Free Loving the Omega by Carrie Ann Ryan Page A

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