Loving the Omega (8 page)
The first novel will be about the Talon Alpha Gideon and….Brie, Jasper and Willow’s daughter thirty years from now. It’s called
Tattered Loyalties.
If you don’t want to wait that long, I also have my Dante’s Circle and Montgomery Ink series going in full swing now so there’s always a Carrie Ann book on the horizon! Plus coming in 2015, I have the Bad Boys of Haven! Wow, I’m tired just thinking about it but I can’t wait.
Thank you so much for going on this journey with me and I do hope you enjoyed this final full book in the Redwood Pack series. Without you readers, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Thank you again for reading and I do hope to see you again.
Carrie Ann
About this Author
USA Today Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan never thought she’d be a writer. Not really. No, she loved math and science and even went on to graduate school in chemistry. Yes, she read as a kid and devoured teen fiction and Harry Potter, but it wasn’t until someone handed her a romance book in her late teens that she realized that there was something out there just for her. When another author suggested she use the voices in her head for good and not evil, The Redwood Pack and all her other stories were born.
Carrie Ann is a bestselling author of over twenty novels and novellas and has so much more on her mind (and on her spreadsheets *grins*) that she isn’t planning on giving up her dream anytime soon.
www.CarrieAnnRyan.com
Also from this Author
Now Available:
Redwood Pack Series:
Loving the Omega
The Redwood Pack Volumes:
Dante’s Circle Series:
Holiday, Montana Series:
Montgomery Ink:
Coming Soon:
Redwood Pack
Dark Fates
Wicked Wolf
Talon Pack (Part of the Redwood Pack World)
Tattered Loyalties
Dante’s Circle:
Fierce Enchantment
Montgomery Ink:
Delicate Ink
Hot Ink
Tempting Boundaries
Excerpt: Tangled Innocence
Did you enjoy this selection? Why not try another romance from Fated Desires?
From USA Today Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan’s Dante’s Circle Series
“I’m done with men.”
Nadie Morgan barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her friend Faith’s proclamation. She was pretty sure the woman had said something similar before in the exact same exasperated tone. Faith usually said things like that, considering she was trying to find a man to match who she was and who she wanted to be.
Not an easy thing when Nadie wasn’t sure Faith knew who she wanted to be in the first place. Well, Nadie probably shouldn’t be casting stones, considering she stood in an eerily parallel place.
Faith ran a hand through her blunt black bangs, leaving them in their perpetual disorder, then curled her lip up in a snarl.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Nadie Morgan. If you’d ever get off your virgin ass and actually tell him you want him, maybe you wouldn’t be in the same predicament as me.”
Nadie froze, the sounds of the bar slowly faded away so she couldn’t hear her friends’ reactions—if there
were
reactions. An odd numbness settled in, tunneling her vision so all she saw was Faith and her wide eyes set in a pale face.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rest of their friends stiffen as well, then turn toward Faith, their mouths opening, most likely to defend Nadie where they thought she would never be able to defend herself.
In most cases, they’d have been right.
“Well, that was blunt,” Nadie finally said, her throat dry. What else was she supposed to say? She was surprised she could speak at all. It wasn’t as if Faith was saying anything untrue or far from Nadie’s mind. It just hurt to hear it in the first place.
She’d rather have buried it forever and not looked back, but she knew that would have been weak.
Weaker than she’d been acting already.
“Oh crap, I’m so sorry, honey.” Tears filled the normally strong-willed woman’s eyes, and Nadie immediately forgave her. There hadn’t been any true damage, and all Faith had done was tell the truth.
“It’s okay.” She raised her hands at her friends, and they quieted whatever words they were about to say. “No, really. You just got dumped. It sucks, so you lashed out, and I’m a pretty good target at the moment.”
Faith shook her head then got up and walked around the circular table where they always sat when they came to Dante’s Circle. Normally, it was a place that had become a sort of home to them, and right then, it was nice to have that familiarity. Faith wrapped her arms around Nadie and Nadie hugged her back. Hard. “No, it’s not freaking okay. I’m hurt and in a pissy mood, but that doesn’t give me the right to act like a cruel bitch.”
“Just a normal bitch then,” Becca, deadpanned, then flipped her fiery red curls over her shoulders.
“Hey, don’t call Faith a bitch,” Lily added in then came up to wrap her arms around Nadie’s other side. “Well, she might be one, but we’re trying to change that. And Nadie honey, I love you. Don’t listen to what Faith said.”
Soon, Amara, Eliana, Jamie, and eventually, Becca moved to join the group hug. Nadie could feel Faith’s tears seep into her shirt and knew that her friends weren’t there to comfort Nadie, but Faith. The woman wouldn’t accept the comfort otherwise, and everyone knew it.
Sometimes she and her friends just had to be sneaky about things like hugs and showing Faith they loved her just as much as they loved the rest of the girls.
“Okay, break it up. I can’t breathe under all of you,” Faith snapped.
Nadie just shook her head as Faith wiped her tears, straightened her shoulders, and then sat back in her seat on the other side of the circle.
