Page 2 of Stray Omega

CHAPTER 2: EMBLA

Embla crouched silently in the shadows of the forest. Her eyes were fixed on the soft orange glow of a low campfire through the trees and the three big alphas who lay sleeping nearby. A soft breeze licked her bare skin.

It was night, but the dark forest was alive with sounds. In the limbs overhead, the trill of summer cicadas swelled and ebbed like a tide. Owls called and bats chittered, dark shapes darting through the barred moonlight filtering through the branches and leaves. Ahead of her, the campfire muttered and the wood shifted like a restless sleeper, sending up a little spray of orange sparks. Lying around it, the alphas snored.

Curious, the little omega thought, that these alphas would be caught sleeping out in the open like this, totally exposed with no one keeping watch.

Was it a trap designed to lure her in?

The omega hesitated, trying to decide what to do. Her stomach panged with hunger, and she tightened the muscles of her abdomen to stifle the rumble in her belly. A moment later, she was aware of a tingling sensation a little lower down. It was so faint she barely noticed it, but she knew exactly what it meant.

Soon she would be taken with her heat.

The omega didn’t call it heat, didn’t know that term for it. But she knew the feeling well enough, knew how that barely-there tingle would gradually progress into quivering, then clenching, and finally a painful shooting need deep inside her feminine core. Her skin would release all kinds of pungent smells, signalling her intense need, calling the alphas in by droves to breed her.

When that happened, however, she would be huddled safely inside her underground burrow, deep within the bowels of the earth where no alpha would smell her. There she would ride out the agony alone until the heat finally passed.

It would be horrible, but the alternative would be far, far worse.

The little omega had seen the terrifying effect her heat-scent would have on the alphas once before. It had been her very first heat. She had barely gotten away from the alphas that had come for her then. She had scratched and bitten, and at least one of the alphas had been left so mangled he would never breed again. In the end, the omega had escaped, bruised and battered but unbred.

After that, she had learned her lesson.

Whenever the heat came upon her, she hid.

But she would need food for the hiding time. Her secret burrow had a natural spring, a source of clean water to keep her sweating body hydrated through the excruciating fever of her heat. Food, however, was another matter.

Venturing above ground to hunt or forage was out of the question. For one thing, her heat-addled brain would not be able to focus. For another, her heat-scent would make her presence known to every filthy alpha for miles around.

The little feral omega needed to stock up on food before her heat struck. Preferably something that would keep.

And that’s where these sleeping alphas came in.

Perhaps they had something she could steal.

But it was dangerous.

The omega remained crouching, still and quiet as the trees, and she weighed her options.

She already had some food stashed away in her burrow, but it would not be enough to get her through her heat. Sometimes the heat would pass quickly. Other times it could last for several days. The omega sensed that the one that was coming would be a big one.

Right now, she was safe. If the sleeping alphas woke up and smelled her, she could still easily escape into the shadows of the forest. Nobody knew these woods better than the little omega. She was one with the trees. She knew every stream and thicket and gulley.

But if she stepped into the ring of the sleeping alphas’ camp, it would be a different story. She was quicker than any alpha, but she would be surrounded. If they woke, there was a good chance they would catch her, and there was no telling how they might punish her for sneaking and thieving.

What to do, what to do?

The omega’s nose twitched as she tested the air freighted with a thousand mingled scents that she sorted in her mind.

There were the usual forest smells—the rich aroma of sodden earth and newly sprouted mushrooms; the bitter perfume of pine needles and leaves. Then there were the scents of the alphas themselves—pungent, masculine—as well as the charred smell of the campfire and cooked meat.

And one other smell that the omega recognized.

Dogs.

There were three of them, one for each alpha, and they lay huddled together snoozing at the edge of the camp. These were not wild dogs, however. They had the city smell about them. Alpha-friend. Tamed.

So that is why these alphas were comfortable sleeping in the open. The sensitive dogs would quickly alert them to any approaching danger.