Page 57 of Omega for the Pack

“Anything for you,” I mumbled against her lips, taking in her essence and her warm, feminine body.

Tiana

My heart was beatinga mile a minute.

We were standing in front of my parents’ apartment door, and I was suddenly unsure if I should knock or not. I couldn’t bring my hand up to knock. I called Lori as soon as our plane landed. It was such a relief. I cried on our way here in the taxi. It felt like old times, and it felt amazing to talk to her again. I told her I was traveling with family when she insisted on seeing me.

“Are you going to knock?” asked Grant in his deep voice.

I sighed and knocked three times.

“Who is it?” called Dad soon after, his heavy footsteps shuffling to the door. I heard the clanging of the chain as he was unlocking it.

“It’s Tiana.”

The door opened immediately, and my dad came hurling through, crushing me in the biggest hug. I hugged him back. A feeling of warmth and safety rushed over me, and tears blurred my vision. I didn’t realize how much I missed him.

“You’re alive,” he said, his breath coming out in gasps. He pulled away and grabbed my face in his hands to look at me. Inspecting my face.

“I’m alive, Dad,” I reassured him, instantly regretting not speaking to them earlier from the devastated look on his face. I couldn’t call them when I was on Howl’s Edge since their government blocked contact with anyone outside the werewolf island.

Then, he noticed the men standing around the door.

“This must be them,” he began.

“Who is that?” called my mom from the kitchen.

“This is my alpha pack,” I told him. Dad’s eyes widened, even though I remembered him clearly telling me to mate the pack.

“Oh, your mom isn’t going to be happy,” he said. Then he called out to Mom. “It’s Tiana, and…we have company.”

I walked inside with the four men trailing behind me.

“Tiana?” said my mom, dropping the spoon she was washing into the sink. She turned off the fire on the stove and slowly walked towards me. “So you’re back, huh?”

“Yes,” I said. I could tell she was pissed by the way her fingers were tapping on the kitchen counter. And her tone was deliberate and quiet.

“Why are you back if you wanted to leave so bad? If we were such bad parents?” she spat out.

“Bianca, don’t be so hard,” my dad interjected, but she wasn’t having it.

My mom kept going. “You think it was easy, knowing you were on that stupid cruise and not knowing if you were alive? Do you know how it feels to lose a child? After all we’ve done for you..”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I opened my mouth to say something smart, but my lips trembled, and tears burst out.

“I always thought of you. Always,” I said. “I wanted to come back because I missed you. I know it was crazy to leave like that, but I always felt so lonely, like I was missing something important. You can’t rip something like that away from me. I felt cut off from the rest of the world taking those pills. You’ll never understand.”

My tears were flowing freely down my cheeks now. My mom’s eyes were starting to tear up.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I didn’t know you felt like that. I thought the pills made you not care about that stuff. Like dating and guys.”

“It’s okay,” I said, finally able to breathe again.

“Just don’t run away like that, okay?” she said as we hugged and she kissed my cheek.

“I won’t,” I said, the smell of onions strong in my nose as we hugged. When we pulled away, she looked at the men sitting quietly on the couch.