Earlier today, when Canaan had said something similar—howtheyhad a plan for Talis—I’d managed to shrug it off with apathetic sarcasm. But hearing the same vague promise from Rennick doesn’t scrape, it digs. It grates under my skin and pisses me off in a way Canaan’s words hadn’t, simply because it’shim.
“Handled,” I repeat instead, letting the sarcasm drip from every syllable as I shift my weight and cock a hip. “Well, then. I suppose all is well in the world since the almighty Alpha says so.” I gnash my teeth together in a grin that’s more bite than smile. “Guess I’ll just stop worrying about her, and that giant pink elephant in the room, altogether since you’ve got itsounder control.”
That’s when he moves. A measured step, then another, until he’s right in front of me. Not threatening, never that, but his presence is overwhelming. He’s taller, broader, radiating dominance like heat waves from a furnace.My chest tightens, oxygen tangling somewhere in my throat, and my wolf has the audacity to sigh at his nearness like she’s an addict who’s gone too long without a hit.
“I’ve told you before, and I’ll keep saying it until you finally believe me.” His rumble is low and deep enough that it rattles my bones. “But Talis will never be Luna of this pack. I’ll never bear her mark. I will never belong to her.”
I open my mouth, more buried anger ready to fly, only for the words to die as he dips his head and drags the edge of his jaw across my temple. My whole body goes rigid. Heat races through me like wildfire roaring in my veins. He scent marked me. My wolf all but rolls over in pleased surrender while my human side fights to stay upright. It’s a move so devastatingly intimate that I don’t know how to handle it.
“Talis will never be mine,” he growls near my ear.
It’s a battle to keep my jaw up and to gulp down a sharp inhale. I lift my head and meet his eyes. “I’m not yours either. Not really,” I manage, even though it tastes like poison. My wolf huffs, disgusted with me and my blatant lie.
I’m not prepared for his reply.
“Okay,” he says. Just that. And for one gut-punching second, I think he’s giving up. That he’s done fighting. Ice-colddread pools in my plummeting stomach. But then his burning, gunmetal eyes lock with mine. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself to get through the day, sweet Noa, I understand. I understand why you think you have to guard yourself against me. But it won’t stop me. It won’t stop me from proving to you, fromshowingyou, that I’m in this. I told you I wasn’t walking away from you again, and I meant it. Now it’s on me to prove I’m a man of my word.” His big, callused hand cups the side of my face, his fingers threading into the hair near my ear. “I’m yours, Noa. Always have been, always will be.”
It's hard, painfully so, to reconcile the man standing before me now with the man who joined me in the clearing and ripped me apart like a predator going in for the kill. He’d been merciless, each slash of his verbal blade precise and fatal. I know, logically, he thought it would be easier for me if he made me hate him. That anger would be kinder to carry than the misery of losing him. But his plan backfired, and what he left me with was worse than either—an emptiness that’s gnawed at me until there is nothing left but ache. None of his many pretty words have erased what he said when he rejected me, but they do dull the edges just enough. The cuts he left behind no longer bleed freely, but the scars are still tender, still raw beneath the fragile layer that now covers them.
Lost in these thoughts, my bottom lip finds itself under my teeth. He takes notice instantly, his hand shifting, calloused thumb tugging it free with surprising gentleness.
“Stop hurting yourself.” His murmur is basically a plea, and then, mercifully, he steps back, giving me space to breathe again.To think. “If you want to keep arguing about this, we can, but it’s late, and you’re still exhausted. I’m tired too. And you’re not going to win this one, baby. If you’re living on my land, you’re sleeping under my roof.”
Under his roof. But my traitorous mind hears ‘in his bed’.
My skin flushes at the thought.
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. Just bends, picks up the first load of bags he brought in from the doorway, and slings them over his shoulders like they’re weightless. “Yrsa will be here with Seren and the omegas any minute. We beat everyone back. I’ll show you your room first, then the others. There’s also an apartment over the garage that I think will be perfect for Seren and Ivey. After, we can decide the safest place for the sedated wolf to go.”
I grumble nonsense under my breath, too stubborn to admit defeat outright. My feet drag as I follow him toward the sleek white-oak and iron staircase. “Seems you’ve thought of everything, Fallamhain,” I grumble louder this time, glaring at the back of his head. “Have you made any other decisions on my behalf you think I should know about?”
His head turns just enough for me to catch the smirk tugging at his mouth. “I have,” he admits, completely unashamed, “but I don’t think you’re ready to hear those ones yet.”
The end of my shoe nearly catches on a step and heat surges up my neck, my face no doubt redder than a stop sign. Butterflies riot low in my stomach again, and I clamp my mouth shut before they crawl out in the form of something I’m not ready to admit. Not to myself. Not to him.
Deciding silence is my best course of action right now, I quietly follow him the rest of the way up.
Chapter 10
Noa
Everything around me stretches thin, bent out of proportion like I’m wondering through warped glass. If I hold my gaze too long, shapes ripple and slither away, dissolving before my eyes. Walking, taking a single step, is a pointless endeavor too. Each time my bare foot lifts from the damp earth, the ground seems to lengthen beneath me, dragging everything farther out of reach instead of drawing it closer.
It’s night, but the sky is restless. Clouds race across the moon, casting shadows between the towering pines. The relentless wind has branches bending and bowing in protest. I know I should be cold, arms and legs exposed, but there’s nothing. No bite of the chill, no shiver in my bones, no sensation at all. Just silence where touch should be.
I glance down at myself. My stomach jolts. I’m wearing a plaid pajama set I haven’t seen since I was a teenager. Since before the night Mom rushed us out of the house, fear etched into every worried line of her face, and into her waiting car. We’d left in such a hurry that most of our belongings were casualties of that night. I thought these pajamas were lost with the rest.
But here they are. And here I am.
Back on Fallamhain territory.
The trees part in a wide rectangle clearing. Across the open, distorted space a structure sits in the shadows. I try to make it out, to see any recognizable details, but the harder I focus on it, the blurrier it becomes. I’m left blinking through a haze thatseems to refuse to lift until my burning eyes force me to look away. I search for other clues for why I may have been brought here, because I know this isn’t just a dream. My gut tells me it’s much more than that.
It’s another memory. One buried by my mother’s own hand when she bound my wolf and meddled with my mind. It’s a thread tied into the spell to ensure I’d find my way back to what she took.
Something whispers in the back of my mind—it could be my wolf, it could be my mother, hell, it could be both—telling me this is important. It urges me to pay attention, to not look away.
I try again, but this time, I let the building linger only in my periphery. The image is clearer there, and recognition begins to crawl in.
