Page 19 of Wild Omegas (Wild Skies Ranch Omegaverse #1)

Josie

My alphas’ bite marks sting for only a few minutes before my body heals them. Omegas are special, and today I feel it. The morning after my heat ends reveals a whole new world to me, one brighter and safer and… Clearer .

And it’s not just because my heat is gone or I’m officially part of this pack. It’s deeper than that. It’s this commitment we’ve made to each other and the fact I feel like I finally do have a home in this world.

A home I’ve had all long here at Wild Skies Ranch with family, but one I now share with my pack.

Grandma and Grandpa were right. I turned to Wild Skies for help, and instead of an escape I found a home.

I wake before my alphas and somehow manage to slip out of my nest undiscovered.

I shower quick and head into the kitchen to make them a breakfast befitting a banquet.

Fruit bowls, pancakes, coffee, eggs, bacon—everything.

They deserve the best after taking such good care of me during my heat.

I have it all set out on the table with orange and apple juice to choose from before they stumble their way into the kitchen.

I think it was the smell of cooking bacon that finally roused them.

Luke stares in awe. “Josie, this is too much.”

I beam a smile his way. “Not for my alphas it’s not.” I greet them each with a kiss and then invite them to the table. “Thank you all so much for taking care of me.”

“It was our pleasure, I assure you,” Brooks says.

Carson sips his coffee and smiles. “Anything for you, Josie.”

I’m not used to this. Receiving help, accepting it. Being so totally cared for like this. And maybe that’s the real reason why I didn’t finish answering Luke’s questions about what happened in New York before my heat obliterated my ability to function for days.

I’ll have to answer those questions soon, I know. But not now.

I indicate the food before us. “Please. Let’s eat.”

We do, with light conversation and talk of going into Fairwater to pick up groceries and other household necessities later. I for one can’t wait to actually get out of the house and move around. I love my nest and the time spent with my alphas inside it, but goodness the cabin fever is strong.

“Let’s all get ready and leave around ten-ish?” I suggest.

My alphas agree and we work together to clean up breakfast before separating to ready ourselves.

It’s warmer today so I pick out a sundress and shrug sweater to wear over top and head out to the porch to wait for my alphas.

We’ll have to be quick in town so they can take care of the animals for the day—which I’m all too eager to help with after the last few days—but hopefully we can have a good time while we are there.

I hop down and start to make my way toward the fence where one of the foals is prancing about proudly. And then I see it.

A box wrapped in pink wrapping paper with a bow on top right in front of the fence where that baby foal is. That’s what it was excited about. Probably thought it was treats.

I hurry over, thinking maybe one of my alphas left me a gift. My name is written across the top in a swirling cursive I didn’t think any of them were capable of. Warm happiness spreads through my chest. They shouldn’t have.

I slip a finger under the paper and open the box.

It’s light but wide, the length of a piece of paper, and honestly I’m afraid the wind picking up might knock it out of my hands entirely.

I open the package carefully and tuck the paper into my dress pockets so it doesn’t blow somewhere the animals will find and eat it. Then I open the box.

Only a single piece of paper is inside. My brow furrows. I pluck it from the box and hold it up.

It’s a newspaper article. Not a print off from some website, not a photo. An actual clipping of a news story that makes my heart drop to the ground.

I freeze in place as I read the headline: Local Bakery and Two Apartments Burn. No Injuries.

The newspaper clipping falls from my fingers.

Damien’s not only haunting me through my phone, he’s haunting me here.

Ice shoots down my spine. Damien knows where I am.

He is here.

I sense someone behind me and whip around, my fist up and ready to strike.

Brooks catches it in his own hand and chuckles. “Hey now, it’s just me.” Then his expression falls. “What’s wrong?”

But I have no breath. My mouth is dry.

Damien was here. Might still be here.

My heart pounds in my chest. I pull my hand back from Brooks’s hold and place that hand over my thunderous heart. “I…” Tears sting my eyes and slip down my cheeks. There’s no more avoiding this.

Brooks closes the distance between us and holds my hands in his. “What’s going on, Josie?”

I pull out the wrapping paper from my pocket and nod to the open box on the ground. “He sent me a clipping of the newspaper article.”

“Who?” Brooks asks. A deep worry line scores his brow. He glances around and spots the clipping on the ground a few feet away. He grabs it before the wind can carry it further and reads. “Josie?”

“An alpha lived upstairs,” I say slowly as I stare past his shoulder.

Memories of the fire hit like a sledgehammer to plaster as tears continue to fall.

The smell of smoke is so real I crinkle my nose as the memory takes me.

Dark smoke, cinders floating down, debris falling as more and more furniture caught on fire.

Thick ash. Burning lungs.

And me, just sitting there. Hoping it would all end.

Instead, it’s all gotten so much worse .

“An alpha?” Brooks is trying so hard to reach me. That much I recognize. “Why would an alpha be sending you things here?”

“Because he’s a crime lord,” I whisper. “And I burnt down his safehouse and revealed it to the public in the process. I don’t know how he escaped arrest.”

All attention was on me, that’s how.

Brooks’s eyes go cold. His scent lingers around me, a mixing of campfire smoke with that of a burning fire. There’s a distinct difference. Or, there should be. I’ve never scented the latter on Brooks but I do now. “Why would he be haunting you?”

“Revenge.” I ruined everything right after I failed to end my ruined life.

My freeze state shatters at that realization, and that Damien has obviously trekked all the way out here to Wild Skies to ruin the new life I’m trying to build.

To burn it all down just like I accidentally did to his safe house.

Like, yes, I’d been a fool to assume no other buildings would burn, too.

But I wasn’t thinking straight and it had been an accident and no one got hurt.

There isn’t a lot in life I did right, including setting that fire. But I think I’m starting to do things right here.

Damien will win before I succeed.

Brooks pulls me into a tight hug. “He won’t hurt you here. He’ll never hurt you again, I promise you that.”

I wrap my arms tightly around Brooks’s chest and inhale his scent. It’s still far too much like a burning fire, too specifically wrong . “I know. I’m just scared he knows I’m here.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

I believe him. He’s ex-law enforcement, and Carson has enough money to will problems away if he wants to. But the fact Damien found me and traveled all the way from New York to deliver this makes my stomach churn.

“Where are the others?” I ask, looking around.

That’s when we both hear one terrifying word shouted.

“ Fire! ”