Page 1 of Wild Omegas (Wild Skies Ranch Omegaverse #1)

Josie

When life gives you troubles, turn to Wild Skies for help.

That was the family motto that kept Wild Skies Ranch running for generations.

My grandparents’ grandparents didn’t intend for Wild Skies to become an escape, I don’t think.

At least, not like the one my own grandparents are allowing me for the moment.

“Go to Wild Skies,” Grandmother said. “You’ll be safe from prying eyes there, little cell service. No one will know.”

She left out how “no one will know” mostly because a city-dweller like me would probably never be caught dead out in the country. I haven’t been to Wild Skies Ranch since I was a kid.

But as a packless omega on the run from an alpha crime lord, who am I to argue?

“Thank you, Grandmother.” I left it at that because I had packing to do.

Two flights and a bumpy ride in a sedan that could do with being a Jeep later, I find myself thunderously winding down a long dirt road between endless fields.

My Camry desperately needs a new muffler, and the car is so loud that I wonder for a second if Damien simply would need to only follow its roars to find me.

I mentally add “new muffler” to my to-do list while at Wild Skies Ranch.

Mountains rise in the distance. They loom tall and ancient over the valley. Protectors of a sort, I guess, if you’re into that.

I hope they can protect me. Not just from Damien Malova. But from myself. It’s hard not to look at the burn marks on my fingers as I drive—a constant reminder of why I need to run in the first place.

My bakery in New York, a fire. Insurance money or a dark exit from all of life’s troubles.

And Damien.

I swallow hard as if that’ll remove the memory of his furious face as he pulled me from the fire by my throat three months ago.

Three months.

May two flights and many long dirt roads be enough to keep me from Damien’s reach.

The long dirt road winds around natural obstacles low to the ground—larger boulders as old as this valley, collections of leafless bushes, and cattle fences as far as I can see.

Wild Skies Ranch sits about a half hour from Fairwater Falls, the largest town for miles.

I made sure to stop there to load up on basic supplies.

Grandma said the house would be stocked but her idea of “basics stocked” is a far cry from my definition. Especially in the kitchen.

Just because I burned down my bakery in New York doesn’t mean I hate cooking. In fact, I love it. It’s the only therapy that’s every worked for me.

Until it didn’t.

I swallow hard as dread starts coiling tight around my chest. No one gets to the point I was at on purpose. Things pile and pile and then…

Wild Skies Ranch’s large wooden sign comes into view, arching across the road and supported by two massive wooden pillars engraved with images of horses and cowboys.

I am finally here. Nostalgia grips tight.

My grandparents no longer live here full-time but Grandma’s favorite petunias are potted out front and memories of my cousins and I placing our hands in wet concrete to forever mark our presence here swim in my mind.

Summers chasing fireflies, springs catching other bugs.

We grew up in Fairwater Falls, but I spent most of my childhood summers here.

Memories build and swarm my mind. But as much as this place feels like home thanks to the history it’s built on, I know it’s just nostalgia.

My cousins and grandparents aren’t here. It’s just me.

The feeling of home strikes me hard anyway, and so very unexpected. Wild Skies Ranch will always feel familiar in a deep way I cannot explain or ever remove from myself. But honestly, I don’t have a home anymore.

I made sure of that when I burnt it to the ground.

And my parents made sure I couldn’t go home to them when their voiced their utter disappointment in me and my life choices—even before the fire.

I fell in with a pack to whom I was not scent-matched and they left me for another matched omega after years together.

I am packless at thirty-years-old. I am a nomad. I have no job prospects. If Damien finds me or I can’t make Wild Skies Ranch more of a lucrative home over the next year, even my grandparents’ very generous last-ditch effort to help me won’t save me.

I’ll have run out of chances.

I lost my bakery because business dwindled. I won’t let that happen to Wild Skies. Especially not after my grandparents stepped in over absent parents to help me out.

Wild Skies Ranch has large pastures stretching for miles on end.

One for cattle and one for sheep. There’s a generous garden behind the barn and a massive main house with two wings, one for our family and the other for ranch staff who’d prefer to stay on-site.

I remember my grandmother’s kitchen being large and that’s about the only thing lifting me out of this thought-spiral of what I’ve left behind.

No. What I ran from. It’s better to be honest with myself.

I ran from my financial woes. I ran from disappointing my parents by losing my pack even though it was hardly my fault we weren’t scent-matched. I tried to run from life entirely, but the fire I set wasn’t quite fatal to anything except Damien’s property.

I swallow all this down and pull my car into the main driveway which is really more a bunch of well-worn stones pressed into the earth. Three cars are parked along the semi-circle toward the far end. Staff, I suppose, as no one from the family is supposed to be here.

