Page 63 of The Omega Archives: Part Three

A thickness crawled up my throat as I shook my head over and over again.

“Ella.” Lucas’s voice turned soft, sad. I shook my head again, but Lucas was already there, wrapping his arms around me. “It’s okay. You can cry.”

I don’t know how I held in the sob that escaped my chest for so long. Lucas only held onto me tighter. Humming… or not humming.

He was purring.

Lifting my face from where I pressed it against his chest I looked at him with wide eyes. “Lucas.”

“Sorry.”

I shook my head again. What was happening tonight?

At that moment, I looked around, suddenly realizing where we were standing. Anyone could walk by and then it wouldn’t just be me in trouble for being out so late.

“We need to go,” I said.

“You say where and I’m there.”

We ended up back in my dorm room.

Lucas sat on the edge of my bed. He held the pillow I shoved into his lap when he arrived. The moment I offered him one, his face lit up like a boy on Christmas, so pleased that I was offering it to him. I noticed the way he tucked his nose down into it too, breathing in a thick drag of my scent.

The reaction made my heart swell in my chest with something strange like pride that he liked my pillow. My nest.

Me.

The painful rejection I felt from earlier still stung, but oddly less so now that I stood in front of Lucas who felt like a sweet anchor, holding me to reality and I didn’t want to leave him.

I still wondered what the Prestford Pack would’ve thought of him. They’d have to like him of course.

I did.

If his legs weren’t so long, I was certain that he would be swinging his legs back and forth in front of me, watching me as I hid behind the wardrobe door to change out of the beautiful dress Lidya let me borrow and back into more comfortable sweats.

I knew that he shouldn’t be in here, but for some reason, I felt like I would burst back into tears if he left.

Just like everyone else left me.

“You’re making me anxious here, babe.”

“Babe?”

The corner of his lips curved, “Too soon? Or should I come up with a pet name? I’d have to think of one and I’ve never been creative off the top of my head.” He snapped. “Oh, sweet berry pie? Nah. Too long.”

Beautiful.

My heart ached to remember Cal.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas stammered as he took in my withering expression again. “I didn’t mean to make you upset. I’ll cut it out with the nicknames.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s not.”

“What happened tonight? Did something go wrong? I didn’t think that you would be back so soon from the event,” he said, trying to guess all the things and watching me to see if any of them stuck.

They all sort of did. “Is that why you were in the bushes?”

“Well, I was trying to make my way to the courting event to check in on you. I had this awful feeling in my chest like something was wrong and so I just… I had to see you. Sorry if that makes me sound a little stalker-ish.”

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