Page 58 of Shared Omega

“I don’t believe him,” Dog says.

Still keeping his eyes shut, the Alpha sighs with exasperation.

“I swear it by the Source.”

Truk gestures toward Dog and speaks in a quiet voice.

“We can trust him. The Alphas of the ruins are brutal, but they are honorable. They keep their word, especially if they swear upon the Source.”

There is a strange tone in Truk’s accented voice, and a glow to his face. It takes me a moment to identify it.

Admiration.

He is filled with overwhelming admiration for the Alpha warrior. All his life he has been an outcast, a pariah. All he’s ever wanted is to be accepted as part of a tribe. All he’s ever wanted is to join the tribes of the ruins.

Dog rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” Dog grumbles. “But we sleep with Sloane between us, and we take turns keeping watch until daybreak. You may trust this fucker, but I don’t.”

Truk nods.

The night is getting chilly, and a shiver runs through my muscles. I’m suddenly startlingly aware once again of how naked I am—how naked we all are.

“Come on,” Dog says, guiding me by the shoulder. “Come lie down. I’ll put more wood on the fire.”

He casts one last mistrustful glance at the warrior where he is slouched against the column, his piercings winking in the light of the dying fire.

“Hey,” Dog calls to him. “You got a name, Alpha? What do we call you?”

The Alpha grunts, and casually scratches his back against the column like a bear.

“Kane,” he answers. “You can call me Kane.”

CHAPTER 18: DOG

Well, here we are. Another day, another Alpha.

I don’t like it.

The thing is, my attitude toward Truk is changing. Yesterday, I was wary of him, but last night he proved that he’s willing to fight alongside me to protect our omega.

Our omega.

We share her now, and we share the responsibility for her safety.

Truk is trustworthy. His primitive mind is too simple for duplicity and schemes. If he was planning to double-cross us, I would have sussed it out by now.

The new Alpha, Kane, however, is an entirely different story.

He’s up to something. I can smell it on him.

He’s leading us into a trap.

About a mile outside the city perimeter, Kane leads us up a slope. At the top of the rise there was once a small building. Now all that remains are two broken rockcrete walls meeting at a right angle, their crumbling tops slanting down to the ground in jagged lines. A small rectangular window is set into one wall.

Kane pulls up beside the decrepit wall. Leaning his bulk against the cracked rockcrete, he gazes off toward the city.

From this distance, I can easily make out Alphas moving about in the city ruins. The population is sparse—nothing like the teeming tide of flesh that fills the hive city of Galadon-1 to the bursting point. Still, there are dozens of Alphas that I can see, and I know from my previous excursions that there are hundreds more inside.