Page 32 of Omega's Triplets

Carefully, wary of being swept downstream, she waded out into the water just a little way and scanned the surface. There were plenty of fish here, swimming around her ankles. Maybe she could scoop one up onto the shore...

She dipped her hand.

The fish scattered at lightning speed.

Maddy stood still and waited. They had short memories and quickly clustered around her legs again. She squatted slowly this time, extending her arm, trying to keep her shadow from making any sudden movements. Maybe that was what had spooked them. Holding her breath, she dipped her hand quickly—

They scattered again.

This was frustrating. Maybe this wasn’t the way the Hell’s Wolves did it. They were wild, but they weren’t as wild as the Death Fangs. One of them had ajob, for God’s sake. Maybe they just came down here with fishing poles.

Maybe she’d have better luck looking for crawdads.

What did a crawdad look like anyway?

“What are you doing?”

She spun around, badly startled, slipped, and fell with a splash.

The man—she couldn’t tell if it was Harley, Jamie, or Mark—crossed to her more quickly than she would have believed possible. He lifted her entirely out of the river and stood her on the bank beside him. “The river isn’t safe,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

He wore tattered denim shorts and nothing else. She looked down at his arms, which were still holding hers. No scars.Not Harley.

Which meant it was Jamie or Mark. One of the two she feared. And he had her alone in the woods.

He was watching her, clearly expecting an answer. “I was trying to fish,” she said feebly, as if the only thing at issue was his curiosity over how she’d been spending her time. “I’ve never done it before. I wanted to see if I could.”

“You weren’t to leave the house.”

“Nobody told me I couldn’t.”

“Does Amy know where you went?”

Maddy hesitated. She didn’t want to get Amy in trouble. “I ran,” she said.

“You ran because you knew you wouldn’t be permitted to go.”

“I don’t belong to you,” Maddy said. “I may be an omega, but I’m notyouromega.”

“You’re a guest in my home,” the man said.

“And this is how you treat your guests?” Maddy was angry now. “Like prisoners? Telling them where they can go and when? All I did was come down to the river to try and get food. I would have shared with everyone! Tell me what’s so wrong with that.”

He didn’t answer.

“There isn’t anything wrong with it,” she said. “You can’t tell me because there isn’t anything. The only problem is that I’m an omega. All I’m supposed to do is sit up in my room and besafe, behealthy, betaken care ofuntil you decide to breed me. Right?”

“We are what we are,” he said, his voice a low rumble that was close to a growl.

“Then I don’t want to be an omega,” she said. “It’s never brought me anything but pain.” And she pulled free of his arms.

Automatically, it seemed, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back toward him. She wasn’t ready for the force of the pull and stumbled, falling into him.

Immediately, it was as if a fire had kindled inside her, roaring to life. She felt dizzy, as though she had a fever, and she knew that if she could see her skin in a mirror, it would be flushed. The heat that flooded through her was so strong, so overpowering, that it took several moments to realize that the man—Mark or Jamie—held her arm in a vice-like grip.

It hurt.

It hurt, and yet, she didn’t want him to let go.

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