Page 55 of Omega Forged (Hartlock Omegas #2)

Tully

My shoulder burned where Chase’s teeth threatened the skin. It wasn’t a bonding mark, but with a little pressure it could have been. But that wasn’t what set me on edge.

Baylark Pack stared at me like I was their solution to an endless hunger. Did their bellies ache for want of me? Did they lie awake at night and wonder about different timelines, whether we could have made it work in another one? Maybe we’d stared at the same sky, and nursed the same hurts.

My creaky fan in the corner brought the tang of their mingled scents. Distress was painted on the sagging lines of their bodies. Determination whittled to a toothpick. It was Lloyd who I couldn’t look away from. He was here. In The Barracks. A place he vowed never to return to.

“Drink this.” Thorn burst into the room and slammed a coffee cup on the side table next to me.

Walden snatched it out of reach with a click of his tongue, replacing it with a glass of chilled water. Where had he even gotten ice blocks from, and why was he confiscating my caffeine?

“Hey,” I pouted.

“You were just attacked. The last thing your nervous system needs is caffeine.”

“Is this scruffy alpha a doctor, lamb?” Thorn arched a dark eyebrow. He looked even more menacing with the scratch across his cheek.

“No.” I fought a smile as Walden’s expression turned murderous. He scrubbed at his messy stubble.

“Don’t you know omegas need spoiling, especially when they’re distressed?” Thorn plucked the coffee from Walden and ferried it back to me. “Drink.”

Clay wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, making the mark Chase left throb. My one-bedroom apartment had never had so many people inside it before. I was the only one seated on the couch. After things settled, everyone kept their distance.

Lloyd was crushed into the ratty armchair Clay had found for me because he didn’t like my couch.

His bag crushed to his chest like a lifeline.

Pan and Ajax perched on the side, the former like a laconic wraith.

All angles and shadows. Thorn and Walden paced.

Crossing paths like predators sizing up a foe.

I could taste Chase in the back of my throat and it made me shudder.

Pan slipped his arm around Lloyd’s shoulders. His gaze darted from side to side, taking in my apartment. I was lucky to have space above ground, but I hadn’t done much with it.

I was glad there was a screen blocking off my bed. I twisted the lumpy covers into an uncomfortable, messy nest. Knowing the one they had in their house, there was a lick of shame.

“I guess I should explain.” I took a sip of the coffee.

Up close, I could see how they’d changed. They looked wrung out, especially Walden, who actually had stubble on his jaw. And he wasn’t wearing a suit. The rumpled gray tracksuit set probably still cost more money than everything in the apartment. But it was so unlike him that my gaze drifted back.

“Tully, you don’t have to—” Ajax started before the comment petered out.

A flush crawled up my throat. Chase didn’t know it, but he’d lit a fire in me. I was shaking, but it wasn’t terror. It was anger. How dare he put his hands on me and try to take from my insides.

He’d succeeded once.

I’d been half-living, half-dead when I fled him the first time. This small man, this parasite. I’d let him grow plump off my blood, my body. He’d repaid me with the echo of his voice in my head. Telling me all the ways I wasn’t enough for him.

“I’ve been carrying him around up here.” I tapped my forehead. “For way too long. I didn’t even realize how much of my voice was him, but he won’t frighten me into compliance again.”

Clay slid in next to me and his hand tunneled under the blanket and wrapped around mine.

“Tell us what this has to do with it? His scent wipes company is valued at millions.” Walden tapped the papers on the bench.

Chase had given me all the proof I needed to destroy him.

I bet he never even considered that I would argue with him.

There was no world in which Tully would put up a fight.

I’d been foolish to let him into my apartment and I would learn from my lacking sense of safety, but he wouldn’t change his behavior at all. Unearned arrogance.

“When my parents died, I put off dealing with their things. Eventually, I had to. The storage unit was too expensive for me to maintain. Chase found a journal that belonged to Birdie, Esta Hartlock’s sister.

It had a recipe for scent masking tea. He used the formula as the basis of his new all-natural wipes. ”

“He stole it from you?” Ajax said through gritted teeth.

“Chase always framed it as a joint venture we would share. Until he realized I had no fortune. He needed money to invest in the business. He mustn’t have covered his tracks well enough because now he wants me to sign the intellectual property over to him.”

Walden shifted uncomfortably. “That might be my fault. I have our team gathering dirt on him and putting the screw in where we can.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Did you think I would let him get away with hurting you?” He lifted his chin. “His business practices were the first thing I targeted. I had no idea it went this deep.”

Thorn nodded with approval. “Nice.”

“So, he’s blackmailing you. How do you know he isn’t bluffing?” Lloyd asked.

“He showed me the pictures and knew my username.”

Lloyd’s lips pressed together, but not before he let out a gasp of dismay. It was strange to think about that time together, before I knew who he was. When I was his honey girl, and I believed the future had more for me than running. There were shades of bittersweet.

“I’m so sorry, Tully,” Pan whispered.

“Why? You didn’t make him do this to me.” My shoulder burned.

“I thought he was my friend. I trusted him.” Pan had lost his haughty sheen, and it made him fragile. The sharp edges in him were brittle like glass.

“We were both fooled by Chase, Pan. He’s charming, and very good at getting what he wants. This time I’m not giving him the satisfaction. He’s seething right now, and those photos will be online before twenty-four hours is up because his ego won’t allow him to wait.”

