Chapter Nine
Wallace
After taking the fastest shower in the history of the universe, we blew out of the house without so much as a goodbye. Both of us, unaccustomed to our wings, ran down the street, passing by the odd omega going about daily life like nothing in the world was different.
When we got to the medical center, Doc glared at me as we whipped by, brows pinched.
“Friend Wallace!” Fel met me at the doorway to his hall and took me into a treatment room, windows already alight.
“Platonic friend, right?” Roan’s snip made something dark, predatory, and nonsensical preen within me.
“Of course. Wallace is friend, not bedmate.” Fel almost laughed. “Besides. I have secured the necessary genetic contributions for egg laying from a few betas and the alpha Kris.”
“Krismas, you mean Rothnal?” Roan mouthed the names, brow creased. Likely trying to remember who the male was.
“Yes, a red alpha with stark green hair he kept pulled back.” Fel beamed.
The alpha had been a quiet addition to our team, and for his color had been given the name of the old Terran holiday with customs based off an old religion that involved eggs and bunnies and worshiped a fat man in a suit.
Or was it the morbid effigy of an emaciated Semite on a stick?
I never could tell. History got distorted before the Progenitors.
“See, he doesn’t need me, Roan.” I flopped onto the examination table and went limp.
“I do not, in fact, need you. Please remove yourself from my table.” Fel shooed me away as I slipped off.
“The other one. You, omega with the color of fostinum.” He beckoned a reticent Roan to the table and gently eased him back. “It’s very easy to forget your lot doesn’t have the education we had access to. It’s a shame.”
Fel fiddled around the room, pulling out something for a blood draw, which he took with such quick and perfunctory touch that Roan barely had time to hiss and draw his arm back before the device had done its thing.
Satisfied, Fel pushed the device into something on the wall where a vial popped out and slotted into a space.
“What the—” Roan flinched while Fel engaged the computer and positioned the 4D scanner. “Hey!”
“Okay, let me log data.” Fel typed away in the air, filling in Roan’s name as he spoke. The characters, though foreign, had become familiar in so short a time, as any other language did with brainstem chip technology.
“Right. Age, date of transformation?” Fel added more information in, consulting with another window to translate Roan’s years to theirs and their seasons to our lunar cycles.
He’d only been transformed for a few months. It surprised me, but it seemed right. Roan always felt so much older than me, that it was interesting to feel more on his level.
“Okay, and the last time you’ve copulated with a beta?” Fel held a hand up, fingers poised.
“I don’t think he—” I flinched when he answered.
“Two weeks ago? This season thing has been unbearable. I had to have some relief on the journey. I do apologize, Wallace.” Roan didn’t look at me, but the bottom wanted to fall from my stomach.
Fel gave me a knowing look, and my stomach gave me no signal that it was going to return.
“We encourage the males that have been with one but not the other to wear a collar if they do not wish to mate. We also encourage collar use to keep from one of us being claimed against our will.” Fel stared at his screen, avoiding my gaze as he scrolled through things.
“When our kind wished to copulate…they seldom cared if they were compatible, only that eggs were born.”
He did not mean Naleucians.
“I didn’t mean to claim him. I tried not to.” My voice came out in a hoarse whisper.
“The fact that you tried tells me two things. One—he was with a beta before you and in season. The second thing is that you two are compatible.” Fel engaged a machine through his application, and a scan of Roan’s body popped up, enabling him to pan around and view his innermost workings. “Hm.”
“Hm? What does Hm mean?” Roan sat up, eyes traversing the image.
“That in a few days, we’ll bring you in for another scan to see if it took, unless you want to try flushing your system.
” Fel said the last part as if it pained him.
“If we needed reproductive material so badly, we could ask for manually produced samples. Copulation isn’t necessary.
It’s not a terrible thing to mate when you are compatible. ”
Wallace’s heart cinched in his chest. “And if he wants to not be mated?”
“I recommend we excise his marking, run a complete purge of his lymphatic system, and that he leave the planet and not return for at least forty Naleucian solar rotations.” Saying it aloud made the prospect worse.
But neither of us responded right away. Anything I said may have hurt Roan, may have damaged the trust I had with Fel.
“Compatible how?” Roan cleared his throat.
“Typically, personality traits in a given Naleucian can be determined fairly reliably by color and by scent—to a given partner, that is. I’m not getting into chromatic bigotry.
We’re an evolved species and we do not judge by the color of scales.
” Fel waved a hand dismissively. “But, the fact that your instinct was to claim, told you he was a perfect match for you biologically and likely temperamentally. And has been bred by a compatible beta.”
“Wait, I thought we only had to avoid threesome—” Roan choked as Fel pointed to the screen.
