Hell's Wolves MC: Complete Series Six Book Box Set

by J. L. Wilder

  Afterward, they laid together in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening for the cries of their children. None came. So far, the babies remained asleep.

  “Someday,” she said, “I want you to go on the road again, Emmett.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  He raised himself up on one elbow and looked at her.

  “The days we spent on your bike together were some of the most exciting of my life,” she said. “I want you to take me places. I want to meet new people and see new things. Maybe I even want to try working a job.”

  “But the babies—”

  “In a few years, when they’re a little older, they’ll be able to get by without me for a while,” she said. “The others will take care of them. You and I can go out together the way Xander and Judah are now.”

  “You’d really want that?”

  “More than anything,” she said. “It’s like you said. I’m a human, and I have my human life, living here in this house and raising our children. But I’m a wolf too. I can’t let go of that side of myself, not now that I’ve found it. I want to know my wild side. I want to know what it’s like to be on the road when you’re not on the run. And someday, when they’re old enough, I want that for the kids too.”

  Emmett couldn’t believe his ears. “I was ready to give that up,” he said. “I chose you. This life.”

  “And I chose you,” she said, pulling herself in close to him. “Never forget that, Emmett. You may have chosen my life, but I also chose yours. We should have both.”

  Emmett’s heart swelled with happiness, and he bent to kiss her again.

  Omega’s Triplets

  Prologue

  “Maddy! Madison, wake up.”

  Madison Wood blinked her way slowly out of her dream. Her house mother, Leanne, was standing over her, holding a breakfast tray. She sat up, grumbling just a little as she did. “I was having a good dream, Leanne.”

  “Well, you’ll want your breakfast before it gets cold,” Leanne said briskly. “I’m not going to make you a second one later because you weren’t awake to eat. I have chores to do today, you know.”

  Maddy nodded. Reaching behind her, she arranged her pillows to support her, then accepted the tray of food Leanne was holding out. “Oatmeal again?”

  “It’s good for you,” Leanne said. “Eat it all, now.”

  “They’re having bacon and waffles down in the kitchen, aren’t they?” Maddy asked.

  “Do you really want me to tell you?”

  Maddy sighed theatrically. “It’s just so unfair.”

  “You know why you can’t eat that sort of thing, Maddy.”

  “Because I’m an omega.” She stirred her oatmeal unhappily, contemplating the tomato juice beside the bowl. “I know. I have to keep my body at peak health, so I can bear healthy children someday. But someday isn’t tomorrow. I’m only thirteen. Couldn’t I have some bacon?”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Leanne said. “Nathaniel has given strict orders about your diet. You know that.”

  “Everything Nathaniel does is strict.”

  Leanne softened a bit. “That may be true,” she said, “but he’s your alpha, and the alpha of our pack. All he wants to do is take care of all of us. And that’s a difficult job. You could make his life a little easier by eating your breakfast without complaining.”

  Maddy sighed again.

  “Come on, now, you’ve got a full day ahead,” Leanne said. “You’ll be spending time with Nora and Baby Evelyn today.”

  Maddy brightened at that. “Oh, I love Evelyn!”

  “She’s darling, isn’t she,” Leanne agreed. “Be glad that you get to spend your days learning the skills you’ll need someday as a mother, Maddy. Some of us will be cleaning the grout in your bathroom.”

  Maddy looked abashed. “I’m sorry, Leanne. I didn’t mean to seem spoiled. And I’m sorry if I messed up the grout.” She paused and bit her lip. “What’s grout?”

  Leanne laughed. “Don’t you worry about it. It’s not a problem for an omega to think about. Your job is to learn how to care for that baby.”

  Maddy nodded and finished her breakfast with noticeably increased enthusiasm. After draining her glass of tomato juice, she hopped out of bed and made her way over to the closet. She chose a simple shift dress, one that wouldn’t get in her way while she worked, but one that she knew made her look pretty. She was always aware of the compliments she received from the other members of her pack when she dressed well and smiled prettily. Part of an omega’s job was to be charming.

