Page 31 of Omega's Triplets

“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 ofmakingfood, 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 THEvery 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 bytake 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.

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