Page 40 of The First Alpha on the Planet
I liked that. Zurok stroked the shell and rubbed his head against my leg affectionately in the most platonic of ways, yet intimate. “And our young will call you Ota Roan and Affa Wallace, acknowledging your role, but in name alone.”
I smiled. Roan sighed in utter relief. “This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made, and the easiest one.”
“Ew.” Doc rolled his eyes as he stared at us. “I’m calling Sarge to come escort me before you make me want another.”
“Gorm would be happy to aid you in that.” I threw the comment out as Doc gave me the finger and left, his tail swishing happily.
I never knew curling up with other men so platonically was possible, but such was being a creature of Paradise, I supposed.
Joy blossomed in my heart as our little egg sent out a single thought, wordless and like a flicker in our minds.
Family.
Chapter Sixteen
Roan
In the early morning, when the strange condensation of the planet clung to the screen of our glassless windows, I yawned and stretched. A low-pitched droning sound unsettled me as Liru and Zurok rose aside me, Wallace snoozing away, tail curled around our egg as if the entire world was fine. I yawned and studied the alerted twitch of their tails. “What the fuck is that?”
“Subsonic sound. Omegas are more susceptible to it.” Zurok lifted little Risel and slid him into Liru’s arms. “It’s a high alert. Something’s happening.”
Zurok stepped from the room, his own AI system responding to a tail gesture as he spoke, calling the watch team for an update.
A feral snarl in the distance made all the scales on my arms ripple and tail shiver. A roar and shriek followed, waking Wallace from a dead sleep to turn and brace his sturdy forebody over our egg with a domineering posture, teeth bared and wings flitting out to make himself appear bigger.
“Something’s going on.” I gestured toward Liru who stroked Risel’s shell anxiously.
“I assume we’re being invaded.” Liru didn’t move to the window, but Wallace did, relenting as I took our egg into my arms. He peered down, and his tail curled offensively, entire body twisted tight in readiness to attack.
“Get in the safe room!” Zurok’s shout came just a moment before clawed pincers scraped our bedroom window. Liru nodded once and tugged at my arm, and we made our way to the cellar, a small space that was mainly reserved for storage of emergency provisions.
Something in my body kept twitching and pulsing as my wings forced their way free, my every muscle tight and ready to fight in a way I hadn’t felt since I was in my formative years, gun wielding and tearing Synofians to shreds as the church pitched war over territory.
Liru knew something I didn’t when he reached out to take my nameless egg with a gentle sweep, nudging me with his tail. “You’re a warrior. I am not. Go fight.”
“What?” I froze in place, my arms shaking with adrenaline as old training came back to me. Things I’d trained myself to evolve beyond, curled in the back of my mind and reached inky tendrils through me.
“Not all of us are pacifists. If you have teeth that wish to tear and rend,go.” Liru took my egg into his arms with its brother, and I hesitated only a moment before stepping back while he bolted the metallic door with a damning clang.
I turned on my heel and bolted, chasing after the direction Wallace and Zurok had left.
I had no idea where I was expected to go, but the ruckus of snarls and ululating clicks drove me out. The translator chip in my head scattered half words and chopped-up tones with a piercing ache. Revulons had to use communication devices to mimic Terran speech, because even if they did come up with the correct vocalizations, their inherent clicking and screeching caused pain to species with delicate hearing. On Paradise, they did no such thing.
A streak of pale blue whizzed by me on the tips of their toes, eyes narrowed and teeth bared. Sharp claws swiped and screeched through armor plate that had been bolted onto the exoskeleton of a Revulon that appeared to have recently scaled a nearby building; the mortar of the building pocked with claw-marks and missing chunks at the sill.
“Noel?” A whisper escaped my lips, unheard in the din and chaos of the street where a rainbow of lizard men leaped and clawed, their utopia lacking in weapons to fight something so unexpected.
Noel studied his prey as he climbed over their hulking frame, seven and a half feet of tanklike brute strength. With blinding speed, his tail whipped, slapping at the creature, clanging against the metal tacked to its frame. I thought the gesture to be haphazard and crazed at first, but realized as soon as he straightened his fingers, pinned them, clawed down, and stabbed into a joint between abdominal plates, that he was gauging weak points.
Once his hand sank into the flesh, he latched on to the screeching beast, angled his arm upward and clenched, jerking out a string of blue and black innards with a revolting scent that slapped me in the face and a sound that made my stomach clench and mouth water. I’d always been taught to make my kills clean, but as bubbling bile and yellow, frothing fluid escaped the gap in the creature’s shell, it stumbled.
Noel pulled his arm back as his tail whipped about, hoisting him up to grab onto the creature’s flailing head that he jerked with a sickening crunch.
“Progenitors…” I flinched as Noel leaped off the body, slicked his filthy hand back through his untamed locks, and snarled with what could only be described as joy.
He glanced over, locking eyes with me for a blink before tilting his head in the direction of another approaching beast. I pointed at myself. “Me?”
“Either take it or bring me some butter and a really fucking big space crab cracker.” He licked his lips, dark viscera staining his chin.
