant. Like a cellphone in his brain. He’s sending some messages.”

I nodded in some sort of comprehension and Roan’s eyes flicked about, his dark pupils rolling with unintelligible figures. Like static at my distance. “They’ll meet with you soon. I’ve got some clothes being sent over. If we’re going to present you as a god, we might as well dress you as one.”

I sighed and nodded in understanding, nearly dropping from exhaustion once more. “How long do we have?”

I rubbed at my sleepy eyes as Vil leaned over to stroke my hair affectionately and I leaned into his touch.

“Let’s schedule for tomorrow. We both need rest.” Roan nudged Doc and rolled away while Vil coaxed me patronizingly into curling up with my egg to rest. What was one more sleep for the day?