The Omega's Heart (Wilde Creek Four) Read Free

would
shatter.
    As quickly as his anger appeared, it receded.
Adam drained the bottle and slammed it hard on the tabletop. “I’ll
see you at Dade’s at six.”
    Jeremiah nodded, watching as Adam slipped
from the booth and walked stiffly to the exit. Dade was Acksel’s
father, so clearing his driveway first made sense. Jeremiah
wondered what was going on with Adam. At least he was able to
shift. Jeremiah would give just about anything to be able to shift,
even once. To know what it was like to run in the woods on four
paws, feel the wind through his fur. Instead of hunting on the full
moons, he was relegated to fixing dinner for the alphas and their
guests, running errands, and basically being the pack whipping boy.
He should be grateful for what he had, but all he felt lately was
bitter. He’d even talked recently about leaving. He could take
banishment and find his own way somewhere else, live among humans
and forget he was ever part of a pack.
    Luke, Eveny’s human mate and the owner of
Poke’s, stopped in front of the table and picked up Adam’s empty
bottle. “Is everything okay, Jeremiah?”
    “Yeah, thanks.” He finished the last bit in
the bottle and Luke took it.
    “Be careful out there, it’s a mess
tonight.”
    “Thanks, you too.”
    Jeremiah tossed a few dollars onto the table
as he stood. Tugging his coat on, he wove his way through the crowd
and headed outside. The bitter January wind licked at his face, but
he ignored it. Fortunately, like most shifters he ran warmer than
humans, so he wasn’t as bothered by cold temperatures as they were.
He turned on his truck, extracted the window scraper from behind
the front seat and scraped the windows free of ice and snow, and
then he headed to Wilde Creek Auto to pick up the trailer and snow
blowers which were kept in a storage building there. After
attaching the trailer to his truck, he covered the blowers with a
tarp to keep the snow off them, and stopped to fill them with gas
before heading home.
    He lived in the home he grew up in, a
three-bedroom Cape Cod on a quiet street. It had been built by his
dad as a wedding gift for his mom; they lived in it until Jeremiah
turned seventeen, and then his dad left and joined another pack. He
said that he wanted a fresh start, that it was time to move
on, but Jeremiah hadn’t been asked to join him. He’d been
ashamed that he had a son who couldn’t shift. The partial shifting
that Jeremiah could do — his body bulking slightly, claws and fangs
emerging, and even fur on his arms and legs — was an embarrassment
to the family, and his dad chose to walk away instead of staying
and supporting him. His mom stayed until he finished high school
and turned eighteen, and then she joined his dad. She wasn’t
ashamed of his non status, but she missed her mate and
Jeremiah didn’t blame her for that. It wasn’t her fault that he
couldn’t shift, it was just fate.
    He parked in the driveway of his home and
walked up the covered front porch, stomping the snow from his boots
as he unlocked the front door. Stepping into the warmth of the
house, he shut the door and unlaced his boots, setting them on the
rug to dry and hanging up his coat. Passing by the dining room,
which he’d converted into a weight room, he walked through the
family room to the master bedroom. After dropping his clothes into
the laundry basket in the closet, he climbed into bed and set his
alarm for five a.m. so he could meet Adam at Dade’s.
    The house was empty. Silent. The room was
dark, the bed cold and empty. Not that he’d expected to walk into
the house tonight and find the woman of his dreams waiting for him;
he was a realist after all. But he did wish that things were
different. That he wasn’t alone, an outcast among his people,
always on the outside looking in. Adam was clearly feeling the
weight of their status too, considering how upset he’d seemed
earlier.
    He’d been considering leaving for a while
now, and maybe he really