Alpha Siege (Omega Mates #1) - Pearl Tate Page 0,49

her Guard.

All conversation stops as soon as I get near the flap. There’s a good chance that they’re done talking, due to the fact that there’s such a commotion as we enter the encampment and everyone gets their first look at our latest acquisition. Everyone’s joyous and celebrating because we’ll be getting more provisions in exchange for him. It’s quite a boon to beat out the other encampments that have been circling the area, hunting for him. He didn’t stand a chance.

What in all of Alta is going on in here, though?

By the time I scare off the women, I decide not to send the message to the low dwellers until later. They always assemble my tent over the central Hub, so I can do it anytime. Instead, I drop off his bag because I want to study its contents.

The convict has already been tied to the tree trunk for questioning. We’ll have him there for the next half day at least, weakening him further before we take him back to an underground checkpoint. There, based on my own experience from being ushered into the low dwellers’ encampments, he’ll be stripped, scrubbed down, and put in quarantine for days before they allow him back into their sacred dwellings.

The part that’s less clear, and what I plan to find out more about now, is why. This is no simple low dweller. No, he has the marks and ranking of a high level scholar. What’s he doing out… alone… above ground?

Normally, high-level scholars will occasionally pop out above ground to study some phenomenon or other scholarly event—usually in the sky—before disappearing out of sight just as quickly. I don’t know what this one is doing, or should I say has done, but I really want to find out before surrendering him to the low dwellers. And maybe I feel that way because now I have something I plan to hide, too. Sunny.

Don’t get me wrong. I have every intention of turning the convict in. Although I know from peeking in his bag, he has some secrets of his own. That’s what makes me even more nervous about what he knows about the strange females.

The fact that he has some of the food provisions just like Sunny carried makes her story more plausible for the first time. Could she be telling the truth? Are there others like her? Did her craft originate from space? And how in the world did her flying craft manage that without being destroyed?

According to our Holy Scriptures, no living alien entity can enter our atmosphere. Our defense system has been calibrated to take down any foreign biological species. It senses… it destroys.

So what went wrong? Or should I say, right?

Already, I can’t imagine a life without Sunny in it. It isn’t just her body, either. I’ll be the first one to admit that she’s easily the best fuck I’ve ever been with, but that really isn’t all.

I think back to the last four days that we’ve spent together. The first day, she was immersed in her heat, barely cognizant but extremely demanding. The sex was all-consuming and perfect. Every time she commanded I fuck her, I obeyed.

No. It was the days after when she had longer periods of coherency. Her quick wit and inquisitive nature are captivating. I plan to get to know her a lot better. The stories she told me about her world… I thought she was just imaginative.

The crowd parts in front of me as I storm up to the captive, slowing my pace as I step onto the platform he’s kneeling upon. My eyes rake over his exposed skin, and I turn to Benluk, gesturing to the convict. “Cut off his shirt.”

I’m surprised it hasn’t already been done, but the guards are quick to obey. Almost instantly, all of his skin is exposed along with the swirling patterns that denote his rank. I was right. This is definitely a high-ranking scholar.

Dropping to my knees, I grab his short, shaggy hair, tilting his head back. “Why’re you outside the underground without escorts? Why’s there a bounty on your head?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know…”

The male’s cryptic answer does nothing but anger me. Of course, I want to know. This is the first time we’ve ever had a reward on a scholar the low dwellers have pegged as a convict. What did he do to piss everyone off?

Circling around him slowly, my eyes latch onto a set of teeth marks on his shoulder. When I’m back in