I had zero clue what I was looking at. Though, getting a close-up view of Roan’s insides did give me an idea of what I’d been touching that sent him over the edge. I made some mental notes as Fel cleared his throat and pointed toward a complex mass. Still. No clue.
Fel’s tail snapped at the ground in frustration.
“This is an active duct. Blood flow has the tissue swollen, supporting sperm. This is several weeks active, so it tells me the sperm is being kept viable. So, there’s sperm here, which I assume is beta.
And I don’t need a 4D to tell me what Friend Wallace contributed. I can smell it.”
“Well, that’s gross.” Roan shrank in his seat.
“And this is a ripened ovum. You’re a few days out from ovulating, my guess. Your shell gland is concentrating mineral salts. You’re prepared for an egg to be fertilized.” With a few final gestures, Fel stared me down, and Roan squinted at the image.
“Fuck.” I rested my face in my palm and took a shuddering breath. “Roan, I—”
“I can take care of a child on my own. I don’t need your assistance.” Roan huffed and crossed his arms.
“That’s inadvisable.” Fel hummed as he zoomed in and frowned. He panned to the other side, another organ almost identical to the shape he’d indicated previously. “Aaaand this is another ovum. You’ll be raising two hatchlings, potentially.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m poor. I can afford childcare.” Roan glared at me. “Or do you wish to make this needlessly complicated?”
“No, I do not wish to make this needlessly complicated! I didn’t want to mate you, and I didn’t want to force you to have my chil—children.” I reached up to tug at my ear, a habit I’d developed in lieu of having hair.
“If you don’t want me, I’ll stay where the healthcare is optimal for my laying and I’ll leave once they’ve hatched and are declared healthy. I understand I’ve not earned any favor with my history—” Roan slid from the table, tail twitching with utter grief that his face hid with anger.
“Stop that, this instant!” I held my hand out, fingers spread. And as if by magic, Roan froze in place.
“Friend Wallace, do not do that in my presence, please. If you wish to lay down your authority, do not do so in such a way that would harm your mate, your trust, or your health. And this stress will harm an omega ready to ovulate. Children are very much desired. And while we did not encourage anyone to prevent conception, we certainly will not force anyone to conceive.” Fel stressed that word friend as if it meant something.
“Do what?” I glanced from Roan to Fel, whatever tense moment strung up between us falling flat as Roan exhaled a deep breath and sagged. He stumbled a step before glancing at me in confusion and horror that seemed to echo in the air between us.
“How did you do that?” The flash of betrayal in Roan’s eyes made my heart flip.
“Do what!” I stepped back, heart thundering hard.
“You exerted alpha control. Since you’re mated, your command works on them.” Fel’s expression and tail relented. “Is this something you do not know?”
“I—I didn’t know. I won’t do it again. I—”
“Until he completes your mating, you are dominant in the bond.” Fel’s tail did a little slithery thing that told me he was disgusted.
And all I wanted to do was cry. “You say we’re compatible? Personality wise?”
Fel nodded once, tail flicking in agreement.
I glanced at Roan, thoughts racing through my mind. I’d done so many stupid things in my life and this would be the tip of the iceberg. As I stared Roan down, the omega he’d become, the beauty of him and the shape. “And what about the beta you slept with?”
“Robard.” Roan glanced at Fel, who took the cue to look something up in the system.
The codes and search he did, listed second arrival, beta, forty-percent, middling Tal, and recently changed.
Silver scales. Funnily enough, they thought he might present alpha as he had a secondary color in his scales, but it was only scarring in his old flesh. Blood tests confirmed beta, though.
Fel scrolled through notes. “I’ll send him a message informing him of the fertilization impending. He’s become infatuated with an omega that reciprocates, and they’re going to nest together. It looks like the Affa wishes to bond after the season so he can ensure his duty.”
I wanted to stop him, to keep the male away, but Fel was remarkably fast at what he did. Roan, for his part, migrated toward me and lowered his head, resting his forehead against my chest with a short huff. “I like you.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I rested a hand on his back, hand rubbing slowly. “What do you want to do, Roan?”
He hesitated for a moment. I nudged him to respond, and he slapped at my chest and huffed, turning to storm out.
Fel gave me a look swimming with hurt before following after him. He hesitated in the doorway before glancing over at me. “What do you want to do, friend Wallace?”
Fel waited for my response, fingers gripping the doorway.
I met his gaze and shrugged. “Whatever my omega wishes.”
“The only correct answer.” Fel nodded once and left, following after him.
Not knowing what else to do, I sat in a nearby chair, slouching over my knees as I let myself have that cry I wanted.