Page 9 of Omega Forged (Hartlock Omegas #2)

Lloyd

I double-checked the locks on my door and paced back to my bed.

Would Tahlia notice the changes I made? I had turned down the sage green covers and artfully arranged the pillows.

Even snagged a white velvet blanket from the storage in the nest to add to the sumptuous picture.

It wasn’t the most conventional way to woo an omega, but I wasn’t above using every tool available.

My omega.

Presumptuous, but the tingle that ran down my spine confirmed how much I wanted it to be true.

I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. Five more minutes until I got to hear her sweet voice.

Our first call had been slightly awkward, but I requested another one immediately.

There was something in the space between our words that swelled against my insides.

It stretched my ribs apart until I felt weightless.

It had been barely a week but I didn’t feel right unless I spoke to her every day.

How quickly Tahlia wove her way into my world.

Would Tahlia see it and imagine herself in my arms? Snuggling in the soft comfort? Omegas loved soft, cozy furnishings, and I would have done anything to make her voice sound like a smile.

What if she didn’t call? What if she wasn’t who she said she was? I cycled through the same tired worries, hearing them in Walden’s disapproving tone. His judgment was hypocritical considering how toxic his relationship with Pan was.

It might have started out of desperation and loneliness. But we’d grown into something different. She was a mirrored shard of my tender, craving soul. I knew we were both searching for something and she could find whatever she hungered for, in me.

Crazy, desperate, stupid.

Walden could call it whatever he wanted. Trusting my gut had always come naturally to me, and I wouldn’t stop now.

From a scrappy young kid with dreams in The Barracks to the most famous pack in Starhaven.

When I met Pan, I was still a hungry young man, on the cusp of adulthood. My scholarship thrust me into a world that made me dizzy from the glamor and riches. Ajax, Walden, and Pan took me under their wing.

It felt natural to form a pack.

But the glamor faded in time. Baylark Pack might look perfect from the outside. Internally, Pan and Walden were at each other’s throats, taking turns with who could hurt the other deeper.

Whatever tied us together was tight with tension. Leaving us gasping for air, hiding from blows, and waiting for the inevitable. Baylark Pack needed an intervention. We needed an omega. Someone we could orbit around.

Only Omegas had been a late-night, spontaneous decision. And Tahlia had saved me.

I knew what it was to starve. Physically. The dizzy, ravenous drive to chew anything and everything. Needing to stop the cramp in my stomach. But this hunger was different. It gnawed at my soul. Longing squeezed the breath from my lungs.

While Pan picked a fight with Walden or Ajax, I drifted into a dream world.

Where nothing existed except for Tahlia’s warmth and the hum of her purr.

The tension I carried became a whisper. I ached to see her in real life.

Her pictures had drawn me in, but talking to her was the brightest part of my day.

The lilt of her voice wiped my worries. I’d never even seen her face, but I swear I was half in love with this woman.

The screen lit up, and I swallowed hard as my shaky fingers opened the video call.

“Hey Tahlia.” The greeting sounded strangled.

Tahlia was curled up on her bed, with only her neck down visible.

She wore a tight white tee knotted at her waist, leaving a sliver of her soft belly.

I trailed my gaze lower to the flannel pajama pants, giddy at the sloth pattern on them.

She hadn’t worn anything revealing since our first call, at my request. Seeing her relaxed added to my delusion that this was real.

Not a call I was paying for. Her nails flashed with purple glitter.

“Hey, yourself.” She waggled her fingers.

A rapid flush flooded my cheeks at the sound of her voice, almost a sigh.

“Love the sloths.” I blushed.

What about her turned me into a complete puddle?

She ran her fingers along the waistband, smothering a laugh. With me, she cracked open a view of who Tahlia really was outside of Only Omegas. She wore these pajamas when she went to sleep. I wondered if she ever thought about me, like I did her?

“They do men's sizes. We could be matching,” she teased.

My flush intensified, and a prickle pulsed on my forehead. “Maybe a birthday gift? You could deliver them in person.”

She had me acting in ways that were unbelievable. I wanted to reach through the screen and feel the warmth of her on my skin.

