Page 73 of Omega's Triplets

“Okay, I get it, I hid in a hole—”

“No, not that,” Harley said, although he had broken into a grin at the mention of Mark in the hole. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time or anything. I’m talking about what Jamie did. Jamie was the one who really made them go away, in the end. Jamie was the one who saw what he needed to give them to make them leave us alone.”

“A way to walk away with their dignity intact,” Mark said, nodding. “Itwaspretty impressive. I couldn’t have done it.”

“Neither could I,” Harley said. “Maybe we’ve been wrong all these years. Maybe Jamie is the prime alpha.”

But Jamie shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a prime alpha,” he said. “None of us have ever been forced to submit to each other, have we? It doesn’t work like that. We voluntarily follow the person who’s best for whatever job needs doing, that’s all. And all three of us have different skills.” He scooped one of the other boy babies into his own arms. “If we do have three alphas here,” he said, “I’d be willing to bet it’ll work the same way for them as it does for us.”

Maddy frowned as a sudden thought occurred to her.

“If we have alphas,” she said, “we could have an omega too. Couldn’t we? One of the girls could be an omega.”

“That’s likely,” Jamie said when the other two looked at him for an answer. “It didn’t happen in our family, because our mother only had sons. But the omega gene runs in families, just like the alpha gene, and almost everyone who has it either has an omega for a mother or a grandmother. It’s rare, so it’s not likely that both girls got it, but I would say the odds are good that one of them did.”

“When will we know?” Maddy surveyed her daughters anxiously.

“When did you know you were an omega?” Jamie asked her.

“I always knew,” she said. “I mean, notalways, I’m sure, but I can’t remember a time I didn’t know.”

“There are milestones,” Jamie said. “You can usually tell by watching toddlers in a pack at play. The alpha—or alphas—will dominate, dictating what games the group plays and who gets what toy. Omegas, on the other hand, are submissive at play, always giving away their toys when someone else asks, always sensitive to the emotions of those around them. We should be able to tell by watching them if we’ve got an omega.”

Maddy felt her stomach drop. For the past nine months, she’d been imagining the joys of watching her children grow up. How many times had she pictured herself sitting among a happy group of toddlers as they played together? But now, the image took on a dark significance. When that vision became a reality, when she sat amid her children and watched as they played, she would be scrutinizing their every move for the dreaded sign that would mean one of her daughters was an omega.

“Maddy?”

She blinked. All three of her alphas were staring at her, concern written on their faces. “What’s wrong?” Harley asked anxiously. “Your face is white.”

“Are you lightheaded?” Mark asked. He turned to Jamie. “She’s not bleeding, is she?”

“It isn’t that,” Maddy said quickly. “I just...I was worrying.”

“Worrying about what?”

“About the girls. About finding out that one of them is an omega.”

Mark looked confused. “You don’t want them to be?”

“God, no.”

“Why not?”

“Are you kidding?” Maddy asked. “After the life I’ve had?”

“But you’re happy, right?” Harley said anxiously.

“Sure, I am, now,” Maddy said. “But before I was happy, I was kidnapped. I spent half my life living in a cage and being treated like I wasn’t human. Just because I was an omega.”

“It won’t be like that for our girls,” Jamie said, squeezing her hand. “They’re safe here with us.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re safe,” Maddy said. “Before the Death Fangs found me, I had a great family. A pack that loved me and made every effort to keep me safe. They kept me indoors all the time, they never let anyone know I existed. I couldn’t go shopping or out to the movies with my packmates. I don’t wantthatlife for one of my children. And even with all those extra precautions, I still got kidnapped.”

That silenced the alphas. They looked at each other, and Maddy could tell that none of them knew how to respond.

“And the Death Fangs are still out there,” she added. “They’re still out there, still running their omega farm, andthey know where we live.”

“They aren’t going to come back here,” Mark said. “Not after what happened. They know we could have killed their alpha. They won’t risk that again.”

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