Page 12 of Shared Omega

That means she must have been an orphan.

From what I understand, that’s not uncommon for females in the city hive. With the population levels skyrocketing, the government instituted a policy where each family is only allowed one child. Most families want a male who will earn more in the workplace when he grows up. If they have a little girl, many parents will abandon her to an orphanage.

Or worse.

It’s fucked up, but that’s the reality of life in the city hive.

It’s all so different from the way things work in the Zone. In the Zone, the females bear huge litters. The more the better.

And females—omegas—are prized above everything else.

I give the woman warrior, Sloane, one last look, and then close my eyes, turning my mind inward to recall what I know about the Zone.

Frostgrave has schooled me about it thoroughly.

When the Cataclysm happened over a century ago, it induced severe mutations in the human population within a fifty-mile radius. The mutations fell into three classes.

The most common were the betas, though all of them are dead now. Betas were basically zombies who would wander in a mindless daze. According to the stories, they didn’t last long. If they didn’t starve or fall down a manhole, they would end up getting torn to shreds by the second most common mutants—the Alphas.

The Alpha mutation, which is what I’ve got, only occurred in the male population. Those afflicted became hypermasculine monsters with superhuman strength and agility. In my case, my intense training and conditioning keeps my impulses in check. In the wild, however, Alphas have an insatiable hunger for violence.

Violence and one other thing.

Mating.

The rarest of the mutants are omegas. That mutation only occurred among the female population. The women who became omegas immediately fell into a state of intense reproductive receptivity known as estrus.

In short, they went into heat.

Upon mutation, the omega’s body would send out an extraordinary quantity of pheromones, signalling to any nearby Alphas that the omega was ready to be mated.

The omegas would lose themselves in a nearly trance-like state of raw lust, begging to be claimed and bred by as many males as they could take. The Alphas would descend upon a screaming omega in packs, using the female’s body roughly and mercilessly for their pleasure until her estrus finally abated.

We saw that first hand in Lily O’Neal’s neuro-transmitter recording.

And I’ve seen it once with my own eyes during a scouting mission deep into the center of the Zone.

With my eyes closed, I try to visualize the outside world that we are flying over. By now, the barren wastelands have given way to an entirely different landscape of lush, wild meadows and patches of dense forest.

The truth is that the natural beauty of the Zone is breathtaking. It’s nothing like the teeming, claustrophobic atmosphere of the city hive.

Donovitch’s obnoxious voice breaks me out of my reverie.

“Hey Sloane,” The loudmouth marine calls from his seat. “How you doin’ over there? You getting scared yet?”

There’s a faint tremble in Donovitch’s voice. It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there, nonetheless. If I hadn’t seen a dozen assholes like him, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. The truth is, he’s the one who’s scared shitless, and the only way he can cope is by projecting his insecurity onto Sloane.

I crack one eye open to watch how the woman reacts.

Sloane doesn’t let it shake her. She just ignores him and calmly goes about the business of double checking her parachute harness.

But Donovitch persists. He leans out into the aisle, grinning broadly.

“Look, Sloane,” he says. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll protect you from those big bad Alphas down there, but you’ll have to do me a favor in return.”

Sloane rolls her eyes.

“Oh yeah?” she responds in her cool, contralto voice. “What did you have in mind?”