Page 43 of The First Alpha on the Planet
Sarge had avoided the area like the plague since everything went down. Having been Revulon at one point, he found the prospect particularly difficult. And he didn’t want Doc around it, for understandable reasons. The scent clung to my hair, my skin, and scales, imbedded in my clothes. I smelled delicious.
A sickening chorus of crunches drew me inexorably toward the dining yard, and I stared out, each of them eagerly gorging themselves on the succulent flesh.
A low, droning chime hummed through the air. The only people looking up and around were the former hybreeds, including myself as I squinted skyward until I found the faint shape of incoming airborne transport.
A beep alerted me to a private call, and I waved to accept it. Zurok patched in a floating window before me and gave me a forced smile. “Wallace, would you like to come along for a meeting with a dignitary from another commune?”
“Uhh, what would I be able to contribute?” I shrugged, and Zurok smiled.
“You are my kin.” Zurok spoke those words as if they carried leaden gravity in them. “And Liru wishes to attend with Roan and the eggs. An alpha present would do nicely, especially one that would be happy to bring some steamed Revulon claws?”
And there the crux of it lay. Food. I nodded in agreement and ended the call with a wave.
I sighed heavily and packed up an enormous gathering basket full of fresh claws and a few rocks, to be safe.
I made my way out of the kitchens with a wave to the other staff and directed myself toward the offices and affairs buildings where Zurok worked with other public service workers. His role as spokesperson for the commune in something of a management and mayoral assignment, necessitated a lot of space for his purposes. And since the public services building handled orders of food and trade from other communes, I found myself there quite often with requests.
So, when I made it there with the claws still steaming, three faces I recognized brightened up as I sauntered in, while two others perked up with interest. I gave Roan a sultry smile, my tail curling in invitation to him as his cheeks flushed and he glanced away. To the other members of my family unit, I offered polite nods, greeting Liru first as an omega. I was beginning to learn the tail gestures by instinct, and my flick of equality, acknowledging Zurok as an alpha equal to me, earned a little huff of pride. “Liru, Zurok. And who do we have here?”
A watery green omega with bright and silvery pupils tilted his head and smiled at me, eyes drifting more toward my basketof food than my face, though his tail gave a sign of greeting. “Greetings, Alpha.”
Instead of offering my hand for a shake, our tails trailed out to tap at one another in acknowledgement, and to his partner I offered the same.
“This is Sarka.” Zurok gestured toward the green omega.
“And this is my mate, Tsul.” Sarka exchanged a soft curl of tails with a rather petite blue omega at his side, not like Vil’s royal blue or Noel’s watery paleness. His scales were dark and sinister, framing pale skin, hair a white sheet over his shoulders, almost hiding beautiful golden eyes.
I offered a nod of my head to the male. “Greetings, Alpha.”
I studied the pair; Sarka dressed much like Zurok and myself, meaning, he also identified as alpha.
“Sarka manages the Delta colony and was tasked with monitoring their wilds, and are therefore responsible for tonight’s meal.” Zurok lifted his chin and flicked his tail with a sharp snap.
Tsul, the deep-blue omega, reached out and took one of the claws without invitation and delighted as his sharp little claws pried apart the shell with ease, a feat of strength even I couldn’t manage. And so, when I raised my brows in surprise, Sarka gave me a slight glance. “The smallest of us have the greatest fine strength.”
His gaze trailed back to his mate with a curl of affectionate tail and with a slight blush to the dusky skin of his cheeks, he spoke again. “And the biggest appetites.”
“One does not turn down the opportunity to consume their enemies. And if we are to take the blame for this oversight, I might as well enjoy the fruit of war.” With oily clawtips, Tsul pulled flaky meat free and ate, juices dripping over his chin.
“Revulon are very resistant to physical attacks until they are hosted by a Colthraxian. Are you certain you destroyed theircorpses?” Sarka tilted his head toward me, and my upper lip twitched.
“Very certain. We accounted for every corpse and made sure to find the Colthraxian. They were all preserved and are in the lab to see if they can trace back who their lineage traced from. I found a database of genetic samples and my operating system, and I programed a cross reference, and we were able to narrow it down to four individuals from Epsilon and Delta.” Roan opened a window with a flick of his wrist and drew out a sheet of charts with images of a few omegas of varying colors, all with bitterness in their eyes.
“Hey, don’t discount what I did, man.” Merriel’s voice piped up over Roan’s droning speak about the programming he’d done. So, when Roan stopped, he glared and lowered his head, gesturing for Merriel to speak.
“Spectrography! You’ve got satellites capable of creating heat maps and topographical searches, so I just made it a bit more sensitive, andboom, my dudes. Tweak this and that and there you go! All the bastards are lit up—oh.” Merriel’s tone dropped off as a new window lit up and showed moving dots all over town and a huge mass in the public kitchens. “Well, once you’ve gathered up all the dead Revulon and incinerated them… And everyone’s done digesting their meat… This will tell us where any living ones are.”
Tsul chewed slowly. “Interesting. Well, in two days, this will be a very useful mapping program.”
“Yeah, and check it out, if I change it to this—” The dots changed, distributed about a dozen homes and milling around the streets. Merriel laughed.
“Is this Noel’s DNA?” Roan stared at the pulsing dots on the map.
“Nah, it’s Gorm’s.” Merriel’s pleased tones made everyone in the room aside from Tsul and Sarka shudder.
Though, the two did look curious, Zurok informed them of Gorm’s prodigious manwhoring capabilities, to which they both shared our expression.
“Yeah, gross, right? So, if I change it to Noel’s,” Merriel said, altering the map so palest-blue dots hovered about.
