Chapter Thirty-Two
Halley
“In the event you’re separated from your squad, you need to know basic survival skills,” Knox says as he paces back and forth with his hands held behind his back. The sun is setting and the lengthening shadows slowly swallow the training camp.
Before me is a fire starter, two metal pots, a spoon, and five vacuum-sealed packets of food.
I’m frustrated.
According to Prime Asshole Knox, the basic tasks I’ve known how to do since I was a child are done wrong. I tie my boots up wrong. I make my bed wrong. I wear my belt buckle lopsided. I eat too slow. I don’t drink enough water. I pee too often. I talk back to my superior officers.
Constantly making mistakes and feeling foolish is exhausting.
Despite what Shade said about a debrief, we haven’t discussed what happened in the forest last week. In fact, they’ve been acting strange. Well, stranger than usual.
They’ve kept their distance, as if Sergeant Blaze didn’t watch me strip off and rub mud on my skin.
Or, Specialist Shade didn’t save me and coach me out of O-space.
Or, Lieutenant Viper didn’t mount me and stroke my sopping slit.
Or, Prime Alpha Knox didn’t hold me and tell me how good I smell.
They’re pretending like it never happened, and it’s more frustrating than Knox telling me I hold a pen too tight. There is a heaviness within me that closely resembles hurt. I thought we were a team, working together to solve my little O-space issue.
I was wrong.
When I asked, Knox gave me one of his patented stares and simply said, “Not yet.”
When I asked again a few days later, he made me dig another hole. “You haven’t learned this lesson yet. I told you ‘not yet,’ and that should be the end of your questioning.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from making a snarky remark. The others have followed his lead, obeying his command with unwavering loyalty. But why would I blindly follow the words of an Alpha who has done nothing to earn my trust?
I feel lonelier now than ever before.
I miss my Omegas.
As each day passes, their absence weighs on me more heavily.
I miss the little things, like how Embers hair always smelled of coconut despite using the same standard issue shampoo as the rest of us.
Or, the way Flicker would play with my fingers, threading them with hers while we talked.
I miss how Dazz always made me laugh, even when I was in a sour mood.
But most of all, I miss their hugs, the scent of their skin, and the comfort of being in the arms of someone who understands what it’s like to be an Omega.
The Alphas are so strange to me. They have their own secrets and rituals that I don’t understand. It’s like they speak a different language, one that’s full of growls and grunts and unspoken rules that I’m not privy to.
I can picture the four of us Omegas, sitting in our deck chairs with our silly little twirly straws sipping on fruity drinks, laughing about how handsome but odd these Alphas are.
The vision fades and a pang of loneliness hits me again. I miss the comfort of being around my people.
I sigh and set about fulfilling my Prime Alpha’s latest order.
After a day of soulless tasks and criticism, for some unknowable reason, Prime Asshole sent me off to the nearby babbling stream to fill five canteens of water.
Even though today wasn’t as physically demanding as previous days of cardio training, I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted.
As I lug the heavy containers across the clearing, my vision takes on a fluffy edge, and Knox looks much less intimidating than he probably wants to. In fact, in my drowsy state, he looks damn near cuddly.
He’d storm off in a huff if he knew what I’m thinking.
I giggle under my breath, and he shoots me a perplexed look.
As I pass by the shower, I hear the distinct patter of water falling, and the scent of gunpowder lets me know Viper is inside.
My steps waver, begging me to slip in beside him and take comfort from his powerful body.
When I’m not feeling well, my Omega instinctively reaches for him.
She knows he’ll take care of me in more ways than one.
The problem is, after the chase, he won’t look at me. He’s keeping his distance. I catch glimpses of him like he’s a skittish ghost haunting the campsite.
I chew on the inside of my lip and try to concentrate on what Knox is telling me.
“You’ve got to be comfortable making a fire in any condition.
It can mean life or death,” he drawls. We’ve already gone over fire building twice this week, but he wants to make sure I have the skill down to a science before he moves onto the next lesson.
The equipment makes it startlingly easy, but when Knox watches me with those burgundy eyes of his, I get flustered and I make mistakes.