It wasn’t fair to pressure her, but I was obsessed. We talked in the morning and late at night. I sent her messages all day long. Tahlia was a delicious ghost, haunting my every thought. She flitted between the spreadsheets and financial reports I was supposed to be concentrating on at work.

Tahlia crossed her legs and toyed with the gold WWED bracelet on her wrist. She wore it most days and dodged the question when I asked her what it meant.

“How was your day?” Tahlia changed the subject, and I swallowed my disappointment.

“It was long and frustrating,” I sighed.

I checked all the financials for the Baylark Foundation and at this stage we were on track for the One-Hundred-Year-Gala, but with the extra security costs the museum wanted, it strained other areas. Donations were also down ten percent from our last event, which was disheartening.

“What about you?”

“I drew up my template for the new month in my bullet journal, took some pictures to post later this week on Only Omegas. I-I even got my camera out, for the first time in almost a year.” She plucked at the bedspread.

“Really? That’s fantastic, Tahlia. What sparked your inspiration?”

“Well, it was you, actually. That story you texted about the beach and the seagulls. My stomach still hurts from laughing, by the way. Then that night, there was a huge flock of birds in the sky and I just felt the urge.”

“You’re on a creative roll. Don’t think I didn’t spot those purple nails. What about pink? Sparkles?”

Tahlia sighed, her hands scrunched into fists on the bedspread. “Baby steps, Lloyd. My closet is a work in progress. Just like my mind.”

There was that twinge in my chest again, the pull I couldn’t deny.

Tahlia told me she used to dress in bright patterns, pink, high heels, and glitz.

But something happened that made her lose her spark and now she chose black over anything else.

“I need to scour my memory for more bird-related mishaps, because I want to see you embrace the pink again,” I teased.

I’m going to light up your world with so many colors you see stars.

“Well, I wasn’t entirely honest. I incorporated some pink in my bullet journal, you wanna see?”

There wasn’t a creative bone in my body, not like Ajax with his Historical Society and Pan with his music. Numbers were my forte, and even if I color-coded my spreadsheets, it wouldn’t even touch what magic Tahlia pulled from her imagination.

“As if you even have to ask.”

Her soft puff of surprise filled me with warmth.

“I’m going to turn the camera off, so you can’t see my face.”

The screen went black. I heard her, though, a soft rustling as she grabbed her journal and the squeak of her bedsprings as she returned. The camera turned back on, with the screen filled with a page of the journal.

“I draw a cover page for each month, so this one is August.” It had beautiful calligraphy and snowflakes.

Pink, glittery ones. It looked joyous, and my heart squeezed.

She flipped through a few more pages. “I track my mood each day, my sleep, my heat cycle.” She slammed the book shut.

“It’s just a silly thing, but I enjoy it. ”

“I wish I had one inch of your creativity and organization. If I were in a pack lucky enough to bond with you, I’d never let you forget it.”

There was a moment of silence, and sweat trickled between my shoulder blades as Tahlia played with her bracelet.

This was a knife’s edge moment and the waiting cut narrow to the bone.

“There was a pack I thought I’d end up with once, but it didn’t work out.” Her gulp was loud. “It’s hard to know when people are being sincere, though.”

I knew the feeling. From growing up in The Barracks, to one of the wealthiest packs in Starhaven, I had a big learning curve.

There had been so many who tried to manipulate me for what my pack could do for them.

I became commodified, and it hurt to think a true interaction was a calculated strategy.

My chest ached at the thought of a pack using Tahlia.

Were they the reason she lost her spark?

“Do you… want to talk about it?” I asked.

“It’s silly, really. I should have known better.” She waved a limp wrist.

“I won’t judge if you’re worried. Tahlia, I—talking to you is the best part of my day, and you can confide in me.”

Tahlia let out a sharp bite of laughter, so bitter my insides twisted. Her limbs stiffened, like she pulled a shield around herself.

“You say that, Lloyd, but you don’t know the real me. I can barely leave my bedroom, let alone the apartment. I hate myself so much, I’m terrified about people seeing the real me.”

“Tahlia.” Horror washed over me as she spewed out her true thoughts.

