Page 91 of Shattered Trinket
Oh! Another one! You bring me two new members of your pack who speak Spanish, son? I’m impressed.
“Puerto Rico. I think you two will be trouble when you meet,” he chuckles, hugging my mother without a thought and making my heart feel full with how easily he takes to her.
Once my mom has met them, she drags us through the house and out to the backyard, where everyone is. The minute we step out, the women converge on Zeke. That is, until they notice Cozy, and then he’s all but forgotten. When Marisol and Ileana notice him, they giggle and make their way over. Until he moves closer to Cozy, despite the older women surrounding her. The minute they see him wrap his arm around her, they pout at each other and set their eyes elsewhere, Zeke all but forgotten to them now that they know he’s spoken for. I can see him visibly deflate before he gives Cozy a kiss on the top of her head and makes his way to me and the others.
“I dinnae ken if I should feel bad for leavin’ her tae the wolves or no,” Zeke mutters when he stops in front of us, taking the beer I offer him.
I smile as I watch our girl with my family, grinning and blushing at all of their affection and attention. I shake my head.
“She’ll be fine. They already love her, and she seems to like their attention,” I say softly, unable to look away from the woman that’s stolen all of our hearts.
“Family is important to her. She doesn’t have anyone left from her old life before Victor took her, so this means more to her than anything. It’s why she attached herself so quickly to Valley. She sees her as another mother figure,” Jeremiah chimes in lowly, tracking Cozy’s movement across the yard as my tías and abuelas drag her to a table and start making her a plate.
We all stop and look at him, and my heart is in my throat at his revelation. I didn’t realize she didn’t haveanyone.But how could I? We don’t know much of what she’s been through, onlythe little that we’ve been told. It never mattered, and it still doesn’t, but still…
“No one?” Ridge asks, his voice sounding tight.
Jeremiah’s brows furrow as he takes his eyes off Cozy to look at us.
“Victor killed her parents in punishment a month or so after he got her, and they were pretty much all she had. She’s an only child, and she doesn’t have any other family that she knows about. You didn’t know?”
Micah shifts on his feet, but shrugs.
“I did, but that’s only because of our sessions before… everything,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.
Ridge, Zeke, and I all shake our heads, searching out our omega immediately.
“We didn’t know,” Ridge whispers with a pained look in his eyes that I know reflects back in mine.
Jeremiah sighs, running his fingers through his hair.
“Don’t tell her I told you. I… I thought she already did. But I guess I understand why she didn’t. This, what we all are … it’s a new beginning for her. To her, the less you three know, the better. She doesn’t want you to look at her any differently than you do now. She knows I won’t because I already know everything, and I don’t know how much Micah knows, but I figure he’s proven to her that what he knows doesn’t change anything. Don’t take it personally that you didn’t know. It’s not… knowing that she’s been through horrible shit and knowing the details is vastly different.” He pauses, looking over at Cozy with a pained smile and tortured eyes. “And bearing witness to her pain is even worse,” he whispers, taking a swig of his beer and clearing his throat before glancing back at us.
His words are enough to dull all of our moods until the rest of my family makes their way over to us to meet the new additions. I introduce Jeremiah and Micah to my dads, several uncles andaunts, grandparents, and the siblings that were able to make it since they still live nearby. They fit in perfectly, and after a few hours of conversation, it’s like they’ve always been around.
Everything is going great. We eat good food, dance and drink, and have good company. It’s not until Cozy excuses herself a few hours into our visit, running past me and the others without a glance, that I get concerned. I look over at the table she was sitting at with a frown, noticing the confused and concerned looks on everyone’s faces. When I walk over to ask what happened—the others right behind me—it’s my abuela Mickey that answers.
“I’m not sure,Cariño. We were talking about how beautiful she is, and your Tía Camila said how she hoped when you have babies that they get her beautiful curls and red hair. Then she excused herself,” she says with a worried look in the direction Cozy disappeared.
Micah sucks in a breath and Jeremiah curses under his, both hastily turning and taking off after Cozy, and none of us question it when we follow.
“What’s wrong?” Zeke asks them as we make our way into the house and I take the lead, searching everywhere downstairs before we head up.
“It’s not my place,” Micah responds, raising our concerns.
We find her upstairs in the bathroom between my old room and my brother’s, the door locked and quiet sniffling coming from the other side that makes me want to break it down to get to her.
“Cozy, please let us in. It’s okay, Firefly. Everything is going to be okay, I promise,” Micah murmurs, his head resting against the door with his eyes pinched shut.
“You can’t promise because you don’t speak for them,” she says softly, tears in her voice, but we hear the lock on the doorclick, and suddenly we’re all cramming ourselves into the small room.
It’s a feat, especially with Zeke and Jeremiah’s bulk, but we make it work. Because when we catch sight of our omega curled on the floor, her arms wrapped tight around herself and tears streaking down her red cheeks, the lack of space becomes a non-issue.
She glances at Jeremiah, and he quickly moves to crouch in front of her, holding his arms out until she climbs into his lap. He sits, running his fingers through her hair and murmuring in her ear until her sobbing stops. My fingers twitch with the need to hold her, to reassure her that everything will be okay like Jeremiah is doing, but part of me also recognizes that it’s him she needs right here in this moment because she knows he won’t leave. And there’s still an uncertainty with the rest of us, even if she doesn’t realize it.
“Tell us what’s wrong,mí amor,” I whisper once she’s calmed down, my throat tight and heart aching, and when she looks at me with her big, tearful eyes, I nearly fall to my knees.
She looks at all of us, sniffling and burrowing into Jeremiah’s arms even more, and I don’t miss the way his arms tighten around her.