I clear my throat, gathering the pieces of my focus he loosened so masterfully. “I know this all started as a way for her to get us here,” I tell him, voice even despite everything else still stirring beneath it, “but it’s comforting knowing she’s back with him. That she’s part of this place again and here with me. Even if it’s different now.”
There’s something about knowing she’s close again—even in a way that’s more symbolic than tangible—that makes me breathe a little easier. It makes the future feel less like something I have to brace for and more like something that has been patiently waiting for me to claim.
In the last dream Mom guided me through, she showed me moments from the past—the big, defining ones that led me to where I am now—but she also showed me the small, ordinary moments I barely noticed the first time around. The ones that felt insignificant while they were happening but now glow with meaning in hindsight.
It’s creating more of those everyday, seemingly unremarkable moments with Rennick I’m most excited about. The quiet in-between spaces that breathe alongside loss and change—they’re the threads that complete the tapestry of a life fully lived.
“I’m just glad you were both finally able to find your way back home,” he tells me, reaching up to catch a wayward strand of hair that’s been whipping around my face in the wind. He twists it absently around his fingers.
I smile at that, letting the weight of his words sit between us while his gaze stays soft on mine. But then I turn on him, glaring up at his too handsome features, deliberately dramatic. “I told you I’d be fine doing this alone,” I remind him. “You were supposed to stay down on the main trail, not run all the way up here.”
“I know what you said,” he answers, unapologetic and unperturbed by my fake scolding. He gives the strand of hair a small tug. “But I felt you hurting through the bond, and I wanted to be here. Just in case you needed me.” He pauses. “And there’s something I wanted to show you. Thought we could head there from here.”
My brows draw and curiosity flares. “What is it?”
“I’ll explain once we get there.”
“Okay,” I say, stretching the word out as I step away from the door and move toward the back. Opening the trunk, I grab the clothes I’ve started to keep stashed there for both of us, because having spare outfits quickly accessible is just a requirement nowfor my life. I toss him a pair of jeans and long-sleeved thermal, leaving the boots for him to hunt down himself once he’s dressed. Already moving toward the passenger seat, I add over my shoulder, “You can drive.”
Chapter 51
Rennick
Ifeel her confusion before she even puts a voice to it. It’s a low, persistent drum pacing the bond the whole drive. It tightens when I park the Jeep and grows insistent when I come around to her side and take her hand. By the time I lead her across the snow-covered open space without offering an explanation, it’s settled deep. In typical Noa fashion, it’s wary but wholly patient.
As we walk, she glances up at me again and again, trying to get a read on what I’m holding back. I don’t blame her. Our recent history has taught us that secrets rarely come without teeth.
Her nervous system has been trained to expect the worst.
The field opens up around us, wide and bright white, the recently fallen snow untouched apart from our tracks. Above the treetops, the lodge’s roofline can be seen peeking over in the distance. It’s close enough to remind us that we aren’t far from the heart of the territory, but just far enough that this place feels set apart. Private.
She knows this place, which is probably why her confusion has only started to pulse harder the longer we’re here.
I stop in the dead center and keep hold of her hand while she turns slowly, scanning for answers she still won’t find conveniently laying around.
When she finds nothing but snow, trees, and the cloud-filled sky, she tips her head toward me and scrunches up her nose.
“Please tell me you didn’t bring me out here to practice combat training,” she pleads. “In thesnow.”
I laugh despite the sudden onset of nerves starting to twist tight in my chest and then squeeze her hand. “No. We’re not training today.”
It’s true, even if I have been easing her into training these past few weeks, moving at her pace but applying enough pressure to keep her going. The part of me that keeps bracing for the next disaster refuses to stand down. It pushes me to make sure Noa can defend herself without relying solely on her newly awakened wolf. More than that, she needs to know it too. It’s by no means her favorite activity. She complains the entire time; her commentary gets progressively more colorful as the lesson goes on, enough so that it’s a chore to keep my face straight. But she never backs down or quiets. No matter how many times she threatens to.
I take in the clearing again. Its flat ground has made it the perfect place to become the pack’s unofficial training ground. Enforcers have run their drills here for years. As of more recently, the pack has started training here together—everyone included, everyone given the same instruction, regardless of designation.
But now I can see the potential for it to serve a new purpose entirely.
“You told me once that I’d find a way to right the wrongs Merritt made,” I start, the name still bitter and awkward in my mouth. I still can’t bring myself to use words likefatherordad. Our relationship was strained before I knew the truth, and now that I know everything, the very idea that Merritt Fallamhain’s blood runs through my veins makes my skin crawl. The shame of it is a constant weight across my shoulders—one I will have to eventually learn to carry with a little bit more forgiveness. For myself. Not him.Neverhim.
Her expression softens as understanding settles in, though she still casts a doubtful glance at our surroundings. “You thought of something?”
I nod, my fingers tightening around hers as my jaw flexes. “I’ve been trying to make peace with what we’ll never know,” I tell her, forcing myself to stay steady and not let that familiar spark of anger to surface. “How many omegas were moved through here, or how many were sent on to places they didn’t survive? Their suffering filled pockets and funded advancements in this territory, and that’s a debt I will never be able to settle because we don’t know who it's owned to. We don’t know their faces or names. We can’t honor them or find their families to give them answers.”
Noa listens without interrupting, her presence alone a source of calm I latch on to.
“I know money wouldn’t bring anyone back,” I continue, “but if I could have found their families, it would’ve been at leastsomething.”
I explain the first idea I landed on—the obvious one. Writing checks. Choosing numbers that felt meaning and spreading them to organizations across the country. Noa’s included. It would help. Money usually always does. But the longer I sat with it, the more hollow it felt. Too cold and disjointed. Like picking this solution would let me off too easy.