  Maddy took pride in her status as the pack’s only omega. Not many people could contribute to a pack in the way that she could—omegas were very rare. And even though she wouldn’t be able to bear a litter until she was a grownup, she was determined to do everything she could right now to be the best omega her pack could ask for.

  Even if it meant giving up bacon.

  BABY EVELYN WAS ALWAYS fun to spend time with, Maddy thought. But Nora was not.

  “All she does is cry,” Nora said, holding the baby out to Maddy the moment she arrived. “Thank God you’re here, or I’d never get a break from it.” She didn’t sound to Maddy as though she was actually grateful for the help. She sounded annoyed with her baby, and annoyed that Maddy had taken so long to arrive. She probably doesn’t dare to say anything about that, though, Maddy thought, feeling ever so slightly smug. It was one of Nathaniel’s rules. No one was allowed to say anything unkind to her, to make her feel unloved or unwelcome. The omega is just as important to the health of the pack as the alpha is, he often said. You must all treat her with the same respect you show me.

  Nora was probably jealous, Maddy thought. Jealous because she could only have one baby at a time, and jealous because her baby wasn’t special the way Maddy’s would be someday. But she didn’t say any of that, because she also wanted to be kind. It was important for omegas to be kind, to be able to win people over. She took the baby into her arms. “Does she need a bottle?” she asked.

  “She’s already eaten,” Nora said. She slumped back in her armchair, looking exhausted. “Would you take her outside? I can’t listen to that crying anymore.”

  Balancing Evelyn on her hip, Maddy left Nora’s room and went out into the backyard. It was one of the few places she was allowed to go without supervision, because it was surrounded by a high privacy hedge. The pack was very protective of her—too protective, she though sometimes. The other kids her age were allowed to go to the mall together, or to the beach, or out to a movie. But if Maddy wanted to go along, an adult had to be a part of the group. It was understandable that the other kids were never that excited about that prospect, she thought. She could see why, after a while, they had stopped inviting her.

  That didn’t make it any less lonely.

  But it won’t always be like this, she thought firmly. One day, I’ll be mated to someone, and I’ll have a whole litter of babies to look after. I’ll be the most important person in the whole pack. Maybe my mate will even be the new alpha. That was an exciting thought. If she was mated with the alpha, she could help him make decisions for the pack. She could help make the rules, instead of just being subject to them.

  She knelt in the grass and set the baby down. Immediately, Evelyn set off on hands and knees to explore the wide lawn, her tears forgotten. She’s not a crybaby, Maddy thought, somewhat resentfully. Nora didn’t appreciate her own baby. Evelyn just wanted the freedom to roam and play, to discover new things. She was bored.

  Maddy could relate.

  “You know what it’s like, Evelyn, don’t you,” she said, flopping on her stomach on the grass and watching her charge crawl around her. “You don’t like being cooped up in that house either.”

  Evelyn did not respond, of course. Maddy rolled onto her back and gazed up at the sky.

  “Someday, you and I will go somewhere,” she told the baby. “Someday, we’ll get out of this place. We’ll leave
it behind us for good. Maybe we’ll even leave Los Angeles. Would you like that? There are thousands of other places in the world. When you get older, you’ll be able to read about them, but reading isn’t the same as seeing them in real life.” She sighed. “I want to be a mother someday, I really do, but sometimes, it seems unfair that that’s the only thing I’m supposed to do. Nora whines a lot about it, but at least she gets to go out on dates with her husband.”

  Evelyn had discovered a ladybug and was trying to pick it up. She ignored Maddy altogether.

  “Everyone says I should stay in the house because it’s not safe to go out,” Maddy said. “But they go out all the time, don’t they? It isn’t fair. I may be an omega, but I know how to take care of myself.” It was true. Part of her daily fitness regimen, which was as strictly adhered to as her diet, included self-defense training.