“So, we hate Chadwick,” Amara said as she pulled her auburn hair into a ponytail. She smiled prettily at Faith who rolled her eyes.
“His name was Chad, not Chadwick,” Faith answered. “Stop making him sound like some dweeb who loves his mom and the country club.”
Nadie tilted her head then took a sip of her lemon drop. “Um, but he
did
love his mom and his country club. Wasn’t that the whole point? That he wanted to be with mommy and her money rather than stand up for something more? I thought you said something about the snooty mommy and her leech of a son.”
Faith narrowed her eyes. “You’re not supposed to throw my words back in my face.”
“On the contrary,” Amara put in. “We’re you’re friends. If he’s a right bastard with mommy issues, that’s our job. You’re the one who told us that dear Chadwick was a limp neck—and probably had limp other things too—mommy’s boy. Or should we call him
mother’s
boy. He seemed like the guy who would raise his eyebrows all haughtily and call for his
mother
.” Amara tried and failed to use a British accent—which Chad, not Chadwick, did not possess, and the girls fell over in giggles.
“Oh sweet baby Jesus, stop making me laugh like that. I think I’ll start leaking,” Lily said as she pressed her hands to her breasts. The new mom had control issues sometimes. Lily. A mom. So weird yet perfect at the same time.
“Oh God, you leak when you laugh?” Becca asked, her eyes wide before she turned to Jamie. “That’ll be us in a few months.”
Nadie just smiled and took another drink of her lemon drop as her now-mated friends talked about babies, leaking, and growly mates. She didn’t want to feel jealous, but the little green monster wrapped its spindly arms around her, and she winced. It wasn’t Becca’s, Jamie’s, or Lily’s fault that they had met their true halves and something like a perfect life had actually stuck.
So much had changed in the short time since the world had grown around them that sometimes Nadie couldn’t run fast enough to catch up.
She frowned and thought about the date then sat straight up. “Well, hell.” The other girls stopped what they were doing and looked at her.
“Did you just curse?” Jamie asked, her hand on her baby bump. “You never curse.”
Nadie snorted. “I curse, you just never listen. That isn’t the point though. Think about what day it is and where we are.”
Amara’s eyes widened. “Well, hell,” she repeated. “It’s been two years, hasn’t it?”
Nadie nodded then sat back as she watched the reactions wash over her friends’ faces. It had been two years since the seven of them walked into Dante’s Circle like they normally did, but they’d left with something much more.
Something most of them
still
didn’t have a handle on.
Lightning had hit the building, or at least
inside
the building, on that day. Nadie, her six friends, and the owner of the bar…Dante, were struck by that same bolt of lightning. She could still remember the screams, the feel of her body rising from her chair then slamming down to the ground, and the heated sensation of something…else…flowing through her in an arc. It still haunted her nightmares sometimes.
After all of that, none of them had been the worse for wear, just a few cuts and bruises and, of course, Amara’s broken arm, but that was it. Amara had healed quickly, as had the rest of them. Too quickly, in Nadie’s opinion.
They had been forever changed though.
Lily had been the first to notice—though they all had in a way considering it was weird that eight of them had been struck by lightning and hadn’t been killed or injured beyond falling to the ground.
They’d discovered that their human world wasn’t quite human.
Every human who called themselves human, Nadie included, were diluted versions of supernaturals, and most weren’t in the know about the fact that hundreds of realms existed near and entwined with their own realm.
“I can’t believe it’s been two years since I met Shade,” Lily whispered then gave a little smile.
Shade was a warrior angel and Lily’s true half. Apparently supernaturals had another part of their souls out in the world, and they were lucky when they found it. Or at least they were lucky when they found it, and the other half actually
wanted
it, but that was another story altogether.
“And I met Ambrose around that time, though it took another year to meet Balin,” Jamie put in.
Jamie had not just one mate, but two. Nadie held back a blush at that thought. What on earth would she do with two men? She hadn’t even been with one let alone two. Oh no way, too much for her. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have her own fantasies though.
“That means it’s almost been a year since I met Hunter,” Becca said as she frowned. “It seems like so much longer, you know? I mean, Jamie and I are pregnant, and Lily just had Kelly. We’re bonded with our mates and have seen so…much.”
Nadie nodded, knowing what she meant—at least when it came to what they’d seen. That was the other part of being struck by that particular bolt of lightning.
Each of them had a new energy within themselves. It was as if the lightning had altered their DNA, which the scientist Lily said was possible, considering the paranormal worlds were so much different than the human one. Now, apparently, once one of them met their true half—or the other two-thirds in Jamie’s case—they started to grow weak, as if their body was rejecting itself. Then once they made love with their true half, they turned into a paranormal creature.
It was as if she were now in some sci-fi movie that she couldn’t quite wake up from. Lily had turned into a brownie; Jamie, a djinn; Becca, a leprechaun. Each of them had met with others of their realm and, in some cases, fell right in step with that part of their lives while others had fought for their right to live—at peace and in general. Not everyone in the realms was happy about the turn of events.