Chapter 14 #2
“We were great until he walked up the cabin path on a Tuesday afternoon. Six months. That’s how long he had been looking. He took one look at me and smiled. He said he had always known I would present Omega.” Anger flared again. “I told Sage to stay put, but… well, you know how she is.”
Ty nodded. “Yeah, that was not happening.”
“Deon saw her and his eyes went wide: a Purple-Eyed Omega, unbonded and unclaimed, unprotected.”
Every muscle in Ty's body hardened.
I felt it instantly. The memory twisted inside my stomach.
"He said his best friend was an Alpha."
I felt Ty's wolf surge beneath his skin.
"He said he wouldn’t tell anyone where we were, that he and the Alpha would come for our heats, as if he were doing us a favor.”
The water around us suddenly felt colder.
"He came at me fast and hard when I told him no."
Ty's jaw clenched.
"First time he'd ever come at me like that." My fingers unconsciously touched my jaw.
"I was shocked because some stupid part of me thought there was a line he wouldn't cross."
Ty’s eyes darkened.
"Cowards like that have no lines."
I nodded.
“I learned that day. Before he came at me again, Sage, with no weapon or plan, just putting herself between me and the danger.”
The air seemed to leave Ty's lungs.
"She landed a few good hits before he pinned her against the door. He hit her."
The words cracked. Just slightly. But enough.
Ty closed his eyes. Just for a second. When they opened again, they glowed gold. Dangerous. Furious.
I let the silence settle between us because some truths deserved room.
“I need you to understand what happened to me when he hit her. Something in me broke, and nothing else mattered but ending him. The baseball bat was by the front door. I always keep something near the door."
I smiled without humor.
Ty looked unsurprised.
"I know."
I looked directly into his eyes.
"I didn’t flinch. I didn’t hesitate. I hit him until there was nothing left to recognize."
His breathing slowed. More controlled, more measured. But I could feel the rage rolling through him.
"We buried him in the woods behind the cabin. Sage and I dug the hole ourselves."
Ty never looked away.
"Then we went back inside."
I shrugged.
"No tears, no discussion. We just cleaned the cabin, cooked our favorite meal, and watched our shows."
A long silence passed.
"You were both only eighteen."
I nodded.
"Yes"
The mist drifted between us.
"The night we buried him..." My voice softened. "I buried something else, too."
Ty's hand slid to my cheek, and I leaned into it before I could stop myself.
"My heart."
The confession hung between us. “I realized that caring, trusting, and needing people all carry a high cost.”
His forehead touched mine. So gentle. So patient. So Ty.
"I stopped drawing." I closed my eyes. "I stopped dreaming." A tear slipped free. "I stopped being happy."
His thumb caught it before it could fall.
"I lived inside that decision for three years."
The waterfall roared around us, and everything else disappeared. It was just him, just us. Until I finally whispered the truth.
"Then I came to this compound." My voice broke. "Then I met you."
Ty's arms wrapped completely around me. As if he could hold every broken piece together by sheer force of will.
"I've been hiding behind that door ever since." I pressed my forehead against his chest and let him hold me.
The waterfall was the only sound.
Ty looked at me for a long moment. His warmth and the comforting scent of cedar surrounded me in the enclosed space behind the falls, with the warm water around us and the world beyond the curtain soft, indistinct, and very far away.
"Thank you," he said, quietly, into my hair. "Thank you for trusting me with it."
He didn’t say, "I'm sorry that happened to you" or that it must have been so hard. He just said thank you for trusting me.
I pulled back enough to look at this amazing man.
His eyes were bright. He was not going to pretend to be composed about what I had just told him, nor was he going to let me control his reaction to it.
"I should have told you sooner," I said.
"You told me when you could," he said. "That's the only timeline that matters."
I looked at him.
At the patience in his face, the warmth, the love. A man who truly saw me and loved me.
The door was open and I had opened it.
"I love you, Tyrell Monroe."
He smiled. The full one. The one that always gave me butterflies.
"I love you too, Angel," he said. "I have loved you since before you opened your eyes in the medical wing, and I have loved you in every way I knew how since then. I intend to keep doing so for a very long time."
"That's a lot of terrible eggs," I said.
"You always eat them."
"I always eat them," I said.
He laughed. I felt it against me — warm, real — and I had missed it more than I had let myself admit.
Isdisa moved in my chest.
Not the pacing, not the cold analytical stillness, not the protective rage that had been her first and most practiced register. Something else.
Warmth.
An ice wolf running warm.
She moved toward Kai with the clear intention of doing something that had already been decided and was no longer up for deliberation. I felt Kai respond — the patient, water-like nature of him, unhurried, steady.
The water around us changed temperature.
I looked at Ty. He felt it too. I could see it on his face.
Isdisa was fully present.
Kai was fully present.
Neither of them was waiting anymore.
"Ty," I said.
"I know," he said.