  “What do I need self-defense for?” she had asked Nathaniel once. “I never go out. I never meet strangers. I’m not going to be attacked.”

  “You need it because you never know what kind of situation you might find yourself in,” he had said. “We do our best to keep you safe and protected, but you’re an omega, and that makes you a target.”

  “A target for what?”

  “Bad people,” he had said shortly, and left it at that.

  Maddy had never met anyone she would have considered bad in her life, though. Her packmates were wealthy and held good jobs in the community, a thing not many shifters were able to do, she knew. Most shifters were wild and lived off the grid in messy little packs that she wouldn’t have cared to associate with. They might be cruel to her, she knew, but Nathaniel’s pack never was. She knew exactly how lucky she was to have been born into this family, to be raised in this sprawling house where she was safe and cared for and wanted for nothing.

  But if only she could get out sometimes! It was absolutely maddening.

  Maddy whiled away the morning hours with only Evelyn for company, wondering what the others her own age were doing today. It could go one of two ways, she supposed. It might be that they were stuck in lessons, preparing for the jobs they would one day have to go out and get to help support the pack. As omega, Maddy would never be required to get a job—her only responsibilities were to stay healthy and to bear litters of children someday. And while it did please her to be spared the homework assignments and exams the others had to worry about, she sometimes wondered whether she might not enjoy learning to do something and contributing to the pack in some other way.

  It was also possible, she knew, that today was not a school day. If that were the case, it was likely that everyone near her own age would have been given shopping money and taken downtown. They would come back with bags bursting with new clothes, nail polish and makeup, books, treats Maddy would never be allowed to eat—all kinds of wonderful things. And while a few of her friends usually remembered her and brought something back for her, which she did appreciate, it was very different from being able to go to the store and pick out whatever you wanted yourself.

  Around noon, Leanne came outside with another tray, this one bearing lunch. She had been given a fillet of salmon over a corn and lentil mixture and a bowl of spinach and kale with just a hint of dressing. Leanne also had a bottle for Evelyn, which Nora had prepared and sent out. “Don’t you think it’s about time you brought that baby inside?” she asked, hands on her hips.

  “She likes it out here,” Maddy said. “She has to spend all her time inside, with Nora complaining about how much she cries. She deserves a break from that, doesn’t she?”

  “Well, maybe she does,” Leanne allowed. “Eat everything on your plate, all right? I’ll be back for it in about an hour. No hiding your kale in the bushes, now. You know it’ll be sniffed out if you do.”

  “I know, I know.” Maddy hadn’t bothered with hiding food she didn’t want to eat in the yard in years, but it seemed to her that no one was ever going to forget she had done it when she was younger. Of course, hiding food was ridiculous in a house full of wolf shifters. Hiding anything was ridiculous. Sooner or later, someone was bound to shift into his or her animal form, and once they had, they would know immediately what you’d done.

  She sat on the grass, picking at the salad, taking slow bites of the fish, which was the only thing she’d been given that she really liked. Lentils and spinach were tolerable, but kale was appalling. Maddy thought she would rather have pulled up tufts of grass from the lawn and eaten that.

  She finished everything on her plate, eventually, washing down the last few bites of kale with great big gulps of water, and carried the tray over to the patio for Leanne to collect. She knew she ought to think about bringing Evelyn inside now. The baby had rolled onto her back on the ground and was examining her own feet, and Maddy knew her well enough to know that this behavior usually led directly into naptime. Was that true for all babies, she wondered, or was it just Evelyn? She supposed she’d find out when the next member of her pack had a child.

  “Hey.”

  The voice was unfamiliar. She spun around. A boy was sticking his head over the top of the privacy hedge.

  “Who are you?” she asked him. He wasn’t a member of her pack, and she rarely got to meet anyone else, so any interaction with a new person was interesting. The boy looked to be a few years older than her, maybe in his late teens. He had a rash of stubble across his chin, but he still had the lean, wiry look of a boy who wasn’t yet a man.