I’m flooded with memories of his body pressed against mine, his strong arms crushing me to the hard planes of his body. The hot heat of his nose trailing along my sweat soaked skin, savoring my scent.
“Tonight, you’re cooking our dinner,” he declares.
I shake my head, dragging myself from my sultry memories, and register his order.
Ah, frack.
If I know one thing about soldiers, it’s you don’t mess with their food.
I’ve seen how ravenous this squad gets after a day of training. Knox and Viper are especially voracious. It’s probably because of how big they are. They burn a frack-ton of calories to sustain their massive frames.
‘They’re hungry for something not on the menu.’ I ignore my Omega’s horny interlude.
These days, she’s always at the forefront of my mind, pushing her instinctual urges forward and offering them up like they’re valid suggestions and comments.
I refuse to indulge in my thoughts again, so I shoot to my feet and hastily gather dry kindling to start the fire.
Up in the mountain range, everything is damp. Moss grows on anything that stands still for too long. Frack, even the roof of the bunkhouse has turned a slimy green.
I take a while to get the rut-damned twigs to ignite, but soon a healthy flame flickers to life and the heat grows. I feed it larger pieces of wood, this time from a stash of dried logs at the back of the kitchen tent.
A few days ago, Blaze dragged two logs from the forest to use as seats as we sit around the fire at night. I settle onto the log closest to the pots, and rake the glowing goals into a bed for the pots to sit on.
Since the chase and the squad’s radio silence on the matter, I’ve begun performing my own little experiments. Something happened when I spoke during O-space. My words suddenly held a power that made others comply.
I sprinkle little requests into my daily interactions and see how they respond. Most of the time, there is no discernible difference in their behavior. However, a handful of times, that familiar swell of authority settles on my shoulders.
“Come sit with me,” I say with attempted conviction, searching for the same assured tenor to my words that echoed in the forest last week.
I’m tired and a little spacey, so I don’t expect it to work, but then Knox does something unexpected.
He sits beside me.
It worked. A humming weight sits on my shoulders before disappearing with a tingle.
I don’t know what this skill is, or if he even noticed what I did, but I’m fast becoming enamored with my new covert power.
If this is how I can save The Omega Division and my Omega family, then I’m going to work hard to master it. Dazz, Ember, and Flicker don’t know they’re in danger, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’ll use whatever advantage I can muster to protect them.
He positions himself with his knees spread wide and his hands dangling between, seemingly comfortable being so close to me, despite actively avoiding proximity for an entire week.
I peer through my eyelashes at him. Frack, his hands look massive. He keeps them covered in black fingerless gloves, and I’m slightly obsessed with the need to see them off. Blinking rapidly, I focus back on the coals.
Knox looks my way and I realize I’ve stopped poking the coals, the stick hovering in mid-air as I daydream about how our fingers would fit together.
“Coals are looking good, Omega,” Knox says, and a shiver races through me at his compliment.
There’s something extra special about a positive Knox comment.
Receiving approval and praise from the stiff Prime Alpha makes me feel like I’m the only thing he’s thinking about in the entire world.
It’s addicting. If I am honest with myself, I push myself harder every day in the hopes of his praise.
Sometimes even an appreciative raise of his eyebrow is enough to make me grin to myself like a goofball.
“I think they’re hot enough now,” I say as I avert my eyes away from him.
The fire’s growing brighter as the wood crackles and hisses.
I pick up the larger of the two pots and set it atop the coal bed I created.
It takes me a few attempts to balance it, and after a while, the metal becomes too hot for me to hold.
I snap my hand back and shove my fingers into my mouth to cool the sting.
I feel his intense scrutiny as he watches me closely. His eyes take on a hooded, half-lidded predatory glint. They watch my mouth as I pull my two fingers out with a pop. His gaze flicks away, and the look is gone.
Knox points at the cooking pot. “Add the food before it gets too hot.”
Five packets of stew are deposited and swirled together to make a mush of questionable meat and vegetables.
“What even is this?” I mutter to myself, squinting in the fading light to read the packaging.
Knox takes the package from me and shakes his head. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
I swallow and nod.
He picks up the stirring spoon and slowly mixes the concoction. “Now boil the water.”
Water?
Oh! The water he made me collect.