Every time we got stopped, no one paid much attention to me until they caught my scent. Once they realized what I was, their expressions changed. It was subtle, but it was still clear many of them saw me as unworthy of stepping a foot into their revered inner base, the area meant only for the strongest – the heroes. A small, unknown rookie omega had no business entering that one area so many strong alphas could only dream of seeing in person.

But there I was. Quite unexpectedly as well. My life was not getting any easier, I understood that, but I had reached my goal. As long as it would last, anyway.

The inner base was bigger than I’d expected, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise. These soldiers, the elite of the army, had everything they could possibly need from training grounds to command centers, even a bar and a grocery store, right here. I could see a lake and the beginning of jogging trails as we traveled through the area. Now I understood why the captain had arrived to meet me by car. We had to be several miles away from my old headquarters.

“Almost there,” the captain said when we approached another set of gates with a couple of guards standing by.

“Lion’s Gate?” I muttered when I read the sign on the fence.

“Our little neighborhood,” the captain said.

It was a fucking gated community, but instead of big family houses, I counted twelve blocky buildings, shaped like L, all boringly gray with two floors, flat roofs, and square windows. At least there was a little bit of grass and old trees growing between them, giving the whole cul-de-sac a little less depressing look.

“I’ll show you around the base another time. Let’s get you settled in first,” the captain spoke as he parked the car next to one of the buildings. “Welcome to Tactical Team Zero-Seven. This is our headquarters. Your home from now on.”

The numbers zero and seven were engraved on a big blue-and-gold placard, shaped like a shield with fancy ribbons, above the entrance of the building. The rest of the buildings had placards of their own, each with different numbers.

“So there are twelve teams?” I counted.

“That is correct,” he said as he got out of the car.

That meant there were about one-hundred-and-twenty alphas in this little neighborhood. Plus one omega. I suddenly understood what it meant for me. There had been several omegas in my old unit, not nearly as many as there were alphas, but enough so we could watch out for each other. Together, we weren’t easy targets.

But now I was alone.

“You will get molested here…”

There were people sitting outside or working on their cars close by, and even from afar, I could smell the alphas all around me. And they could undoubtedly smell me.

I grit my teeth together and followed my new captain out of the car. He’d already taken one of my bags from the trunk, so I stepped next to him and took the other one. He gave me an encouraging nod before locking the doors and leading me to the entrance.

And I followed him, hoping he wasn’t walking me to my fresh new hell, worse than what I’d ever experienced so far. He held the door open for me, and I swiftly walked past him.

I was not ready for it. Ten elite soldiers, the captain had told me. Ten alphas, living and spending most of their time in a relatively small building. I was hit by their pheromones so hard I nearly fell on my knees. I’d never experienced such a fucking strong mix of alpha scents all at once so out of the blue. I needed a moment to regain composure. I stood there, shaking my head, trying to get me and my omega back in line.

“You all right?” the captain asked when I wasn’t moving.

“Sorry… Sorry…” I muttered and took a few more steps away from the door while he watched me carefully. “I’m… I’m…”

“It’s our pheromones,” he guessed, sounding surprised.

“It’s fine, I’m… They’re just… Quite strong here,” I carefully admitted, hating the fact that I had to, but I couldn’t start my time here with a lie.

“So you still react to our pheromones?” he said.

“…Yes. But I’ll get used to it, sir. It just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

He squinted his eyes lightly at my words. Fuck. Like he wasn’t already listing my cons without having seen any pros yet.

“So there’s a chance you’ll freeze out on the battlefield because of our pheromones?” he asked, crossing his arms.

I should’ve lied… Now I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t say it would never happen again because it already happened right in front of his eyes.

“It’s possible, yes,” I said quietly. “In small, confined areas with several strong alphas.”

He nodded slowly. “We’ll see what we can do about it. Come. You’ll get to meet the guys.”

“Sir?” I muttered with a frown.

“Hmm?”

“That’s… You…?” I decided to shut up in case I’d make my situation worse. “Sorry, yes, of course…”

“We’ll see what we can do about it,” he repeated, giving me a friendly smile. “I don’t avoid problems. I fix them.”

