Page 8 of Shared Omega

“Until now,” Frostgrave adds.

A new murmur passes through the briefing room.

“That’s right,” Colonel Fulgore goes on. “SynerGen has developed new contamination shielding that will allow you to penetrate all the way to the very heart of the Zone. This is cutting edge tech, and you grunts are gonna be the first ones to use it, so you’d better not fuck this up. Now, as I was saying…”

He plucks the cigar from his mouth, using the soggy, gnawed end of it to point out our flight routes on the map.

“You’ll be divided into two teams of four. Red Team will jump just outside the western perimeter of the city ruins. They will be providing long-range reconnaissance support. Blue Team will touch down to the east and infiltrate the city center. For the purposes of stealth, you’ll be performing a nighttime HALO jump—high altitude, low opening. You’ll be landing a few miles outside of the city ruins, and you’ll make your final approach on foot. The target, Ms. O’Neal, is believed to reside somewhere in this central radius. Her neural chip has been deactivated—we believe, by surgical removal—which means we don’t have an exact location. You’ll have to hunt her down.”

Surgical removal? Do the primitive Alphas even have the capabilities for that kind of procedure, I wonder.

Fulgore turns toward us marines, jabbing his chewed cigar in our direction as he calls out names.

“Red team will be Weaver, Lowry, Curtis, and Pitts. Blue team will be Esposito, Donovitch, and Sloane.”

“Boss,” Donovitch interrupts again. “I thought you said we’d be going in teams of four.”

Fulgore inserts the smoldering stub of his cigar back into his jaw and narrows his eyes at Donovitch. He gives it a couple of puffs before answering.

“I was just getting to that. Blue Team, you’ll be accompanied by a special agent. Dr. Frostgrave?”

Frostgrave nods his assent, and motions toward one of the scientists seated along the wall, a smallish, mousy woman with dark hair and oversized spectacles.

“Hines, would you be so kind as to escort Dog in?”

Dog? Did he just say Dog?

The woman, Hines, rises from her seat, nervously pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She taps a button on the wall, and a mechanical door appears at the side of the room, opening onto a dark chamber.

“Dog,” Hines says, trying to make her small voice sound commanding. “You may enter.”

As soon as I see what steps through the door, my breath catches in my throat. There is a collective screech of metal chairs on the hard floor as the sight jolts the other marines to attention as well. Some of them even spring to their feet, ready for a fight.

Before us stands an Alpha.

A living, breathing Alpha.

CHAPTER 3: SLOANE

“Please,” Dr. Frostgrave intones in what passes for an amused voice. “There’s no cause for alarm.”

“No cause for alarm?” another marine half gasps behind me. “Doc, that’s a fucking Alpha!”

“Gentleman,” Frostgrave says calmly, then nods toward me, “and lady…” he makes a sweeping gesture toward the hulking Alpha beside him. “Please allow me to introduce you to Dog.”

At almost seven feet, the brute towers over even the largest marines in the room, and his head nearly scuffs the low ceiling. Standing next to the small, mousy woman named Hines, the contrast is even more exaggerated.

Dog is clad in a pair of black combat pants, boots, and a simple black T-shirt that clings to his hardened, rippling physique. Dangling from his neck by a thin chain are a pair of military dog tags. His powerful forearms and neck are corded with muscles and wrapped with curving veins. His hair is cropped close to his massive skull, and his jaw is covered in a short but dense black beard.

It is his facial features, however, that truly give him away—the slightly inhuman angle of his pointed brows over his dark and deep-set eyes. The broad, flared nostrils, instinctively testing the air for scents. The overdeveloped canine teeth pressing out his lips.

And then there is the smell—a heavy, animal musk that immediately pervades the room.

I tell myself that the odor is repulsive, but my body seems to disagree. The stiffness in my nipples from watching the video had nearly abated, but now it comes back with a vengeance, and yet more unwanted heat pulses again between my legs.

“Please, return to your seats.” Dr. Frostgrave says with a gesture of reassurance. “As the marine so perceptively noted, Dog is in fact an Alpha. But I assure you, he poses no threat to anyone in this room.”

The fierce look on Dog’s face makes me doubt that. Then again, the Alpha hasn’t attacked anyone yet.