Page 6 of Omega's Triplets

“We can’t stop saving,” Mark said. “That’s vital. That money is for our omega, and we need one. It’s the only way we can hope to grow our pack.”

“Do we even want to grow our pack right now?” Jamie asked. “Money’s so tight.”

“You know we need to do this,” Mark said. “We need to find someone who can help us carry on our bloodline. And it’s best to do that while we’re young and strong, while we’ll have time to help raise the pups and identify our heir.”

“Then we need to increase our income,” Jamie said. “It’s the only other choice. You two will have to look at getting jobs again.”

“Hey, I’ve got a job,” Harley said, holding up his hands.

“You need to work more,” Jamie said. “You need to get more clients.”

“Okay, okay.”

Jamie turned to Mark, but Mark was already shaking his head. “You know what happens,” he said. “You know why I can’t.”

“I know you have to try,” Jamie said bluntly. “Otherwise, we’re going to be broke.”

Mark stood up and walked out of the room.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Harley said quietly.

Jamie shook his head. “Someone had to tell him,” he said. But deep down, he agreed with Harley. He wished there was another way, one that wouldn’t cause his brother such pain.

***

MARK HIT THE GROUNDrunning as soon as he burst out the front door of the house the pack shared. He was in the woods in a few strides, his worries left far behind him. He took comfort in the strain of his muscles as he ran, in the way the shadows of the trees swallowed him and the way the earth felt beneath his paws as he dug in and pushed harder, ran faster.

Mark Driscoll was always most at home in wolf form.

Had he not been born a triplet, he thought, he would still have been the alpha in his generation. Most days, he felt more like a wolf than a man, and he caught himself walking around scenting the air, looking for danger. He was fiercely protective of the rest of his pack and would have done anything to keep them safe and well fed.

But getting a job?

The fact that he couldn’t hang onto a job was humiliating. It felt like a slap in the face to have Jamie bring it up so casually, as if it were just something Mark had chosen not to do. As if he was being lazy. The truth was that Mark would have loved to be able to hold a job, to bring home a paycheck to his family the way Jamie could. But every time he was employed, he ended up quickly getting fired.

Harley’s theory was that it had something to do with being the dominant alpha in their little triumvirate. It was rare for a pack to be led by three alphas—so rare, in fact, that Mark had never heard of it happening before his own family. The only other instance he knew of that resembled his own was that of his grandfather—or perhapsgrandfatherswould be the better term, since it had never been clear which man had sired their father.

Whatever the reason, Mark had never been able to tolerate being subordinate to someone else. Any job he managed to get went south because he wasn’t able to submit to the authority of a boss or supervisor. Things would roll along well enough for a few days or weeks, but eventually, the boss would say something Mark disagreed with, and he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut. He had to make his voice heard. He had to do things in the way he felt was best. It wasn’t a choice. It was a visceral need, like hunger or lust or the need he felt now to run through the forest.

In the best of cases, Mark would simply be fired from his jobs. But things had gone far worse than that in some instances. His animal self was never far from the surface, and it tended to emerge when he was provoked. More than once, he’d had to run sprinting from an office building, diving around corners, desperate to get out of sight so that he could shift freely.

More than once, he’d almost been seen.

It would have been nice to get a job. He knew that. It would have gotten his pack out of the bind they were in. But he didn’t think he could stand the humiliation that would come along with trying and failing again. He didn’t think he could force himself, again, to try to submit to someone who shouldn’t have authority over him.

A job was not the answer. But there would have to be an answer. He would have to think of something else, some other way to solve the problem Jamie had pointed out.

And Jamie’s proposed solution wouldn’t do. They couldn’t give up on their plan to purchase an omega.

Mark’s family was pureblood for generations. He and his brothers were descended from alpha/omega matches as far back as anybody could remember. It was that careful breeding that had strengthened the alpha gene in their family, allowing all three of the identical triplet boys in his litter to be born with it. And if the brothers were careful to breed with an omega—a strong omega, one capable of carrying litters from multiple fathers—the gene would be passed along.

The only problem was, it was hard to find omegas, and even harder to find good strong ones who hadn’t been used or diminished themselves by going on the run. Most omegas had lost a good deal of their health and strength by the time they reached breeding age, unless they had been raised within a pack. And the Hell’s Wolves didn’t have one.

So, they were going to have to buy one.

And that would take a lot of money. Mark and his brothers had been saving up for two years now, putting aside as much as they could from every paycheck. That savings would give them enough to live on for a while, if it came down to it...but then, they would have to sacrifice the idea of getting themselves an omega.

Unless they could figure out another way to get one. Unless they could figure out how to do it without paying, and without compromising quality.

---