Page 22 of Shared Omega

“How did you find me?” she asks.

I gesture off into the woods.

“As I was falling, I saw your chute go down somewhere over here. As soon as I recovered from my landing, I headed this way. When I got close, I heard your screams.”

She turns toward me, eyes wide.

“Dog,” she stammers. “All that stuff I was saying to the Alphas to entice them…I was just trying to get them riled so they would wear themselves out. I didn’t—“

I smirk and raise one hand to quiet her.

“I know, I know. You don’t have to explain. It was a good plan.”

Sloane sighs with relief. Apparently she really cares what I think about her.

But what I just told her about finding her by following her shouts is only half true. I’m leaving out the part about how I caught her scent from over a mile away. Hell, I could have found her blindfolded.

That scent is going to be a problem. It’s going to draw more feral Alphas down on us. We made short work of these five, but if they arrive in greater numbers we’ll be in trouble, especially in this darkness.

“We need to get out of here, find some shelter for the remainder of the night.”

Sloane nods.

She seems rattled. At first I think it’s because she’s still shaken by her fall. But maybe it was something else. Maybe it was that moment we shared when I was holding her in my arms. Maybe it’s the implications of the fact that I’m an Alpha and she’s an omega.

“We need to find the ship,” she says. “With any luck we can send a message back to Central Command.”

“It went down somewhere in this direction,” I say, pointing. “I saw the smoke over the trees.”

“All right,” she says. “Lead the way.”

***

Scattered flames from the wrecked craft light up the crash site, casting a wavering orange glow against the wall of trees surrounding the clearing. At one end there is a swath of broken trees, their trunks shattered to toothpicks, then a long deep gash in the grassy ground where the fuselage plowed through the earth.

Only the front half of the ship remains, and the interior is exposed by a ragged hole where the back half ripped away on impact. The edge is fringed with broken piping and wires, some of which are spitting yellow sparks intermittently.

The destruction is worse than anything I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen more than my fair share.

“What a mess,” I grumble.

“Let’s just hope the communicator is still working,” Sloane says.

Her black protective suit was all ripped up from the tree limbs, so she used her knife to cut away the tattered fabric from her thighs down, leaving her lower body covered in a pair of ragged shorts that expose the tanned curves of her long legs. She removed the top part of the outfit completely, and now she’s only sporting the thin, white tank top that she was wearing underneath and her military dog tags around her neck.

Right now, I’m trying, without much success, to ignore the way her erect nipples are poking through the tight, white cloth.

I enter the wreck first, hopping easily inside before offering my arm to pull Sloane up after me. She is so small, she might as well be weightless.

“Careful,” I tell her. “The deck is unsteady. Hang onto me in case the fuselage shifts.”

I’m happy when she does as I tell her, clinging tightly to my arm. I lead the way toward the cockpit, bracing against the empty seats and scorched wall as we traverse the deck, which is slanted almost forty-five degrees.

The fires inside the ship have mostly gone out, leaving the space dark. I navigate mainly by feel. As we move forward, I pick up a sickly sweet smell of barbecued meat, and I know what it is before my eyes even have a chance to adjust to the low light.

The remains of our team.

An arm here, a pair of legs there, boots still on, strips of environmental protection suit melted to the cooked flesh.