by J. L. Wilder
The first man silenced her with a look. “It’s hardly cowardice,” he said. “You know the rumors about them. The things they do. Especially, when they find out someone has crossed them. You couldn’t give me enough money to trade places with whoever it was.”
The second man nodded earnestly. “Everyone with their head on straight is afraid of the Death Fangs,” he said soberly.
Jamie’s ears pricked up. The Death Fangs. If these barflies were talking about the Death Fangs, that meant two things. For one, they were shifters, just like he was; although, by the looks of them, they were probably nomads who wandered around with no pack affiliation. He imagined they were on their way out of the Oregon area, having been in town for the auction, and were passing through Idaho on their way to wherever they were going next.
The second thing it meant was an opportunity to get information.
And indeed, the man he’d heard first was speaking again. “They took everything down,” he said. “They even looked under the stage. She wasn’t anywhere.”
“I heard she’d stolen one of their motorcycles,” the woman said.
“They found it crashed on the highway, less than a mile from the auction site,” the man said. “But the girl was gone. That’s why they think someone’s probably helping her. And it’s most likely another of our kind, since the whole area was full of us that day.”
“They’re never going to find the person,” the woman predicted.
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” the man said darkly. “This is the Death Fangs we’re talking about. I don’t think they’ve ever left any business unfinished since they were founded. They’re already on the trail.”
Jamie finished his drink, slid a few dollars across the bar, and left in a hurry. No matter how angry he was with his brothers, this was something they needed to know.
HARLEY HESITATED FOR a moment outside the door, doubting his own instincts. Had Mark been right? Would he do better to leave Maddy alone?
Well, she’s certainly capable of telling me herself if that’s what she wants, he decided. Already, he had been impressed by the girl’s ability to stand up for herself, especially under such extreme circumstances as they’d all been experiencing over the past two days. He had expected someone who’d grown up in captivity to be frightened and helpless, and while she did seem to spook easily, she was hardly a wilting flower.
Resolved, he knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Harley opened the door and stepped into the room. It looked bare and forlorn with all of Amy’s things gone, but Maddy looked perfectly content. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful in here,” she said. “Is this carpet new?”
The carpet had been there since before Harley could remember. It was matted down from having been walked on so much. “No,” he said, mildly amused. “It’s really old.”
“Well, I like it a lot,” she said. “And this mattress is so soft.”
It was the cheapest one they’d been able to find, but he didn’t tell her that. “I’m glad you like it.”
She nodded, but then the smile on her face slipped a bit. “Someone’s gone to get me clothes? That’s what Mark said.”
“Jamie went,” Harley said.
“So, you’re Harley.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t tell you three apart,” she confessed. “You look exactly the same.”
Harley laughed. “Not exactly,” he said. “But I see your problem. We keep to ourselves here, and it’s been a long time since someone new has had to learn how to tell us apart.”
“Is there a trick?” Maddy asked. “I’d like to be able to do it, if I’m going to be here for a while.”
“Are you going to be here for a while?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Mark wasn’t very clear about that.”
“Mark hasn’t been clear about much lately,” Harley said.
“Isn’t he your alpha? He acts like an alpha.”
“All of us are alphas,” Harley said.
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, a little bit.” He grinned. “Our bloodline’s rarefied. Strict alpha/omega pairings going back generations. So, the alpha gene was strong enough for three in our family. Mark takes it really seriously.”
He saw her connect the dots. “That’s why you wanted an omega.”
“Yeah, that’s why,” Harley said. “But you gotta know, none of us were wild about getting one at that auction. We hate the Death Fangs. We just figured...you know. She’d be better off with us than with someone who wouldn’t even treat her like a human. Maybe we were making excuses.”
“Maybe,” Maddy agreed. “That doesn’t mean you were wrong, though.”
“Do you like it here?” Harley asked her.
She hesitated. “I like it a bit. This room is nice. You seem nice.” She smiled a little. “You’re not as scary as your brothers.”
“That’s a fact,” he agreed.
“So, I guess that’s one way to tell you apart.”
“There are others,” he said. “Mark’s got the longest hair. He doesn’t really like having it cut. Jamie’s usually the best groomed because he’s the one with an office job. I’m a mechanic, so my hands are greasy sometimes.”
“That’s something.”
“And then, there are our scars.” He pushed up his left sleeve and showed her a dark scar along his arm. “I got this when a bike fell on me one day. I’m the only one who has it.”
“Do the others have distinctive scars?”
“I’ll let them show you, if they want to.”
“I think they probably will, won’t they?” she said. “I mean, the three of you wanted me to be your omega. I’m guessing everyone’s going to start pushing for that real soon.”
He regarded her closely. “What would your answer be?”
“I barely know you, Harley,” she said. “I think I like you, but we just met each other. And I’m not sure I like your brothers at all.”
Harley let out a single laugh that wasn’t mirthful at all. “I’m not sure how much I like them myself at the moment.”
