Chapter 43
Noa
Seren and I have taken over the kitchen, supplies laid out across the massive marble island as we assemble the medical kits we plan to place around the territory.
Zora moves around us with restless energy radiating from her. She drifts from counter to cabinet and back again as she checks over things. The pack healer has a tendency to flit between tasks, always trying to juggle too much at once, but today there’s strain beneath it. Just as the rest of us, she’s trying to stay ahead and prepare for the thing we’re all bracing for.
Like anticipating possible injuries when the attack comes.
And yes, we’re officially no longer operating under the belief ofif. It’s when.
That’s the part I can’t quite get past, even now. The certainty of it. The way it’s settled into everyone’s thinking like an unavoidable fact.
It’s terrifying having to plan like this. Thinking in terms of spilled blood, broken bones and punctured skin. Going through hypothetical injuries where we ask ourselves how long someone can hang on while help is still trying to get to them from across the territory.
But I feel steadier when my hands are busy, when I can pour myself into helping in some capacity instead of letting my thoughts spiral.
I stand at the far side of the kitchen island with my sleeves pushed up and blue nitrile gloves on. Neat rows of sterile gauze are laid out in front of me and I’m carefully rubbingthe pale, dry clay into the fibers until it disappears. Then I shake off the excess. Kaolin clay, a natural mineral that can be used to stop severe bleeding by encouraging the body’s natural clotting abilities to kick in faster. Which is the kind of thing that seems necessary to add to these kits when triage medicine seems more than likely. Claws can slice deep, creating damage even a shifter’s enhanced healing can’t handle on its own. Some wounds require extra support like this hemostatic gauze or even stitches.
Seren works across from me, assembling all the supplies methodically into each canvas backpack. Zora carries over the bin of suture kits and starts handing them one by one to Seren to put in each bag.
When the eclectic pack healer is done, she fixes her sights on me. She pops the cherry-red Blow Pop from her mouth and points at me with it, lips stained bright.
“So, what’s the plan, dear girl?” she asks, sudden and blunt. “What are you going to do with the house in Ashvale?”
The question strikes against something that’s been humming under my skin for a while now, if I’m being honest with myself. Even before I fully forgave Rennick, before I stopped flinching at how much I craved his touch, I knew this decision was coming.
“You’re moving here, obviously,” Zora continues. “So, what happens after? Will you sell it and close up shop for good?”
My first reaction is to bristle at the blanket certainty of that word.Obviously. It’s the bold assumption that choosing Rennick means erasing everything I built in Ashvale that grates against my nerves. But it’s also a fleeting flare of defensiveness, one that dissipates as soon as it arrives because the truth is, if I asked Rennick to leave this land and this pack, and come back to Ashvale with me, he would. Not easily, not without it costing him greatly, but for me, I know with every fiber of my being that he would.
And that steadfast knowledge takes up the space resentment may have tried to take root.
I’m not giving something up. Not really. I’m gaining something back. My home. My mate. The pieces of myself that were stolen long before Ashvale ever became my refuge. But I’m still not willing to completely walk away from it. Not when it’s so much bigger than just selling some house. It holds a much deeper meaning than that.
“No,” I say, fingertips gently massaging the power into each weave of the gauze I’m working on. “I won’t sell it. As long as omegas are at risk and need a place that’s safe to heal and rebuild, the manor will continue to be that place.”
Seren nods along, not straying from her task. We’ve already discussed this. Not in a neat, fully fleshed-out kind of way, but enough to have our main priorities covered. We’ll sit down and figure out all the smaller details later when we can really give the conversation our full focus.
“When it’s safe,” Seren adds in. “I’m going to move back with Ivey and live at the manor full-time. And once the repairs are done and the cellar is no longer burnt to a crisp, I’ll take over the day-to-day there. The apothecary too. I’ll keep both running the way they always have.”
Seren understands what she’s taking on, already aware of the workload waiting for her, but it’s not as if she’s a stranger to either business. She was managing both right alongside me after Mom passed. She also wouldn’t volunteer for this if she didn’t truly want it.
Zora hums, listening along.
“I’m not moving here and abandoning my responsibilities there,” I tell her, moving across the kitchen to start placing some amber glass containers of a healing salve into the kits. It might be overkill, but being cautious feels a lot safer than regret. “My plan, for now, is to go back twice a month for a few days ata time. But only when it’s safe. Only when Cathal and Tanith’s coven aren’t out there…scheming.”
We have to cut the heads off both snakes. As long as either one is still moving, the rest of it keeps living.
Zora’s head cocks, one thin dark brow lifting. “Does Rennick know about this plan?”
I frown, shoving a container into a kit with more force than necessary. “No,” I huff. “But I’m not about to ask him permission either. He knows this isn’t a cause I’d walk away from.”
It’s a cause he believes in too. One he was standing for even before I came back, before his pack’s omegas started vanishing. And now that he knows his father played a part in, knows exactly what side of the line Merritt stood on, his conviction has only strengthened.
Zora studies me for a moment that stretches just a beat too long to still be considered comfortable, her gaze assessing. Then she nods, satisfied.
“Okay, good,” she praises, popping the lollipop back into her mouth before walking around the island. She then talks clumsily around it. “Just making sure you haven’t let his priorities swallow yours. I know how those alpha pheromones can scramble a girl’s head.” She makes a loose, twirling motion at her temple, playful, but the warning is still very much real. “You had a life before Rennick, Noa. It matters that you make room for it in the life you’re stepping into here. Otherwise, one day you’ll wake up resenting your very handsome mate, and neither of you deserves that.”
