Page 43 of Shared Omega

“I’m not part of the tribe that inhabits the city ruins. The Alphas there shun me for being a half-breed.”

“A half-breed?” I ask.

The flicker of emotion on Truk’s face makes me suddenly feel bad for asking about that. It’s not really my business. Then again, he brought it up.

Looking off toward the trees, he explains.

“There are two types of Alphas here in the Zone. One group lives within the city ruins. They live close to the Source. It nourishes them, keeps them sane. They are honorable and follow strict codes of conduct, and above all else, they are devoted to protecting their omegas.”

At that last part, his eyes dart toward me, then Dog, before looking away again.

“Then there are the Farlanders. They are descended from the ones who were exiled long ago for their crimes. They have strayed too far and too long from the Source. Through generations of inbreeding, their minds and their bodies have become warped. Their only code is cruelty.”

I find my eyes drifting again to those scars on his back and shoulders.

It is Dog’s voice that breaks the silence.

“So when you say you are a half-breed, you mean that you are part Farlander and part city Alpha?”

Truk nods.

Now it makes sense why his face looks the way it does, mostly human, but kissed with that bestial quality of the Farlanders.

His demeanor, however, shows no sign of cruelty to me. He can be ferocious, yes, but I sense that his heart is good.

“My mother was an omega from the tribe that dwells in the city ruins. My fathers were Farlanders.” Truk flashes Dog a searing look full of pain and pent up anger. “Understand?”

His fathers? Plural?

For a moment, I find myself wanting to ask why an omega from the supposedly honorable central tribe would willingly mate with those awful Farlander Alphas. But I catch myself, as the realization begins to sink in.

It wasn’t done willingly.

His mother was raped.

Truk goes on, his voice shaking with restrained rage.

“My mother didn’t survive my birth. That was probably for the best. The Farlander Alphas raised me, if you can call it that. They beat me every day of my childhood. Clawed me. Burned me. They took great delight in my screams. As I grew older and stronger, I learned to deny them that pleasure, accepting my punishment silently, which only made them beat me harder. I hated my fathers. But I am also grateful for the strength they gave me, even if that was not their intent.”

His eyes gleam with fire beneath the shade of his heavy brow.

“Truk,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, I…”

“Don’t be sorry,” he cuts me off brusquely. “Eventually I grew big enough and strong enough that they couldn’t beat me anymore. I killed my fathers, all three of them. That would have made me the leader of the pack, but I wanted nothing to do with the Farlanders, so I set out on my own.”

Truk takes a deep inhale, and I get the impression that he’s sucking all of his emotions deep inside.

It grows quiet. The only sound is the whisper of the breeze through the grass and the occasional twitter of birds in the woods. I let Truk’s sad story sink in. He is shunned by the city Alphas, and he hates the Farlanders.

He comes from two worlds, but he doesn’t have a place in either one of them.

I can sense a deep loneliness inside him.

An intense desire to belong.

I can relate to that. As the only female marine in the SynerGen corps, I’ve never fit in. I’ve always felt like a pariah.

And then there’s the fact that I’m an orphan.