by J. L. Wilder
© Copyright 2019 by J.L. Wilder- All rights reserved.
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Omega’s Bears
Hell’s Bears MC
By: J.L. Wilder
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Table of Contents
Omega’s Bears: Hell’s Bears MC
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Preview of Omega’s Wolves
About The Author
Omega’s Bears: Hell’s Bears MC
Chapter One
All my life, I’ve felt I should be stronger. All my life, I’ve felt I should be powerful. But all my life, I’ve been nothing.
This isn’t even my motorcycle. I don’t have a bike of my own. I always rode on the back of someone else’s. I got used to the feeling of wrapping my arms around a thick waist as the wind whipped my hair back from my neck. I got used to squeezing the sides of the bike seat with my thighs and pressing my face into the person in front of me—Berto, usually—to keep my cheeks warm.
Most of all, I got used to the feeling of being a passenger. Of not being in control of where we were going or even whether we stayed upright.
That isn’t the case tonight.
I don’t think the fact that I’m an omega was a surprise to anyone. It certainly wasn’t to me. Even when I was a small child, I was quiet, submissive, tame. A follower. Always at the back of the pack. From the moment I was old enough to understand what an omega was, I saw myself in the description. Not that it mattered very much in our clan. Everyone was kind and respectful. No one treated me like I had any less worth. And because no one ever imprinted on me, I was able to live like the betas most of the time.
But what’s happened now is wrong. This is not what’s supposed to happen. When a clan is wiped out, it’s not supposed to be an omega who’s left alive; alone to face the world. That isn’t supposed to happen. We’re not equipped for this. It’s too dangerous. It’s too terrifying.
I can’t believe the clan is gone. Everyone is gone. Berto, Sam, Manny, Val, Dani...they were my best friends, and we thought we’d be together forever. And everybody else too. Leo, our alpha, who managed the clan carefully and fairly. Alessa, Leo’s mate and wife, who was as good as a mother to the rest of us. They were my family. They were all I had in the world.
My life as an omega could have been terrifying. It could have been horrible, abusive, and violent. But I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I’ve been part of a clan that loved me.
Now, that’s gone.
So, I’m ripping North as fast as I can on the motorcycle that used to belong to Berto. He won’t be needing it anymore. I’ll never ride passenger on the back of this bike with my arms around Berto’s waist again. The wolves have seen to that.
It shouldn’t have happened. I should have been stronger.
Being a shifter is a powerful thing, even if I am an omega. I shifted, for the first time, at the age of twelve, but I knew it was coming long before then. My parents were both shifters, and I’d grown up seeing them in bear form. Back then, my father was the leader of the clan, but when he and Mom died in a car accident two weeks after my seventeenth birthday, Leo took over. From that day on, he treated me like a daughter. I feel awful that, when the wolves came, I wasn’t able to protect him. Now, he’s gone too. Everyone I love is gone.
I pull in at a gas station to pick up some food before I stop for the night. Going in here alone is nerve wracking. I’ve done my best to disguise myself, covering up the tattoo that all members of our clan got, and I’m not in heat, so there’s no doubt, being out alone is safer for me right now than it could be. But I’m still all alone in an unfamiliar place. I’m lightweight, slightly built. And I’ve never been taught how to fight or defend myself. It was always the job of the rest of the clan to fight for me, and for each other. I had other responsibilities.
The bell over the door rings as I step in, and the woman behind the counter looks up. I feel better. It’s a woman. There’s security in that. I load up my arms with bottles of water and granola bars, and take them to the counter to pay.
She rings me up, trying not to be obvious about the fact that she’s looking me up and down, but I notice. “What’s your name, hon?” she asks as she puts my purchases in a bag.
“Camile. Cami.” Immediately, I could kick myself. Why did I tell her? I should have lied, but that’s another thing I’ve never learned how to do.
“You out here all alone tonight, Cami?”
“My dad’s waiting at the hotel,” I mumble. Maybe she’s just trying to be helpful, but I can’t take the chance.
She looks at me for a long time. I’m sure she knows I’m lying. She doesn’t call me on it, though. “Twenty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents.”
I hand over the money—all cash, all taken from the wallets of my clan. I didn’t like doing it, but if I hadn’t, someone else would have. And I can’t afford to be traceable right now. The wolves must know I’m still alive. I’m sure they’re already out looking for me.
I take the bag of supplies and head out of the store, looking over my shoulder with every step, in case I’m being followed. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to walk around without worrying that I’m being followed again. Just in case the woman at the gas station took note of me, I drive past two exits on the highway before pulling off at a motel. I’m taking another risk by stopping for the night and I know it, but I also know that I can’t drive all the way from Montana to Alaska without any sleep. I’ll get a few hours and leave early in the morning. That should be fine.
