The Omega's Heart (Wilde Creek Four) (7 page)

She felt like she was going to cry again, and
she didn’t want that to happen. She didn’t want to be weak.

Mia hugged her. “You don’t have to go home;
you can still run.”

“I’m almost out of money. Even without the
tracker, I’d have to use my credit card and that would tell him
exactly where I was. Running only delays the inevitable.”

“What do you think is going to happen on
Wednesday?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to think
about it, anyway. Whatever her father wanted her home for, she was
pretty sure she wasn’t going to like it. He was definitely going to
punish her for running, that much was clear, but he had an agenda
as well and whatever was happening Wednesday involved her.

One full moon before she shifted, she’d been
asleep and had woken up when she heard a man begging for mercy.
She’d peeked out the window of her bedroom and saw one of the pack
members, naked and on his knees. He had done something to wrong the
pack, and her father was using his claws on him. After a few long
gashes across his chest, he let Shred take over, and pretty soon
the man was covered in his own blood and unmoving on the ground.
Some omega males had carried the male away and Honey had recognized
him as one of the ranked guards. He must have really done something
bad to make her father so angry. The next day she had asked Stacy
about it, and she told her that the male had taken down a buck that
her father had been chasing. The male had died later that day from
his wounds, because her father hadn’t allowed him to shift to heal
himself. It was the first time, but not the last time, that she’d
seen his cruelty. But up until the phone call tonight, she hadn’t
had any of that malevolence directed at her. He hadn’t seemed to
care about her one way or the other outside of keeping his guards
away from her in any way other than watching over her. She was sure
that Shred would’ve loved to get his hands on her sexually. She
shivered as she thought over the things she’d heard in the pack
over the years about his rough treatment of the she-wolves he
bedded. He would not be a kind mate.

As she began to strip, a sickening thought
struck her. What if her father had given her away? What if he had
sold her or traded her to a male to become his mate? The only
reason he might care about her was if it benefited him. He’d never
been fatherly. If it wasn’t for Stacy raising her, she would’ve had
to fend for herself, because he’d hardly glanced her way with
anything other than disdain over the years. They’d been related
strangers. She was his daughter, he was her father, but there
weren’t any loving feelings between them. She’d long ago stopped
thinking of him in a fatherly way. He was all alpha all the time.
It made her wonder what her mother ever saw in him.

As she folded her clothes and gave them to
Mia to put on the porch so they weren’t sitting in the snow, Acksel
called for the pack to shift and hunt and the wolves around her
dropped to the ground and began to shift. Mia rejoined Honey and
said, “Stay close, okay? I know where there are some tasty
bunnies.”

Honey decided to just embrace the night. It
might be her last full moon as an unmated female, free to do what
she wanted. As her shift took over, she had the fleeting thought to
just run in her wolf form. She could live off the land, stay in her
form until she went somewhere too far for her father to reach. Just
as quickly as the thought came to her mind it fled. She wasn’t made
for living in her shift forever, and she’d just be delaying the
inevitable since she had no clue how to change her identity and
hide from her father and the pack. It was better to go home and
face the music, whatever it was.

Chapter 7

Jeremiah felt the full moon as it rose in the
sky. It made his bones feel heavy. The part of him that felt like a
wolf, however small it was, wanted to go out into the woods behind
his house and run wild. Jeremiah never indulged that thought,
though. If he happened to run across ranked males, they might
believe he was trying to steal their prey or insert himself into a
higher rank within the pack, which was ridiculous. A wolf couldn’t
get much lower in status than
non
.

He felt restless, more so than on other full
moons. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t spent the entire day with
the pack like he normally did, running errands and making sure the
evening went off without a hitch, helping his fellow omegas who
were assigned to work. He was regretting not being at the alphas’
house, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. If he
went there, he’d just be standing around doing nothing. Every other
omega in the pack who was old enough to shift
could
; he was
the only one outside of the three human mates who couldn’t. Sure,
there were some elderly wolves who were unable to shift any longer
because of age or injury, but those wolves had led a full life up
to that point. Jeremiah had never had the luxury of shifting even
once.

The only time he had come close was when he
was in high school. His senior year had been torture. The other
wolves in the pack were pretty sure something was wrong with him.
It was practically unheard of for a child born of two shifting
parents to be unable to shift. His father had left him and his
mother when he was seventeen, and his leaving had started the
rumors that Jeremiah wasn’t going to shift. He’d started working
out so he could defend himself, but no matter the bulk he added to
his frame, he could never go against shifted wolves. The pack began
to treat him like an outsider, as if he had a disease that they
could catch just by being around him. The females who had before
been into him suddenly turned cold. His mom told him to be strong,
she was sure he’d shift eventually, but she was wrong. In school he
was bullied by males who had shifted already — gluing his locker
shut, tripping him, daring him to fight and then attacking him as a
group. The teachers were smart enough not to get in the middle of
what amounted to rank fights. It was survival of the fittest, and
Jeremiah was not part of the group that was going to survive.

So why, ten years later, was he sitting in
the dark in his family room hating the full moon? Why hadn’t he
taken off years ago? His mom had joined his dad when he graduated
from high school. She wanted him to come, but his dad refused to be
around him, saying that he wasn’t really his son and even going so
far as to accuse his mom of having an affair. Which was utter
bullshit since Jeremiah and his dad had the same eye and hair
color. It probably made it easier for him, a way to distance
himself from his joke of a son.

