Chapter Three
Wallace
I laid back on one of their strange loungers, the space for a tail hollow over my smooth backside. They hooked a needle into my neck, going for a good artery there, and the serum that pumped into me tingled.
“I got good news and bad news,” Doc said from somewhere in his clinic. This one had separate rooms and other omegas trained in healthcare, but they let Doc keep our team treated.
“Am I going to die?” I called out from around the corner and earned a hiss of reprisal.
“At least pretend to not hear us, thank you!” Doc’s churlish tones quieted me.
Noel had some theory about my line of hybreeds needing repeated exposure and large doses because my percentage had increased, little by little.
I’d hit fifties sometime a week ago. It hadn’t moved since, though, and one of the omegas kept passing by the room, staring at me again.
My burgeoning alpha status made me somewhat rare, as only a few of us aboard the ship carried the status.
They were often the more unstable hybreeds.
Still, the pretty green one stared at me, blue freckles highlighting his cheeks.
“No.” I glared as he slid by once more, face faltering as I offered him rejection. A sudden guilt overcame me, and I sighed. “Sorry to be rude. I don’t want to… I like fucking to be special, not…” I waved my hand about.
“It wasn’t my intention to offer you my body, though I wouldn’t mind.
I merely wanted to see if I could add my own input to this, as I have worked with lifeseeds before.
” He stood more in the doorway, slight posture slouching with a curvaceous lilt to his hips, tail not doing the curlique fuck-me come-hither thing all the others did when they wanted in my pants.
“Ever worked with a mix like me? I’m bloody more Tal than human.” I pouted and rocked my head from side to side as the needle stung a little.
“No. But I can sense a stalling in your percentages. It’s strange, like your organs aren’t getting the message.” He took another step in. “I’m Fel, by the way.”
“Wallace.” I said it and flinched as his face tensed. “It’s got some old, old meaning, basically foreigner.”
“That is not what it means here.” He pursed his lips and strode over to a terminal to gesture at it, asking my permission to snoop.
“I know, I know. Feel free.” If I could go all day without hearing what my name meant in their tongue, I’d be happy.
“Why would one name their child foreigner?” Fel opened a screen and panned through my records.
I didn’t like the silence that had spread from down the hall. It sounded like a fight was about to break out until Doc’s ultimatum.
I sank back in my seat as the omega before me made dozens of hand gestures, scrolling through text in a way that was much slower than I’d seen Noel do. I’d thought him the norm until finding other omegas. He was built different, I supposed. “What’s up with them?”
I gestured my head down the hall before Fel gave a gesture with his tail that was paramount to a shrug. The herbal scent of something they used as a cleaner reminded me of rosemary in a way, and my stomach growled. Mind wandering to food, as it always did, I asked. “What plant makes that smell?”
“Furano vine distillate.” He tabbed through a few pages.
“Is it edible?” I waited, and he shrugged.
“Not poisonous. Nutritional value is nil. It’s a great cleaner, though.” He tapped away in the air, glancing about.
“It smells like an herb, a seasoning we use. Makes meat taste better.” I sniffed at the air again and they hummed.
“Shouldn’t be harmful in the least. Do you need some of the distillate? It’s very bitter.”
“The dried plant material, ideally.” I sat up and stared at him hopefully.
“Sounds lovely. I’ll pluck some from my garden in the morning if you offer me a taste.
” He gave me a smile, and his tail did something, a flick—not a sexual one.
Just a little motion that caught my attention.
I made a note to pay more attention to it, because it felt like half of what they were saying was missing.
Noel felt like that sometimes, but he was infinitely worse at the tail gestures, as if he grew up without—which he did.
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to bring some by.” I waited in silence as he flicked his tail again. This time in a gesture I was more familiar with. Thinking. It told me he was not to be disturbed, as he was focused.
As I waited, shifting uneasily in my chair, he glanced over and raised a brow, a somehow practiced gesture as if to bridge the gap of communication with me. His tail, however, made a curious flick. “Is there a problem?”
“Haven’t heard Noel or Doc in a minute, and Noel was supposed to be back in here.” I glanced out the door, and a soft shiver went down the male’s tail.
“Oh. Noel may be expecting an egg soon. He’s ovulating and has filled his oviducts.” Fel waved a hand and panned a few pages about.
“How’s he taking that news?”
“I only heard in passing.” Fel panned another window and zoomed in, eyes scanning. “Well, this seems interesting.”