“Do you think they’re going to make me breed?”
He scrubbed a hand across his face. This was a difficult question, for more than one reason. He didn’t know the answer, and that made it challenging. But more than that, he found he wanted to reassure Maddy. He wanted to tell her she was safe and that no one was going to make her do anything she didn’t want to do.
We won’t force you to do anything. Jamie had said that back at the hotel. But he’d spoken without consulting Mark. Would Mark feel the same way? Or would he try to overrule Jamie, as he had back at the auction?
It was troubling to realize how little trust he had in his brothers right now.
Most overwhelming of all, he realized, was he suddenly wanted to be able to tell Maddy that she was safe. He wanted to be able to give her good news, and he wanted her to feel comforted.
But if he spoke now, he would drive the wedge between himself and his brothers even deeper.
Maddy took his silence for what it was and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything different,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know what’ll happen,” Harley said. “I don’t know what Mark and Jamie are thinking.”
She looked at him steadily, not flinching away, and Harley ached to tell her that he wouldn’t hurt her. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words that would fracture their family.
I won’t hurt her, though, he thought fiercely. I can do that much. I won’t take her until I know she wants me.
Chapter Eight
The girl who brought Maddy her dinner was tiny. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, Maddy thought—too old to be a likely child of any of the three men she’d met so far, but too young to be their sister. The girl carried a tray with a bowl of broth, which she set on the bed beside M
addy, staring with frank curiosity.
“Hi,” Maddy said.
“Hi,” the girl answered. “So, you’re the omega.”
The omega. As if that was all she was. “I’m Maddy,” Maddy said.
“Hi Maddy. I’m Piper.”
“Do you live here too?”
“Yeah. Mark and Jamie and Harley adopted me when I was a kid.”
She was surprised. “That was nice of them.”
“They are nice.”
“Did they tell you to tell me that?” If the men thought that sending this little girl up here was going to win her over, they were wrong.
“What?” Piper asked. “No, of course they didn’t. I was just supposed to bring you the soup Reese made.”
“Who’s Reese?”
“My brother—adopted brother.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Just three. Me and Reese and Amy. She used to live in this room before you got here.”
That was nice also. Maddy had assumed Mark had put her here because he and the rest of the pack had this room to spare. But now it seemed like that wasn’t the case at all. They had made room for her.
That was a point in their favor.
But was it enough to earn her trust? She still wasn’t sure. Maybe Piper would have more information that could help her figure it out. “Do you know what they want with me?” she asked the girl.
“Of course,” the girl said. “They want to pass along their genes. They want to create an heir.”
“Which of them?”
“All of them. The alpha line is divided into three. That’s what Mark always says. The only way to pass it along is with an omega who can bear a litter with three different sires.” She spoke jauntily, a little proudly, as if she were reciting something from memory.
Maddy was stunned. “You mean, they all want to father children with me at the same time?”
“Isn’t that normal for omegas?” Piper asked. “Mark said that was why they needed one so badly. I thought that was what omegas were for.”
“Omegas aren’t for anything,” Maddy said. “We’re not tools to be used. We’re people. Just like everyone else.”
The girl reddened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Immediately, Maddy felt bad. There was no reason to take her feelings out on this child who hadn’t done anything wrong. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I didn’t,” Piper agreed, relief overcoming her whole face. “Truly.”
“What if I tell them I don’t want to have their children?” Maddy asked Piper. “What do you think they’d say to that?”
Piper looked confused. “Why wouldn’t you want to? Don’t you want babies?”
“Maybe.”
“They’d be good fathers, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That wasn’t what Maddy was worried about. But she didn’t want to press the issue any further with someone so young. It wasn’t an appropriate topic of conversation. She turned her attention to the soup instead. “This smells good.”
Piper nodded happily. “Reese is a great cook,” she said. “And Jamie said we could use all the best ingredients we have. There’s meat and potatoes and vegetables. It’s important to keep you healthy, Jamie says.”
The pleasure Maddy had felt at the smell of the soup seeped out of her like water through a sieve. She should have known. They were giving her a good meal because they wanted their omega to be good and healthy and ready for childbearing, not because they gave a damn about her as a person. Not because they wanted her to be full and happy. It was always all about what her body could do for other people.
For a moment, she actually considered refusing the soup. If all these men cared about was her health, maybe she would try to rob them of that. She had seen women try the same thing with the Death Fangs, but they had always been beaten for their trouble. But the Hell’s Wolves weren’t the Death Fangs. Whatever else they were, she didn’t believe anyone here would beat her if she was uncooperative.
But, in the end, the enticing smell of meat and vegetables and warm, salty broth won her over. She took the piece of bread that had been placed on her plate beside the bowl of soup and dipped it in. It crunched satisfyingly when she bit into it. “This is really good bread,” she said.
“Reese made that too.”
“He makes his own bread?”
