The Omega's Heart (Wilde Creek Four) (5 page)

Honey wrapped the quilt around herself more,
since she was still in her pajamas, and invited the two inside.

“Did you sleep well?” Kammie asked, eyeing
the apartment with a critical eye. “I would’ve had to scrub the
whole place down with bleach before I fell asleep.”

Honey smiled in understanding. “It’s heaven
considering I slept in my car the last couple of days.”

Kammie’s eyes widened. “You slept in your
car? That’s awful.”

Adam cleared his throat. “We should get
going, Kam.”

“Oh, right.” She smiled brightly. “We’re
getting ready for the full moon tomorrow and that means making sure
the outside of the alphas’ house is tidy, even with all the
snow.”

“Thank you for bringing the groceries, I
appreciate it. Can I pay you for them?” She looked at her purse on
the floor next to the couch, wondering just how much money she had
left.

“No, of course not. Alpha Brynn said to take
good care of you because you’re a guest. I wasn’t sure what kinds
of things you liked, but I always crave meat around the full moon,
so I brought steak and eggs and some things for later.”

Kammie and Adam left and Honey closed the
door, wandering into the kitchen to peek into the bags. On top of
the restaurant sack were two cups of coffee and packets of sugar
and creamer.

“Oh bless you, Kammie,” Honey said, pulling
the carrier out and quickly fixing the coffee. After eating, she
re-read Stacy’s diary because it helped her feel closer to her
grandmother, even though each entry filled her with sadness.

Monday came far too quickly for Honey’s
liking. After spending Sunday morning reading, she’d been invited
to spend the afternoon with Brynn and Mia at Mia’s home in town.
The females were sweet and friendly, and they made Honey yearn to
find a place to live where she could have friends like them. The
pack females hadn’t cared much about her. They were either afraid
of her father or interested in bedding him. The only real friends
she had were Trixie and Heidi, who she hadn’t been able to contact
because she hadn’t bought a throw-away phone yet. Brynn and Mia’s
kindness was going to make leaving the pack that much more
difficult Tuesday. She was already half in love with the quaint
town.

A loud knock came just after nine a.m., and
she was thankful she was already showered and dressed when she
opened the door to find Ren standing on the metal landing.

“I thought you’d like to go out to breakfast
on your last day?”

“Sure, let me grab my coat.”

She tugged her coat on as she followed Ren
down the steps. “Your car is fixed, by the way. I parked it outside
under the awning with the keys under the driver’s side mat.”

“Thank you so much, Ren. How much do I owe
you?” She knew she didn’t have enough money on hand to pay for his
work, but she could send a check to him.

“Nothing,” he said, opening the door to a
black pickup.

She climbed in and he shut the door, joining
her a moment later as he sat behind the wheel.

She considered arguing about paying for his
services, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thank
you, Ren, for everything. You didn’t have to be so kind, but I
appreciate it.”

He glanced at her with a half-smile. “We’ve
all been in a place where we could use a friendly face or some good
luck after a string of bad. You didn’t do anything too crazy to
your car, so it was easy enough to fix, and the apartment was
sitting empty anyway.”

“Did you used to live there?” He was a big
guy. She couldn’t picture him using the small shower, let alone
sleeping on the couch.

“No, the old owner built it after he and his
wife split. I have a place in town.”

He pulled into the parking lot of Luna’s,
which he said was owned by pack members. He escorted her inside and
they sat down at a small booth. Two young wolf males hurried over,
one handing them menus and the other bringing water glasses and
coffee cups. They didn’t look more than fifteen or sixteen. Ren was
the beta of the pack, and that told her that the young wolves were
trying to impress him.

A middle-aged woman came over. “Hello Ren,
it’s nice to see you.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Paula. This is Honey,
she’s going to be hunting with us tonight. Paula owns the
restaurant with her husband.”

After shaking Paula’s hand, Honey said, “It’s
nice to meet you.”

“You, too. How do you like Wilde Creek?”

“It’s great,” she said in all sincerity.

Paula took their orders and gathered their
menus, and Honey fixed her coffee with milk and sugar. She stared
into the coffee, watching the dark and light colors swirl together
as she stirred.