  “Who are you?” the boy returned.

  That caught her by surprise. It was rare that anyone talked back to Maddy. They weren’t allowed to show disrespect to her, after all. She was their omega. “I’m Maddy,” she said. “Are you here to see Nathaniel? The front door is on the other side of the house.”

  “No,” he said. “I was just passing by and I... I heard you.” There was something she didn’t like about the look on his face when he said that, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She suspected he was lying. But why would he lie about that?

  “I was talking to Evelyn. The baby,” she said.

  “Your sister?” he asked.

  “Sort of.” The true answer was no, of course—Nora was not Maddy’s mother, she was far too young—but Maddy knew better than to share the details of her living situation with a stranger. You couldn’t exactly go around telling humans that you were part of a wolf pack.

  “Come over here,” he said.

  She edged over toward the hedge. “You can’t be that tall,” she said. The hedge had been planted around the property the year Maddy was born, and it now reached over the heads of even the tallest men in the pack. “How are you doing that?”

  He laughed. “Haven’t you ever climbed it?”

  “Climbed it?” It had never occurred to Maddy that the hedge could be climbed. She wouldn’t have been allowed to do it, she knew—if Nathaniel had known she was thinking about it, he would have forbidden it. But she had never asked him, and that left her free.

  “Give it a try,” the boy said. “Find thick branches.”

  She found one near the ground and boosted herself up, gripping the leaves above her to keep her balance. It was nothing like climbing a tree—the hedge shook precariously beneath her—but it held, and she was able to keep her balance. She climbed higher.

  Before long, she was face to face with the boy, and closer than she’d ever been to a person outside her pack. He smiled. “Now we can talk properly,” he said.

  She glanced over her shoulder, checking on the baby. Evelyn had tucked a thumb into her mouth and fallen asleep. “I’ll have to go if anyone comes,” she said.

  “Are you expecting anyone?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly one.”

  “My house mother will be out soon to get my lunch tray.”

  “Your what?”

  “My mother, I mean.” She could have kicked herself. House mother wasn’t something ordinary humans had. She didn’t even know whether other shifters had it. I
t was an honorary title, given by Nathaniel, to the oldest woman in the pack, who acted as surrogate mother to all the others, whether their natural mothers were around or not. “What’s your name?” she asked the boy, hoping to distract him from her mistake.

  “Brendon.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m seventeen.” He tossed his hair self-importantly, as though seventeen were the most impressive thing anyone could be. Maddy felt like laughing. Anybody could be seventeen. Almost everybody would be, at some point. What was the big deal?

  He leaned in. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” Maddy said, feeling a strange thrill she couldn’t quite explain. It was like excitement, but with just a pinch of dread. There had been something in his voice just now that she wasn’t sure she could trust.

  He leaned in. Despite herself, Maddy leaned closer to him.

  His mouth very near her ear, he whispered, “You’re an omega, aren’t you?”

  Startled, Maddy jerked back.

  She almost fell off the hedge, and would have landed flat on her back, but Brendon’s arm shot out like a snake. He caught the front of her dress and pulled her back toward him, his smile now edging toward a sneer. “You are,” he said. “I smelled it on you as I was passing.” He shook his head. “An omega, out in the yard alone. Unwatched.”

  “I don’t need to be watched,” Maddy said, although she was wishing very much right now that she had a chaperone with her. She was suddenly deeply afraid. “I know self-defense. I’m allowed to be out on my own.”

  “Are you?” Brendon said. “Are you really?”

  And before she could answer, before she could even think to scream, he had jumped backward off the hedge, hauling her over the top. Her face scraped along the twigs as she went over, and she felt the heat of her own blood, and then the sidewalk was rushing up to meet her. She felt a sharp burst of pain, and then the world around her faded to black and to silence.

  In the private backyard, now alone except for the empty lunch tray by the door, Baby Evelyn stirred and began, once more, to cry.