Page 4 of Omega's Triplets

Chapter One

Ten years later...

“It’s pouring outside,” Harley said, crossing the threshold into the kitchen of the house he shared with the rest of his pack. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen at the moment, eager to see whether he’d brought anything good back for dinner, and he hated to let them down, but he had to show empty hands. “All the animals were hiding,” he explained. “There was nothing to hunt.”

Amy groaned. “I knew we should have just gone to the grocery store.”

Harley did not respond. He knew he had the authority to silence her—it would have been easy—but that was a power he hated to use. It was uncomfortable to think about his power over the rest of his pack.

Even though having a small pack posed a challenge, Harley was glad there were only six members of this chapter of the Hell’s Wolves. If there had been more, he would no doubt have been forced to flex his authority as an alpha. But as things stood, he could leave it to one of his brothers to respond to Amy.

It was Mark who did. Harley wasn’t surprised. Mark was usually the one to speak up when there was leading to be done. Jamie had said once that even though they were all endowed with equal power, Mark was therealalpha of the Hell’s Wolves. If anyone else had said that, it would have felt like a slight, but Jamie was just acknowledging the truth as he saw it.

“You know we can’t go to the store,” Mark said now. “We don’t have the money for things like that.”

“We could afford it,” Amy grumbled. “We’d just have to stop spending money on other things.”

“You’re not in charge of the budget,” Mark responded.

“I’m not in charge of anything.”

“That’s right. Your job is to finish up school and get a job. Start contributing to the income of this household. When you do, you can talk to me about how we spend our money, and not before. Is that understood?”

“I’m still a member of this family,” Amy snapped.

Mark’s tone changed. His voice now carried the weight of a command, the weight only a true alpha’s voice could bear. “Enough, Amy.”

He didn’t need to say anything more. Amy opened her mouth as if to respond to him, but of course, she couldn’t do it. No words came. The command she’d been given might as well have been a gag.

“That was a little harsh,” Jamie murmured.

Harley turned to his other brother. Jamie was the youngest of the three, ten minutes younger than Mark and three minutes younger than Harley himself, and although all three men looked exactly alike, Harley often felt he could see more youth in Jamie’s facial expressions than he did in Mark’s or when he looked in the mirror. He was soft spoken bordering on stoic, and even more reticent to use his power than Harley was.

Mark didn’t argue with Jamie’s rebuke, just gave a slight nod and turned to Reese, who was standing before the stove and stirring something in a large cookpot with a big wooden spoon. “Just soup tonight, then,” he said.

Reese nodded. “It should be enough,” he said. “I’m making it extra hearty. Potatoes and onions and cheese and noodles—”

“Is there any meat in it?” Amy asked. Harley knew she knew perfectly well there wasn’t. There was never any meat to be had unless someone brought it back from a hunting trip. They were lucky to have the noodles and cheese, neither of which came from Piper’s little garden out back.

No one answered Amy’s question. Piper, who had been pouring water into glasses around the table, now pulled down a stack of bowls from one of the high cupboards. She moved around the room, handing one to each member of the pack. Harley joined the line for soup and thanked Reese as he ladled a scoop into his bowl.

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