“That coffee sure has your attention,” Ren
mused.

She looked up and smiled. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The silence stretched between them for a
moment and then he said, “The pack meets at the alphas’ house
before we hunt. Is it that way with your pack?”

She shook her head. “We don’t meet at my
dad’s house, we meet in a clearing in the middle of our hunting
territory. Wyling River is about the same size as Wilde Creek, and
from what Brynn told me, our packs are similar in size, too. But I
take it from Brynn’s stories that your alpha is nothing like my
father.”

“Alphas have to be hard to keep things under
control. Some take it further than necessary, though.”

“That sounds like my dad.”

“But you still ran.”

“He wouldn’t have let me leave if I asked,
and no one in the pack would stand up for me. I panicked. I felt
like something was going to happen to me and it wasn’t going to be
anything fun like a surprise birthday party.”

Their food arrived and silence followed as
they began to eat. The ham and cheese omelet was perfect, stuffed
full of thick chunks of ham and plenty of cheddar. She smeared
grape jelly on a triangle of toast and took a bite. She watched Ren
as he ate. He was handsome, and obviously a nice guy since he was
taking her out to breakfast. Of course, he might also be trying to
hook up with her, since it was the full moon; most wolves took a
ride on the horny-train on the day of the full moon, interested in
hooking up with unmated pack members. Her father had never let
anyone in her pack get close to her. She was forbidden from dating
or even casually hooking up with pack members. It had taken going
away to college before she’d had the freedom to date and hook up
with males. She’d only been with three males, two from the
college’s wolf fraternity and one human. None of the males had made
her wolf stand up and take notice, so she hadn’t pursued a more
serious relationship with any of them.

“I’m sorry for your situation, Honey,” Ren
said.

“Me, too,” she said.

And she really was sorry. She wished she
hadn’t grown up with a distant father. She wasn’t sorry that she’d
come to Wilde Creek, though. The pack members that she met gave her
hope that things could be different for her if she just found a new
place to live, far away from her father and the life she knew.

It was tempting to flirt with Ren. He was
handsome and kind. But it wasn’t fair for her to play with him when
she was leaving in the morning; it would just make it that much
harder to go. She wanted to ask Brynn to let her stay, to seek
sanctuary within Wilde Creek and hide forever from her father. It
wasn’t fair for her to do that, either, though — she would be
bringing hell to Wilde Creek if she stayed. If Brynn or Mia or one
of the other sweet wolves she’d met was hurt because of her, she’d
never get over it.

It was best if she just left town and moved
on. Eventually she’d find a place to stay where she could be safe
from her father finding her, and start the next chapter of her
life. It would be a lonely life, but at least it would be her own,
and no one would be making choices for her.

Chapter 5

Monday afternoon, Jeremiah finished splitting
firewood for Acksel, stacking the logs against the wall. He was
sweating despite the cold temperatures. He walked from the porch,
picked up the axe where he’d left it on a stump, and carried it
into the small shed. Sitting down on an overturned bucket, he
sharpened the blade so it would be ready to be used again, and then
put it away. He closed the shed and stared at the alphas’ house.
Inside, Brynn and Acksel were spending the day of the full moon
together. Jeremiah wasn’t a voyeur by any stretch, but he’d been
splitting wood for several hours and with his enhanced hearing it
had been hard to avoid overhearing their pleasure. More than
anything, it had bummed him out. The last time he’d taken a woman
to bed, she’d been human and had thought he was a shifter. It had
been on her ‘bucket list’ to have sex with a shifter, something he
hadn’t learned until after they had sex and she asked him to shift
so she could see him. She’d been furious that he couldn’t shift and
stormed out of his house, calling him a liar and an asshole. That
had been… a while ago.

He was never going to have a she-wolf as a
mate, he knew that much. She-wolves wanted to be with powerful
males. Jeremiah might be able to fight in his human form with the
best of them, but he’d never be able to hunt or protect a female or
cubs in his wolf form. Leaving Wilde Creek was looking like his
best option. He could forget about his wolf side until he found a
woman that liked him for who he was on the inside, and then he’d
explain that he wasn’t a true shifter. Someday, when they had kids,
he’d have to watch and make sure that if they did happen to shift
when they were teenagers, he taught them what he could about
hunting and being wolves. His knowledge only went so far, though.
And with his fucked-up DNA, who knew whether his kids would even
ever shift?

