Page 9 of Carmichael's Omega

The patrol wolf and I attack first. Two bodies fall, dead before they hit the dirt. The other two turn to defend themselves. One screams, trying to pull a gun. I'm closest to him. My canines sink in, my wolf tearing the muscle clean off the bone. His scream becomes shrill, bouncing off the rocky terrain and making my wolf's ears twitch.

I barely hear the rasp of the knife being pulled. Twisting my body, I just avoid the downward slash of the blade, glinting dully in the dark.

A shot rings through the air. I hear the yelp of pain from a canine throat and snarl in response to my packmate's distress. Leaping forward, I rip the human's throat out. Three down.

Spinning around, tense and waiting for another shot, I see the fourth human, clutching his throat desperately to try to stem the blood gushing out. Dismissing him, I look for my packmates. A dark shape is prone on the ground, not moving, between two of the human bodies.

Snarling, I go to my packmate and nudge him. I shift back to feet, not caring that the human can see it. He's a dead man, anyway. In the dark, it's hard to find the bullet wound, but my searching fingers find copious amounts of blood in the wolf's side.

The border guard shifts back to feet, too. "Is he dead?" he asks.

"Not yet," I reply grimly. "You two take him to medical. I'll take care of all this."

"Alphason, we can't leave you here alone-" the border guard starts to protest.

My low growl cuts him off. "Go."

They leave, carrying my nearly-dead packmate in between them. I turn to the last human and walk over. He is still clutching his throat with one hand, but the other is inching toward the gun lying at his side. With my lip curled in disgust, I step on the fingers of his hand. The claws curling from my feet cut his flesh until his hand is mangled. His body jerks with this new pain, but his throat is gone, and he can't do much more than gurgle helplessly. Every laborious breath he takes causes a whistling sound as blood bubbles from the holes in his lungs.

When he stops breathing, the desert is silent as a tomb. I'm alone, my packmates having disappeared a while ago. I kneel next to the first body, examining him for any identification. I take the drugs from his body, a measly amount, just one solid white brick. Stripping him of all that he's worth, I lay him out fully nude before repeating the same procedure with the other three. I take note of the tattoos. The gang symbols are written on their skin in dark ink. The skin around the black ink is still red and inflamed. New tattoos, new recruits.

Taking my time, I use my foreclaw and start carving my warning into the first corpse. If the cartel finds them before their bodies decompose, then the message will be clear. If they don't, then the message will remain. This is not their territory.

It's mine.

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3 - Matthew Hunter Daschel

Mattie

"Yo, dude. You seen my shoes?" Kenneth, my douche of a roomie, scratches his bare stomach. Blunt nails, because he bites them, not because he trims them neatly, make red streaks on his pale skin sparsely covered in hair as red and curly as what's on the top of his head.

I suppress the urge to scream. Instead, I silently nod to the corner of the room, where I put his shoes an hour ago when I cleaned up our tiny room as Kenneth snored away.

I look around and feel the pressure of being locked in this tiny dorm. It's been only a month and a half, and I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Colorado State has the best biomedical engineering program close to ClearHowl, but my dreams of becoming a doctor are fading fast. I feel suffocated by this place andgoddess; I miss Cassie.

Something is wrong with my sister, my twin. I could feel it when we were home, the sorrow pouring from her. She doesn't realize that I can because she doesn't know that I'm just like her: an Omega.

Amaleomega. A soft, sweet, empathetic wolf who would lay down and die for his loved ones and secretly clean the gross mess left behind by his douche roomie. A joke.

Maybe what I need to do is just bite the bullet and rent an apartment. My sympathy for the disaster that is Kenneth is warring with the rationalization that he is not worth my time and effort. I can't fix him. He doesn't want to be fixed.

"Bro, I'm going to go get some breakfast. You in?"

"Nah, not hungry," I tell him quietly. I've lost weight. Being here is like a crash diet. This place and situation suppresses my appetite better than any expensive diet pill could.

Maybe I should have pledged a fraternity. Cassie seems to like her sorority. I just didn't like any of the frats here. I was hoping to make some good friends, but instead, I have a lot of acquaintances and nothing more.

"Your loss," Kenneth sneers a little at me before he pats my ass on his way out. I flinch at the unwelcome touch. Kenneth is as gay as I am, but he's way too touchy for me. We're not together, never have been, and his almost constant touches feel like bullying more than any sort of friendly flirting.

My wolf whines, circling in my head. He's agitated, missing his pack and family.

I take a deep breath. It feels like quitting, like a weakness. But if I transfer to Caluna University to be with Cassie, I can play it off as protecting my twin, right? Cassie doesn't need to find out that I'm an omega.

I pick up my phone and sit on the bed. Kenneth leaves with his shoes on his feet with untied shoelaces that drag in the dirt. As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, I hit the button to talk to Alpha Alexander's mate and Gamma, Lyall.

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