Tilly

Cruz

Mykneesbuckledas I scented her. She wasn’t there, but the moment I walked into the restaurant—I knew it was her. Her sweet omega scent masked with a dim overture of beta chemicals that smelled like burnt toast, but totally covering her omega smell would only work for other alphas. Not for Luca and not for Jackson, and certainly not for me.

Each one of us knew she was our mate.

And as I reached the table, my eyes lowered, and I sucked in a sharp breath, inhaling her scent, but the hair rose on the back of my neck at knowing she was masking her beautiful omega perfume with beta junk. I tried to neutralise the beta smell and my head turned momentarily, following my nose. Her perfume was getting stronger. She was coming back, and I lurched a step forward, wanting to go to her.

I stopped myself and turned to speak to Luca as she did.

“Jackson is going to spring over that table and snap the hand that keeps touching Tilly’s arm and hand,” Luca said, looking over my shoulder. I turned and glanced as she sat next to Sandy and opposite Jackson.

I pressed my hands in and out of tight fists.

“You need to calm down,” Luca said. “It’s bad enough having Jackson wanting to pounce on her.”

I nodded and closed my eyes and took in a ragged breath. Needing desperately to wrap my scent around her, wrap me around her, until she couldn’t control that poised demeanour she’d assumed.

Spinning away from Luca. My ribcage ached as my heart thudded against it at seeing her. “I’m going to talk to her,” I said, walking away. Wondering how to keep the conversation about work.

“Don’t scare her off,” Luca barked.

She stared at me too long after the first question and there was a glint in her eyes, one she never realised. She looked confused as she looked at me. Those beautiful green eyes of hers were two puddles of suffering. I wanted to look away from her pain, and the worry etched across her face the moment she stared at me.

But I didn’t look away. It was time to accept the reality—it was the only way.

Coming face-to-face with my omega was a dream come true. She was perfect. But unlike omegas who were normally biologically compliant, normally easily influenced and coerced. It seemed Tilly had honed her skills against her designation. Though her perfume was seeping and her irises shone as she no doubt played a scenario out in her head—one where she wanted to kill me.

I saw that in her eyes as she stared at me.

And my heart broke at seeing a glimpse of a frightened girl as she looked at me with her big, pale green eyes. Seeing that girl again, the panicky girl I knew was hiding behind a door she thought I wouldn’t find. Because I’d seen her before that night, I followed her a few times. She never knew. She was only sixteen when I stalked her, much too young to declare a girl was your omega. Especially when her father was the man he was, especially when I was twenty-one years old.

I had to act that day. They couldn’t take my mate. I wouldn’t allow it. I wanted to get into her hiding place that day and take her with me forever, but it was more important to protect her. Nobody else would have found her and that was the way I kept it. Left her hiding until the day she was ready to be found.

Today was that day.

And yes, maybe she wasn’t ready, but I couldn’t wait any longer for her. She was no longer a child. She was a woman, a beautiful woman.

And that was the reason her scent was so fucking clear, so vivid, so real.

She was still the same underneath today—as fragile now as she was when she was younger. She just hid it better. All I wanted was to protect her, claim her, love her, and mate with her.

Protect and claim my mate.

We all wanted it.

Wanting to touch her was almost painful. I had to fight hard with my instinct to take her. I wanted to transport her somewhere—anywhere—and take her and make her mine. My inner alpha wanted her under me on the table as everyone in the restaurant watched as I brought her pleasure. But truthfully, I wanted her in her nest.

Fate had brought her to me, and now she was ready. Almost presented to me on a platter—she walked so elegantly into my plan.

But we were still so far from my dreams, the one where I wanted to tease away every layer, unwrap her until I revealed her as my omega. Not as the beta she tried to present to the world.

I wanted my teeth in her neck, but only when she wanted it herself, when I could plunge my cock into her.

I wanted every part of her.