Page 27 of Omega's Triplets

How dare Mark force them to kidnap somebody? Jamie could only thank his lucky stars that the girl they’d found had been on the run anyway. And how could Harley have refused to take sides like that? Surely, he could see that Jamie’s was the only side that made sense!

Jamie had never been comfortable with the idea of buying a girl at the auction in the first place. He had made his peace with it by reminding himself that these girls were going to be sold, no matter what he did, and making sure one of them was bought by someone who would treat her with respect was really giving her the best possible outcome. But the same didn’t hold true for kidnapping. Kidnapping was an act of violence and aggression.

Kidnapping wasanimal.

Shopping, though...shopping was human work. It felt good to be under the fluorescent lights of the town department store, wandering down aisles filled with sullen teen clerks, harried looking mothers of toddlers, mass produced clothing. It made Jamie feel more like a man. More like himself.

He had allotted several hundred dollars of their new budget surplus to attend to their new omega’s needs. He bought her shirts, pants, dresses, underclothes, and a few pairs of shoes. He chose bedding for her bed, toiletries and a little basket to keep them in, and a few novels for her bedside table in case she wanted something to read.

Even checking out was a pleasure. Jamie relished the electronic beeps of the self-checkout machine and the mechanicalwhrrras it accepted his payment. His brothers were so connected to their animal sides, and they so encouraged the same in the rest of the pack, that it was rare for Jamie to feel so wholly human. Even at work, where it was necessary to keep up a facade, he was constantly aware that he was different from everyone around him.

He bagged his purchases, carried them out to the bike he’d left in the parking lot, and stuffed them into his backpack. Maybe he would take the long way home, he thought. He was in no particular hurry to see or spend time with either of his brothers right now.

In fact, now that he thought of it, a drink wouldn’t go amiss.

He pulled out of the parking lot and rode the mile and a half to his favorite bar, a seedy little dive that was almost always empty. Today, he saw, there were four cars already in the parking lot. He would have preferred to be alone while he drank—as much as Jamie liked to feel human, he hated putting up a pretense about it. All that did was remind him of what he really was—and wasn’t. With a sigh, he went into the bar.

The bartender recognized him. “The usual?”

“Make it a double.”

The man nodded and set about blending and shaking the drink.

Jamie glanced up at the crowd seated at the opposite end of the bar. They were drinking beer and talking loudly, their laughter obnoxious and grating.

The bartender set down his drink. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly, jerking his head toward the noisy patrons.

Jamie shrugged. You couldn’t always help who you ran into at a bar.

“Yeah, I was there,” one of the men were saying. His tone was boastful, as if he expected the rest of his party to be impressed. “I tell you, you’ve never seen anything like it. They were tearing the place up.”

“I don’t think I’d havewantedto be around for that,” his friend said. “They scare me.”

“Coward,” a brassy looking woman with platinum blonde hair laughed.

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 FORa moment outside the door, doubting his own instincts. Had Mark been right? Would he do better to leave Maddy alone?

---