When Acksel took over the pack several years
earlier, he’d begun to use the omegas in a way that the previous
alpha had not. Instead of leaving them alone and virtually ignoring
them, Acksel had found out their strengths and put them to work.
Jeremiah and Adam, for example, were strong and trustworthy, and
Acksel liked to keep them around to work for him personally. Many
omegas had jobs in the private sector, working for businesses in
Wilde Creek and outlying towns. Jeremiah had been working at a
landscape company since high school, and when Acksel asked him to
work for him within the pack, handling things like the full moon
set-up and other errands — both personal and pack related — as he
needed, he was happy to do it. He and Adam had become close
friends, but now Jeremiah wondered about Adam’s change in mood.
He’d been acting strangely and distancing himself over the last
couple of weeks. He made a mental note to stop by and check on him
in the next day or two to make sure he was okay.

Exhaling loudly, Jeremiah pushed off the
couch and stripped off his shirt. His skin felt like it was on
fire, his flesh prickling with heat and awareness. Rolling his
neck, he walked to the back door, not even bothering to put on
shoes or grab a coat. The brisk cold that smacked him in the face
felt welcome against his fevered skin.

“Shit, maybe I really am coming down with
something,” he muttered, taking a few deep breaths of the cold air.
It wasn’t snowing that night, and the sky was clear. The moon shone
brightly, illuminating the small grassy area between his house and
the woods. He was directly across from the alphas, but a big
section of woods separated them. He liked being close enough to get
to them if he was asked to come, but far enough away for privacy.
He was surrounded on three sides by woods, his closest neighbor a
mile down the road.

Brushing the snow off the deck, he sat down
and rested his bare feet on the step. He gazed up at the dark sky
and let his mind wander. His wolf was pacing in his mind, and he
felt the familiar urge to run into the woods and hunt, but he
tamped it down. The closest he could come to shifting was if he was
in a rage, and then fur would sprout on his arms and legs, claws
would extend from his fingers, and fangs would erupt from his gums.
Over the years he’d occasionally gotten pissed off enough to
partially shift like that, but it wasn’t enough for him to be
considered anything but an omega. He should be thankful. If he’d
been born fifty years ago, he would have been killed because he
couldn’t shift, to prevent his damaged genes from contaminating any
future generations.

A slight wind kicked up and he dropped his
head quickly to scan the woods. Something was coming. His wolf
whined and paced, and Jeremiah found himself unable to move from
where he was.

A wolf trotted from the woods into the yard
and stared at him. He’d never seen her before, and he wondered if
it was the female who’d been staying at the garage after her car
broke down. He’d heard Acksel and the ranked males discussing her.
He hadn’t seen her until this moment, and he had the almost
uncontrollable urge to go to her.

He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t
find any words to say. Things like
don’t go
and
please
come here
flitted through his mind, but all he could manage was
a soft growl that to him sounded pleading. He’d never been so drawn
to someone before, and he was afraid to move for fear that he’d
spook her and she’d run.

Before he could muster the nerve to speak,
she began to shift, and he sat, mesmerized, as the pretty wolf
transformed into a beautiful woman.

* * * * *

Honey trotted next to Mia as they wove their
way through the woods. Around them, wolves passed by, intent on
finding their own prey. Since Honey didn’t know the woods, she let
Mia lead. It was nice hunting in different woods. Although she’d
gone to college, she had always come home for the full moon to hunt
in her pack’s territory.

Mia stopped moving, and Honey mimicked her.
Mia lifted her muzzle into the air and sniffed loudly, and Honey
cocked her head and listened. She couldn’t hear anything but the
occasional sound of a twig snapping or leaves rustling as pack
members hunted.

Mia gave a low bark and leapt forward, racing
through the dark woods toward prey. Honey followed, wanting to stay
with Mia so she didn’t get in trouble with the alpha. Even though
at this point it probably wouldn’t matter, since she was leaving
anyway.

As she ran, she thought about her future. She
wanted to run away and hide, but she knew that eventually her
father would find her. Or rather, Shred would. If her father said
he’d approve of whatever tactics Shred needed to use to subdue her,
she had no doubt that she’d wind up back home badly injured.
Shaking away her dark thoughts, she focused on following Mia and
decided not to think about what lay ahead for her in two days’
time.

A sweet scent crossed Honey’s path, and she
paused and inhaled again. It was the scent from inside the alphas’
home. She took a few steps and inhaled again, and that was all it
took for her wolf’s instincts to take over. She didn’t know what
she was scenting, but she knew she had to find the source.

Changing course, she followed it, moving as
fast as she could through the trees and brush, her nose leading the
way. Her heart began to pound as the trail grew stronger, and she
found herself stepping from the woods and standing in the backyard
of a home.

The aroma was intense. She took a few steps
forward and noticed someone sitting on a deck at the back of the
house. Everything in her body went still as she stared at him, and
a rightness settled over her that she couldn’t explain in any other
way than to say she just knew she was in the presence of her mate.
The one male on earth meant to be hers.

Without conscious thought she shifted and
strode forward, her body trembling, but not from the cold. The man,
who had been sitting motionless on the deck, suddenly bolted into
the house. Before she could call for him, he returned, a coat in
one hand. He met her on the snow-covered grass and wrapped the
thick coat around her.

He was taller than her, broad-shouldered and
muscular, and the sweet scent of him saturated the air between
them.

“Who are you?” he asked hoarsely.

She reached out, her hands grasping his waist
and feeling his hot flesh under her palms.

“Honey,” she purred her name and stepped
closer, pressing the front of her body against his. He only wore
jeans, and the press of her body against his made her wolf
howl.

His hands tightened on her shoulders where he
held the coat on her. “I’m Jeremiah. What are you doing here?”

She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to
his chest, her teeth grazing his skin as her tongue flicked out to
taste him. She moaned, unable to stop herself. Her nails dug into
his skin as she looked up at him.

“I followed your scent. I smelled you in the
alphas’ house, too.” She inhaled again and her mind spun. “Why
aren’t you hunting?”