I park the car in front of the walkway leading to the main house and climb out to stretch my legs.

Sounds of cattle echo in the distance as well as sprinklers and wind that meets little resistance here with minimal trees.

It blows my long brown hair around my face.

I push it back behind my ears and step toward the trunk of the car where the cooler of groceries is.

But the wind is as unforgiving as Damien.

My hair whips around my eyes and I lose my balance.

My foot dips into a hole in the driveway made of pebbles and I tilt sideways at an odd angle.

My ankle twists and I topple to the ground about as ungracefully as possible, a loud yelp leaving my lips and everything.

My right hip hits the pebbles first, sending shooting pain through my legs and lower back. A pulsing agony follows as it envelops my ankle and foot.

“Fucking hell ,” I curse. Tears well in my eyes. What a welcome back this is. I feel like a glass vase under pressure— fragile and about to snap. The weight of everything hits. A crash out is imminent.

Then I hear someone running toward me.

Blood drains from my face. Someone saw that? Oh, hell no.

I refuse to look up and meet their gaze. How fucking embarrassing is this?

“Ma’am!” a male voice calls out. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

I catch a glimpse of a pair of boots rushing toward me. For fuck’s sake. I try to stand but my twisted ankle doesn’t oblige. Instead I fall back to the ground in a heap of limbs and resign to the fact that maybe this is a sign from the universe.

I don’t belong anywhere.

I won’t succeed anywhere.

There is no escape from what I did—or failed to do.

The man finally catches up to where I’ve all but given up on life, my final straw reached. He kneels down before me. “Are you okay?”

He’s breathless, like he’s run a long distance to get here. He’s wearing brown gardening gloves still covered in dirt and his voice is like water on stones—smooth and unyielding. And then a wall of cedar scent hits me strong as any forest.

Cedar scent.

This man is an alpha.

I look up mostly out of shock to find he’s about my age, with short black hair and a matching short beard. Twin pools of sapphire eyes check me over for injuries and, upon spotting the obvious swelling ankle, a deep crease forms in his brow.

“Let’s get you inside,” he says and moves to help me up.

I take his hand—his warm, strong, able hand—and he hauls me up from the ground like I weigh nothing at all. His bare forearms are sun-kissed from working outside and a small amount of sweat crests his brow.

“I’m okay,” I stammer with absolutely zero confidence in the statement. But why I’m not okay and the fact I’ve twisted my ankle are two very different worries. “I can get all this inside.”

He lets out a curt breath. “Like hell you can. Let me help.” He leaves me standing but watches me to make sure I’m steady while he grabs the cooler from the trunk of my car. “You are?”

Right. Common decency would warrant telling someone who helped you up from the ground what your name is. Too bad I’m slightly infuriated at his insistence to help me. While I am grateful he was there to lift me up, I’d much rather he’d not have seen what happened at all.

“Josie,” I finally say. “My grandparents own Wild Skies Ranch.”

His eyes go wide. He inclines his head. “I was told you might be stopping by. My apologies. I’m Carson, the ranch gardener and landscaper.

I heard you go down.” He sets the cooler down and it’s takes everything in me to not watch the way his forearms flex as he does so.

I fail. I fail so hard. Those forearms look like he could lift me over his head and right into?—

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Carson’s tone conveys worry but there’s an amused twist of his lips. He was watching me watch him.

A hot blush creeps up my cheeks. I might die. I just might. Right here. Right now. “Y-yes. I’m good, thank you—” I go to walk away, having obviously completely forgot what brought the two of us to this very moment, and stumble so hard I nearly topple to the ground a second time.

“Yep, all right.” Carson abandon’s the cooler. “We’re getting you into the house first.”

He touches a polite hand to the back of my elbow and my entire world does a sort of flip flop motion—or is that my stomach? Butterflies take flight there.

His cedar scent. His voice. His alphaness .

His scent.

Carson the gardener is a scent match.

The realization sinks its teeth deep into me. Not only am I not quite so alone at Wild Skies, there’s an alpha here who’s a match.

Did my grandparents know?

“Really, I can hobble my way in there on my own,” I persist because I desperately need distance from him in this instant. Too many things are happening at once.

“Not a chance.” Carson puts an arm under mine and starts helping me up to the house. “Don’t make me carry you.”

He says it with a jesting tone, but my greater objection to logic has me wishing he would. Maybe if I just stop walking for a single second?—

What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t do that. I just—can’t.

But I want to. I don’t think this is the type of help Grandma said Wild Skies gives if life gives you troubles. Not at all .

“No, I can take myself inside?—”

“Alrighty then.” Carson scoops me off my feet and carries me toward the house.