“What do you want us to do?” Ajax leaned forward.

I took a deep breath. The words waiting in my throat cut my pride.

What I was working on in The Barracks was more important than ego.

That’s something Chase could never understand.

My parents died believing it. I finally felt like I was a Tully Hartlock I could be proud of, and I wouldn’t let him ruin it.

“You have resources, connections, and a reputation that I don’t. When this comes out—”

“It won’t—” Walden growled, but I cut him off.

“ When this comes out,” I continued, enjoying the shell-shocked look on his face. “I want to meet this head-on. I’m not shying away, and I refuse to be judged. But I’m working on my documentary project and I don’t want it negatively affected.”

“Spell it out for us, angel.” Pan narrowed his eyes.

“How would you feel about pretending to be a pack? He’ll be more wary if he thinks I have your protection. He’s intimidated by our connection. It might sway him to reconsider.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Pan recovered quicker than the rest of them, with an arch of a sardonic eyebrow. “Why pretend when we can have the real thing?”

Lloyd choked and hauled his bag against his chest.

“Is that the price I have to pay for you to help me, Pan?” I said.

He blanched, and his jaw clenched. “No, no, Tully—I was just trying to bring some levity. This shit is dark.”

I offered a small smile. “I get it. Right now, I’m working hard on discovering who I am, and I think it’s best to do that single. You don’t have to give me an answer right now.”

I turned to Lloyd, who had sweat on his upper lip. “I thought you said you’d never set foot in this place again?”

Lloyd nodded to the bag in his clutched hold. “I came with supplies to help me cope.”

My eyebrows scrunched together and Lloyd opened the top, showing me the stacks of noodle packets inside.

My bottom lip wobbled as a sudden rush of emotion crashed over me.

I thought I’d been fine, but being here with them, and knowing Lloyd was facing his worst fear, while I processed mine. It was a lot. He trembled. I couldn’t let him stand there any longer. I crossed the space between us and folded my arms around his neck. He shook even harder against me.

“You didn’t have to come.” My lungs drowned in salt. I cupped his face. “Why did you?”

Lloyd had grown up in the belly of this unforgiving place. He experienced tendrils of darkness, cold, and hunger that burrowed into his bones. It was still there, and I wondered if it was hard for him to breathe.

His eyes fluttered closed and his chest whispered against mine. “You’re here. And I want to be wherever you are, honey girl.”

His words hurt and healed. They twisted their way through the space between my ribs and nestled against my thudding heart.

I knew how much it cost him to face this place again.

I knew . It cost him peace, the bubble of safety and surety that he ruled his life by.

Lloyd invited in the horrible memories and fear he’d felt when he’d been trapped here.

“We got lonely while you hid, angel,” Pan said.

“Like you’re not running.” The words slipped out. A low blow.

“From you? Never. I can’t tell you how dark my world became when you walked out of the hospital. I’d never willingly run from you, Tully. All I want is a chance to prove you can trust me, that I can be the a-alpha you need.” Pan stumbled over the word.

“Who are you doing it for?”

Why didn’t he make the changes when Walden asked? What made this situation any different?

Pan’s forehead wrinkled and pain flashed before he closed his eyes. “I’m doing this for me. There is a future with a better version of me in it, Tully. One day, I hope we’re in it together.”

“I’m proud of you, but don’t hinge your success on me. I’m on my own healing journey, and I don’t know what the future looks like.”

Pan’s chest heaved. Ajax and Walden looked like the silence pained them.

“Whatever we have to do to earn a space in your heart, we’ll do it.” Color was absent from Ajax’s cheeks and lips.

I felt the pull toward them, so strong it scared me. And I extricated myself from Lloyd’s warmth as my ribs knitted together. Some of the breathlessness from before raced back and my lungs shrank. My shoulder throbbed-throbbed-throbbed and Chase’s violent scent lingered.

Walden tracked the movement with a sigh. “Whatever you want. But I have one request.”

My head snapped back. “What’s that?”

“You move back in with us. CJ knows where you live, and he will retaliate.”

I swallowed hard and stared at the faces of Baylark Pack. I wanted my independence, and to heal the long held hurt in my heart. But Walden was right, if high-handed. Chase wouldn’t stop, and he’d proven he would do anything to put me in my place.

“Alright. But there will be ground rules. I am not a part of your pack.”

Walden stepped back, and relief painted his features. “Thank you.”

“I hate to interrupt this moment, but I want to make it very clear. You have options, sweetheart.” Clay cleared his throat and motioned between Thorn and him. “We already know your coffee order.”

Thorn’s eyes twinkled, a sight that made my mouth drop open as he added, “I’ll bring you coffee in bed, if that’s what you want, lamb.”

Was he trying to get himself killed?

“Don’t call her that,” Walden said through gritted teeth, and I got between them as their twisted alpha scents burned my nostrils.

“Why?” Thorn pressed close enough for his warmth to whisper at me. His tone was taunting.

“She’s not soft, and she’s not helpless,” Pan explained, and I crossed my arms as I stared at them all.

Thorn hovered his finger in the air, close to my cheek. “Looks pretty soft to me.” He let out a jaded laugh as a chorus of growls rolled through the air.

I dashed his hand away with a scowl.

“You’re right. I’m not soft or helpless. Also, not any of yours.” I turned on my heel and left them as I stomped away to pack.