Piper sat down unselfconsciously on the floor, crossing her legs and looking up at Maddy. “We make most of our own food here,” she said. “I have a garden out back, and the men go hunting for meat. We all go fishing down at the river sometimes. You can catch crawdads there too.”
“So, you fend for yourselves?” Maddy asked.
“For the most part. We’re pretty good at it.”
Maddy thought back to her childhood, her pampered upbringing. All her meals had been prepared by a chef and brought to her on a tray. She’d never had to work to get food before. And even when she’d wound up in the hands of the Death Fangs, when she’d been treated like an animal, food—good food—had always been given to her freely. The idea of making food, or of finding it in the wild, was as foreign to her as anything else about this place.
Still, it might be fun, she thought. Other people have always determined what I’d eat and when. If I learn how to get my own food, I’ll be able to have whatever I want, whenever I want it.
Maddy resolved to slip away, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, to find the river Piper had spoken of and see if she could figure out how to catch fish and crawdads of her own.
HER CHANCE CAME THE very next day.
Jamie had gone to work. It was still hard to believe that a member of a pack like this one held a full-time job. She couldn’t imagine any of the Death Fangs working in an office. The members of the pack she’d grown up in had had jobs, but they’d been different. They’d been...well, civilized. The Hell’s Wolves were wild by comparison.
Harley was also gone, doing some kind of odd job for which he’d been hired. As far as Maddy could understand, Harley maintained a website on which he advertised his services as a mechanic. When someone contacted him, he traveled to them to fix their car or bike for a little side income.
Mark, meanwhile, had gone hunting for the day. This appeared to be something that had to be done regularly in order to maintain the pack’s stores of meat. He had told them over breakfast that he expected to be gone all day. “Amy,” he’d said, “you take care of Maddy, all right?”
The older girl had rolled her eyes and nodded, and Maddy had understood what Mark meant by take care of. He was assigning Amy to be her babysitter. The pretense would be one of making sure she was comfortable and had everything she needed today, but in reality, Amy’s job would be ensuring that Maddy didn’t run away.
But as soon as the house was empty, Amy retreated to the room she shared with Piper. Piper was out in the garden, and Reese, the boy, was flat on his back on the couch, flipping through a magazine.
Which meant that no one had their eyes on Maddy.
She slipped out through the kitchen door, sprinted across the yard, and disappeared among the trees.
The first breath in, once she lost sight of the house, was like a drug. Freedom. It was the same feeling she’d had on the motorcycle, fleeing from the Death Fangs, and it was addictive. To think that there were people who walked around feeling this way all the time! To think that some people never had to worry about the ill intentions of those they lived with. They could do whatever they wanted, be whatever they wanted, and no one would try to stop them.
She ran, bare feet on the hard dirt, knowing she wouldn’t leave footprints behind. She ached to shift, to feel the freedom as a wolf. She ached for her wolf self. It had been so long... but she didn’t dare. She knew intuitively that, as a wolf, she would be caught. As a human, she might hold onto her freedom for a little while longer.
It was easy to find the river.
She hadn’t traveled far at all from the house when she picked up the sound of it, trickling its way over rocks. Even in human form, Maddy had excellent hearing. She followed the rushing and babbling until she reached the water’s edge. It was a bigger river than she’d expected, wide and swift, and she suspected it was probably deep in the middle.
She had been a strong swimmer, once upon a time. But that had been years ago. She hadn’t been in water since her kidnapping.
As much as she was enjoying her freedom, Maddy had every intention of going back to the Hell’s Wolves at the end of the day. She wasn’t prepared to be on her own. Whatever their plans for her might be, they wouldn’t be as bad as starving to death in the forest. Besides, she knew the Death Fangs were still on the hunt for her and staying with the Hell’s Wolves was infinitely preferable to going back to the Fangs.
But she thought she ought to try to bring something back with her. Maybe if her fishing expedition was successful, they wouldn’t be too angry with her for running away.
How were you supposed to catch fish, though? Maddy had never done that before. She knew it could be done with a rod and reel or with a net, but she didn’t have either of those things. Those were human tools. Surely, shifters didn’t really need them.
Carefully, wary of being swept downstream, she waded out into the water just a little way and scanned the surface. There were plenty of fish here, swimming around her ankles. Maybe she could scoop one up onto the shore...
She dipped her hand.
The fish scattered at lightning speed.
Maddy stood still and waited. They had short memories and quickly clustered around her legs again. She squatted slowly this time, extending her arm, trying to keep her shadow from making any sudden movements. Maybe that was what had spooked them. Holding her breath, she dipped her hand quickly—
They scattered again.
This was frustrating. Maybe this wasn’t the way the Hell’s Wolves did it. They were wild, but they weren’t as wild as the Death Fangs. One of them had a job, for God’s sake. Maybe they just came down here with fishing poles.
Maybe she’d have better luck looking for crawdads.