Page 5 of Omega's Triplets

They crowded around a long table to eat. Usually, dinner was the most enjoyable time of the day for Harley. He loved being around the rest of his pack, loved joking with Reese, loved getting into debates with Amy, loved Piper’s earnest stories about the books she was reading and the new plants she was learning to grow. He was proud of all the younger members of his pack, and he loved them like family. He also enjoyed the time spent with his two brothers. What they had made for themselves here was wonderful, he thought.

But tonight was different. Tonight was not enjoyable. Harley thought it was mostly because of the way Amy kept looking at him—as if he’d let her down. Regardless of the fact that she shouldn’t have mouthed off the way she had, he knew that he’d failed in his responsibility to the pack. Everyone would go to bed not quite satisfied tonight, and all because of him. That wasn’t a good feeling. It was hard to enjoy his soup, even though it was very good.

Piper gathered the dishes after dinner and went to wash them, and Amy and Reese headed upstairs to make a start on their homework. When the younger generation grew up, Harley knew, things would be different. There would be money then, and they would be able to afford weekly trips to the grocery store. They would be able to hire an electrician for the house, and they’d have heat in the winter and maybe even air conditioning in the summer. And their bikes, the old bikes they kept running with nothing more than spit, string and ingenuity...they’d be able to trade them in, replace them with new and reliable bikes. They wouldn’t have to fear what could happen on a long run.

It would be a different time for the pack. A better time. But right now, that time seemed a long way away to Harley.

And he knew that, when it eventually did come, it would bring problems of its own along with it.

***

OF THE THREE TRIPLETSwho led the Hell’s Wolves’ Idaho branch, Jamie Driscoll was the farthest removed from his animal side. For his part, he liked to think of it as being more in touch with his humanity than the others. It was hard for Jamie to allow himself to be carried away by emotion, the way his brothers could.

It was a quality that rendered him deeply practical.

This practicality, he thought, was probably why Mark had delegated such things as the pack’s budget and finances to him. Jamie kept a ledger of all the money they brought in every week—his salary from the accounting firm where he worked, the money Harley made doing odd jobs, and occasional contributions from Piper’s babysitting jobs. He had told her to keep that money for herself, but she pointed out—and Jamie had to concede—that she had nothing to spend it on.

If only the other teens in their pack were as easy and accommodating as Piper. She was like him, he thought, with a real sense of priority. Even though she was only fifteen years old, she was the most mature of the younger half of their pack.

Reese, who had just turned sixteen, was a good kid. Jamie liked him. But he was still more interested in goofing around and having fun than he was in contributing to the pack. That would have to change in a few years, when he graduated from high school. He would have to take on more chores. He would have to learn to hunt, which he’d been reluctant to do, and he’d probably have to see about getting a job.

Amy, the oldest at seventeen, was nothing short of difficult. Although she could be compelled to obey by Jamie or either of his brothers, she was still hard to control. She questioned everything she was told to do. Nights like this one were becoming more and more common.

And Jamie, as the most practical of the brothers, had come across a problem.

He opened the window of the library, where he was consulting the pack’s ledgers, and leaned out onto the porch. Harley was leaning up against the railing and smoking a cigarette. “Put that out,” Jamie said.

“Fuck off,” Harley replied amiably.

“I’m serious. I need to talk to you. And Mark. Come in here.”

Harley raised his eyebrows quizzically and flicked his cigarette butt into the yard. He turned and went into the house. Jamie shut the window and sat down to wait for his brothers’ arrival.

They came in together. Mark closed the door behind him and took a seat in the armchair, while Harley stood, leaning against the wall. “What’s going on?” Mark asked.

Jamie turned the ledger to face his brothers so they could read what he’d been looking at. “We’re spending more money than we’re bringing in,” he said.

“Still?” Harley asked. “Even after all the cuts we’ve made?”

“We just aren’t making enough money,” Jamie said. “Look. Here’s our budget, right?” He pointed to a row of numbers beneath it. “This is food. This is our mortgage payment. This is what we pay for odd expenses, like visits to doctors. And this is the money we’re putting away every month for...well.” He looked around at all of them. “The point is, we can’t maintain a household of this size. Not with the amount of money we’re bringing in.”

“Amy will be graduating in a year,” Harley pointed out. “She can get a full-time job then.”

“We can’t be sure Amy will choose to stay with us,” Mark said, his voice a deep rumble. “She hasn’t been happy.”

“She wouldn’t leave,” Harley protested. “We took her in when she was just a kid. She had nowhere else to go, and we gave her a home. She wouldn’t abandon us now.”

“We don’t know what’ll happen,” Mark said. “You know how this works as well as I do. When she comes of age, the alpha bonds will break. She’ll have a choice then. She’ll either recommit herself to the Hell’s Wolves, become one of us for life, and get her tattoo, or she’ll leave us forever.”

“And the other two will follow soon after,” Jamie said, nodding. “But that’s not the biggest problem. Whether they stay or go, whether they find jobs or don’t, we’re going to run out our savings in a few months. Something has to change.”

“Where else can we cut corners?” Harley demanded. “We’ve already slashed our food budget. Nobody has any spending money, and the kids haven’t had new clothes in over a year.” He chuckled a little. “No wonder Amy’s pissed off. I would be too if I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit me anymore.”

It was so like Harley, Jamie thought, to laugh at a moment like this. It was at once his favorite and least favorite thing about his brother. He never took anything seriously.

In answer to his question, Jamie rested a finger on a line of the budget. “Here,” he said. “This is what we have to cut. We have to stop putting money aside.”

Harley’s eyes cut to Mark.

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