I stared at him, then nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

“Come on then. They’ve probably heard us by now,” he said, and continued walking.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief, then glanced around hastily. We stood in a large entrance hall that continued through the entire building as a wide hallway with a few large rooms on the left, separated from each other by windowed walls. On my right was a single door, much heavier than the rest, with a sign that told me it was the equipment storage. The captain was heading towards a staircase further down the hallway on our right.

I hurried after him, hastily peering into the large rooms through the windows. The closest was a briefing room, with a long table and plenty of chairs around it. The room behind that had several computers, but I didn’t have time to take a closer look before reaching the staircase.

I followed the captain up the stairs that led straight into a very large living room with a large couch, several armchairs, a big TV, and a few bookcases that were used to collect dust, apparently. Black leather and polished iron ruled the decor, and there wasn’t a single carpet, curtain, or a flower in sight.

Alphas…

To the left and behind us was a kitchen, just as big with black cabinets and modern equipment, and several round tables with chairs by the windows. Not the cleanest kitchen I had seen, no.

But there sat a couple of older men, staring at us without blinking. At me, more specifically.

“Boys…” Captain Hale said, gesturing for them to join us in the living room. “Where’s everyone else? I have a little something to tell you.”

“Something, huh?” repeated the other one of them, a man the size of a fucking mountain, glancing at my bags as they approached us. “Doesn’t seem that little.”

The captain turned to look down a long hallway on our right and whistled loudly. “Attention!”

In seconds, several doors opened, and in a few seconds more, I was surrounded by alphas, all giving me curious looks. The scent… Fuck me… Elite soldiers… Their pheromones were unbelievably strong… I quickly forced myself back in line. 

But as I took in their scents, they did the same to me. I would’ve laughed if the situation hadn’t been so stressful. Each of them took a small whiff of my scent, then frowned and did it again, twice, to make sure they were smelling what they thought they were smelling.

“Uhm…?” one of them uttered while the captain took a head count.

“Three are missing,” Captain Hale said. “Doesn’t matter. I have some news,” he added, glancing at me. “This is Riley Steele. Your new teammate.”

His words were met with disbelief.

“Our… teammate?” a hispanic guy repeated, his gaze moving from me to the captain and back to me. “I didn’t know we needed a new teammate.”

“Yeah, I thought we’re full,” another one said slowly.

“You’ve not recruited anyone in years.”

“You said you’re going out for lunch. That’s not the kind of leftovers you bring home,” one of the younger white guys said.

“I mean, if the date is good then yeah–” another hispanic dude said to him, but his eyes glued on me.

“Guys. Is no one going to point out he’s an omega?” another of the youngest said.

They fell silent and stared at me.

“All right, settle down,” Captain Hale said in annoyance. “There was a meeting going on, and I decided to drop by. I wasn’t planning on taking in anyone, but Steele here has an interesting resume, so here we are.”

“Wait a minute. Did Stoll die or something and no one told us?” a black guy with a foreign accent said.

“No. Stoll was impressed enough to give Steele this opportunity.”

Yeah, impressed…

There was another pause of silence. I held my posture as they all stared at me. It was clear none of them were too enthusiastic about the idea.

“So… How is this going to work, then?” the mountain of a man asked. “He has heats, right?”

I tried to memorize their faces as Captain Hale told them what he knew about me. So far, I didn’t detect too much hostility from these men, and even if they didn’t want me on their team, none of them brought it to their captain’s attention. At least right in front of me.

“So… Whose partner is he going to be?” the same older man asked.

“Well, we have one without,” the captain said ominously.

“Oh, shit,” one of them whispered in amusement.

“Where is Reid, anyway?” the captain continued.

Reid, huh… So he wasn’t going to be happy to have me as his partner. Or having a partner in general. The way these people reacted to the news clearly confirmed their captain’s earlier suspicions about it.

“So, uh, welcome aboard,” one of the younger guys said to me, still confused, but apparently ready to roll with his leader’s decision. “Thank fucking God, I’m no longer the rookie of the group.”

“This is Nico Angelos,” the captain said. “My partner.”

Which explained the younger guy’s accepting attitude toward me.

“Riley Steele,” I said, and shook hands with him, noticing his very scarred lips. Marks of torture.

There were quite a lot of scars on these people… Not that I feared getting hurt, but it sure told me a little about the hell I was stepping into.

Though it didn’t seem like the kind of hell I’d actually feared it would be.