Page 37 of Shared Omega

He’s not the first intruder I’ve found recently.

Last evening, I set off in the direction of the falling ship with the intention of checking it out. Just before sunrise, I found one Outsider. A male.

He was already quite dead by the time I got to him.

It was my first time to see an Outsider before. He was dressed in curious, unnatural clothing that covered most of his frail-looking body. But even more bizarre, he was strapped into a strange harness attached by strings to an enormous sheet of silk, the purpose of which I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

When I found him, his body was dangling from a tree, strangled by those weird cords.

He was lucky.

If the Farlanders had gotten to him first, his death would have been much less quick, and much more painful.

I continued toward where the ship went down.

However, having skipped my dinner and run all night, I was starving. I decided to come check the rabbit traps I sent near this old house where I sometimes make my camp. The traps were empty. The house, however, is not.

It’s occupied by this trespassing Alpha.

Now it’s time to find out who he is.

I drop down on all fours and crawl through the high grass, keeping my shoulders out of sight and my belly pressed to the ground like a snake. The earth has not had time to warm from the sun, and it is cool against my bare skin. The dewdrops dotting the grass wet my skin as I pass.

On all fours, I prowl out of the grass and slink on to the porch without making a sound. My eyes and my nose are on full alert.

Inside, the house is dark and quiet. Only a few knife-blades of morning sunlight are stabbing through the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

The first floor is clear. I climb the stairs cautiously, avoiding every loose and creaky board by memory.

I reach the second floor. Clear too. But the scent is getting stronger.

The bastard is upstairs.

Climbing one more set of steps, I reach the upstairs hallway. My muscles are tense as steel coils ready to spring. My body hairs are all on end, ready for a fight to the death. I drink in a deep, silent breath, then home in on the intruder’s scent.

I freeze.

Unbelievable. How did I not notice until now? There is a second scent, a faint odor, mostly hidden beneath the Alpha’s musk, but it’s there just the same, raw and feminine and sweet, like wild honey, like a flower begging to be pollinated.

My cock bucks beneath my fur loincloth.

There’s an omega here.

And she’s in heat.

Suddenly the house shudders with a deafening roar, and the wall to my left erupts in an explosion of plaster and splintered wood. The enemy Alpha flies through the dark opening, teeth bared and straining muscles trailing strips of rotting wallpaper.

I barely have time to pivot and meet the attack. Our bodies connect with a harsh crack and we tumble backward, bursting through the wall on the other side of the corridor and into the adjacent room.

The Alpha is strong and fierce, but I’m no stranger to fighting.

Somersaulting backward, I kick the attacker off of me, sending him whirling across the room. He smashes against a window, knocking loose the boards, and a brilliant column of sunlight streams in, illuminating the room.

I leap to my feet, preparing to turn and face my opponent, but something gives me pause—a tiny, feminine voice.

“Dog?”

A gust of air whirls in from the hole where we burst through the wall, bringing with it a swirl of dust and the pungent heat-reek of the omega.