“What?” I craned my neck to look at the scrolling pages of Naleucian script.
“We need a mass of flesh or an organ transfer.”
“Not happening. Especially if Noel might be expecting again.” I huffed, recalling what he’d had to do for Roan, the sacrifice to his body, his egg, and the crew to secure his stay.
At the time, we’d thought it the right thing for him to do.
In our greed, we didn’t see him as our captain’s mate, but as a denied haul. Guilt twisted my belly.
“It need not be Noel. We have samples of other lifeseeds, though him being mated has vastly concentrated his venom, which seems to act as an immunosuppressant and lets the change happen much faster… You’ve got the antibodies from his venom at least.” Fel scrolled one more page and closed things out. “Okay, I have a theory.”
I slanted my gaze as his tail tip twitched in what must have been excitement. “Speak away, friend.”
“Truly?” Fel wheeled around on his heel.
“Yeah, I’d love to hear.” I blinked in surprise as he approached me and leaned over my reclined form with bright, hopeful eyes.
“But you think of me as a friend?” So much hope lay in that beatific smile.
“Of course… Am I missing context?” I leaned my head back a little more so as to not have my personal space violated.
“Yeah, big-time.” Doc stormed in, tossing something into an open panel on the wall for disposal.
Naleucian tech had so much in common with modern technology, but it was unsurprising, as humans had modeled their technology after anything Naleucian they could get their hands on for generations since the singularity where AI exceeded human intelligence.
Fel frowned, tail wilting. “So, he does not mean I am friend?”
“He means you are a dear acquaintance.” Doc glanced back and forth. “Unless you two wish to go somewhere and snuggle up?”
“Wait, what?” I pursed my lips. “What did I miss?”
“Friend who is one you trust with your eggs. Daiskitalliman… One who protects my eggs in leisure.” Fel pulled away from me, expression hurt.
“Calling someone a friend says you trust them with your progeny. It’s not a sex thing. Gorm’s dick got around so far, everyone’s looking for friends.” Doc stomped over and turned my wrist up, thumb traversing the scales there with a studious gaze. “You’re losing your micro osteoderms.”
“My skin’s getting smoother, yes.” I touched at my face and enjoyed the smoothness under my fingertips. “And I wouldn’t mind being a friend with Fel. He’s not gotten all up in my business wanting my dingaling!”
“I have not asked for your bell-ringing noise.” Fel’s brow furrowed. “Or is this a Terran phrase for one’s phallus?”
“Phallus,” Doc and I said at the same time.
“Ah. I would be greedy to ask for more alpha seed, as I have partaken of two of your alphas and three of your betas. I am well seeded for the oncoming season.” Fel beamed. “My mate, Arcus, would be thrilled to hear an alpha has agreed to befriend me. I’ll take you up on this!”
“Sure thing. Also, aren’t you guys worried about incest over time?” I figured if I kept my dick as a commodity, it’d be less likely I’d have children on this planet inventing banjos and Habsburg chins.
“In-cest?” Fel shrugged.
“Genetic overlap of deleterious expressions.” Doc’s explanation brightened his face.
“Ah! No. Between parthenogenesis and our own senses, we instinctively avoid genetic overlap in mating. Say, for instance, Takam. I am physically repulsed by him—so we likely share too many genetic similarities.”
“Isn’t Takam the yellow omega with the brown hair and spots?” I frowned. “Do omegas…you know?”
“I do not know.” Fel frowned.
“He’s asking if omegas fuck one another. Yes, they’ve been here for how fucking long with no alphas or betas? Half the omegas here have omega partners and chosen mates. They’ve adapted. They just need baby batter.”
“And appropriate semen.” Fel nodded sagely.
Doc rolled his eyes and shook his head. He made a flippant gesture at me. “Back on topic. What are your big brain ideas for this?”
“Tissue payload.” Fel beamed, clasping his hand as his tail shivered.
“Might work. Noel would sooner eat someone’s face than donate an organ at the moment.” Doc slanted his gaze toward the open doorway as a distant hiss carried on.
“Mind him not, he is in his period.” Fel shook his head.
“I’m so excited to potentially carry an egg that I cannot muster the energy to be easily angered.
I can understand with a hatchling so young that Noel wouldn’t be as excited about the prospect.
Have you thought about flushing his ducts and abstaining the rest of the season?
I have documentation on it. With a high enough saline content flush, we can ensure that conception won’t happen. ”
Doc gave an awkward grimace of a smile. “Yeah…”