Page 3 of The Omega

You know there’s a chance we won’t find anyone this season.

Stop being such a downer.

I didn’t want to argue with her. She still had so much hope for the future. It wasn’t fair of me to take that away with my jaded logic.

And I didn’t blame the camera guys for running off as fast as they could. I planned to do the same.

They were cute, though. My wolf sighed.

Cute, but not wolf enough to satisfy.

I’d been with plenty of humans over the years and—no offense to the species as a whole—they were missing the depth my body biologically craved. I needed knots. Multiple of them, if possible. Especially when the lonely ache grew like it was doing now.

We need our mates, my wolf reminded me, getting that dreamy, romantic vibe about her again.

Not that it was ever too far away.

She was an Omega through and through.

We’re both Omega.

I didn’t need the reminder.

But unlike the other Omegas, I had to fend for myself. They stayed in groups and took care of each other until they were surrounded by their own mates. A lone Omega was unheard of.

I was basically a freak of nature.

It didn’t help that I was tucked back into these woods. I needed to get out of here if I was going to have any sort of life that wouldn’t revolve around me constantly talking to my own wolf alone in the shack I grew up in.

I took a step onto the porch and my wolf cringed, curling up deeper within my mind.

Like I said, I didn’t blame the cameramen for their quick escape. They hadn’t mentioned anything, but anyone with a pulse could sense it. There were predators all up and down these hills. Not just wolves or other shifters—humans too.

You had to be tough to survive out here, where all manner of creatures came to hide and carve a life in the Appalachian woods. Cops didn’t bother this far out. We policed our own and had our own set of rules.

There was no cell service this deep in the holler. True, I’d once had a landline, among other services like running water, but it’d gotten shut off when I first went to the show.

At this point, it was pride and embarrassment that kept me from restarting the utilities.

I’d have to go into town the next hill over and talk to Sam, who’d call her mama, and then she and Mrs. Vicki would show up here with a casserole dish of soup beans laced with prying questions I wasn’t in the mood to answer.

And the judgement.

Goddess, I hated that more than anything else.

I didn’t need power anyway. I’d grown up without it most days when Mom didn’t pay the bills.

It was just like camping, and my wolf didn’t mind getting a little dirty. Her shiny all black coat was low-maintenance and easy to clean. For being an Omega, she wasn’t a prissy thing.

But I still don’t want to go into town, she said as I took another step off the porch.

You were okay when we came through last time.

Then again, it’d only been for supplies as we swung by Krammer’s Grocery and Liquor, but we’d managed to avoid running into any trouble or whispers from loose lips that had nothing better to do than talk.

I looked around the yard as if those whispers could find me all the way out here.

It still smelled like the Alpha where he’d marked the edge of the property, making the cabin safe for an Omega. Leaving this perimeter exposed us to all sorts of critters who made these woods home and, I was sorry to say, town held the worst of them.