A poisonous waterfall. Even without seeing it, I knew her face was twisted in a sneer. Could feel it in the lash of her tongue through the screen. I rubbed my burning cheeks.

“Talking to you is the highlight of my day, too. A stranger who pays to see me half-naked. That’s how sad I am, Lloyd. Why do you pretend? I know you don’t really give a shit about me. You’re just biding your time to ask the questions you really want to know.”

“Like what?”

“Have you taken an alpha’s knot? What sounds do I make when I come? How about what my slick tastes like?” Tahlia’s fists strangled the covers.

“N-no. No, Tahlia. That’s not—fuck,” I cursed as I ran a hand through my hair.

Her body was rigid with tension. My mind scrambled with the right words to say, but she continued.

“I’m just waiting for you to prove me right. But you keep being sweet and it’s fucking with my head. It makes me want you.”

Her nails dug into her pajamas, and the silence lengthened between us like a gulf. An ache throbbed in my chest and I knew it was the absence of her bond. I sought solace in my ribs.

She wanted me? I stared into the screen, where Tahlia’s chest heaved with a rough exhale.

I’d got everything in my life by taking a chances.

“Tahlia, I want to know the secrets that keep you up at two in the morning. I want to know what sounds you make when I hand you a bowl of homemade mousse. My specialty, by the way. All I want to know is you, Tahlia.”

She slapped her hands on her thighs, making a noise of disbelief.

“I grew up in The Barracks, and I was there when the HLA attacked Starhaven. I was part of the Designated trapped in by the human rebels. Do you remember how hard it was to get aid supplies dropped? Six weeks and I almost starved. Now, if I don’t have food on me, I panic.

” I groped at my bedside table and pulled out the stash of snacks stored there.

They slipped through my fingers as I continued.

“You think you’re the only mess? I spend so much time trying to hide all the broken parts of me, there isn’t room for anything else.

You want to know the truth? I’m not an al—”

“Stop.” Tahlia’s voice was hoarse. “I-I’m sorry I said it all. Forget it.”

I’m not an alpha.

My lie sat on my chest like a weight. My Designation hadn’t bothered me until I was in a pack full of alphas. It was like being chosen last for a sports team. Now, a white lie had grown into something that twisted my stomach.

“We are always hardest on ourselves, Tahlia. But when I say I want to get to know you, I mean it. I know this sounds crazy, but there is an undeniable connection between us.”

Her fingers tugged at the collar of her tee. A sliver of her smooth neck peeked out. “You make me feel safe. Is that weird? It’s scary.”

“Tahlia.” I wanted to pull her through the screen. “I wish I could see you in person.”

I knew Walden would kick my ass before he ever let it happen. Tahlia gave that husky laugh, wet with emotion, and a shiver ran through me at the delectable sound.

“Lloyd…” she sighed.

“I know, I know, stranger danger. Pretend I didn’t say that,” I hurried to say.

“I-I feel it too.” Her fingers swirled on the bedspread.

Swirled. Swirled. Like a whirlpool I was trapped in.

“I get butterflies when I see you’ve messaged me.

There was an alpha I kind of dated in the past and I never felt like this.

There was an edge of fear with him. But with you, this is—” She paused as if fighting for the right words.

Now was the moment to tell her the truth. But I couldn’t make the words come out as she knocked down a small section of her carefully built walls to let me see the real her.

“Is Lloyd your real name?” Tahlia asked.

I hesitated before replying. If someone searched on the internet for Lloyd and Starhaven, they would find a picture of me with the rest of the Baylark Pack.

I’d given her more than a few identifying details about me.

But I felt the same way Tahlia did. The sharp, unforgiving edge of loneliness softened.

Tahlia was worth the risk.

“Yes.”

“Tahlia isn’t my real name.” She let out a shaky breath.

Hunger hooked deep in my soul. Of course, Tahlia wasn’t her real name, but now I needed to know what it was.

“That’s smart. There are people out there who would take advantage of you. I hope you know I’m not one of them.”

There was a rustle through the screen, and Tahlia took a deep breath.

“Lloyd.”

“Yes?”

“I’m about to ask you something stupid, but do you want me?”

“Always.” My stomach clenched.