“Not by myself,” she says, easing closer as she lays her cheek into the palm I offer. She rubs her jaw there, lazily but deliberate, scent marking me without thinking about it. “Seren and Amara will help.”
She smiles up at me, small but real.
Progress.
I hold her face in my hands, my thumb beneath her eye, and the words come out soft and even—a vow I’ll keep proving for the rest of my life. “I love you.”
Her smile widens, light and warmth spreading across her features as more of that sadness lifts.
“And I love you.”
Chapter 50
Noa
Ipush through the wrought iron gate, the stiff and rusted hinges voice their complaint loudly as it swings inward, and the sound lands in my chest with a weight I wasn’t prepared for.
The entire area is fenced off, tucked up high in the hills of Fallamhain territory where no one could stumble upon it by accident. From up here, the lake spreads out below us, a cold blue mirror catching the late-morning sun. There’s no easy way in—only a hard hike on foot or a vehicle capable of handling the rough terrain. But once you arrive, you understand—the quiet isn’t empty, it’s respectful. As if the world itself chose to step back and let the dead rest up here.
I didn’t think I’d be facing the dead again so soon, not after the mass funeral three weeks ago. I thought I’d get at least a small reprieve after that to let the emotional fissures heal before I cracked them wide open again by inviting in old grief.
Yet here I am, boots crunching over crusted snow, breath turning white the moment it leaves me, walking between a row of weathered and cracked headstones.
And it’s all because Rennick’s brought me back to Ashvale yesterday. The first time since I’ve left.
He said we couldn’t keep avoiding it forever. That enough time had passed for us to risk a few careful hours among the things I abandoned in my haste to make sure the people I cared about most had the best chance of survival. He knew I needed more than the bag I packed in a blind rush that night, that the limited items in it were never meant to sustain a real life. I’vebeen living out of it ever since. Cycling through the same four or five outfits while supplementing by stealing from his closet—which is a habit I have no intention of breaking anytime soon.
But it wasn’t just about practicality as he tried to frame it, to soften the blow of stepping back into yet another life I was forced to flee from in the night. Rennick knew there were things I’d want to bring back with me. Objects that don’t look like much to anyone else but have sentimental value to me. Little keepsakes that act as quiet remnants of a life I lived and hold the memories I made along the way. Memories I now look back on with a new bittersweet clarity. All things I need with me to make the space actually feel like home and not some temporary thing I occupy.
Homeisn’t that simple anymore.
Fallamhain territory, wrapped in the granite mountains, layered with memories of my childhood, with Rennick’s presence woven through every corner of it—that’s home in the way that is inevitable. The kind that sinks deep and you don’t question because you justknowit’s where you’re meant to be.
But Ashvale, the Victorian manor with its carefully curated thrifted furniture and blankets draped over every chair, the air still faintly scented with sage and the tea from my mom, the sanctuary that lies waiting below it, that’s home in a different way. The kind that holds you even when you leave, claiming its share of your heart no matter how far you go.
I packed boxes yesterday. Filled them with clothes and photographs, apothecary items Rennick’s kitchen is going to hate to see coming, and more books than I care to count—including the one he gave me on my eighteenth birthday. It’s enough of my life gathered in one place to finally and confidently say aloud that I’ve moved in with him. I’m no longer a guest.
But none of that means I left Ashvale behind. I never will. There’s still too much work to be done with the omegas, and the manor and what lies beneath are a lifeline for so many. A safehaven when the rest of the world has only brought them pain or rejection. When the time is right, when we can stay there longer than a few careful hours, I’ll rebuild it. I’ll open the doors again with Seren’s help. And probably Siggy’s too, if my hunch is right about my Nightingale.
The night of the raid didn’t set her healing back the way I feared it would. Once she pushed through the thick, suffocating fog of grieving Rhosyn, something else surfaced beneath it. Anger. Being hunted again. Restrained again. Forced into a situation against her will again. Coming terrifyingly close to the auction block again. It lit a fire in her I hadn’t seen before, something sharp-edged and determined. She wants to fight back, to rail against the same system that caused her so much pain and left scars on her that will never fade.
And I love seeing it.
Almost as much as I love to see her growing curiosity about botany and herbal medicine.
She’s been my little shadow lately, an unofficial apprentice of sorts, soaking up everything she can. I can already see her orbiting that future and it makes something warm settle in my chest for her.
It was when we were getting ready to walk out of the manor with the last box yesterday that I saw the pewter urn.
The one I buckled into my passenger seat when I drove back to Pack Fallamhain’s territory after nearly eight years away, believing I was only carrying out Mom’s final wish by bringing her ashes home. At the time, I didn’t know it was part of something larger. That she had been guiding me all along, quietly setting the pieces in place to return me to Rennick, to undo a wrong she’d been forced to weave years earlier.
I brought the urn back with me, this time buckled in the back seat of Rennick’s truck. He wasn’t as amused as me.
Despite all of it—the pain, the betrayals, the too close brushes with death, the losses stacking until their grief blurred together—I can say with my whole heart that I’m glad I came back that day. Glad I followed the strange, out-of-character instruction delivered to me by Mom’s equally strange lawyer.
I move between headstones, reading names etched into stone dusted with snow, until I find the one I’m looking for.
My father.