Checking into the motel goes without a hitch. I lock the door to my room and throw the deadbolt, then draw the curtains across the window that faces out onto the street. I have to take every precaution. I wish I could afford to stay somewhere a little nicer, but because all I have is the cash I took from my clan’s wallets, I’m on a tight budget. I need to make this money last as long as I can.
Not that the room is horrible, exactly. It’s warm, at least, and there’s a bathroom with plumbing that works, and little motel shampoo bottles and soaps, so I can clean myself up from the road. There’s even a TV, although I can’t imagine wanting to watch anything right now. It would relax me, but I don’t want to relax. I want to be sharp.
There’s something uncomfortable about this place, all the same. The carpet is damp in places—I learn quickly where the trouble spots are and how to sidestep them. The blanket on the bed is thin and stiff, and I know it will be uncomfortable to sleep under. The pillows are flat. And I’m not confident the water glasses in the bathroom have been changed since the last tenant checked out. But that’s all right. I
t’s one night. I don’t have to use them.
There are worse things out there.
The thing is, the wolves are almost definitely following me.
Inter-clan rivalries are decades old, and I’ve been warned against wolf shifters all my life. But once we knew for sure that I was an omega, the caution ratcheted up to a whole new level. I never understood why, though, until a week ago. Other bears would want me, of course, but what was it about me that drove the wolves wild? I assumed they were just trying to prevent the clan from growing, knowing that, if anyone imprinted on me, I would be able to produce a litter and swell our numbers.
But last week, Leo came home in a state of high anxiety and told us what he’d learned. “They’re trying to cross-breed,” he said, pacing back and forth in front of us, his hands rubbing at the sides of his jeans the way they did when he was under pressure. “They want Cami, so they can breed with her.”
Of course, everyone was outraged, but I was terrified. Berto stayed up all night with me, calming me, assuring me that nothing like that would happen as long as he was alive.
They’ll know I wasn’t there when they slaughtered my clan. They’ll know they missed me. And they won’t have given up on their plan. But now, I have no one to protect me. I’m alone in the world, and I have no ability to fight them off. Running is the only option left.
I have to hope I got away quickly enough that they lost the trail. I have to hope that if they are following me, they won’t pick up on signs, like Berto’s bike, which I did my best to conceal by parking it behind the motel instead of where it could be seen from the street. But my odds of getting out of this are feeling pretty low.
I bathe quickly over the sink, using soap and a washcloth, mostly because I’m afraid to get in the shower. My hearing is sharp, and I’ll know, right away, if anyone makes noise outside the room, but if I’m in the shower, that will muffle any noise there might be. I can’t take the risk. Once clean, I gather up my clothes from the day, place them in the motel garbage can, pull out the bag, and tie it in a knot. I stuff the bag of dirty laundry down to the bottom of my backpack. I’ll have to wait until everything I own is dirty before I can consider spending money on laundry.
I want to leave the lights on, but I know I can’t. I can’t give anyone driving by any reason to notice or think twice about my motel room. As soon as I flick the switch and turn them off, though, the room becomes ten times more ominous. I feel shaky and afraid. I make my way slowly from the wall over to the bed and crawl in, my eyes darting from corner to corner. There are no wolves in here. I would smell them if there were. But I can’t shake the specter from my mind.
I have to sleep but sleep eludes me. When I close my eyes, I see the big old three-story house that was our den. I relive the moment I walked inside after my evening run. I was only allowed to run in the woods behind our house. That was the only place it was safe to go alone. As long as I was there, I was protected, because no one could get by my clan.
I knew, as soon as I walked into the house, that something was wrong. I smelled it. Wolf and something worse. And then I saw the bodies, piled in the living room. Leo, Manny, Val, Alessa, Dani, Sam...and Berto....
They were my brothers and sisters. My mother and father.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to give in to the horror, to fall to the floor and scream with the pain. But the wolves would already be in the forest looking for me. It was sheer luck that I’d made it back without running into them. I had to go. I had to go quickly. So, I ran to my room and threw a few things in a bag, forcing myself not to feel the overwhelming emotions inside. I took the keys to Berto’s bike. I ran. I’ve been running ever since.
Now, finally lying still, the emotions catch up to me and crash down over me, and with thoughts of my lost clan battering against my mind and my heart, I cry myself to sleep.
Chapter Two
I’m hoping the world might look different—less intimidating, with more possibilities—in the light of day. I’m hoping the rash decision I made last night in a haze of fear might actually turn out to be my best option once I’ve slept on it. But I wake up more convinced than ever that going to Alaska and seeking out the Hell’s Bears is the only thing I can do to ensure my safety.
