The Omega's Heart (Wilde Creek Four) Read online

  Dialing her dad’s cell, she brought the phone to her ear and hoped he would let it go to voicemail. Maybe he’d gone out early to hunt. Maybe…

  “Williams here, how did you get my private number?” His voice was deep with annoyance.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a squeak.

  Acksel took the phone from her and identified himself. “Your daughter’s car broke down in my town. While it was being repaired, she stayed in an apartment and requested being allowed to hunt on the full moon. I agreed.”

  She could hear her father’s voice on the phone and he sounded downright agreeable. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’d like to speak with my daughter, please.”

  Acksel held out the phone to her, and she hated that her hand trembled when she took it. “Hi Dad,” she said.

  His agreeable tone was gone. He practically growled the words as he spoke. “You will come home as soon as the full moon passes.”

  Her voice fled again.

  “I know what you did,” he said slowly, “and you will be punished. If I have to send Shred to get you, you will not be happy with his methods.”

  She shivered so hard she almost dropped the phone.

  “I’ll be gone by sunrise,” she said, trying not to let her fear come through her words. If Shred came for her and found her, she’d be in big trouble. He wouldn’t think twice about hurting her in the process of getting her back to her dad.

  “See that you are. You will purchase a phone and contact me when you are on your way. You will contact me every hour.”

  “It will take me a few days to get home, Dad,” she protested.

  “I know where you are, little girl. Did you think the phone was the only way I watched what you did? You will have no trouble making it home Wednesday afternoon if you take a straight route instead of driving erratically and stopping to rest as you did.”

  The thought that he’d been aware of what she was doing made her feel like her stomach was filled with lead.

  She asked the question before she could stop herself. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  He chuckled darkly. “I don’t care about the full moon. The only thing that matters is that you return home Wednesday and you check in as I told you. If you don’t, I will send Shred for you and I will approve of any tactics he uses to get you back to Wyling River. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Why is Wednesday so important?”

  “I’m done talking to you, daughter. Put the alpha on the phone.”

  She handed the phone to Acksel, her whole body numb with fear. Mia grabbed her as her knees buckled and helped her to the couch. Brynn sat next to her and picked up her hand.

  “I don’t hear as well as the wolves do, but I can tell by the look on your face that something is very wrong. What’s going on?”

  Tears slipped over Honey’s cheeks and she rubbed at them with her free hand. “I’m an idiot. I thought he wouldn’t know where I was. He said he’s been aware of my whereabouts the whole time and that if I don’t come straight home after the hunt, that he’ll send his beta to get me and that guy…” She let the sentence drop as fear slithered over her.

  Brynn put her arm around Honey’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’ll be okay. You’re not alone right now.”

  But soon enough she would be.

  * * * * *

  Mia stood in the bedroom with Brynn, Acksel, Ren, and Sam.

  Acksel said, “Ren, did you find any tracking devices on her car?”

  “I wasn’t looking,” he said, shrugging.

  “After the hunt tonight, I want you to check for one. Her father told her that he was aware of her whereabouts, and since she left her cell, that points to the car.”

  Ren nodded.

  Brynn said, “Acksel, why can’t we offer her sanctuary?”

  Acksel looked down at her. “Sweetheart, if she was unhappy with her pack life, she shouldn’t have run away, she should have left through proper channels.”

  Brynn grimaced. “I think she would have if she thought she’d be allowed. Something is very wrong in her pack; we can’t send her back.”

  Mia felt the same way. She felt bad for Honey. She was a sweet girl and seemed so lost. But Acksel was alpha and she couldn’t argue with him without Ren getting in her face, so she chose to keep her mouth shut and let Brynn do the arguing.

  “Ren will find the tracker and remove it, and then she’ll leave town. If she doesn’t go to Wyling River, that’s not my problem.”

  Brynn shook her head. “It seems callous to just let her go like that.”

  Acksel let out an aggravated sigh. “If she had found her mate in one of our pack members, then I’d offer her sanctuary, but she didn’t. We can’t offer sanctuary to everyone that feels like they want a change of pace.”

  “Acksel,” Brynn said, “it sounds like things are dangerous for her at home.”

  Acksel’s lips pressed together into a thin white line as he stared down at his mate. Mia would have definitely been worried to have that look directed at her, but Brynn was anything but worried. “I’m done talking about the she-wolf. After dawn she is no longer our problem. Am. I. Clear?”

  Brynn’s eyes narrowed significantly. “Crystal.”

  Mia could tell that Acksel knew he was in deep shit with her. He practically snarled his next words. “Honey needs to hunt with an escort. Sam?”

  Ren answered instead, “I’ll do it.”

  Acksel’s brow rose. “You will?”

  Ren shrugged. “She needs a guard, she’s been living at my shop for two days, and I volunteer to also make sure she leaves town at dawn.”

  Mia snorted. “You’re volunteering?”

  Ren snarled and took a step toward her. “Do you have a problem, she-wolf?”

  Brynn cleared her throat and Ren stopped snarling. “I agree. Why are you volunteering? Do you like her or something?”

  Acksel snorted. “It doesn’t matter, she’s leaving at dawn. If Ren wants to take her hunting, then so be it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mia said. “I like her. It’s going to be hard enough to say goodbye to her, I don’t want to think about her having to fend you off in the woods.”

  Ren’s eyes narrowed. “She’s attractive and single. There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of a mutual attraction.”

  Mia inwardly snorted. Ren seemed awfully certain that Honey thought he was attractive. He was good-looking, but he was just such a dick sometimes it made him less drool-worthy and more vomit-inducing.

  Brynn said, “I think Mia should do it. Honey won’t feel any pressure from anyone, and if something does happen then that’s okay, too, but at least it won’t feel contrived.”

  “Whatever,” Ren said, and then seemed to realize he’d just been disrespectful to Brynn and tacked on, “as you wish, Alpha.”

  The males left the room and Brynn said, “He’s such a dick.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I wish Acksel would let her stay.”

  “Me, too. That’s the point of sanctuary. According to the laws, we can take in a wolf that is in danger and give them the protection of the pack. I don’t know why he won’t.”

  “Maybe because he doesn’t want to go to war over a stranger with no ties to our pack?”

  “I wish she’d found her mate here. That would have made her part of the pack whether her father liked it or not, and Acksel wouldn’t force her to leave.”

  Mia walked out of the room thinking that life wasn’t fair. For a lot of people.

  * * * * *

  Honey wasn’t surprised when Mia invited her to hunt. She’d overheard the conversation the pack members had about her, even though she hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop. She thought Ren was a nice male, but she wasn’t attracted to him. She would hate to have to be rude and turn him down when he’d been so kind to her.

  “Come on, let’s go hunt,” Mia said.

  “Is there dessert?” Honey ask
ed, still wondering about the delicious scent.

  “We had apple pie earlier.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m smelling,” she said, casually sniffing the air.

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “I smell something sweet. I just thought it was an extra dessert.”

  Mia sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything but the roast beef sandwiches we ate. Maybe it’s an air freshener or something.”

  “Maybe.”

  They walked out on the back porch and found the pack had gathered in the backyard. They were milling around in the snow, most of the men with only pants on, and no one wearing jackets. Wolves weren’t as affected by the cold as humans were.

  “I’m sorry you have to leave,” Mia said as they walked down the steps.

  “It’s not fair to your pack for me to stay. The guy my dad said he’d send after me is bad news wrapped in a nasty package. I’d feel terrible if someone got hurt because of me. It’s better to just go home and face the music.”

  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 di
stancing 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.