Tilly

Cruz

Themeetingwasover, and I wanted my omega back, even if she hated me. I didn’t care. All I wanted was her sharing our home until she found out who I really was. We all needed her. We wanted to wrap her in our arms and show her we could protect her. Jackson was desperate. He was all gruff and tough on the outside but he pined for her, even tried calling her, but now she wasn’t answering.

Luckily, we knew where she was, and now we were going to return her to her pack. “Let’s get her,” I said, grabbing the keys and my wallet as Jackson and Luca scrambled from behind their desks. Jackson finally turned up for the meeting, not that he wanted to. But I made him because I had a plan.

“About fucking time,” Jackson grunted.

“You know what this means to do this?” Luca asked.

Jackson nodded. The grip on my shoulder hardened. “She needs to know everything. I can’t lose her again.”

“It’s being put in place as we speak,” I said.

Not that I thought it was going to be easy, but she had to know the truth. I had to explain my role in what was holding her back. But the conversation had to be conducted face to face. It was too important and there was much I needed to tell her.

First, I wanted to tell her I was in love with her.

I’d been in love with her for years. The moment that I realised I was in love with her took me by surprise. I thought it was the alpha wanting his omega, purely biological, nothing more. But it was more than that and I realised when I finally touched her, the moment I laid a sleeping Tilly in her bed at a wedding, when she was a bridesmaid.

She was only seventeen, but looking at her sleeping face, so shy and innocent back then. I helped her world to lose its colour; I helped her become the person she was now.

Because now she was cynical and strong, but she was also so sad and lonely.

My brother Saint met her sister at the same wedding. We were there running the bar for the event. I ensured our company was there. I wanted to see her; the young girl with the shiny brunette hair and big green eyes who always seemed so shy but now had balls of steel.

It was less than a year later when everything went wrong.

I had no choice.

I had to get involved.

But it broke her heart as she continued to hide her true self as she went from trying to find answers for her loss to protecting herself.

She needed to know we never stopped looking for her sister.

She needed to know why her father was no longer alive

Just over three hours later, we stopped the car outside her grandmother’s unassuming house in the Lake District. A small cottage, built with sandstone and surrounded by a thigh high picket fence that was hardly going to keep the bad guys away.

It was a serene place, in a small village, surrounded by similar built cottages and a tiny church on the other side of the greenway. The hills of the Lakes backdropped the village and the only sound was the chirping of the birds in the large oak trees that loomed above us.

“There she is?” Luca pointed his finger to Tilly as she walked a dog over the common area. Wearing a pair of jeans, a pair of boots and a large jacket that drowned her body. A beanie was the last item that totally hid who she was from everybody. Her hair flowed down her back and she seemed to sing to herself or talking to the dog.

The three of us got out of the car and walked to her. She felt us before she saw us as her face rose from looking at the dog to seek us out.

She walked slower as she looked from one to the other. My heart fluttered as her perfume reached me.

“Let me talk to her first,” Jackson said. Luca and I growled, and he gave us a stern look.

I nodded, though I wasn’t happy and Luca and I hung back but were still close enough to listen. Close enough to smell her sweet scent.

“You never said where you were going,” Jackson said as he reached her. “How are we supposed to protect you if you run away from us?”

Her whole body went limp, her shoulders slumped, she looked defeated as her hand and arms dropped. The mobile in her hand clanged on the floor. “Oh Jackson, why don’t you give up on me?” she asked.

“Why? Because you’ve given up on me,” he said and turned and Luca and me, we were standing behind him but closer to a bench. “Or us.”

“It’s all going wrong. Work, me, everything. I had to leave London.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jackson growled. “You should have moved in with us if you felt unsafe and not run away from us.”

“I wasn’t...” She went to protest, and then she realised. “How did you know I was here?”

Jackson grinned. “Tilly, Cruz knew this was your hiding place for five years.”

She glanced over at me. “You had me followed?”

“Of course,” I said, like it was perfectly normal. “Until you were ready to be part of our pack, we had to keep you safe.”

“Why?” she whispered.

Luca and I walked closer. “Why do you think? I wanted to know you were safe,” I said.

She nodded lightly.

“It’s time Tilly. Time to learn what really happened that night.” I tentatively took hold of her hand. Her eyes watched as my fingers stroked over her palm. Luca and Jackson watched and waited, waiting to take care of her, in case she needed soothing by her alphas.

I knew then that was all she wanted as a tear rolled down her cheek, then another until she was sobbing and I pulled her to me.

“I need to know everything. Tell me everything.” She shook her head and sobbed. “I can’t be part of this pack unless I know the truth.”

I smiled. I was tired of fighting this. We were all tired of fighting this, and I knew she no longer wanted to be alone.

Luca walked to her, wrapping his arm around her. “We’re ready to tell you everything because we think you’re ready to hear it.”

“Why now?” she questioned, her eyes narrowing as she stared at each of us.

“Because we’ve tried to protect you as much as we could. But the gang who took your sister still wants you.”

“I know, but why?”

“We think someone else needs to tell you that story. Are you ready to trust us?”

She nodded.