Not that it’s exactly a safe bet. Far from it. The only reason I even know about the Hell’s Bears is that I’ve heard the rumors. I know their reputation for violence, and for living outside shifter law. They don’t take the measures my clan lived by to conceal themselves from the rest of the world. They don’t try to blend in with ordinary people. They’re rough and mean, and if the stories are true, they get by on what they can steal from honest, hardworking folks. They’ve been presented to me as a cautionary tale, as a story of what can happen when a shifter clan defies the law.
But they’re bears. They’re the only other clan of bears I know, for sure, exists. Bears are better than wolves, no matter who they are. And I’m an omega, so I’m pretty sure they’ll have me. I just have to hope that life with them will be tolerable.
I’m feeling a little braver in the light of day, so I risk a shower to help wake myself up. I’m about halfway to the Alaskan border, and I know that if I ride hard all day, I’ll be able to make it there by nightfall. A part of me is eager to do just that and avoid spending another night on the road in a seedy motel. I know that’s the sensible choice. Once I’m with the Hell’s Bears, I’ll be out of danger. The wolves will have to think twice before daring to attack me there. And I need to prioritize the saving of my money. But there’s another part of me that wishes I could delay the moment when I have to meet up with them. If they’re as bad and dangerous as everyone says, there’s every chance I won’t receive a warm welcome. I’m reasonably sure they’ll want an omega to help grow their pack, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be treated as an equal.
Once I’m out of the shower, I take a quick inventory of my supplies. I don’t have much. A couple of handfuls of clothes and a wad of cash that I grabbed before I left home. The granola bars and water bottles from the gas station last night. There’s plenty of room still in my pack, so I return to the bathroom and gather up all the toiletries. I also take a couple of washcloths for good measure. It’s stealing, I know, but my need is greater than the motel’s. I consider taking the towel I used this morning after my shower—it’s got my scent all over it and could be used to track me—but I abandon the idea. My scent is on the bedclothes too, and I can’t take them. It isn’t worth getting all my other possessions damp.
I was planning on eating a granola bar for breakfast before hitting the road, but as I’m repacking my bag, I see a sign on the dresser, partially concealed by the TV, advertising a free continental breakfast. I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have thought a place like this would offer any amenities. And maybe it won’t be any good, but at the very least, it will be a free addition to my stock of food. I can’t say no to that. I put the granola bar back in my bag, figuring it can’t hurt to check out the breakfast situation in the lobby as I’m checking out.
The continental breakfast offering turns out to be pretty paltry. There are cereal dispensers with what look like the store brand versions of more familiar cereals. I wish I could fill plastic baggies and take them with me, but I can’t, so I fill two bowls and take them to a table in the corner. I’ll eat quickly and get out of here.
It’s early in the morning, not yet seven o’clock, but there are a surprising assortment of people eating breakfast. An exhausted looking mother tries to corral two toddlers as she sips her coffee and does something on her phone. An older woman, looking unkempt in clothes that probably haven’t been washed for days, is eating cereal with her fingers, one piece at a time. A boy who can’t be twenty years old has his feet up on the chair opposite him and a novel in his hands that’s probably older than he is.
And a burly looking man with his back to the door is watching me.
My breath freezes in my lungs. My spoon halts halfway to my mouth. I’ve never seen th
is man before in my life. I’m miles from home. Who is he? Why is he looking at me like that? Is he just checking me out because I’m a woman of about his age? Is he simply looking around the room, like I was doing a minute ago, casually noticing who’s here with him? Or is it something more sinister?
Could he be one of the wolves?
I force myself to swallow my bite of cereal and keep eating. I breathe slowly, consciously. I can’t act suspicious. There’s a chance they don’t know what I look like. I don’t know what any of them look like, after all. If he is a wolf, has he scented me already, or do I still have a chance to walk out of here? I don’t know. All I know is that I need to stay calm, and I need to move as soon as possible.
I take another bite of cereal and look back at the toddlers, who are now clamoring for juice boxes. It’s possible the man is just looking at me because I was looking at him. That happens. If I act like I haven’t noticed him, maybe I can divert his attention. My heart is pounding, so I take a few deep breaths. If I start sweating from nerves, it will make me easier to smell. I have to keep him believing I’m just a random woman having breakfast.
In my mind, I’m already tracing the path to Berto’s bike and wishing I hadn’t parked behind the motel. I’m going to have to walk past the man to get to the exit. Then I’m going to have to double back around to get to the bike. I don’t think I can outrun him over such a short distance. If it was a long stretch, I might have a shot. I have endurance, but I’m not that fast, and his legs look powerful.
I risk a quick glance back his way. He’s not looking at me anymore, but if he’s tracking me, I know he’ll register any move I make. He won’t take me here in the motel lobby in front of all these people. He’ll let me get outside. But after that, I have no idea what will happen.
My cereal bowl is empty. I have to go now, before I lose my nerve.