He glanced over the yard. In a few hours the
pack would arrive. They’d shift and hunt together. The woods would
be pitch black by then, the wolves all going on instinct to find
animals in the cold darkness. Jeremiah would be expected to help
the omegas assigned to duty that night at the alphas’ house to make
dinner and serve Acksel, Brynn, and some of the highly ranked
males. There were some mates now – not just Brynn but Malachi’s
mate Nila and Eveny’s mate Luke – who would be included in the
dinner even though they were human. Jeremiah would be like a waiter
at a restaurant, a lackey who refilled drinks and washed
dishes.

His thoughts flitted to Adam, who was also
miserable. But at least Adam could shift. They might both be
omegas, but in spite of his burn injuries, Jeremiah thought Adam
had more things going for him.

As he looked back to the house, a knot of
unhappiness settled in his gut. He didn’t want to spend the evening
cooking and cleaning, he just wanted to be alone. Walking to the
house, he pulled open the sliding glass door and entered the
kitchen. Kammie, an omega and a sweet girl, was arranging strips of
dough on top of an apple mixture in a pie plate.

“Hi,” she said, looking up.

He smiled at her and reached over, brushing
flour off her cheek.

“Hi Kam. The pie looks good.”

“I’ve been practicing making crusts. Paula
said if I get good enough, she’ll let me work there a few days a
week making pies for their customers.”

“Sounds like a good idea. You could open a
bakery.” He thought she made excellent baked goods. He was more a
main dish cooker. His baking skills involved opening cans of
cinnamon rolls and placing them on cookie sheets.

“Oh sure,” she snorted, “let me run to the
bank and make a withdrawal of a few hundred grand.”

He chuckled. “Are the alphas out of their
room yet?”

“I am. Brynn’s napping. What’s up?” Acksel
asked, striding into the kitchen.

“I’m not feeling that great. I thought I’d
just head home and leave Adam to handle the dinner stuff.”

Acksel’s brow rose. “Are you ill? I thought
you didn’t get sick.”

It was true. Even though he couldn’t shift,
he still had all the bonuses of being a shifter, including the
inability to catch human illnesses like the common cold. He didn’t
want to outright lie, but the thought of standing around all night
and watching everyone hunt when he couldn’t was just not sitting
right.

“I’m just feeling
off
,” he answered,
careful to maintain respectful eye contact with his alpha.

Acksel eyed him for a long moment and then
said, “As long as Adam doesn’t mind carrying the workload.”

“I’ll be here, Alpha Acksel. If he needs help
I’ll step in,” Kammie offered.

Jeremiah smiled at her in thanks. There were
certainly plenty of other omegas in the pack that Jeremiah could
call and ask to take his place, but Brynn was particular about who
was actually inside their home and that meant he couldn’t ask just
anyone.

Acksel opened the fridge, grabbed a bottled
water and a covered plate, and headed into the family room.
Jeremiah felt Kammie’s eyes on his back and he turned to face
her.

Her voice was low enough that it wouldn’t
carry into the other room. “Are you leaving? Is this the first
step?”

“Step?”

“Well, you can’t just take off, right? I mean
you have to really
leave
, like be banished, and that means
you have to talk to the big dog.” Her head nodded toward where
Acksel was. “Are you trying to distance yourself from your duties
first?”

“No, I’m not planning that right now. I don’t
know where I’m going to go. I haven’t started packing or scouted
any areas to live yet.”

Her pretty brown eyes gazed up at him. “You
don’t have to go. Maybe you’ll find your mate soon and then you’ll
have a good reason to stay.”

He snorted. “That’s a nice thought, Kam, but
if it hasn’t happened yet, what makes you think it will anytime
soon?”

“I don’t know, Jer. Maybe I read too many
romance novels, or maybe I like you and I want you to stick
around.”